4 Kids Under 8, Traveling Country, Runs 3 Businesses, How?! EP 306: Peter Awad

0.031 - 23.796 Nathan Latka

This is The Top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base. You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have. I'm now at $20,000 per top. Five and six million. He is hell-bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000-unit soul mark.

24.076 - 52.214 Nathan Latka

And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Okay, Top Tribe, this week's winner of the $100 is Daniel Al-Soudini. He's based overseas. He's an employee at a current company and can't wait to break free. For your chance to win $100, Top Tribe, simply subscribe to the podcast now and then text the word NATHAN to 33444 to prove that you did it. Again, text the word NATHAN to 33444 to prove that you did it.

52.254 - 61.394 Nathan Latka

I give away $100 every Monday. You are listening to episode 306 of The Top, coming up bright and early tomorrow morning. You're going to hear from KJ Singh.

61.755 - 81.69 Nathan Latka

He launched a South Asian dating app that has hit a surprising revenue target. This surprised even me. Top Tribe, good morning, good morning, good morning. Our guest this morning is Peter Wadden. He is the host of a brand new podcast called The Slow Hustle, which we're gonna talk about. He came through my radar through a Facebook post.

81.79 - 100.755 Nathan Latka

He's interviewed several sharp folks like Tucker Max, Jordan Harbinger from Art of Charm, along with Rand Fishkin at Moz. He is on the rise, so of course I had to have him on the show. Peter, are you ready to take us to the top? Ready, bro. All right. What did I miss? Obviously, you're in podcast hosting, but you weren't born yesterday. What'd you do before podcasting?

101.075 - 103.198 Peter Awad

You know, man, it's a long list.

103.218 - 123.33 Peter Awad

I'll keep it short. So I've got a history in e-commerce. I've got an automotive business, started a snack food brand. It's also e-commerce called Mission Meats. You know, before that, I've got an engineering background. I haven't worked a day in my life in that since I graduated. How old are you now? I am 36. Just turned 36. Congratulations. That's exciting. Thanks. Thanks, man.

123.43 - 128.321 Peter Awad

And then I've got a wife, four kids, and we're actually traveling the country for a year. So we're at the tail end of that.

128.541 - 130.646 Nathan Latka

Wait, so you're 35 and you have a wife and four kids.

131.187 - 133.352 Peter Awad

36, wife and four kids, eight and under.

133.813 - 142.87 Nathan Latka

Oh my God. And you have a podcast. In a podcast, yes. It's unbelievable. Okay, so you're drinking five-hour energy right now. That's the sip I just heard. Water and coffee.

151.698 - 156.562 Nathan Latka

How are you supporting yourself? Where are you making money with four kids traveling the country? This is crazy.

157.083 - 177.087 Peter Awad

Yeah, man. Let's keep it kind of varied, right? So we've got some coming from the podcast, some coming from the automotive business, which I've been running for 16 years. Wow, what is that URL? Does it have a URL? Yeah, man. Import auto performance.com. Okay. And that's a business I started just kind of by accident as most businesses do. I'm in college. I need money. I like cars.

177.127 - 192.2 Peter Awad

I started selling parts. Right. And then that turns into a business. Um, we're on Amazon, eBay, car forms, all that stuff. And yeah, Since then, I mean, that business... Hold on, hold on real quick. In 2015, how much did that business do, top line? It's seven figures. And it's been in the seven figures for a long time.

192.301 - 198.398 Nathan Latka

Okay. And what's your... I mean, you have hard costs here because you have to buy the parts. What's your gross margin on these things, typically?

198.418 - 206.027 Peter Awad

Yeah. Margin, margin, typically 25 to 40 percent depends on the product line. And the thing is, we do it a little bit differently.

206.047 - 222.025 Peter Awad

Like I'm a relationships guy. So every single product that I carry, I know the founders and the owners of every single company. I've seen them personally. We're friends and I develop relationships that way. Keeps the margin high, keeps the relationship authentic and allows us to do things that we typically can't do.

222.005 - 236.971 Nathan Latka

So just to be clear, 25 to 40%, that's gross margin, correct? Not net? You got it, man. Gross margin. So let's call it a million. You said seven figures. So at a minimum, you're doing a million. So on a million, you'll have gross margin of somewhere between 250K and 400K. You got it. And that's before rents, office expenses, any headcount, all that jazz.

237.272 - 242.14 Nathan Latka

You got it. It's a pretty healthy business. I mean, some people, I mean, that would support a family of four kids, it sounds like.

242.12 - 264.739 Peter Awad

Yeah, there's no doubt, man. But the thing is like, as you're, as an entrepreneur and a guy that's got maybe a little bit of ADD, you know, exactly, exactly. And so, you know, I've got a, you know, a startup in my background that we ran for five years. It was not successful, learned a ton. How unsuccessful was it? Tell me how bad it hurt. Hurt pretty bad. Did you raise a bunch of capital or?

265.139 - 283.06 Peter Awad

We raised some capital. We didn't pay ourselves anything for years. How many years? Year, four years. Wow. And so, but the thing is like learned a lot. If I had to do it again, I'd do exactly the same thing all over again because it led me to where I am, right? And then you take from that, you learn from those things. You start another company. We started this food brand.