Building Millions in Cash Flow, Hiring Better Talent, and Going All In with Connor Gross

Connor Gross has built and operated across multiple income streams: an early e-commerce exit, self-storage and real estate deals, an apparel e-commerce business, content sites, and now Constant Hire, a recruiting agency focused on helping e-commerce and consumer brands hire top talent.

In this episode, we talk through Connor’s path from selling his first business in his early 20s to buying a self-storage property off a Facebook group, tripling its revenue, and eventually narrowing his focus around recruiting for fast-growing consumer brands.

We also get into the changing labor market inside e-commerce: why creative strategists are becoming more valuable, how TikTok Shop is creating entirely new roles, what AI may or may not replace, and why employer branding matters more than most founders realize.

The second half of the conversation turns more personal. We talk about ambition, focus, family, cash flow, playing it safe, and what it really means to go all in on one thing. Connor is in the middle of deciding what kind of life and business he wants to build, and I share the mindset that helped me stay all in on Filterbuy for more than a decade.

Topics include:

• Connor’s first exit with Cardly
• Buying and improving a self-storage property
• Why he started Constant Hire
• Recruiting for e-commerce and consumer brands
• The rise of creative strategists, TikTok Shop managers, and creator managers
• How AI is changing marketing, finance, operations, and hiring
• Why I’m pausing certain non-operational hiring at Filterbuy
• The difference between stacking cash flow and building something big
• What it means to emotionally commit to a business
• Why top talent has to be recruited, not just hired

This is a conversation about business models, ambition, self-awareness, and choosing the path you actually want.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is Connor. He's making millions of dollars a year with four different income streams.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Over the last four years, I've done everything from own a tiny house blog to I buy a bunch of real estate. I have an e-commerce business that has a meaningful team and we do a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

I flew out to New York City to understand every business he runs.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Today I run a recruiting agency. It's called Constant Hire. We help e-commerce consumer brands recruit the best talent. We do it across marketing, creative, operations, finance. We got the revenue up from like in the first year of $4,000 to $12,000 a month and refinanced out at like a $1.2 million appraisal with $580,000 in debt.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

And the strategies that he's used to expand while still being present for his family. Family and work. That's my life. Other people need to have a group of friends that they go on vacations with. If you want to compete with me, you're going to have a hard time doing it if you want to do all those other things. Yeah. How do you answer that?

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Yeah, well, today I run a recruiting agency. It's called Constant Hire. We help e-commerce consumer brands recruit the best talent. We do it across marketing, creative, operations, finance. And so we cover a lot of ground there. If over the last four years, I've done a lot of stuff. So I've done everything from own a tiny house blog to I buy a bunch of real estate. I have an e-commerce business that we're not super public with the e-commerce business, but it has a meaningful team and uh it's in the apparel niche as well. So we do a lot of stuff. Right now, 99% of my focus is on the recruiting agency, but I can talk about all the other stuff too.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

99% of your focus, but you still get 5 a.m. calls um you know forcing you to fly to Texas.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Less less less so these days. Uh there was a lot last year and the year before, but in the last six months we've been pretty good. Yeah. So what's the origin story?

SPEAKER_02 1:40

How did you get started? And like like you're a seemingly young, young guy, so you're still early in your career, but you've done it sounds like you've done a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

So how did how did it start? Yeah, it's called Cardly. And actually, I've got it an old product on my phone now. So we sold that business uh back in 2020. I think I like to tell the story. Like the best six weeks of my life was we sold the business, money hit the bank account. I've been like training for the LA Marathon, went out, ran the LA Marathon. Oh, sorry, sold the business, spring break in Cancun with all my friends, LA Marathon, and then COVID shut the world down. So that was my my first exit experience. Um, and I was how about the 21, 22, something like that? And I it was the weirdest thing I've ever experienced. Does the business still exist today? It does, yeah. It's on Amazon. Yeah. So it doesn't seem like there's been any new products. I think they like removed the card insert with like my name and my business partner's name on it. But other than that, still operates and seemingly does well.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Well, that's good. I'm glad, I'm glad for her. So it looks like it was something that that worked out for everybody. Yeah. So what came after that? You got you have half a million dollars in the bank, call it or or whatever it is for your your your share of the business. What do you do with that money?

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Well, I did what everyone does when they get money and they buy real estate. During that time, I was also starting businesses at night. I was uh I did the first real estate deal that we did, um, which was like, is this gonna sound so crazy? Like, we're in a uh wholesaling Facebook group for self-storage properties.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Someone's like, just so people understand, wholesaling is effectively like you're looking to buy off-market prop properties and then flip them to to uh somebody.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yes. The difference here though is that um somebody else was the wholesaler. So the way that works, somebody goes to a seller, they say, I'll pay you $400,000 for your property. Here, assign this LOI within the contract in the purchase and sale agreement. It says, I have the rights to assign this contract to any other entity. Super normal in the real estate business because you usually have different entities for different properties that you own. Yep. Can also be abused and therefore have people tie up deals with the rights to purchase, sell it at a higher amount, and sell it to for somebody else for 500,000, whatever. So this property was in uh Dallas, Texas. It's posted in a Facebook group, and the buyer or the excuse me, the seller, wholesaler said, I have this property for 400,000, but my buyer just fell through on the purchase and sale agreement. I have seven days to close this thing. Is anyone interested in buying? And at the time I was doing all this analysis of like, okay, what states do we want to buy in? What asset classes do we want to buy in? Whatever. Flew down to Dallas that same day with my business partner. Uh, they already had title pulled and all of that type of stuff. Like it was truly like just ready to go, needed funds. Walked it, met the property owner, saw that she was keeping her accounting on a whiteboard, and I was like, I think we could just run this better than she can. Um, and it was $400,000. The property had in place $4,000 in revenue and $4,000 a year or month. Month. Sorry. Uh $4,000.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

