Nick Friedman
Appearances
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
So at the beginning, it was like I didn't even know what an entrepreneur was. It was actually my friend from high school. His mom had a beat up cargo van. She let us borrow it to stay out of trouble before our senior year of college. And she looked us up and down. She goes, you guys could be like college hunks who haul junk. And then that actually put the vision in my head.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Yeah, there's a compound effect of focus. We all know that, you know, whether it's, you know, specific fitness goal you have or specific business or financial goal, it's grooving those habits. And I have a saying that I'll bring up because my business partner and I will come up with ideas all the time if we're out and about or having a drink or whatever. And I'll pause for a second.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
I'll be like, you know, we can make tens of dollars doing that. You know, there's a lot of great ideas, but, you know, like what's the time worth? What's the energy worth? We've got a platform. We've got something that's compounding. Any energy and effort that I put outside of my $300 business is taking away from it becoming a billion dollar business at this point.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And so, yeah, I couldn't agree more on that notion of, you know, focus on what you think is going to make things happen and double down and let that thing compound over time. I would say urgency of effort, patience for results, because a lot of times we get very impatient, especially in this, you know, immediacy world of instant gratification. You know, we want to see something happen overnight.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And, you know, I think you hear about the unicorns to the glamorized billion dollar brands that become unicorns overnight. That's you know, that's like getting drafted to the NFL or NBA or winning a lottery. Yes, it can happen. But the reality is most business successes are probably like mine and yours. It just happened over decades of time that, you know, Took hard work.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
People don't see behind the scenes how much losses went into the early days, the investment that went into it. And eventually you come out the other side and everybody touts you an overnight success, but they don't realize how long it took you to get there, how much learning took place along the way.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Yeah. So, you know, we pride ourselves on being a, I would say, premium style experiential brand. There's a book I read called The Purple Cow by Seth Godin. He says, if you're driving down a country road, you see a bunch of brown cows, you've seen it before, you're not going to notice it. If there's a purple cow in that field, This was before social media that the book came out.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
He said, you're going to pull over. It's remarkable. You're going to tell your friends and neighbors about it, talk about the dinner table, put it on social media.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And then it goes further to say, we talked about this a second ago, it needs the sizzle, which is the brand image, the name, the colors, but it also needs the steak, meaning the service has to live up to whatever promises that you're making to the customers or the team members. And so, you know, we're the only one stop solution for both moving and junk removal.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
As soon as she said that, I was like, that's catchy. That's a pattern interrupt. That's not what people associate with moving and hauling. It's more clean cut. It's funny. It's catchy. So from that point on, after we graduated college, I knew I didn't want to have a regular job. And we had very aspirational dreams really at the time.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
We say we help people move the items they love, get rid of the stuff they don't. We leverage our trucks and labor to deliver donations for folks, you know, install furniture and so forth. And so pricing is hourly for the moving side of things. Call it a two man move anywhere from 100 to 150 bucks an hour. Obviously, if we add a third or fourth guy, it can increase from there.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Junk removal is volume-based, how much space the items fill up in the truck. So if we're cleaning out a whole garage that takes four to five pickup trucks worth, which is about the size of our trucks, it'd be like five, six, 700 bucks, depending on the geography. But that includes all the labor, the disposal, the loading fees. And so the moving industry is antiquated, right?
