This Golden Hour

98. Chris Koerner and The Koerner Office

• Timothy Eaton

Share episode

In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Chris Koerner from Texas. Chris is a father of four, a serial entrepreneur who has created more than 75 businesses with 10 of them worth 7-8+ figures, he’s a business ideas addict with more than a million followers on Instagram and more ideas than he can handle, he’s the host of The Koerner Office podcast, and he’s a devoted church and family man. Chris suspected that he had ADHD many years ago but wasn’t diagnosed until recently. We talked about how his ADHD has been a gift that has helped him to build multiple successful businesses. Our discussion offers insights on leveraging curiosity for business success and the importance of having a “bias for action” in entrepreneurship. Chris also gives a few pointers to help homeschool families foster entrepreneurship for their children. 


Connect with Chris

The Koerner Office - IG, Podcast

How to Make Millions with a Hole in One Challenge

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKdJ7gNTIHj/


Books and Resources

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

4 Hour Work Week

entrepreneur.com



This Golden Hour

Christ Koerner:

If I owned a, an elementary school, not that's a thing you could do, I would probably teach the type of content that related to the most amount of people, so I could do the biggest net good as possible. And when I had a kid. Come up to me that wanted to start a lemonade stand, I probably wouldn't know what to do with him, even though I would want to support him, just. Logically speaking. And so you just have to go outside of those structures and you have to have a bias for action and test things for yourself or it'll never happen.

Timmy Eaton:

Hi. I am Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six and Doctor of Education. We've been homeschooling for more than 15 years and have watched our children go from birth to university successfully and completely without the school system. Homeschooling has grown tremendously in recent years, and tons of parents are becoming interested in trying it out, but people have questions and concerns and misconceptions and lack the confidence to get started. New and seasoned homeschoolers are looking for more knowledge and peace and assurance to continue. New homeschooling. The guests and discussions on this podcast will empower anyone thinking of homeschooling to bring their kids home and start homeschooling and homeschoolers at all stages of the journey will get what they need and want from these conversations. Thank you for joining us today and enjoy this episode of This Golden Hour podcast. As you exercise, drive clean or just chill.

You're listening to this Golden Hour podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with Chris Kerner from Texas. Chris is a father of four, a serial entrepreneur who has created more than 75 businesses with 10 of them worth seven to eight plus figures. He's a business ideas addict with more than a million followers on Instagram and more ideas than he can handle. He's the host of the Kerner Office podcast, and he's a devoted church and family man. Chris suspected that he had a DHD many years ago, but wasn't diagnosed until recently. We talked about how his A DHD has been a gift that has helped him to build multiple successful businesses. Our discussion offers insights on leveraging curiosity for business success the importance of having a bias for action in entrepreneurship. Chris also gives a few pointers to help homeschool families, foster entrepreneurship for their children.

Timmy Eaton:

Welcome to this Golden Hour podcast today. We're very excited to have with us Chris Kerner from Texas. Thanks for being with us.

Christ Koerner:

Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Timmy Eaton:

Appreciate it. I'll do a brief bio and then you fill in anything that I missed. But Chris is a a father of four children. He's the host of the Kerner Office podcast. Started at least 75 businesses, and correct me if I'm wrong, helps people to start up businesses and side hustles. He has the, honestly, our, my family's favorite Instagram thing rocking. He is, got over a million followers and just doing an amazing job. I can't wait to talk to you about how many people you've helped with their businesses, but fill in any links that you would on bio.

Christ Koerner:

That's me. I have, I'm diagnosed A-D-H-D-I. I'm very curious and if I have a question, I have to answer it immediately and sometimes that question is, would this business idea work? So then I have to go launch it. And so that's led for a chaotic life, but one that I've loved.

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, it's awesome, man. So good. So good. And so did, you said you grew up in Florida, right? And then how'd you end up in Texas?

Christ Koerner:

I was in Logan, Utah until I was 11, and then my dad got a job at Kennedy Space Center. So at 11 we moved. I have four kids in my family growing up as well. We moved to Florida and I lived in Florida till 19. At 19 I served a mission for my church in Hungary. Was there for oh six to oh eight. Came home five months later. Married my high school sweetheart. She was a student at the University of Alabama. I joined her there. We graduated a couple years apart. We lived in Alabama for the first six years of our marriage, and then we moved to Texas to expand my business, and that was 11 years ago.

Timmy Eaton:

Wow, man. So what did you start out doing? Like when you were at university, were you like immediately into business or was it a means to an end for you from the beginning?