$36,000, $36,000 a year. Uh $48,000. $48,000 a year. So like that's just over 10%.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yep. Uh, but also hasn't raised rent since 1998. Uh, was friends with most of the owners, a lot of owner-occupied units. I was like, I think we need to do this better than she can. So we bought the property, uh, like all cash deal closed in I don't know, seven days, five, five, six business days, something like that. And went to work on figuring out how to run a self-storage property. But I think the point is, got in there, we got the revenue up from like in the first year four thousand to twelve thousand dollars a month. So very quickly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

So do you have a like that's obviously a very successful deal to be able to, you know, four times or three times, three times the rent um or three times your your earnings on something like that. I mean, that's that's huge. I mean, so when did you start the recruiting business?

SPEAKER_00 5:39

When do uh like maybe November of 24? No. Probably like midway through 2024. So we're we're coming up on two years right now. Coming up on two years. And what made you decide to start that? Well, originally I had this other idea that I thought was very smart that I think maybe you'll you could appreciate. Uh you hear a lot about boring businesses and like small mom and pop blue-collar businesses. And I thought, how great would it be that there's so many of these unsellable assets where this roofer or whoever is making $400,000, $500,000, $600,000 a year. Their kids don't want to take over the business. It's not ready to be sold, or like it really can't be sold because there's too much key man risk. How great would it be if I bought CEO to owner to owner.com and I went to all of these businesses and I said, hey, listen, I'm a recruiting agency, but we're also a business consulting agency trying to like make this stuff up on the fly. And pay me very little. I'm gonna find you somebody, like your kids don't want to take over this business. I'm gonna find you somebody to replace you rather than just shutting the business down into retirement. Instead, we'll have somebody you pay them $200,000 a year, $250,000 a year, whatever it takes. And we will over the next three years work with you to transition out. You'll have somebody in place, and then you can actually have a saleable asset and some cash flow into retirement, whatever you want. Yep. I just I talked to like maybe not enough people, but like 15 to 20 people who I could get to listen. And they're like, why would I do that? And I was like, okay, like maybe we're not seeing it. They're like, well, it's my business. No, my name's on the door. I'd rather just, you know, shut it down. Like, I've got enough money. And so I don't know if I just didn't take the right calls or if the business idea was bad, which I'm very open to the latter. It's it felt like it was the latter. But I during the time did a lot of research on the recruiting industry, and I was like, oh, this is an interesting model. Like, people's for a lot of companies, biggest PL expense tends to be either labor or in the consumer space, it's a lot of ads and cost of goods sold. And so um, I was like, Can I do this in something that I'm better at, which is e-commerce? And I already had more connections in the space. I made like a tweet or two about it. We got like four or five customers off those tweets, and I was like, I think I'm in the the recruiting business for the consumer space. And so for a long time, it was just me doing 50 interviews a week for like four or five clients, trying to get case studies, building that out, and then slowly building out a team end of 2024 and really building out that team in 2025. So, what made you decide to focus on e-commerce specifically? I tend to gravitate towards the thing that will pay me the quickest. And I had customers who were willing to pay me very fast based on my like relationship and experience in e-commerce. When you say pay you very fast, do you mean terms in payment terms or uh sorry, pay me very fast in the sense of I didn't have to build out a go-to-market strategy and figure out who the best people in SaaS were and like try to convince them that I can do SaaS recruiting. Instead, I can make a tweet that says, I'm doing this, I'll charge less than the traditional recruiter for the first five customers. Who wants to be a customer? And I had five people put their hands up, sign.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Because you had already built an audience in the e-commerce space.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

So it was just what you knew.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yeah, and so it was a combination of doing that from the Amazon FBA days, from working on that Shopify app for nine months, and then you know, I'm not very public with the e-commerce business, but have an e-commerce business with a team of 20 over there that we've been running for the past four years as well. And so like I would share a lot of e-commerce learning. So I had quite an audience in the e-commerce category as well.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Yeah. Um, so what does a typical customer for you know your recruiting business look like?