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
I mean, we didn't invent moving. It's probably been around since the wheel got invented. And so we took a simple concept, put a creative image on the external side of it, a very focused, intentional on the inside of it. And so we're not the cheapest. Probably somebody could find a less expensive move on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or what have you.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
But we say, look, there's a lot of options to go buy coffee, right? You could go pay $4 or $5 for Starbucks or you could go... pay 50, 75 cents at the gas station, but it's a very different experience between the two. They may even taste somewhat similar, but the experience is very different. So we, you know, we made HUNK's brand promise.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
It's an acronym, Honest, Uniformed, Nice, Knowledgeable Service. Okay. Because with moving, you're letting a complete stranger into your home. They're handling your personal belongings.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Even if they're getting rid of your junk, these might have things that you have emotional attachments to or grandma might be moving into assisted living and these are her lifetime belongings that are being hauled away to be donated. So you need somebody that's empathetic and mindful.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
So that's what we're always consistently training our frontline guys on is how we can be different, how we can be the Starbucks or the Chick-fil-A or the Ritz of moving and junk removal.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Yeah, they're very discerning and disciplined as to who they'll align with because they want their brand to be upheld. They want everybody in those Chick-fil-A's to say my pleasure instead of you're welcome. And they want the experience to be different than your typical fast food experience.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
A lot of people will come to me when they have a successful small business and be like, hey, can you help me learn how to franchise my business the way you did? And I'll actually spend maybe the first five, six minutes talking them out of that, saying, you know, listen, To be a franchisor, it does cost money upfront.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
It costs a lot of headache and injury trying to get those first five, 10, 15, 20 franchises off the ground. And a lot of people don't make it to the other side where you've got 40, 50 to the point where the brand is recognized, the royalty stream is sufficient. So I sometimes encourage them, open two or three or four locations yourself, get the model proven,
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
We didn't want to be just two guys driving around a truck all day. So we envisioned, you know, imagine if we could land in another city and see our trucks driving around. And now today it's, you know, people are texting me photos of the truck anytime they see. I think I got a text from you as well.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
and maybe you won't need to franchise or maybe you'll bring in some investor capital to go and open more yourself and you don't have to have that extra layer of complexity. So, you know, there's a reason In-N-Out or Starbucks maybe chose not to, they didn't want that extra layer of liability or, you know, people dynamics that has to be dealt with and, you know,
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
It's just really a crossroads, like an expansion strategy. Do you want to build these and own these yourself? Do you want to bring in investors to help you do it or do joint ventures? Like Outback Steakhouse, believe it or not, it's not a franchise. They have, similar to Chick-fil-A, a managing partner model.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
So all their general managers of the restaurants have a percentage of equity of that restaurant, but they didn't actually buy the franchise, but they run that like it's its own small business.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Yeah. So early on when we were in the business, of course, I started reading different books. Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow Quadrants was one that I read where he talks about elevating from employee to self-employed to business owner to investor. And so in my mind, I was always kind of like, that's the gradual elevation and transition that I want to get to.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
So once we had enough capital, once I wasn't as active in the day to day business, I started thinking myself as an investor, my very first successful investments was real estate. And I'm still a big believer in that as an asset class. You know, one of the quotes I've heard and use regularly is don't wait to buy real estate, buy real estate and wait.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And, you know, obviously, you know, if you look at it year by year, it may fluctuate. But at the end of the day, it's an asset. You can rent it out. You can fix it up. You could sell it, live in it if you need to. And so we did that early on. We own
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And so I think having that lofty aspiration was part of the foundation of what got us really excited at the beginning. It got us motivated. And we actually pursued franchising as a way to expand. I think we had a little bit of a naive view of what that would mean. We thought it might be an easier path. There's no easy path in business.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
probably $20, $30 million worth of real estate at this time, maybe more at this point, but our commercial properties and our few residential rentals and so forth. I'll say when I started investing in businesses, I had some skin knee decisions. And I'll say the reason is because To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To an entrepreneur, everything looks like an amazing opportunity.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
We're very, I would say, optimistic by nature because, and that's what helps us be successful when we pursue our own vision because we believe it's gonna work even though others may not or even though it may be against all odds. Now, when you're investing in other people, you have to realize you're not just investing in the idea, but you're investing in the person, too.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And actually, I don't think I mentioned this earlier. We were on the very first episode of the very first season of Shark Tank. Awesome experience, kind of maybe my first experience pitching to investors. We didn't end up taking a deal, by the way. And quick side note, we were pitching a sister company. We were going to call it College Foxes Packing Boxes. Really?
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Yeah, the sharks didn't think that was a great idea either, but... That's another story. But nevertheless, I think what I did learn from that experience and what I've learned in talking to some of the sharks from the show since then is a majority of the deals they do on television don't actually take place after they stop videotaping. And the ones that...