Christ Koerner:

I started a business as an 8-year-old selling golf balls because we were poor and I wanted money to buy candy and a bike. So I became an entrepreneur out of necessity. It's not in my family, it's not in my DNA. And that seed was planted as a kid, went dormant throughout high school. I was just working odd jobs in high school busing tables, spraying, pest control, you name it. And then on my mission for whatever reason that. C was sprouted again, and I came home from my mission just wanting to be an entrepreneur. And so I got my business degree, but always knowing I was gonna be a business owner.

Timmy Eaton:

So was it like Utah State or something? Or where

Christ Koerner:

I was gonna go to Utah State? My parents went there, but no, I went to the University of Alabama. No, we met as like 13 year olds in church in Florida and then we lost contact'cause she moved away. Yeah. And she started riding me on my mission and so we got married very quickly thereafter.

Timmy Eaton:

So what was school like for you? You said you had a DHD, so is that from the get go, I assume.

Christ Koerner:

Yeah I tried to get diagnosed with it in undergrad, good 16 years ago.'cause I thought I had it, but the psychiatrist said I didn't. And looking back, I realized it was because I was at a college campus and I was like the prime demographic to buy Adderall and resell it to frat guys. But I had it and she didn't diagnose me with it. And I struggled for 13 years and I first got diagnosed three years ago and it was like a light switch came on in my brain. My life has been completely different for the better ever since. And I really wish I were diagnosed earlier'cause it's made all the difference.

Timmy Eaton:

When you were in school just like growing up school, what was school like for you?

Christ Koerner:

It was just, I don't know. I did okay. I got, I had a three point something GPA, but I just didn't grasp concepts as quickly as I thought I should, as quickly as I thought my friends were. But I would test like on paper I was smart, but I just, I don't know. I always struggled. I just couldn't focus. And then, the smartphone came out and I go to. College and every classroom has a computer with the internet. Yeah. And it's like, why would I listen to this person talking about mitochondria when I can, like research business ideas? Like I just couldn't focus. And so I got through, but it was just spurts of hyper focus followed by longer spurts of unproductivity and it was very frustrating.

Timmy Eaton:

So you said, it's been life changing to receive a diagnosis and what has been such a difference? Is it, I can just understanding or what?

Christ Koerner:

I'm just more productive. I can just sit down and get a lot of stuff done. Like a lot of work done. It was just a massive inflection point in my life. I can fit so much more into a day where I used to think it was normal to waste hours at a time, going down rabbit holes or watching something on Netflix and I thought everyone did that and a lot of people do that. Yeah. But. I don't know. I've never been prescribed any long-term medication in my life until I got prescribed Adderall and it's just helped me sit there and focus. Yeah. And it changed everything.

Timmy Eaton:

Is there anything that you've noticed that you don't like about it? Or is it,

Christ Koerner:

if there is any negative side effects? I don't know about it yet.

Timmy Eaton:

If it's affecting

Christ Koerner:

my body in some long-term way, I, it, I don't know. Like it's, as far as I know, there are no downsides to it, but I'm sure one day I'll find out. There was so

Timmy Eaton:

When did you start having like, ideas, business ideas? You said at eight, but I'm saying like when you got married, so you guys were just working through college and stuff together.

Christ Koerner:

Yeah, so I, right after my mission, I had a finance internship for this company, and I loved business. I just loved commerce in any form or fashion, and. It wasn't really set in my brain that I was gonna be an entrepreneur. I just knew I loved business and I wanted to do business internationally because of my mission experience. And so I was going to major in international business, but Alabama didn't offer it. So I just majored in business management with a minor in entrepreneurship. And I would go to Barnes and Noble every Friday all day and just read business books. I was too broke to pay for the books, so I would just read them. And it just it just planted so many ideas in my brain. And from that point on, from 21 on, I've had way more ideas than I've had time. I know you

Timmy Eaton:

have. I know that experience, man. I love it. So can you name some of those books? Or were any of them like, oh man.

Christ Koerner:

I don't even remember. Rich Dad, poor Dad, a lot of the classics. Yeah. Four Hour Work Week was transformative for me. Just four hour work week just taught me to look for shortcuts. Yes, that, the world is malleable. You can make it what you want it to be. And you don't have to fall into the expectations that everyone else seems to fall into. So that was a big turning point, but nothing changes your brain more than starting your first business, making your first a thousand dollars on your own. It's addicting.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah, man. Are you continuously consuming stuff still, like business books and what, is there anything currently that you're into?