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Over over 10 million a year is kind of like the floor and ideally good employer branding across the board. Because we do primarily only contingent-based recruiting. What I've quickly realized is that if you're under 10 million a year, which for an e-commerce business could legitimately be one person, it's very hard to convince somebody to quit their job and come work for you. And the e-commerce space also is notorious for working with two types of labor under that kind of sub 10. It's overseas labor, where they're just like candidly, like very excited to be working for a US employer because they'll make more money than their local space. So you can kind of have less processes and whatnot, or fractional freelance contractors, whatever, who operate very much as a business. And again, they're just happy to get business. And we do primarily direct hires today. Eventually, we'll want to expand that service line, but it's primarily direct hires today. And so, in order for me to get somebody excited about quitting their job, they need to know that they are working for either a company or that the founder is not this crazy key man risk and going to be like a crazy manager. And so, ideally, having some form of like either earned success from, they have a little bit of a team, or they have as simple as a LinkedIn page, or like, you know, something where they're not just this black hat dropship affiliate type of like business. Uh, because we have plenty of those that come to us and they are probably willing to pay for good talent, but good talent is not willing to work there from my experience so far.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, I think that um, especially in today's world, that employees are very or people that are looking for kind of stable jobs are very wary because it's so easy to get to get burned, seeing that that was being successful.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Nothing aside from the fact that the first five customers were wanted US talent. Uh truly, truly just that. And I feel like I'm a sucker for like some people are really good at planning um and like figuring out their business plan, whatever. I very much so have the tendency to try to gravitate towards that fastest path towards cash. Um, and in this case, it was somebody said they'd pay me for this, let me do this. And it's unfortunately not very intentional. I will say something that you brought up earlier around like, you know, being a one-of-one and like figuring out, like, you know, not worrying about competition. I like 28 years old today, have expanded and tried everything from like, you know, we talked about like doing content blogs, and I've bought like, you know, random, like tiny side project businesses. A lot of how I try to approach my career today is very expanded and exploratory and figuring out what do I like. Now that I'm a couple years into it, I don't love real estate as much as I thought I would. Um, you know, from an e-commerce standpoint, I actually do really enjoy the consumer brand space. I actually love talking to uh both the best talent and clients in the space of like who's building big brands and like, oh, somebody wants to hire a YouTube strategist. I didn't even know that that was a role. Okay, yeah, like let's figure out all of that type of stuff. So that's really fun for me. And I feel like it's it has been hard to figure out when I was starting all of this stuff, what am I great at and what like lights me up? And now that I'm a couple years into it, it's like I really enjoy the marketing piece, I really enjoy the sales, I really enjoy the idea of like building out different business units and figuring out like what other pieces of the pie that I have to put into this. Um, and so that's been a big theme over maybe the last two years, I would say, as far as like I've expanded a lot. Now I'm trying to sell off one business, maybe sell off a couple properties, like narrow in my focus and focus a little bit better. Yeah. Talk to a lot of recruiters about this. Uh the one line sentence that I give myself that has gotten rid of a lot of the stress is that if AI disrupts recruiting aggressively, it's probably from a true labor market standpoint, at which case I think we have way bigger problems than my recruiting agency. So I don't know if that's true or not. I think that it will probably eliminate a lot of the lower labor, lower level labor tasks. So when you see a lot of these overseas recruiting agencies and you're hiring somebody to move something from one spreadsheet to another for eight hours a day at five dollars an hour, I could see that job being in trouble. And I that would keep me up at night if I was entirely focused on those types of uh those types of placements and and that type of labor. The types of roles that we are often doing are in the last couple of months, honestly, like VP level, chief level, um, very like niche specialized things, like you know, TikTok shop specialists were like they have to constantly be up to date on emerging trends. And so from that standpoint, I don't I don't see it being that big of an issue. I think if anything, probably more of a consolidation of roles. So rather than having three people to do certain things, like rather than having a media buyer, a CRO manager, and maybe like two media buyers like Google and Facebook, one person's a growth strategist and they do all three. So I can see a consolidation of roles because they have more leverage and smart people get paid more. And when that means a consolidation of roles, I hear um fewer roles to recruit for. Yes, but okay, so industry stats, 25,000 recruiting agencies in the US, 3,000 in B2B SaaS, basically, about a hundred that truly do e-commerce and consumer brands. Very, very small like market. And when you actually look at why, it's because you can build a really successful consumer brand business without a lot of employees, but you still need some. At least today, you still need some. And so we've never had like we've rarely ever had clients where we're doing 20 plus roles for them. It's usually let me hire five to 10, and then like we'll come back to it. And mind you, we've been in business for two years. That might change and we'll have a deeper LTV. But as it stands today, it's typically, you know, let's get these core roles and we're gonna overpay for these roles because they need to be fantastic. And then let's reevaluate next year.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

So you so your average customer comes in with five or 10 roles that they're asking you to place.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

No, our average customer probably comes in with two to three. Um, and then you'll have some people that want to build out full teams, and you'll have some people that want to just say, Hey, I just need this one role. Can you just find me just this one role? So two to three is typically.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

And you think that being effectively you you believe that being because you're so niche um relative to the to to the recruiting market at least, um, that that ultimately protects you because you're you're can is you're always gonna have a demand for those niche roles, more or less.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

I think so. I also think like we can keep a better pulse on like what's happening. Like I alluded to the TikTok shop manager. Like, yeah, if you go to you know one of the one of the robber halves of the world, they're not gonna know how to recruit a TikTok shop manager. We have a hundred already in our database that we've spoken with, and like we can share industry comps more accurately. So I think the more niche that we go, it's everything from like I get top candidates who have had a good experience with us, referring other top talent to us as well that aren't applying, maybe not aren't even on LinkedIn that we can then have a conversation with and you know, send over to another one of our clients.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

So, what types of roles are what type are there any roles that you've seen in the last couple of months that you've never been asked to place for before?