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
do take place after they stop videotaping, less than 20% of those actually have been successful or moneymakers. I thought it was really fascinating. And so, you know, recognizing that early stage investing, small business or venture is very risky, and you've got to be willing to spread ships out across a lot of different, you know, ventures.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And also, I think it's important to invest in stuff that you know, stuff that you can influence or have a pattern recognition of, Like I said, I'm invested in some franchise concepts. I understand youth sports. I understand the franchise model. I have become versed in real estate. So I think those sorts of things have allowed me to have successful investments.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
If I'm just sort of taking a, you know, writing a check on a tip, whether it be publicly traded or some private business that somebody told me about might do well. It's like going to Vegas and rolling the dice. You really don't have much influence on it.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And so we had to become students of entrepreneurship and just grind it out.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
So I think anybody who starts a business, they have to learn very quickly how to work on the business, not just in the business. And in our case, like I said, we were answering the phone, hauling the junk. People would call to complain about driving. I'd be the one answering the phone in the driver's seat.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Sounds good. Revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. Cash flow is king. That's something I learned after a few years. We used to tout our revenue numbers. And yeah, even at the beginning of this, talking about what we're doing in Topline, it's exciting. It sounds like a big impact. But to your point, especially in the early days, you're plowing that money back in. Of course.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And you're making small bets and sometimes big bets along the way. Not all of them pay off.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
I think anybody who started a business can relate to doing every single thing from top to bottom. But if you want to grow a business and not just be self-employed by your own operations, you've got to learn how to create systems and processes.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Yeah, so the short answer is yes to all the above. All of those thoughts that you just rattled off is the stuff that wakes me up in the middle of the night and I got the hamster wheel running. It's like, oh, we could do this, we could do that. We should do this, we should do that.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
There's a Jim Collins quote, I think, where he said, once companies hit levels of success, they don't die of starvation, they die of indigestion, trying to do too much. And so I think the idea is identifying that list, And we charted out on how much money can you make on one axis and how much heavy lifting, money, resources, time, distraction is going to be on the X axis.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And if something is really high... earning potential doesn't take a lot of effort that's a no-brainer and I'll give you an example something we did was or we're doing now long distance moving you know we just we've got the trucks we've got the labor we've got the network now with 200 locations we can start offering that and leveraging our network
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
or we started an accounting service, bookkeeping service for our franchise owners that works so well, we're going to offer it to other franchise systems as well because we already got that set up. It's something we're doing internally as an internal service.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
It's a no-brainer for us to use AI and offshore DAs to be able to offer it to franchise systems to have clear, transparent books and accounting. But then there's stuff that might be a little bit more far-reaching. truck manufacturing or truck sales. I don't know the first thing about truck sales aside from when we buy them and trying to negotiate a good rate and a good rebate.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
So to your point, having a quarterback, if we were to go down that route, we'd have to find somebody who understands truck fleet management. That could be our quarterback or CEO of our trucking division that could help us source inventory, floor plan and sell and or lease them to our franchisees. So that's something that we've thought about, talked about.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
It's on the vision roadmap, but we haven't pursued it yet just because we've got kind of the lower hanging fruit in front of us. So I think that's the way to approach, you know, when you've got these different opportunities that present themselves, make some small bets.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And so we read a book called The E-Myth Revisited by a guy named Michael Gerber, talks about people not failing, systems failing, and creating those systems and processes so you can scale. And it talked about franchising and this franchise model. And I think a lot of people maybe have, like we did, a naive view of what franchising means.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And then if it's something that's going to take a heavy lift, you've got to have somebody that's going to do it or it's going to distract you or your team from your core that's already working.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Also, yes. The goalpost always moves. But I will say we took some chips off the table. We did a minority private equity transaction shortly after COVID. And the reason for that was, you know, COVID was such a wake up call for me. I had 99 percent of my net worth in one asset, which is our main business.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And I was like, man, if something, a Black Swan event like this happens again, it could wipe out everything I've worked for. So let me de-risk, take some money out of the business, bring in an institutional partner that can help give us some infrastructure to help prepare us for the future exit.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And just quick side note, the guys that invested with us is these three self-made billionaires that are actually the largest shareholders of TikTok. Oh, OK. Here in the U.S. These three dudes up in Philadelphia, I think their net worth went from five billion to 50 billion as a result of their TikTok investment. But anyway, so whatever they're invested in college hunks is a rounding year for them.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