Christ Koerner:

I don't read books anymore, like almost ever. If I go on long road trips with my family, I'll listen to audio books, but. When I'm on like Twitter I usually, that's like the only place where I get business content and it's fresh and it's high value and I love it. But outside of that, I just like true crime, like non-business stuff, fiction, audio books. But I don't know. Like I, I love business, but sometimes I just need to step away for a minute.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. That actually makes sense in my head a little bit. Like just maybe the idea of reading other stuff actually fosters the creativity that you naturally have already. And yeah, they're coming up. So what was like your first real idea for business? What was like, okay, I'm gonna do this. And

Christ Koerner:

that was a, an iPhone repair store. That I opened in college. A retail store. Yeah. I read an article, I was out there, reading entrepreneur.com and random apps that had entrepreneurship stories. And I read about these guys that opened an iPhone repair store that was doing like 30,000 a month. And this was 2010. So the iPhone was fairly new and they were breaking, the screens were breaking. And I remember doing a bunch of research on like. How many iPhone repair stores there were on Google Maps and there were none in Tuscaloosa where I lived. And so to me it seemed like a no brainer. It seemed okay, like there's one in this city with a hundred thousand, this city with a hundred thousand, this one, they've been around, they there, they seem to be doing well. Yeah, there needs to be one here. I'll be the one to start that. So I did.

Timmy Eaton:

And how'd it go?

Christ Koerner:

At first it was slow going. I needed like one repair a day to cover my overhead, and I was the only employee. And some days we wouldn't have any, some, we wouldn't have two or three. My first customer ever was my entrepreneurship professor just trying to support me. Yeah. That brought his wife's iPhone in. That's good. But. But then I had a grand opening, like a couple months in and a ribbon cutting, and the school newspaper wrote about me. And from that point on, it got a lot better and we were successful and we ended up having four stores at the end of two years, and we sold it to a competitor, the whole business.

Timmy Eaton:

No way. So my experience in talking to people and entrepreneurs is that, like you said, you learn as you go. How much of the formal learning from your degree has been implemented as, I'm a, as far as the nuts and bolts, like business plan and like overhead and running it and cost and all the analysis you do was that stuff on the go or? And just jumping in or was it like, no, I learned how to do it and I implemented what I learned.

Christ Koerner:

Yeah. So I got my undergrad in business and I got an MBA in business, from TCU here in Fort Worth. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that 99% of everything I've learned just by doing and trying and testing and watching YouTube videos. 99%. I like. I'd often learn things in business school that had like formal terms and frameworks and structures to them and it's oh yeah, I do that. I didn't know it was called that, but I do that. Yeah. And like hearing that it was called X, Y, or Z didn't help any, it didn't change anything. It helped me sound more smart, to other educated people, but like it a good analogy. And you served a mission, right?

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Christ Koerner:

I went to the missionary training center in Provo, Utah for 12 weeks, which was the longest amount of time that any language had that is long.

Timmy Eaton:

12

Christ Koerner:

weeks. Yeah. It was Hungarian and it's a tough language. And I went there and that's all we did was we studied Hungarian from people that spoke it really well and in a group of people that were learning it. And the FBI, the CIA, they send people there to learn foreign languages.'cause it's such an efficient way of learning. And as like you leave the C and you think, oh I can speak Hungarian now. And then you go to Hungary and you go up to someone on the street and it sounds like a completely different language.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. You don't know anything but.

Christ Koerner:

You don't know anything. And so 99% of the language skills that I developed in Hungarian came from just failing and looking like an idiot in Hungary trying to talk to people with a terrible accent. So that's just life, we learn things by trying not by sitting in a classroom. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

You and I were talking about Russell Brunson before this and when when you were saying just like the terms that you are, like, I do this stuff. I didn't know that was a term to use for it. He always says,'cause people will be like yeah. What level of education did you get? And he just laughs and goes. Dude, my results are my qualifications. And I love that because it's so true. So what is it, what do you make of that then? If 99% of your undergrad and your master's degree and even the the comparison to the m tc, what do you make of that? If 99% doesn't that necessitate a change?

Christ Koerner:

I mean

Timmy Eaton:

You're not like an isolated instance. It's so common for people to say. So the idea is get out there and if you wanna learn business, start a business it sounds like.

Christ Koerner:

Exactly. If you wanna learn business, do business. I don't know how to sell your old iPhone on Facebook marketplace and you own a business, like you're gonna learn more doing that than going to business school. And we've all seen the charts about what the cost of tuition has done against, like the cost of living. It's astronomical. It's the most inflationary thing we've ever seen. These universities can charge whatever they want. And now that demand for university is dropping there's just. Bringing classes online to cut their costs.'cause they're not gonna put themselves outta business. They're not gonna fire themselves, yeah. It's a problem and it, online education is changing things, but it's, I think it's gonna be a very slow burn.

Timmy Eaton:

What is your if you can reveal it, what's like your method for doing your Instagram? Like ideas, like when you do it how did you come up with that like pattern that you not that it's exactly the same every time, but I can, I just know'cause we watch it so often. We love the delivery.