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Anything that's changed? The biggest one right now is a creator manager. So, like, and this is very complicated. So I'll try to like explain it as simply as possible. In the last, okay, so the 2010s have made us believe that creator managers are the Mr. Beast of the world, the Logan Paul's of the world, whatever, like almost like podcasts-like celebrity influencers. That's not the case anymore in 2026. What a creator is today is anyone who picks up their phone, makes content, whether it's a get ready with me video or somebody shooting like hoops and like making like trick shot videos on the street. Right now, you do not need an audience to get paid by brands in order to make money. And what a lot of brands are leaning into is the fact that meta and advertising costs are rising, but there's people who I can send them one product and they can make review videos for us or content for us. And that content can drive meaningful amounts of sales. Yep. And so we're finding people that are doing everything from like a recruiting using like a tool like Yuka or something like that, and recruiting different content creators who might have no audience but understand how to get make good content, or people who then they get them, they put them into a Discord. There's a thousand people that are probably all like ages like, you know, 18 to 30 or something like that. And they'll say, All right, here's the new angle that we're going for this week. And you know, we're gonna uh the new angle this week is air filters with a uh focus on like asthma, like preventing asthma and things like that. Like, here's the hook. We've seen a work on these three to four videos. All right, everyone, we're gonna have like a Wednesday webinar, jump on it, and I'll coach you through how to make the content. And that just like doesn't that like that wasn't a thing two years ago, but now it is very much of a thing because TikTok shop and GMV and it is driving like meaningful GMV to these brands.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

I mean, that's really a TikTok shops phenomenon, but like where they're like, you know, giving huge bonuses in a lot of a lot of cases to creators that you know get a certain amount of reach or a certain number of sales, depending on how you how you structure it.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

And there are huge brands that are spending nothing on Facebook that are doing only this right now. And it's just very much so working, and everyone's trying to understand who to hire, who I who can run it for them. It's oftentimes, you know, the founder getting scrappy in the first year, and they're like, I need to get out of this. Who can I find? And so trying to be the expert of like who has the most relatable skill to this, who would be good for this has been a big part of the job. And have you been able to place any of those roles? Yeah, several. So we've placed uh one for a supplement company, one for a travel company. Um, we've done, sorry, two for the travel company. And the two have it's been a TikTok shop manager, we've done an organic creator coach. So like the coach of like working through like hooks and variations and whatnot, and then like true Discord managers who are like building out different channels. You know, when you when you drive over a thousand dollars in sales, you get promoted to the VIP Discord and then you put them on retainer so they're more motivated, like things like that.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

Yeah, it's interesting. I um we had an agency that was doing that for us for a while. I don't think that they still are now, but it's something that we've toyed around with, but never been super successful or haven't been super successful with it yet. Um we're starting to work with TikTok's specific creators, um, but I'm not sure exactly how we're sourcing it. Something I'll have to dig into.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Yeah. No, it's I think a lot of people are using a tool like Yuka AI, but plus there's a lot of like manual um outreach back and forth for the true sourcing part itself, to the point of like maybe lower later lower level tasks, very often gets outsourced. And then the relationship building tends to be more like US-based hiring from my experience. Interesting. Any other roles that have changed in the last year? Um, I mean, maybe not the last year, but like last two years, like creative strategists are just super hot right now. Uh, I would probably say even a decline on media buyers as a result of that, like the media buyer salary that they can demand tends to be lower than what a creative strategist can uh command now. And we're seeing like, you know, fantastic people going for 200, 220 like plus type of roles that I don't think they had that type of pricing power in the past. Now they very much so do.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Um and the problem with the media buying is it's it's something that I think is getting replaced by AI more or less.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Yeah. You're seeing a lot of people that are trying to understand that they should have a dedicated AI role in their company. Yeah, that was really what I was curious about. Yeah. I don't know. I like I have told people no and to find AI native people. And maybe, maybe I'm wrong about this, but like to me, what that seems like is is that it should be a project manager or an operations manager who is pretty AI curious, is like the closest thing that is great there today. Otherwise, we're seeing other companies pop up that are like AI consultancies and workflow specialists and and can maybe like jump in and help. It feels from my point of view, it feels kind of silly to have a dedicated role. Like it almost feels like it would be like I don't know, it's 2005, and you're like, can we hire somebody to be the internet guy at this company? Maybe it's like that's IT, right? Like maybe that's what it evolves to. But I don't know. I haven't I haven't seen people have success with an in house full time hire that it does AI only. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

I think it's tricky. Um, and it's something we're certainly trying to figure out. Um, you know, we have a very big development team, which I think is unique in that um, you know. We have about a 15 person development team because we we never really bought external SaaS um, you know, going back 12 years, which is which is um odd, you know, I think, but it's actually turned now into a big competitive advantage. If you're a first mover, that that's reality. Um, but anyways, what I was gonna say is that from an AI perspective, um, I think it's you know, the development team, but the biggest area where I see the benefit today is actually in data analytics and finance. Um, and I think that AI is completely changing what those roles look like. Um, and I think um if you go if you were to go and do like a traditional finance or data analytics role um today, that you're gonna find that the needs for those people is gonna shift dramatically, in my opinion. I think it's already shifted. I think it'll take a little while for the market to understand that, but that's where you're gonna have to really see the skill sets shift.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

And and so like, what's an example of how you guys are doing that at Filterby today? Like in terms of like you're reviewing transactions and like just the bookkeeping process is easy, or is it like trying to understand what your top selling SKUs are and like if there's any patterns that you can tap into?