So they're not too worried about how quickly we exit. So which is a nice partner to have from a minority standpoint, because they're not pushing us for. for an exit anytime, you know, it's our timeline, not theirs. But I do think at some point, we'll look to recapitalize the business. You know, as I approach, I'm in my early 40s.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Now, if I could get to 50 and have another meaningful transaction to be able to be more of an investor and facilitator for other businesses, I think that'll be exciting. Also, And so I think that's all part of the journey. But, you know, this brand still remains kind of a part of my identity.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And I think a lot of times, you know, as entrepreneurs, especially in the early days for me, I was approaching business from a point of scarcity. Like if I could just get to a million in revenue, if I could just get to 10 million in revenue, I could just get to 100 million in revenue, if I could just get to a million in profit, you know, we'd be good.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And every time we hit those milestones, it's like you said, the goalpost moves. And, and I feel like I'm just chasing this something that's always out of reach. So I've had to reframe and realign my mind from a paradigm standpoint, because as you get more successful, you get surrounded by more successful people. And everybody's got a bigger boat, somebody's always got a bigger plane.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And it always makes you feel like you've got to get to that person's level. And I think unless you're Bezos or Elon, it's gonna be hard to not be always looking up at who's ahead of you. So we think of things from a point of abundance and say, okay, look how far we've come to where we are. That doesn't mean we're gonna stop and get off the ride. We wanna keep pushing and growing.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And I think what excites me and gets me excited and passionate as opposed to feeling like I'm missing out on something is this notion of potential maximization or optimization. Like how could I maximize my potential as a leader, as an entrepreneur,
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Really what it is, it's a way to expand the brand without having to deploy your own capital. Because we didn't have capital, we didn't have a lot of human management personnel that we could deploy. but we did have this lofty vision of taking a brand and making it nationwide.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
as a father, husband, business owner, all of those categories that I'm, you know, I guess you could label me as, but also how can I maximize the potential of this brand, this platform, what it can do in the communities that it services, what it can do for the franchise owners who invest in it, how much it can allow them to provide for their families, how much it can, you know, employ into our overall, you know, employee community as well.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And so that's the stuff that keeps me excited and going no matter how far reaching the goalpost keeps extending from a number standpoint. Because once we hit a billion in revenue, I'm going to want to hit 2 billion or 3 billion. And so that never stops. But taking it from a point of abundance and not feeling like I'm missing out or lacking, that makes the journey that much more exciting, I think.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Oh, man. You know, I guess I would pinch myself first. Then I'd probably look at my bank account about 25 times just to make sure it was real. And I think shut my phone off and just take a moment to like breathe and soak it in and spend time with the family, the wife, the kids, fire up the jet and go around the world for a couple of months.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And I think that'll be allowing me to just sort of reflect, have that little mini sabbatical moment. And I think I would get bored out of that very quickly and say, well, what am I coming back to do? And how can I be more impactful on this next go round? I've never met an entrepreneur who has officially retired.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
They may not be grinding it out day to day like they did at the beginning, but they're still involved in something because, you know, the moment you start, you stop growing, you're dying in all effects. And so. I've met 80, 90-year-old guys that are still grinding out. I met a guy, one of my neighbors, he's got a big horse farm now. And I was like, oh, that's an interesting hobby.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
So in order to package up what we had made successful locally, we went down the franchise path where every time somebody purchases a franchise, we get a small injection of capital that we can reinvest into building out the infrastructure, the support, the branding, the marketing, and everything else that goes along with the business model.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
He got very mad at me. I said, that's an interesting hobby. He goes, no, it's a business. It's not a hobby. And I was like, oh, got you. My apologies, because I'm thinking this guy's almost 90 years old, and he's got all these horses that he's breeding and selling.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
But he's running it just like a business, and he's just as fired up about it as he was the publicly traded company that he grew as well.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