Christ Koerner:

Yeah. I have two Instagram accounts. The one that I've had for a decade, my personal account that has 400 followers. And then the one that you follow? Yeah, the current office. And on my personal account, that's the one where I get my entertainment, the El v ranks, cooking all the normal stuff in bed with my wife. We'll just scroll a few reels before we go to bed. And that's. That stays that. And then on my Kerner office Instagram account, that's where I go for inspiration and I. Specifically have trained my algorithm to show me stuff that I wanna post about. So if I see something interesting, I'll bookmark it. I'll like it, I'll comment on it. So the algorithm's oh you like that? And then I'll do one of two things when I'm. Going to make content. I'll set aside an hour and I'll go to my bookmarks and I'll watch a video, and then I'll literally just switch over to my camera app, look at this freaking thing right here, and I'll just riff on it. Like I don't script it. I don't plan it. I just I tie a couple concepts together. I'll pause a little bit. I don't have a teleprompter app, and then I'll do that like until you like it, so it's, yeah. No. I just do it once. Really. Just one take. Are you serious?

Timmy Eaton:

No. Yeah.

Christ Koerner:

Yeah. And then and I won't even go to the camera app if I don't know that there's an idea there that I can riff on. But what I've been doing lately, just logistically speaking, the way Instagram works if you go on a bookmark and then I switch over to my camera and I go back, it kicks me outta bookmark. So I gotta click like four times to get back there and it's just really annoying.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. Yeah. And so

Christ Koerner:

lately I haven't even been doing that. I just open up like the for you page. And I just start scrolling and I'll watch the first part of a reel and it's oh, I could talk about this. Go to my camera. Look at this ring here. Boom. Go back swipe. Oh yeah. And so literally is that because you just get the

Timmy Eaton:

idea so, like when you watch it, you just pick it up?

Christ Koerner:

It's just pattern recognition. If, have you ever seen those guys that do like improv raps? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And he'll say gimme three random words, and they'll be like, dragon spaghetti, paper airplane. And he'll just compl, he'll put on a beat and he'll make this eloquent, beautiful rap where he integrates all three words and it rhymes and it's flowing and it's ama. And it's like, how did you do that? Literally how? Yeah. And it's or Taylor Swift, she writes hundreds of songs, all of her own songs, just like cranks'em out in five minutes. They're good, and then she writes the music and it's like, how do you do that? It's that's all they know. That's all they do. That guy can rhyme anything with anything.'cause that's all he thinks about. It's all he knows. If you ask him about US history, he's probably an idiot. That's me. That's all I see. All I see in the world are opportunities and business ideas. And literally, Nate Bartzi has a standup line where he's I learned about, US history from watching Pearl Harbor. Like I was like, it was happening for the first time to me, and everyone's laughing and I'm like, no, that's me. I didn't know anything about Pearl Harbor until I don't know anything about history. There's so many things I'm ignorant on, but when it comes to identifying ideas and opportunities or how to grow this business or how to market this, how to, I'm just able to cross reference all these things together. Yeah. And so over the span of two hours, I will take. Like 50 to 60 videos that will last me three, four weeks.

Timmy Eaton:

Whoa, man.

Christ Koerner:

I don't edit them. I don't edit them. But then, so I'll take two hours just to, a marathon of taking these videos and then I'll go to my Google Drive and I have a folder that I share with my editor and I just check all 60 videos, upload'em and I'm done. I skipped another part. When I see the video in the for you page, I will I'll share it with her in Instagram. Like her DM is pinned at the top. Yeah. So I share it. And then so she knows when she goes in the drive, the order of those videos are the same order of all of the videos. I DMed her and so she matches'em together and. She's so well-trained at this point. I don't give her any instruction. The only filtering it goes through is I have another assistant that has a really good eye for content and she'll send him the rough draft and he'll say, change this, change that. And then she'll publish it on TikTok first.'cause we care about that platform the least. And then after an hour, we look at the retention chart and it's are people swiping? When are they falling off? Oh, they're falling off here.'cause that sentence doesn't add any value. So then Simon will say. Hey, cut that sentence and then publish it everywhere. So then it will go to Instagram or YouTube shorts or everywhere.

Timmy Eaton:

Holy cow. That's how we do it. That's amazing. When do you go out, like in the street and do your stuff? I love those where you'll go to like a taco stand or something like that. And

Christ Koerner:

that's very impromptu. That's not planned. I'm on vacation, I see something and I pull out my phone. I really want to do more than that. I want to do more than what I'm doing, but it takes me 10 to 30 times as long to make one of those videos as it does to take the other ones. And the results are still like equal,

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, I was gonna say if the results are equal, then yeah, it's hard to justify. Yeah, time and

Christ Koerner:

I, I would say like the out, I call'em out and about style videos like the frozen banana on Balboa Island that got over a million views on Instagram. I think those ones. That you put more effort into and like the audience can see that you're outside and you're moving. There's just some intrinsic signal that it sends where it's this guy put more effort into the video, so I'm not gonna swipe away as easily. They do have a higher chance of going viral, but call it a 50% higher chance for spending 500% more time on it. Totally. It doesn't net out ahead.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah, no, I see what you mean. It doesn't necessarily produce as much. H how does your wife feel when you're like out and about and doing vacation and you're like, I gotta do this. I gotta, how do you she's

Christ Koerner:

like the best wife ever. If we go on vacation as a family, like we went to California, we spent the day gonna the beach, this beach, at that beach, and I take three or four videos and a lot of times my family doesn't even notice'cause I'll just step off to the side, da and I'll put it away. So it's not like really. It's not like disruptive,

Timmy Eaton:

you taking away from anything?

Christ Koerner:

No.

Timmy Eaton:

Because you have all these ideas. Do you have a few that like totally stand out in your brain as no, that one, that idea was amazing. Or that business model or something.

Christ Koerner:

There's so many. I'm not even able to answer. When people ask me tell me about the businesses you own every single time. I'll forget several of them. Like the ones that I own today, just because there's, there, there's always different ones. Some are like on the brink of failing some I just started. Then there's the old standbys, but I just I'm like a parent in that. If you were to ask me which kiddo do I love the most, some, for certain months or years, there is one that I love the most. I don't tell them that and I would never tell them that, but overall, net of net, it's, I love them all, but there are some that I get a really enamored by one. Did you see my video about the hole in one golf challenge? When was it? That one was like 4, 5, 6 months ago. It went like mega viral. I wonder if my,

Timmy Eaton:

what's it called? The whole

Christ Koerner:

hole in one golf challenge. Oh.

Timmy Eaton:

My wife and kids would be more likely

Christ Koerner:

if you were to Google that, like Chris Kerner Hole in One Golf Challenge, you'll see it, it was on all the platforms, but there's this lake in New Zealand called Lake Taupo, and it's right next to this kind of busy highway. Right next to the highway, like in between the lake and the highway, there's a golf like a tee, a golf tee with a little shack at stand, and you pay 30 bucks and they give you like 20 golf balls. And in the lake there's a floating golf greet. And if you get a hole in one, if it's 80 yards out, if you get a hole in one you win$10,000 and they pay out on average once every two weeks. And I love this idea because math is on your side. And it doesn't require a lot of money. Any, anywhere there's a body of water, you might need to lease it. You might need to get permission or something. You could put some sort of a floating platform out there with AstroTurf. And then the hard part is getting the balls, like you have to retrieve the balls. Yeah. But you could do that with a netting system. But I love it because math is on your side and I did all this research for the video. The, an amateur golfer has a one in 25,000 chance of a hole in one. So that's an amateur, whereas like someone off the street, maybe one in 50,000, right?

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. Me

Christ Koerner:

and so it's, yeah, me would be like one in 200,000. So you just know. Okay.$10,000. I need to sell my balls for this. And a lot of the commenters were like, you're gonna go broke. What if you had three hole in ones in a day? Like it's just math. It's statistics. Yeah. That might happen. There's almost 0% chance of that happening. But that means like you'd probably go that three months straight without it happening again and you net out ahead.

Timmy Eaton:

Wow. So

Christ Koerner:

I love that idea.'cause it's golf. It's just fun. It's, there's a chance of reward, but you don't need to win'cause you're just having fun. It's a gimmick. It's vulnerable. Like I really people

Timmy Eaton:

don't have the mentality of like white knuckling it. They're just having fun.

Christ Koerner:

Exactly.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. So that's really cool. One thing I was gonna ask you is'cause you said, I just see business and I have all these businesses. I start. Are you more of the mindset of are you like everybody should be able to start a business or not? Not that you of that men mentality, but I'm saying are you like, businesses are so easy to start, everybody should start one, or are you more of money is so easy to make?

Christ Koerner:

Or,

Timmy Eaton:

or both.

Christ Koerner:

It's funny I think opposite things at the same time about making money like it's. It's so hard to do. Like money is hard to make, period. It's very cutthroat and competitive out there at the same time. There's so many different ways to make money. Yeah, and so I'm not saying it's easy to make money, I'm saying it's hard, but I'm also saying there are thousands of ways to make money. And so let's say there's a thousand ways to make money. Okay? And then there's 10,000 cities in North America, and then there's a thousand different industries. And then if you multiply all those, there's tens of millions, hundreds of millions, endless amounts of ways to make money. Like maybe it's the hole in one golf challenge and you market it with Facebook ads. Maybe it's the hole in one golf challenge, but you put the green in a box truck and you roll up to festivals and they do it in a box truck. There's just endless, like I'll never run out of content ever, yeah.'cause there's so many ways to make money, but it is hard. Like it's still. Hard. And

