From $75 to a $1.2B Public Company: How Payam Zamani Built His Business Empire | Entrepreneurship | How We Profit | E10
episode
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha: Entrepreneurship and Self-Improvement Podcast
1h 5m
1 speaker
7 chapters
transcribed 15 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is private equity and how does Payam define it?
Profitability to me is not optional. If you uh talk to my executives, they will tell you that I often don't know the revenue of their businesses, but I know their margins.
Because you don't care about the top line revenue. I don't
care about top line. I'm not running a publicly traded company. If you give me a business that has revenue, I'm able to make it profitable.
Payam Zimani is the founder and CEO of OnePlanet Group. He previously co-founded AutoWeb and took it public at a $1.2 billion valuation before turning 30.
Our biggest company is called ByerLink. ByerLink is a $130 million a year business. 10% of all new cars sold in the US are sold through ByerLink.
What is your guidance on customer acquisition costs?
In my business, uh, I don't wanna spend more than fifty percent uh on acquiring a customer. Often people come to me and they say that you know what if
So how did you like first start One Planet? And
I got a call from my company, reply.com. They said that can you come back? We're dealing with a disaster and our bank loan is being called and the company will go away. And I decided I'm gonna buy the company. So I made an offer to the board that was bigger than anyone else's offer. Truth be told, I did not have the cash at that moment in time. But
Payam, welcome to How We Profit.
Thank you for having me, Halla.
I'm so excited for this interview. And actually, I'm thinking about this interview as like a hybrid regular yap episode and a how we profit episode because you're just so accomplished. And you've actually achieved things that many entrepreneurs don't achieve achieve in their whole lives. At 28, you had a company go public. It was valued at $1.2 billion, which is absolutely incredible. And now you've got a company, One Planet, which essentially buys and sells and invests in companies, which is just so cool. And a lot of us entrepreneurs, we're we're newbies, you know, we probably many of us listening haven't even exited a company yet. And maybe we want to have a holding company or a private equity company in the future.
So I want to kind of start with the basics. Does that sound good?
Absolutely.
Let's do it.
So let's start with like private equity. What is private equity exactly?
You know, I've got my own definition of it, and frankly, I don't even know what I'm running. If it is private equity, it's my company. And I don't have any LPs, I don't have any outside investors. Okay. So I manage my own money. And uh uh like you said, that you know, we we do own a few companies, but most companies that we own we found it. So I have been the founder of those businesses.
Yeah.
But we have also invested in, I think, forty-five, fifty companies uh to date.
Really cool. So when I was researching you, it's kind of like a hybrid between a private equity company, a holding company, and an operating company.
It makes sense out of my chaos. That that's the truth. You know, I always tell people that if you look at one planet logo, there's uh there's that pale blue dot, which is the earth. But to me, it my my brain is full of dots and that one dot kind of forces me to focus a little bit. Yeah. Um, you know, recently I made a movie. Oh god. I wrote a book and you know, I I operate a bunch of different businesses. So I live a bit of a chaotic life and I enjoy it. But I try to also remind myself, focus.
Yeah. So let's actually talk about your story because it's so powerful, it's very inspiring. And you actually s your your world kind of started like very chaotically. Talk to us about how you grew up and how you ended up in America.
I was born in Iran. Um uh I was born in a Baha'i family, that's my religion. And then the revolution happened in nineteen seventy-nine and the new government did not think highly of a lot of people, including uh the the Baha'is of Iran. And um so the nineteen eighties became very difficult. Uh they killed a lot of Baha'is. Uh Uh, they imprisoned a lot of Bahis and all of it b because of different religion. They they were fanatics. And um Uh they also expelled Baha'is from many schools.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is private equity and how does Payam define it?
0:00–9:14
2
How did Payam’s refugee background shape his entrepreneurial journey?
9:14–18:57
3
What is the One Planet profit model and why does he focus on margins over revenue?
18:57–28:30
4
How does One Planet turn struggling companies around and decide what to keep or cut?
28:30–38:26
5
What is Payam’s approach to people, leadership, and promoting talent?
38:26–48:06
6
How does One Planet manage customer acquisition costs and unit economics?
48:06–57:32
7
Where do hidden business costs hide and how does Payam eliminate overhead?
57:32–1:05:32
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha: Entrepreneurship and Self-Improvement Podcast
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