SPEAKER_02 23:13

Prices, how does it change your organic ranking? Um, how does it change your conversion rate? Um, you know, and then how do how do competitors react? Like all of these things, like like that's a very to do that well is a very data-driven decision. Um, and you know, so if you have a team of people that are doing that, you have a very it it's it takes a long time to do any type of test to really understand it, get any feedback from that. Um, where now with AI, then like you know, we've basically built a a system that allows us to um to shorten that process, that feedback loop to make better decisions at scale, right? So that's an example of it. Another example would be um, you know, the other the other side of that coin is you're spending advertising dollars against all of that. Um and how like how does that like how do you determine um you know how you should be bidding for each of those each of those A's each of those keywords, each of each of those SKUs, right? Um, so you know, that's an example, but then um you get into um you know finance and this kind of stuff, like we have um like we're a big business, so I I don't know that this is like on the small business, they're not gonna deal with some of these things. But like um, you know, if you look at our general ledger and uh like in your income statement, I think we have um 1400 accounts that we sure um you know book to against on that income statement. Um and so keeping all of those updated, um, you know, understanding like closing your books every month, like you know, there's still a lot of um, you know, manual work that goes into that. Um now with AI, you know, you're able to, you know, do what used to take multiple people a couple of weeks um daily if you want. Yeah. Um and so those are types of things that I'm obsessed with because it ultimately um that that that ultimately gives you a lot of operational leverage if you if you know what you're doing. But the pricing and advertising is the biggest thing. And actually, you know, blow through initiatives that we thought were going to take, you know, a year and do that in a couple of weeks in some cases. Um, and it's something that you know I'm spending I'm spending almost all my time making that happen right now. And I actually have a different point of view than you, and I think I think you are going to see it shift very meaningfully, the type of people that are that you're gonna be hiring in the e-commerce roles and the demand for it. Um I think that I think I think that the future, you know, marketing, finance, operations roles, um the the skill sets that were required for those last year are going to look very different than the skill sets that are going to be required next year. And so like you're at a transition point right now, and I think that the first part of that transition point is you don't hire until you know what you actually need. Yeah. And and so like um that that's that that's the stage where we are right now. It's like I like we're we're purposefully not hiring right now for you know non-operational roles. Operationally, like we're still growing a lot and like we do in the physical space, like as a company, we're hiring, but like within like anything that would be like in your type of a world, um, I kind of I uh to protect the people that we have hired that work for us today, you know, my intent is not to hire any more until we know what we're capable of with what we got.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Well, so I agree. I think two things. Uh, one, these are two separate tracks, but I'll just I'll drop the first one right now. I just heard I don't have you seen this Claude growth marketing manager, yeah. One person marketing team for all of Claude. Like, I I could very much just see where that is as close to the future as possible of like a single person who can have enormous amount of leverage because of all of these types of tools. So I definitely do see that. I think the number one role that we work on today is a creative strategist. Like, that's it probably goes creative strategists, growth marketing manager, e-commerce manager. That's probably the top three. And I've personally taken hundreds of creative strategist interviews, and even like lately, a lot of them to just out of sheer capacity from the team. I have yet to truly find anyone who is like using it beyond your research. And there's a lot of like arc ads and AI ad generators and all this type of stuff. And I'm interviewing people from the companies who are on the logos on this company site of like users, and the the often the common feedback is oh, we we we sign up for it. Like it's it's not where it needs to be in post-production yet, but like maybe soon. Um, and so I I would agree with you.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

I do think that like well, we're talking about two different things. Like, if you're talking about creatives, um, I think that that is where um the need is is rising. Like, I so I I agree, I make sense to me that you're hiring more of those. I mean, there's a reason why you know I'm launching a podcast and and why I'm investing in my personal brand. If you look within Filter Buy, and I think some of these you did some of these roles at least, you know, like we've really invested heavy in our creative, in our creative um strategy roles, in our growth marketing roles, that you know, for them, they're not spending their times in the ad platforms doing like the media buying or the efficiency, like all of that kind of stuff. Um, you know, we're you know, you know, we're we have our data analytics team that's effectively taking on that, taking on that responsibility. Um, but the creative piece of it I think is more important than ever. So super agreed. Yeah, definitely agreed. Um but but on the flip side, what I would say is I think that that is the hardest role to hire for and to and to to do it well. I mean, I think that um, you know, the the the problem with creative strategist is a good creative strategist is worth a lot, but a good creative strategist um does um has a lot of options and oftentimes is not going to be willing to um you know be handcuffed by like one brand, um, one product and just have that be their creative energy.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