Timmy Eaton:

people don't take the plunge. Like for some reason you take the plunge and you're not afraid to do it. But now that you've done it so many times, but I remember you, like last year I was watching this thing you did and you said I don't know if you remember this one, but you said I think they're called luxury. Luxury rv like for weddings, like bathrooms, luxury s is that right? Oh, yeah. I remember that one. And I literally called, I called up in Banff yeah, up near Calgary. I called Banff. And literally was like starting the process, but then I just don't take it through. And then you had another one that you said there was like some dude making like thousands of dollars by buying people sheds and getting them for free. And usually you get'em for free. Do you remember that one? Oh yeah. Yeah. And I literally called people on that too. And I was just like, because I wanted to implement and do like you held, but do you have any idea of like how many people actually do the stuff? Do you have anything to like, to measure that?

Christ Koerner:

It is honestly shocking how now, okay. There's a survivorship bias. So some people reach out to me and say, dude, you posted this. I started it. I did it. Thank you. But, and I put them in a Google doc. I'll take their email, I'll copy paste it in a Google Doc just so I have a record of it.

Timmy Eaton:

Yes.

Christ Koerner:

And just to give you some perspective, my, I. I get between a hundred and 150 million views every month across my content. Now, a lot of those views are, you might see 30 of my videos in a month, right? Yeah. So 30, 30 of those. So there's a lot of overlap. Totally. But let's just say to keep it safe, 10 million unique people see my content, different people every month, and most of those probably only see it for 20 seconds and they swipe away and they never come back. Yeah. But even we're talking big numbers here, so a hundred million unique people. Across all time have seen a business idea. And I know of 30 people that have started businesses, 30. Surely there's probably more than 30 that never reached out. They're busy, right? Maybe their business failed. Statistically, most of them probably failed,'cause that's business. But that's a really narrow funnel. A hundred million to 30. So it feels awesome. I love getting those emails. I always respond to'em. I thank them. I ask'em if they have any questions, but there's very few people that are willing to act. That's human nature.

Timmy Eaton:

Wow. That's actually, but it's actually sad.

Christ Koerner:

It is. It is. Like we, I posted my perfume vending machine. Did you see that one? Yeah. Oh

Timmy Eaton:

yeah. Oh yes.

Christ Koerner:

Yeah. That one got viewed across platforms 20 to 30 million times and. I launched a business off that. I launched a website with a lead form and we got over 5,000 leads, like interested leads, name, email, phone number of units they wanted to buy of perfume vending machines, or 5,000. And if you added up the number of machines, they were interested by the number of people. It was some something like$50 million worth of interest, right? One of those flashy numbers that really mean nothing. And we were very careful with those leads and we put them through a funnel. We got them on the phone'cause it's a$5,000 product and we massage'em. I had webinars put out more content and we sold 40 machines from 50 thou, 5,000 inquiries, 5,000 unique people. Wow. And it was 40 machines to 15 people.'cause some bought 10 machines. It's just tough. But to answer your original question, do I think that everyone should start a business? Everyone can. I think that everyone listening to me needs to see for themselves if they like it, most won't, right? There's a lot to be said for a consistent paycheck. That sounds really good sometimes, and I will never hate on anyone that has a W2

Timmy Eaton:

oh,

Christ Koerner:

but I just want people to check that box for themselves.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. No, that's wise. I, it's sad though. And I wonder how much of it this is one of the things that I emailed you about to before we did the interview was this like schools do not teach that, you and I dunno what your school is like. And they were good. I went to some pretty good schools and the Chicago area, but it was just like, you just don't foster that. And that's one of the things that like a lot of homeschool families love. Is just entrepreneurship and like how to do that. So I wanted to ask you like,, what do you think about that as far as schools and stuff like that? Do you wish they had that in there or do you even care about that? Or as far as they don't foster somebody like you and in fact mm-hmm. When you, when you are labeled with something it almost like pigeonholes you a little bit and, and stip. Mm-hmm. Sometimes. And is that not an opportunity for somebody like you to craft some kind of entrepreneurial curriculum or something.

Christ Koerner:

Yeah schools do not foster it at all. And I, I'm a very logical person, so I can see why, like they have to teach to the lowest common denominator to the masses. And that's just the nature of large numbers. If I owned a, an elementary school, not that's a thing you could do, I would probably teach the type of content that related to the most amount of people, so I could do the biggest net good as possible. And when I had a kid. Come up to me that wanted to start a lemonade stand, I probably wouldn't know what to do with him, even though I would want to support him, just. Logically speaking. And so you just have to go outside of those structures and you have to have a bias for action and test things for yourself or it'll never happen.