That's right. Well, there's nonprofit benefits as well out there that, you know, you can get involved in, too, in no margin, no mission. So if you didn't have a successful business, you couldn't do things like that. They weren't businesses that were, you know, nonprofit or community driven initiatives as well.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Well, you know, there's a quote we always say, you know, don't chase the money, chase the dream or the purpose or the impact. Chase something that's broader than just making money because money is a powerful tool. It's a facilitator. It can create your lifestyle, but it can also create impact for the people that you care about, whether it's a community or family or your employees.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And so having some sort of purpose-driven impact is critical, but without margin, there's no mission, like I just said. So you've got to have a profitable business. You don't want to donate yourself out of business. I tell our early franchisees that a lot. Don't just start giving free moving or free junk removal because people are asking you because you've got trucks.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
You've got to build a business first, and then you can create a give-back program. And the reason is, to answer your question, because people are passionate about making an impact. People care that they mattered and that they made a difference.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And if you're getting up every day and your pure motivation is making money, you may be disappointed several days out of the year because not every day is easy. Not every day did you make the money you hoped to make personally or professionally. And so for us, we have a two for one giving campaign. We obviously borrowed it from the Tom's Shoes concept.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
We said, well, instead of one for one, let's give two for one. We donate two meals for every completed job that we've completed. And we started that a few years ago. We've donated over 5 million meals to U.S. Hunger. We also, during COVID, saw all the reports of the domestic violence that was happening and people being stuck with their sort of abusers.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And we offered free moves for survivors of domestic violence. We've done over 150 free moves for survivors of domestic violence. And it doesn't have to be something financial or pro bono like that.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Through our junk removal, we've formed partnerships with nonprofits where we donate over 70% of the items we haul to Goodwill, Salvation Army, Habitat, just to be able to try to keep the stuff out of the landfill and give it into a reuse cycle as well. It motivates, inspires your employees. They're going to want to be part of something bigger than themselves, bigger than the business.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And so that's the path that we chose because again, we wanted to expand the brand quickly. We wanted to give people an opportunity to own their own business. And we didn't have the capital to do it.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And I think that's why social initiatives and giving is that much more critical.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Ooh, great question. Well, hopefully my parents or hopefully my children are adults by the time I pass away. And so I've been able to at least steward and observe their ability to be high functioning members of society, not, you know, degenerates or whatever other, you know, bad paths that in some cases you fear your kids could go down. Yeah.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
given that they're assuming that they're high impact, high performing members of society. I don't think I would be afraid to bestow them my my, you know, my estate to invest and to impact and to give, you know, how they would see.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
I mean, obviously, maybe not 100 percent. I would, you know. allocate a significant amount to charitable causes that I'm passionate about, or charitable trusts that would have a trustee to help, you know, disseminate over time. But, but yeah, I think, I think the, you know, the ability for for your kids to carry things forward is important.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
The Mike Tyson quote recently, I love that he was getting interviewed by like a 13 year old girl, he just goes off the rails, he goes, legacy is another word for ego. And I thought that was interesting, because, you know, a lot of people talk about wanting to make, you know, leave a legacy. And,
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
So I think what people don't say about franchising, though, is you need at least, I would say, 30, 40, 50 franchisees for it to make sense because the royalty stream doesn't really aggregate until you've got a critical mass number of franchise owners. And as the franchisor. Our responsibility is to help our franchise owners be successful because if they're unsuccessful, they're going to blame us.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
You know, when he said that, it actually made me think a little bit like, you know, is it really am I trying to leave a legacy that just so people remember me or am I trying to leave a legacy of actually, you know, making an impact and helping empowering others?
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
So as I think about what that future looks like, stuff that I'm passionate about, entrepreneurship, building leaders, lifting up, empowering communities that maybe don't have the opportunities that we have. we all had, whether it's through mentorship or, you know, investment, then I think those would be the channels that I would deploy money to.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And then, you know, hopefully my kids are good stewards and would want to start businesses or make a difference as well with whatever there is left for them. And of course, there's the Bill Perkins concept, you know, spend it all before you die.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And I don't know if I subscribe to that totally, but I get the point of, you know, you're not going to be here and you don't want people to, you know, mismanage it while you're gone. So why not be the steward of it while you're here?