I do find that e-commerce as an industry has a ceiling to talent of what like typically a lot of the really best people after being in the industry for 15 plus years, often will start their own agency, start their own brand, whatever. If they're they if they've been around the block and they've seen, oh, I've made this person 10 million dollars, I've made this person 10 million dollars, why not me? It is a low barrier to entry in terms of like getting your first PO on an inventory run. Like all of the tools have made it so much easier, Shopify, whatever, like the stuff that you guys didn't have when you were starting off. Like it's truly easy to start that now. That I could very much so see a world where they would then turn around and say, I want to get paid what I think I'm worth and start my own brand after that. And that's that's fairly common brand or agency. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

So, you know, you've done a lot. I mean, you're sound a lot like me, to be honest with you. It's like when I was like I started filter by when I was 29 and a half. Um, and obviously I was working in finance before that, but um, like while I was working in finance, I had you know a lot of side hustles and interest very similar to what it sounds like you you you certainly have, although listen to all the ink-cartridge stuff. Uh I thought that's cool. Yeah, like I've I've you know, I you know, just like we talked about the AdSense flippers, it's now e-commerce flippers. I used to create content sites to for passive income. You know, I invested in in um, you know, rental properties and you know, did did all did all of those those similar things.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

And so I feel like constant hire is is is doing well right now as a business, and I can see myself like really wanting to pour myself into that and grow that. Are there other vehicles in the future that I could see myself wanting to get into? I think the ref a lot of your motivation is very much so the way you articulated it was way better than I did. And I would agree that I also share a lot of those same feelings of wanting to make an impact more specifically, like don't want to be 80 years old and be like, I did a bunch of stuff a little bit like half-assed, like I could have gone all in if I really either believed in myself or worked harder or whatever. Yeah, and so I think the the fear of playing safe, uh, or sorry, the fear of going big and failing sometimes can stop me from instead going the safe route that I'm like this can reliably get to one million in Ebidah if I just like add effort over the next 18 months.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

But you have to be more fearful of um you know not been of not starting. Yeah, like you know, you know, like I'm more I'm more fearful of um not knowing if I if of not knowing what would have happened than I am of trying and not feeling and which I feel like I'm getting to now.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Like I feel like there's also the always the element of like, okay, like there there is maybe day one fear of am I gonna be able to live in New York and pay rent? That is days in the past now is like, okay, am I going to be able to, you know, do like travel and raise kids and buy a house? And like a lot of the basic level stuff, I feel like at this point I'm fortunate to have covered. I feel like, or maybe not, maybe it'll be more expensive.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

I'll tell you where the mindset shift you're gonna have to change though, is and it's and it's how you know how you even talk about it all. And it's so natural. But you know, how like anytime like when I when I ask you how do you want to start a business, and you always say, Well, it's easy for me to get cash flow. Like that's your that that is how you that is like how you started your your recruiting business. That's how you started everything. It's because, okay, done is but chased something that you know is gonna work, like you're actually protecting your downside by saying, Oh, in your ego, um, because you're saying, Oh, this is gonna work in the six months. I already know how to do this, versus this is something that I really believe in. Yeah, um, I'm gonna go figure out a way to make it work, and I'm willing to kind of look like an idiot and maybe not have as much cash flow short term. Like that you're gonna have to be open yourself up to those type of ideas if you really want to find your vehicle. You have to have a I mean, like the story I always tell, which is true. I started filter buying in 2012. I took a $50,000 salary until 2020. Um, that was that was all the money that I took out of the business for eight years. No distributions, no distributions, zero. A lot of credit card points, maybe a lot of credit card points. I had some rental property and my wife was uh was working. So um that was the that was the extent of the cash flow that I took for the first eight years. And so but that wasn't that like the business was working, and like I saw like I knew that our unit economics was good. I realized that we had I realized that the only reason my the only way my business would work and achieved where I wanted to go was if I got to a certain level of scale. Um and so I was rushing to get to scale um and get to what I call escape velocity. Yeah, um, but but um so I believed in myself. I wasn't like I was like some people would have thought I was delusional, but like I I knew what the potential was. Yeah. Um, I saw it and like, and you know, we were, you know, we were growing. I mean, like in 2020 before COVID, we were already to like, you know, 70 million dollars a year revenue and I was still only taking a $50,000 salary.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Um would you have uh knowing what you know now, and obviously incredibly successful, and you can you can do a lot more with it now too. Would you have paid more over those eight years and maybe smoothed out the ride? Did you not think about it at the time? Like I'm curious.