Timmy Eaton:

No, I like that. I love that phrase, a bias for action. And that's true. And like I and you just illustrated that with your own experience that few people have tried to implement the things that you've put out there. And yet how many have listened and have been interested. Mm-hmm. Like, Genuinely. Let me ask you this, like you said, when you were starting the phone repair thing, you looked at your city and said, if there's a hundred thousand people here, and you could ascertain fairly quickly who was not there. Was that something that just, you naturally think that way? Or did the, was that like from your business class?

Christ Koerner:

No, I just. I just naturally think that way. I think a lot of it is I'm a big population nerd, like I'm like. I'm kind of autistic when it comes to population sizes and if you were to say they are fascinating. I like'em too. I love it. I love it. Like I could name you can name a state and I'd say I, I could list off the most. I was gonna say, I remember them too.

Timmy Eaton:

I remember them. I don't know if you're like that, but I'll be like, if I go through a place, I'll be like, and I'll remember it forever. I'll be like, oh yeah, that towns 50,000 people or whatever.

Christ Koerner:

Yep. And so to me it was just like supply and demand. Like the article I read was about these students at LSU and they had one iPhone repair store on a busy street, and LSU was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which has about 250,000 people. And they'd opened one and they were opening a second and a third in, in Baton Rouge. And I'm like, okay, like I need. I to find a location like that and I'll get on Google, like, all these tools are available for free. Yeah. I get on Google Street View and it's okay, they're by Chipotle. They're okay. So this is like a retail area. Okay, cool. So what areas like that exist in Tuscaloosa? Okay. The, there's Chipotle. Yeah, I should go see if anything's available. Call the number on the door. Okay. You're just solving problems. And then you always wanna work in a margin for error, so it's okay. Realistically, I remember these numbers, like I think I only need 50,000 people to make a store work, but here I have a hundred thousand people and 30,000 of them are college students, which are probably like more, more likely to break their screen than the average human being. And so that was like. All the research I did before I, I signed a personal guarantee on a lease, a five year lease$2,500 a month. Like my mortgage was$500 a month.

Timmy Eaton:

Wow. And I signed

Christ Koerner:

a lease for 25. I, my wife was pregnant with her first kid. Looking back, I would've done so much more research. I'm like, it, I'm lucky at worked. I do a lot more research nowadays, like testing demand. Yeah. But. I just looked at it in a logical way.

Timmy Eaton:

But that was all just you thinking through it. I, like even the stuff that you said there, I just don't, I don't naturally think those things. And and I wonder how many people are like that and their risk, there might be more risk averse. Mm-hmm. Like, Do you, have you learned that you have a good, like a pretty high risk tolerance or something? Or,

Christ Koerner:

I don't think I'm as risky as it appears from the outside. Yeah. I think I just. I like to say research offsets risk, and so I really just like to do do my research and test the demand. I like to get to the point where when I launch, it's not even a question of will this work or not, it's like, how well will it work? Because I'm just doing things like posting Facebook ads, posting Facebook marketplace, like I already have customers lined up like. It took me years to get to that point, but that's how I approach it today.

Timmy Eaton:

So the other side of it is like organizational skills, because if you have all these businesses like where, how do you divide your time? Like how do you focus your attention with, especially with family, as a church person calling? Like how do you do that? I'm saying if got, yeah. Are you good at setting systems in place? It sounds like you got a really good system for the Instagram stuff with your is it a VA or what do you Yeah. Yeah. So how do you I,

Christ Koerner:

yeah. I don't think I'm, I think I'm just forced, like I push things until they break and then I'm forced to find a solution or a person to outsource or delegate it to, or a shortcut, a creative solution. I don't see myself as being really good at systems. But I overload my plate with too many things to do, and that's. I'm like a very all or nothing person in everything. Like I don't run five Ks, I sit on the couch all day or I'll run a hundred miles. Literally, like I nothing in between. And so I just take on, I have all these curious questions. I go find answers to all of them. I put way too much on my plate and then whatever's left over is a signal to me that it was important. And the things that I forget about, I don't stress about it. Oh God, you forgot to do this. You're like, no, you forgot about it.'cause it wasn't important. I never forget about. Leave your evenings open for the kids' games for church Sunday's. Completely blocked off. The calendar's. Blocked off.'Cause those are the most important. So that's just how I operate.

Timmy Eaton:

That's awesome, man. That's so good. I have all these things. I was my daughter, my oldest daughter. She wanted to ask you a question, but I'll just, I'll oh, that's fine. I can, I

Christ Koerner:

can answer

Timmy Eaton:

that. Yeah. She just said, she goes how do you get yourself to think outside the box? Do you do this naturally? We talked about do you have a method, and I think you explain that you but now that you, do you foster it somehow or do you do you nurture that side of your. Character.