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
I'll say my answer today will be 50%. I'll split the difference on that one.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Yeah. So my personal social is Nick Friedman, the number one. And so Nick Friedman one. And our business social is at College Hunks. You can visit College Hunks dot com. You can visit Nick Friedman dot com. Both of those sites have information on franchising, on moving or hauling services, on connecting with me just for, you know, business advice or otherwise. And, you know, I'm here for it.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And sometimes when they are successful, they might resent us because they're paying fees. And so it's almost kind of like the government. You've got to make sure you're providing the right goods and services that they can appreciate if they're investing in your concept.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Awesome. So I'm the founder of College Hunks, Hauling Junk and Moving. We've got over 200 franchises, as you mentioned, started from really humble beginnings, a beat up cargo van that we borrowed when we were in college. I describe it as a 20 year overnight success. At the beginning, we were doing all the work, answering the phone, driving the truck, hauling the junk.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
I mean, you hit it on the head. I mean, when we first started franchising, our early franchisees were kind of the early adopters and we were still building the plane in flight. We didn't have it all figured out. And so they were kind of taking a bigger risk. And we actually had to give them a little bit better deal than we do now because we didn't have it figured out.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
We didn't we were confident it was going to work, but we didn't know and they didn't know it was going to work. There's actually 3,000 different franchise opportunities out there across all the different industries and sectors that you mentioned. A lot of people think a McDonald's or a Burger King, but there's not just restaurants.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
There's retail, there's service, there's aesthetics, there's real estate. And if somebody's got a great successful business of their own, they could become a franchisor where they develop it, but there's a lot of heavy lifting involved in that industry.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
or if they're thinking about a business opportunity, like you said, they might invest, but spending the time talking to the existing franchise owners to see, would they do it again? What would they do different? Are they making money? Because there's a lot of sizzle out there, but you got to have the stake behind it.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Well, I kind of shared the startup piece. I will tell you when we started franchising was 2008, 2009 timeframe. And if you wanted to pick a time to launch a home services franchise, the start of the housing crash was probably not the right time. Right. But kind of to the example you just gave from your guys at the... Ever Bowl. Ever Bowl. Yeah.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
I think it made us better entrepreneurs, better business owners, because when times are good, anybody can win. When times are challenging, it exercises the resilience muscle. You got to get smart, gritty. You got to learn how to survive. And it felt like we were pulling an anchor through the sand or running up a snowy hill, whatever analogy you want to use.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
So that was probably the biggest test for us where we were like, is this thing really going to make it? But at the time we were younger. Again, we were just so passionate about trying to make this thing work that failure wasn't an option. We became students of entrepreneurship. Podcasts didn't exist back then. Social media was really kind of in its nascent phase.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
People would call to complain about driving. I'd be in the driver's seat answering the phone. So it's been a fun journey and we feel like we're just getting started.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
So we'd go to entrepreneurship conferences and mastermind groups and just try to learn as much as we could from the franchise industry, from peer groups like Entrepreneurs Organization or Young Presidents Organization or some of the newer ones that have popped up. And we finally got cranking, got things on track. And then of course, nothing is linear because then COVID hits.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And I think to myself, wow, you know, we're going to lose everything that we spent our entire life building. We got a nice little COVID snap back when people started moving again and buying houses. And there was a little bit of a post COVID boom. And now we're kind of in a challenging time again with the high interest rates. People aren't moving as much. And so we have to expand the sandbox.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
I always say, look, if if there's three months of no rain, that's called a drought. You're like, OK, we're going to just wait till it starts raining again. But if it's, you know, three years of a drought, you live in a desert now. The environment's the climate's different. So, you know, how are we going to survive and thrive in this environment?