SPEAKER_02 34:41

You know, I wouldn't change a thing, um, but it's because I emotionally was all in on myself. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You need to find. I mean, it's like there wasn't like people always ask that question, and um it just tells me that they don't really understand the point. It's it's not a knock and nobody does. But it's like it's ultimately um, you know, I am all in on myself and I always will be. Um, there's no doubt in my mind. And if I could, if I'm gonna put my my if I'm gonna set my mind on it, I'm gonna go make it happen, you know, it doesn't mean it's easy, but I really feel that way and I always will. Yeah, that's cool. Um, and you know, so I think that um if you want to do something big, then you have to have that mindset because anybody that does something big, in my opinion, has that mindset.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

And and that's what I'm trying to push you to do. It's like you're gonna have to you're gonna have to get out of your comfort zone um and be willing, like you like even when how you say, well, you worry about other people, you you you don't like how other people um talk about it and um you know you know, don't make any money, and you're using that as the excuse. Well, you know, if you really believe that's who you are, then you're right, you shouldn't do it. But like if you really believe that you're working on something that is going to be meaningful and you know why, then you know, who cares what other people think about it? Like it's like it's like it does their opinion doesn't matter, your opinion. My opinion doesn't matter, your opinion matters for you for Connor. That's a totally real frame. And so um, you know, like I hear that, and it's just like that's like that's like you just gave me another excuse to not go after your dream. Yeah. Or not to build a dream.

SPEAKER_03 36:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Because you is you're saying, like, I don't you're saying I don't believe in myself because I've seen other people who aren't able to to achieve this, so therefore, therefore, I'm just gonna do the safe way.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

So then, so I agree with everything you're saying, and this is a very needed conversation. Help me understand because there's probably I think another I don't know, I don't want to make this an excuse, just more so to reframe it. How did you know that filter buy would be big would be a big enough vehicle for you to spend the next the rest of your life building and like creating this big opportunity whereby like in the past when I've done certain things, I didn't realize that there was a ceiling on some of them. And as I've been doing it more and more, I'm realizing, okay, like some markets are bigger than others. Obviously, there's more competition in certain ones. Like, how do you go about market to answer your broader question?

SPEAKER_02 37:10

You know, I believe if I wanted to go out and be the best recruiter that and I wanted to put all my energy into that, then I would dominate the recruiting industry. You would not want to compete with me. Nobody would want to compete with me. Sure. That's the mindset that I have. Um, I believe, you know, the the the e-commerce brand that you don't want to talk about, I have no idea what it is, and it doesn't matter. But like if I wanted to go dominate that market, I would find a way to do it. And maybe, maybe I would say, okay, well, you know, I'm selling plastic bags, um, but but but the real market, the real margin is in selling them with the toy in it, or you know, whatever. Like there's always some there's always some way that you can make it work. Yeah. Um, it comes down to your creativity and your willingness to um make it happen. Yeah. Um, and there's there's no business that I know of that you couldn't um go out and you know find a way um to make it work. And at scale, sometimes you have to either grow the market or you have to go into a to a related market. Um, you know, but there's always a way. Um, and so I guess my point is the vehicle doesn't matter as long as you're all in on making it work and you have a clear, you know, vision for and you have a clear why you want to do it. Yeah, um, because that's what's going to allow you to build it. Yeah, you do like some of them are certainly easier than others. Like, if I could go back in time, I would have done it on on something completely different. You know, I wouldn't go back and change anything. No, of course not.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Yeah, I think that and that's really where I feel like to the point of going all in on one thing, like I feel like I've used the last six, seven years, six years maybe now, uh, as a true like exploratory phase, which is hugely valuable, right? And I and I and I didn't realize how much I needed that at the time. Now that I am towards the end of my 20s, I feel like I'm hence this conversation, getting more of the the urge to go and just go all in on one thing. And I think to your point of like trying to reframe the why and then just committing, and it doesn't really matter what the opportunity is as much. I think it's probably the hump that I need to get over.

SPEAKER_02 39:21

It it has you have to believe in it. So like I like with the air filters, I always knew that like it's obvious that air filters are in every building that moves the air and it has to be consumed. So I I knew like I believed that if I could, you know, do that better than anybody else, that you know, I would have a big business. I mean, like that that was my belief. So you have to believe that about whatever you get into. So like you still have to, you have to still see the path. But it's but it it's important that you see the path, not that anybody else sees the path.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Yeah, that's smart. Okay. Very helpful. I I I definitely I need to spend time, I think, a consolidating and then B figuring out like what that motivation looks like of like, I don't know, 10, 20, 30 years to get to that next level.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

Yeah, it's gonna be hard. It's hard for anybody, no matter how skilled you are, to be big by doing self-storage, yeah, doing apartment buildings, doing recruiting. You like like it's you can you can you can build a great life that way, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. And and for a lot of people, I mean, and that may actually be the best path for you. Um, and you just need to be self-aware to know if you're happy with that and you just want to have stable, good cash flow and have a good quality of life, which is a great that's a that's a um great desire to have, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But you know, so many people come in and talk with me and they say, Well, I want to go big. Yeah, and well, it's like if you want to go big, it takes a completely different mindset.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

So this is actually, I think I I would be really curious your take on this. I have this probably false belief in my mind right now that I have a window of time that I feel very comfortable uh I don't know, working 12 plus hours per day. You have a limiting belief. Yes. I I feel like I have this belief that I want I would love to shake slash get your perspective on. Of I have the belief that over the next five, five to ten years is when I am most willing to work 12 plus hour days, work on weekends, and like truly devote all of this time and energy into building this, and that the way that I feel about business right now, uh how much I enjoy it and how I think about it all the time, will not exist for me in 15 to 20 years because my priorities will shift or or whatever. And I feel like based on the way you've described yourself, I feel like we're very much a wired the same way. And it seems like that that is not the case at all for you.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

