Chapter 1: What insights does Nathan Latka share about interviewing top entrepreneurs?
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.
And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Yesterday in episode number 40, you guys heard from Chad Newell. He walked you through how to, quote, mini IPO your software as a service business without doing a real IPO launch. All right, Top Tribe, you're going to love our guest today. His name is Tim Fargo. And look, he was bankrupt in 91. He started a brand new business in 96.
By the way, 91, that's about when I was born. We'll talk about that later. Tim, sorry. I hope that doesn't make you feel old. But anyways, he sold that business that he started in 96 for 20 million bucks in 2003. Now he's a digital nomad. He's running a hyper growth content management system called tweetjukebox.com. Tim, are you
ready to take us to the top let's do it nathan i love it brother okay let's jump in so bankrupt in 91 what happened uh bad arithmetic battery where's it dot com boom related
No, it was related to, you know, I'd had a sales job before I started this. I was running an event marketing company. And this is a great cautionary tale for the people that are listening because the business was making money. But the problem was I came out of a job where I was making really good money.
How much is really good?
I mean, this is back, you know, like in 1990, 89. And so, you know, I'm making like 60 grand because it was a sales job. So it was a little up and down. But back then that, you know, I mean, even today, it's not bad. And, you know, so I started this event marketing company. And I mean, you know, if you look at the P&L, I'm in the black.
But I'm still going out and I'm having a good time and I'm doing things. And I'm thinking, you know, it's all going to work out. But it didn't.
What, and so what, what happened though? I mean, was there a, tell me specifically, was there a big expense you didn't forecast that has hit you hard and bankrupt you? I mean, what happened?
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Chapter 2: How did Tim Fargo go from bankruptcy to a $20 million exit?
There is the only thing to blame for that bankruptcy is sitting in the chair talking to you right now. It's me. And I just spent more than I made because I kept telling myself, you're killing it, you're doing great, everything's going to be awesome, people love what you're doing, blah, blah, blah. Well, you know, I mean...
credit card bills are getting bigger and you know the business is growing but it's not just expense management just all coming back to you and knowing your numbers Knowing my numbers, knowing my numbers and not falling in love with the idea of what's in the pipeline.
So we always talk about in the top tribe, you know, you need to understand this, you know, being an entrepreneur is not stable. It's the exact opposite. So Tim went from bankrupt in 91 to in 96, he launched Omega Insurance Services and sold it seven years later for 20 million bucks. Why'd you get into the insurance business, Tim?
Well, it was the investigative business, actually. And we were doing surveillance on bodily injury claims. So when you see these videos of somebody saying they can never work again and they're out on a jet ski or in a rodeo, that's what we did. I got into that. It was really happenstance. It was a guy. Talk about being a nomad.
I was actually in Guatemala and I and I met a guy and he came stateside. And anyhow, I ended up in that business with him and another person. But.
We had creative differences, and so I just went out and hung up my own shingle, because it was, it's a business, and there are a lot of businesses like this, they're not as glamorized as maybe dot-com stuff, or digital stuff, but there's a lot of businesses where there are people who are practitioners, and not really business people, and investigations, for a very long time, was one of those.
There were a lot of people who were very good investigators, and could run a shop of maybe eight to 10 guys,
um or girls and but then they kind of ran up against their own limits in terms of building infrastructure and things like that but i didn't get into the business as an investigator i got into the business as a business person understood so was that was that the business that then went in to become in the top of inc 500 Yeah, we were in the Inc.
500 twice. Got it, got it. Okay, so you sell that business. Okay, what happened?
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Chapter 3: What lessons did Tim learn from his bankruptcy experience?
First off, you wrote a book. You must have been able to predict what Google's move was going to be because you titled your book Alphabet Success, and now all of a sudden we've got Google calling itself Alphabet. So you know Larry, right?
Yeah, they're always calling me for ideas, I can tell you. Actually, I've got to go in a minute.
Why write the book? Why write the book?
You know, I mean, working on investments and doing things, you know, it's nice to have a great cash out and stuff, but, you know, there's only so much, you know, kind of leisure time you can sort of ingest without, you know, starting to get bored. So the idea was to come out with this thing and just to be a little more active.
I mean, I wasn't, from the beginning, I wasn't really looking to necessarily get into anything full-time, but that obviously changed.
So you obviously didn't write the book to make money, right?
anybody that writes a book to make money is likely to be highly disappointed.
Can you tell us how shitty it is? How much money, what was the total amount you would say you made just from the book Sales of Alphabet Success? No keynotes that you got from the book, just the book sales on Amazon.
Oh, if I've made two grand in two years, that'd be a miracle.
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Chapter 4: What motivated Tim to start Omega Insurance Services?
No, I just, I'm being facetious. I would actually, it's funny, I would say that I don't have any advice for that. I mean, what made me who I am today is all the goofy stuff and whatever I did. I had a great time when I was 20. And I can honestly tell you, no matter what the advice would be for my 20-year-old self, my 20-year-old self wouldn't listen anyhow, so.
Yeah.
It doesn't matter. Well, Tim, as you're building this new venture in TweetJukebox, if people want to connect with you or follow you online, where can they do that?
The two easiest places to reach me, one is just to send me an email if you have a question or a comment or whatever, is Tim at TweetJukebox.com. Just send me an email. And then, as I mentioned earlier, my preferred channel is Twitter, and I'm at Alphabet Success.
hit me up in either place i'm always glad to hear from people and i may not have an answer but maybe i know somebody who does well there you go so from bankrupt bankrupt in 1991 to the inc 500 and a 20 million dollar sale in 2003 best-selling author and now on to his new venture tweet jukebox he's crushing it tim thank you for taking us to the top all right nathan thank you you bet
Coming up in episode number 42 tomorrow morning, you're going to hear from Yuri Elkin. He does $75,000 a month in MRR from just one of his funnels, and he's got a $235 customer lifetime value. You're going to love his other metrics.
This podcast is produced by Oration Recording and is sponsored by Eddy Communications and Roanoke, Virginia's Grandin CoLab, the premier workspace for entrepreneurs and growing companies.
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