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Not hope that something's going to come and it's going to rain again. And so I think that's kind of the mindset that we've got to have is understanding the environment that you're in. what's going to suit the customer, what's going to suit your team, and how you can adapt as the environment changes as well.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Yeah, so it's a wide range. I mean, you mentioned McDonald's, you're going to need over a million dollars to be able to invest in.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
you know our concept is is probably between 150 and 200 000 because you need trucks you need warehousing you need deposits on insurance and things like that but there's actually a low-cost franchise i'm invested in called kiddo kinetics where it's a work from home youth sports enrichment franchise where you need less than eighty thousand dollars including the franchise fee to get up and going and there's even smaller ones i think you know vending franchises and printing franchises promotional product franchises where you need even less than that
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
There's another company I'm involved with called Franchise123. It's a website. It uses AI where you can put in different criteria, investment levels, industries, and it'll help you sort of compare and contrast what concepts are out there based on those different investment levels. Generally speaking, the amount of the investment is usually going to be somewhat higher
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
congruent with the type of return that you might want to be able to get. So a really low investment franchise may have limited upside unless you own multiple or unless you really blow it out of the water. You become an empire builder, as we call them.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
But if you've got a great amount of capital and you can buy, you know, kind of a blue chip franchise concept, as long as you get the right location and the right team in place, then you should be able to make your money back as well. We always say, you know, franchising isn't a guarantee you're going to make money. it's an opportunity to make money. It's a playbook, right?
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And if you get the keys to a race car and you don't follow the instruction manual on how to drive it, you're going to crash into the wall or drive it very slowly and not get anywhere with it, right? And so, you know, we say it's really critical that you got the right systems, but then also the right operator to be able to execute the playbook.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Yeah, I mean, I would say the fit, family, financial, and fun. So the fit is, do I have a relevant experience or background that would allow me to have some sort of applicable skillset in this business model?
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Right, like in our business, you don't need moving experience, but you need some sort of leadership acumen or ability to develop leaders because you're hiring, guys to go out and provide a service to the community. So you gotta be willing to build leaders in doing that. So do you have a skillset that you could apply to this business? Is your family behind you in this idea?
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Your spouse, your friends, your neighbors, your parents, do they believe in this concept that you're excited about? Can you make the return on the investment? That's the financial side. And then the fun factor is or fulfillment factor is like, you know, life is short. Is this something you could see yourself getting up every day, even if things are challenging to do?
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And so I think talking to some mentors, there's actually franchise brokers that are kind of like real estate agents. But for the franchise industry, we work with a lot of them in our business where they'll do personality profiles and background assessments to identify individuals.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
Is this you know, let me present a couple different concepts to you based on your background, your interests, what you said you're not interested in and help people kind of land on the decision of the type of concept they might be interested in owning and running.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
The other thing I'll mention, you know, a lot of times this word comes up in franchising called absentee ownership or semi absentee ownership. And I will tell you. It's a buzzword. It's somewhat cliche, especially in the broker communities. Everybody wants passive income, but it's not easy.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
In my mind, you know, very, very few business ventures are truly passive unless you have a significant amount of capital and somebody that's going to. a CEO that's going to execute, right? That you, you know, it's, it's ask who, not how, who's going to do it if I would deploy this money. And so, you know, the franchisor is not going to do it for you.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
So you got to have somebody that's going to run it, who you can trust that, you know, is going to produce the business. And can you make a return if you're paying him on top of that?
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
I think that's something I wish I had learned a lot earlier. I think entrepreneurs, we all have a little bit of ADD. I call it all damn day because you can't turn it off.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And so, you know, you've mastered this notion of, you know, I'm going to tackle multiple businesses, stuff that I'm excited about or want to be involved in or put money into. But you know that you're not going to invest in it unless you have somebody you trust that is going to be able to execute that you can hold accountable.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And it's going to, you know, be a good steward of whatever that venture and idea is. And like you said, you're going to be a facilitator, a consultant, a visionary with the team and with that particular business. channel.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
I think in my early stages, I would chase a lot of shiny objects and shiny ideas because they sounded good, they sounded exciting, or maybe they sounded, in my case, might be easier than what I was doing. And I never really mastered the notion of talent acquisition and talent alignment with partners that could go in and pursue that.
The Money Mondays
How We Went From a Beat-Up Van to 200+ Franchises w/ Nick Friedman & Vince Ricci 📈 EP113
And I think learning early on, if you are going to diversify or do other businesses, and it's something that you're taking your eye off the road of what you're already doing, you can only divide yourself so many times. You can't ride multiple bicycles yourself. You gotta have somebody else that's gonna ride that bicycle and report back how it's going or where he's going.