Um I've never worked harder, and I have three young kids who I have a great relationship with to do a lot of fun things with. Yeah, you know, I always tell people, I always find find it funny. There's like a um, like if you somehow there's like a Gemini clip that they got from something for me. David Heacock has no hobbies. Um, or it was kind of it's kind of always kind of a laugh when I see it. Because I I said I think on a Shane Parrish podcast that I have no hobbies. It's like I work and I spend time with my family. I mean, like that, that that's that's the extent of my life. And um, that's the life I choose. That's what I want. I mean, those are the only two things that are important to me. My family is incredibly important, and my work is incredibly important. So every waking hour, I do one of those two things. I mean, I I take care of myself, I exercise in the morning, and you know, I've like I do, you know, basic self-care things, but aside from that, you know, it's you know, family and work. I mean, that that's my life, and that that's that works for me. It's not doesn't work for everybody. Other people need to have a group of friends that they go on vacations with and go do you know happy hours with, and um, they you know, do triathlons and all these other things. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But um, if you want to compete with me, you're gonna have a hard time doing it if you want to do all those other things. Yeah, right. Yeah, that means um so you ultimately have to decide what you want out of life. I mean, that's a very personal decision. And like what I what what I would try what I would say is the earlier you can be self-aware about what you actually want, then you then the better off you're gonna be because then you can reverse engineer what that is.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

And like it, and if and if you really believe what you just said, then the better path is probably to stack as much cash as you can, put it in assets that you understand that are gonna produce income, so that in five or 10 years you want to take the foot off the gas, then you can do that. Um, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And that's a great path. But the sooner you can decide which like version you want to take, or which path you want to take, the better off you're gonna be. Because that's not consistent with I'm gonna go out and build a big, you know, a big thing. I mean, um, you're just that's not the big thing isn't going to happen passively. Yeah. And and so like they're just not you, they're just not consistent with each other. And so the sooner you can figure out what you really want, then the less internal conflict you're going to have because it's much harder being it trying to be in between is the is you're going to have the worst of both worlds.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

Yeah. I feel like I just need to commit and and commit sooner.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

It's it's emotionally commit. Like you got to emotionally like the reason why I can sit here and have this conversation or or do what I do is like I'm I'm all in like I'm fully committed to it. Like I don't have to convince myself. It's not it's not a like I I know who I am.

SPEAKER_03 44:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

And that's one of the biggest advantages I have. Do you feel like you've known that since you were 29 going out to start or like even earlier than that or I think I've always known it. Always known it yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:44

Yeah. Yeah it's uh I mean it doesn't mean that you don't have uncertainty or doubt or like of course like we all have that I still have that. I mean there are days I wake up and I'm like why am I doing this? But but then like but but in my core I know who I am. Yeah. Um and and that's heightened with time actually and and with experience but um but like that that's the reason I challenge people on this and you and you especially like young ambitious people is I I'm trying to say like I think that you know the introspection that pro like it's a pro it's a process to go and figure this stuff out. The sooner you can become self-aware and be introspective about this and then start taking actions that are consistent with you know whatever like you really like you really want, the better off you're going to be.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

Yeah. And do you do you based on your comment of having journaled of by the time I reach 40 I want to do this and this is it primarily through journaling is it through like just a lot of conversations like how do you go about that process?

SPEAKER_02 45:41

I'm actually not an avid journal or that was like a random thing that um you know I I um it's it's kind of uncanny that I I did it when I when I did it I can I can actually picture where I was when I when I when I wrote it um but I don't have a great answer for it in that I'm obsessed you know like I'm obsessed with with this subject to an extent in that um you know I I like studying what drives people and what drives myself you know it's like I think I'm a um you know I'm a big believer in watching what people do not what they what they say and like I just like observing how other six what other successful people do to have to have gotten to where they are. And then I think that that for forces like uh internal dialogue for myself about like you know how do I feel about this you know um where where do I where do I fit in on it and so I think it's just um becoming more and more self-aware through that and also aware of the world and how it works. I mean like like I love studying how the world works and um and then kind of figuring out like you know what is my piece of that. But you know the reality is you can take either you can take whatever path you want um but the sooner that you're consistent about that path the more the the the longer you're gonna have to compound against it. Yeah. So I just like I'll leave you on this because it it's it's I think you know it's it's really something that you would that I think could be helpful for you.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

What is the biggest mistake that you see companies that come to you to hire make well in the e-commerce space it is what we talked about earlier not thinking at all about employer branding like they they view it very much so as an employer's market and they never view the idea that top talent needs to be recruited and actually sold. And so when somebody turns to me and they say I want the best Facebook ad strategist they never stop to think well am I good enough to recruit the best Facebook ad strategist and what would it what would I need to do to be qualified to do such and so we spent a lot of time working on employer branding profile. Why are you a great place to work? Why are you a successful boss that people should respect to the point of like building a big vision like people want to see themselves in that. And so we spent a lot of time on that.

unknown 48:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:13

Well with that Connor thank you so much for the conversation I can't I can't wait to hear in 10 years what the you know what you decided to do. Yeah