Digital Social Hour
From Strip Club to 7-Figures: How One Mentor Changed Everything | Stephen Martinez DSH #967
10 Dec 2024
Chapter 1: What led Stephen Martinez to meet his mentor?
And you're living proof of that. I'm trying my best. I'm trying my best, brother. So when did you start realizing this opportunity was out there?
Man, that's a good question. To answer that, we have to go back a little bit before the American dream, the whole conference, the event, the podcast, the book was ever a thing. I think we have to dig into the roots of my parents. So my mom and dad immigrated from Colombia, pretty much coming here for an opportunity like anyone else, right?
Everyone comes here for the land of opportunity just to have a better life. Fast forward a little bit. My family got divorced. Mom and dad got divorced when I was 12, 13. So I was with my mom and I mean, she didn't speak the language. Right. So she was just hustling. Yeah. And I was the middle child of three and she was cleaning houses and she would wake up at.
like 5 a.m., 5.30 a.m., just to go clean houses. And I would voluntarily, like, hey, Mom, I'll come with you. So before school, I'd go help her clean houses, take out the trash, this and that. And then she would tell me, she would say, Stephen.
know you're going to be the person that can get us out of out of this out of the situation you have so much potential and in my head i'm like oh you're just my mom you're just saying that because you love me but it did resonate especially the whole school thing school was very big for our culture you know going to school get your bachelor's get your masters so i got my bachelor's got my masters and then covet hit and i was like man i was like okay i could still do online but then like the whole workplace thing froze so no one was working
I don't know if you remember this, but during COVID, you couldn't go to Target, Walmart, all those stores. So I was doing Uber Eats, but it's not Uber Eats, but you did groceries for people. So you go to the store, Kroger, whatever, do the groceries, deliver the groceries. And then my buddy hit me up and he was like, hey, man, it's my birthday.
And there's this one spot during COVID that pretty much lets you go out and have no social distancing type of thing, really low key spot. So I'm like, sure, it's your birthday. We go out, we celebrate. I'm in school. I'm just working hard doing Instacart. That's what it was called at the time. Just hustling, making money, trying to make ends meet.
And then after the bar, he's like, let's go to the strip club. And usually I just say bar, but to be transparent, I feel like it's important for people to know where I met my mentor at the time because of the environment. And you never know who you meet. And they say luck is when preparation meets opportunity. And I was there at 3 a.m. just having a good time minding my business.
And I see this guy in like a professional suit, like corporate style. Like you could tell he's not doing anything shady or, you know, this or that. I'm like, damn, like that must be nice. 30 minutes later, we start talking. And he's like, hey, man, you know, I'm in the blue collar industry. So we have an online training platform, a big event for contractors.
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Chapter 2: How did Stephen Martinez transition from education to entrepreneurship?
Chapter 3: What challenges did Stephen face while running events?
like 5 a.m., 5.30 a.m., just to go clean houses. And I would voluntarily, like, hey, Mom, I'll come with you. So before school, I'd go help her clean houses, take out the trash, this and that. And then she would tell me, she would say, Stephen.
know you're going to be the person that can get us out of out of this out of the situation you have so much potential and in my head i'm like oh you're just my mom you're just saying that because you love me but it did resonate especially the whole school thing school was very big for our culture you know going to school get your bachelor's get your masters so i got my bachelor's got my masters and then covet hit and i was like man i was like okay i could still do online but then like the whole workplace thing froze so no one was working
I don't know if you remember this, but during COVID, you couldn't go to Target, Walmart, all those stores. So I was doing Uber Eats, but it's not Uber Eats, but you did groceries for people. So you go to the store, Kroger, whatever, do the groceries, deliver the groceries. And then my buddy hit me up and he was like, hey, man, it's my birthday.
Chapter 4: Why is community important for business growth?
And there's this one spot during COVID that pretty much lets you go out and have no social distancing type of thing, really low key spot. So I'm like, sure, it's your birthday. We go out, we celebrate. I'm in school. I'm just working hard doing Instacart. That's what it was called at the time. Just hustling, making money, trying to make ends meet.
And then after the bar, he's like, let's go to the strip club. And usually I just say bar, but to be transparent, I feel like it's important for people to know where I met my mentor at the time because of the environment. And you never know who you meet. And they say luck is when preparation meets opportunity. And I was there at 3 a.m. just having a good time minding my business.
And I see this guy in like a professional suit, like corporate style. Like you could tell he's not doing anything shady or, you know, this or that. I'm like, damn, like that must be nice. 30 minutes later, we start talking. And he's like, hey, man, you know, I'm in the blue collar industry. So we have an online training platform, a big event for contractors.
If you're serious, get my number down and call me in the morning. Now, this is where I could have gone left or right. Left as in like, OK, this guy's weird. Like it's 3 a.m. at a strip club. I've never met this guy before. But then right as in, you know what? There's an opportunity that I think might be something. Why not go for it? So I went all in on that. Called him in the morning.
He was like, hey, we're leaving in an hour to Lake Charles. This was during Hurricane Laura, Sally Delta, and Charlie. This was like four or five years ago. And I didn't know anything about the industry. I didn't know what a shingle was or nothing. I just knew people. I knew relationships. I knew kind of the lingo for business from school. But that was about it. And I called my mom.
It was Labor Day. I said, mom, there's an opportunity that I don't think I can miss. Like, this is serious. She's like, good luck. I love you. Go all in. Set and done. I went all in. And then that's what pretty much created the American dream. I learned everything. So instead of me learning a cubicle from a nine to five where I'm just doing marketing, now I understand sales.
I understand production, quality control, admin, HR, systems, procedures, SOPs. How do you build and scale a company to 20 million? And because of him was what pretty much helped me create my concept. And then we shifted it to a different market and we just made it bigger and better. I love that, man. So you learned more from him than your master's degree?
Absolutely. Absolutely. I think the master's degree now, I saw a study on it. I think it was on Instagram or TikTok. It's like 86% of college students regret their bachelor's.
I saw that yesterday. I saw it yesterday too. And that's just people self-admitting. So it might even be higher. I think so. Because who wants to admit that they wasted money and time? But I think people are waking up. I think like when I have kids, I'd rather them get a mentor, whether it's me or someone else, than go to college if they're going to be an entrepreneur.
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