Christ Koerner:

Yeah. I think the most important thing you can do to build your bias for action muscle is when you're curious about something. Try to get the answer to that immediately, because then you'll tie like the dopamine reward of getting the answer to the question more quickly. But if you're like, oh, I wonder how many iPhone shops are in Athens, Georgia, and you leave it. Oh, you leave it and then you, nothing happens. But if you find out right then. Yes.

Timmy Eaton:

It's

Christ Koerner:

just you're building like a curiosity or a bias for action muscle in your brain that will just compound and pay dividends in the future.

Timmy Eaton:

I love that answer. And I've, and I, my little experience doing that I would attest to the same principle. Yeah maybe just for, because this has just been a fun conversation for me, period. But for my audience, so tons of homeschool families are thinking about doing something entrepreneurial with their kids. Can you give us some advice? Think about not that you Totally, are you familiar with homeschooling at all? Like in, in the world? Yeah. You are Uhhuh

Christ Koerner:

what do Somewhat, yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

What do you think about it? For real?

Christ Koerner:

I think homeschooling is great. It's not something we've ever been against but we've never done it. We live in an area with a really good public school system, but even there's so many faults to it. It's just never been something that we felt called to do, but never been something that we've been against either.

Timmy Eaton:

And you're in an area like, I've interviewed lots of people from Texas and they even have homeschool leagues and there's like crazy stuff down in Texas. But, but anyway, I the thing I'm wondering is if when you understand that, like you literally can dictate and determine like what you're gonna do at that time. I always tell my kids, I said, if you consider you have eight hours of sleep. Which is not always consistent, but you have 16 hours. So to me that's, to me, I go, I have 16 hours and that's what I love about the flexibility, the freedom that homeschooling offers. Yeah. At first I was total classic homeschool dad, where I was like, this is weird. Like weird os like, I mean, all the classic stuff, right? Misconceptions. Yeah, preconceptions. All that stuff is 20 years in the past for me now, and I'm like, this is such an amazing opportunity to do stuff. So somebody like you who has ideas constantly. What? What does your mind do if you were to go, okay, I've got all this freedom, I'm not tied to a system. How could you utilize that and like hone that to towards business thinking and entrepreneurial kind of development in your children?

Christ Koerner:

In like the homeschooling framework?

Timmy Eaton:

In the homeschooling framework where they're not you, where they have more time, like my kids, for example, do. They do pretty high end music, cello harp, violin, and piano. And it's because they can spend two or three hours practicing when they need to get ready for performance. Whereas you just can't do that if you're in school. Like you don't have the time.

Christ Koerner:

Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

But what is your, what's your counselor, what are your thoughts when you see, okay, I've got this open time as a homeschool parent, I could really instill some entrepreneurial spirit in teaching.

Christ Koerner:

Yeah. I would start by, I. Having your kids aggregate all the things in your home that need to be sold. Old electronics or furniture or whatever. And I would encourage them, teach them principles on how to list it on Facebook marketplace or wherever, and sell it. That is just such a fundamental thing that anyone can wrap their mind around. And it just teaches you how to take good pictures, how to take good videos, how to describe things, how to respond quickly, how to negotiate, how to interact with people face-to-face when they come to your door. I would start with that, like that would be my first quote. Business that I start with my kids is just like earning some dollars. So they can get that, the motivation and the momentum going fast. And then at that point, a month later, it's like, how do you like this? Should we sell more stuff? Should we go sell our friend stuff and take a percentage as a fee? Should we sell lemonade? Should we start a different business? Like at the end of that month, the kid is either gonna know, this is really fun. Yeah. Or eh,

Timmy Eaton:

I'm not into it. I'm not

Christ Koerner:

into this. Yeah. And that's fine.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. Yeah, totally. Do you have any of your four kids that are clearly minded your way?

Christ Koerner:

It's funny'cause like I've like this, life has been really stressful in a lot of ways. Most primarily with like income volatility, going years at a time with no money and just feast or famine. And so I've never been the dad. That's my kids are gonna be business owners, but also I'm very open about everything I do in business. I don't hide it or shield it from them. I talk about what I'm doing and. At this point, I'd be very surprised if all four of'em aren't entrepreneurs. But we don't mind if they go to college and get a job. Like we support that as well. But it's just the way they're talking, they're 9, 11, 13 or 15. It's just pretty apparent that's very appealing to them. I probably hide the stressful stuff and advertise the glamorous stuff more than I should. That maybe that's to blame, but,

Timmy Eaton:

That's probably good at the beginning, but I really appreciate you taking time and I know you're busy and you got another thing coming right now. So thanks for being with us man, of course.

Christ Koerner:

Thank you for having

Timmy Eaton:

me. That wraps up another edition of this Golden Hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it if you would take a minute and give us a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It helps out a lot, and if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.