Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper interview Grant Sabatier from Millennial Money about flipping vans, domains, and business.
Grant Sabatier: https://grantsabatier.com/
Grant Sabatier's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grantsabatier/
Millennial Money: https://millennialmoney.com/about/
Check out our FREE Workshop: https://courses.fleamarketflipper.com/flipper-university-workshop-webinar
You can find us at: https://fleamarketflipper.com/
Appliance Flipping Course: applianceflipping.com
Reseller Hangout Podcast - Interview With Grant Sabatier From Millennial Money
Rob: What's up, guys? On today's episode, we are so excited to talk to Grant Sabatier, who we have a kind of a connection with that we've known for a while, but we're very excited to have him here to kind of, shoot the breeze with us, talk about some of his, flipping that he's done throughout the year. So Grant, thanks for jumping on here with us and spending some time with us.
Grant: It's great to chat with you. It's been gosh, two or three years since we talked and excited to catch up.
Melissa: And I was trying to find out when we, the FinCon that we met you at, if it was 2018 or 2019, I couldn't remember. I think, I don't know, but it's, it's been a little while that's
Grant: I think it was 18.
Rob: Was it?
Melissa: I think it was 18.
Grant: Yeah. I think it was 18. Yeah.
Rob: So I'll give a real quick backstory before we get into it. So we went to FinCon, which is a conference and we saw
Melissa: for financial. It's a financial and media conference.
Rob: So we saw Grant do a presentation. And right after the presentation, I looked at Melissa, I was like, okay, this guy's awesome.
We gotta go talk to him and see if we can get him to coach us. And we did it and we actually coached with him for, I don't. What was it? Three, six months, six months. Six months. So, yeah, so that's kind of our back where we kind of met Grant. We coached with him and kind of grew a friendship with him. He's a really, really cool guy.
But yeah, now we can dive into some of the stuff that he's done and what he's working on. So we're very, very excited to have him on the show today. So yeah, like I said, thanks, Grant for doing this.
Grant: Yeah, let's do it.
Rob: Cool.
Melissa: Yeah. So, when we were, you know, we worked with you a little bit, we got to know like some of your, what you got into, and you did a couple of different kinds of flips than most people. Like, you're not really a reseller now, but you've done some flipping. And so we thought it was interesting. So we definitely wanted to talk about it.
Rob: Yeah, definitely. The VW. So, when we started coaching with Grant he told us about what he started and you have to fill us in, like on the age that you were doing this and kind of the, the, I'd love to know more about it, but the VW van, you were buying some classic vans, restoring 'em and flipping 'em.
Can you give us some background on that?
Grant: Yeah. So, where I grew up three doors down was where I met my best friend when I was three years old. And he is still my best friend to today. And some of my earliest memories are camping in his father's Volkswagen camper van. It was 1985 VW Westfalia van. So 1980s version it's it's a hippie van, but it looks kinda like a transformer car, you know, it's a little bit more square. And so my earliest memories were camping in this and they were always amazing memories. And so when I got to college, I started having this fascination again with vans. You know, I wanted to, I was living in Chicago at the time. I ended up getting kicked out of one of my apartments and I was like, I need somewhere to live.
I need a flexible living arrangement. And so I actually sold my Ford Explorer and bought a 1971 Volkswagen camper van, which looks very much like a Scooby Doo van. All original. I flew down to Houston, then drove it up to Chicago and got an incredible deal on it. Well, this started my fascination with looking for vans on an ongoing basis.
And so I started scouring Craigslist just to check out vans and to see the market. And there's also a website called thesamba.com, but it's a little pricier because these are people who are experienced, you know, with buying vans and I was looking for a deal. And so I ended up selling that van by the time that I graduated college, but I didn't stop the fascination.
And I ended up finding a really good deal on a 1986 van for about $7,000. And this is a van that at the time in my estimate was worth about $15,000 or $16,000, just based on the comps on the samba.com and so that was actually my first flip and I bought the van in Wisconsin and ended up making about an $8,000 profit.
Wow. In a period of a couple of weeks. And so, never in any case, did I restore any of them. I was looking for hidden gems that I could buy on Craigslist or a local marketplace. And then flip on this niche website where everyone, you know, was looking you know, for these vans, but there was a premium market for it.
I ended up buying a couple of them on eBay. I bought one in Washington, DC actually partnered on it, the flip with my father, because I didn't have the $21,000, you know, at the time to buy it. So I found it and I said, you know, hey dad, you know, you wanna make some quick money. And he knew a little bit about them.
And so we drove into DC. It was a 1991, which is the last year they actually made the Volkswagen van again, complete mint condition, 61,000 original miles. And so, we bought that for $21,000 and ended up selling it for $29,000, eight days later. Wow. And so, you know, these were always quick flips and I loved vans and that's how, I found the van that I currently have today, the one that I took you know, 13,000 miles, on my book tour in 2019, and that's a 1981, automatic van again, that I bought with 78,000 original miles from a couple in Everett, washington. It was a one time owner and just sat in a garage. But during this time, while I was flipping vans, I was also flipping, mopeds, vintage mopeds from the late 1970s and early 1980s. That was really my pastime in college. So there was this huge craze in the late seventies and eighties, in U.S. cities and even in rural areas, where Italian and Belgian and French mopeds were imported into the United States, and were quite popular transportation, get about a hundred miles per gallon, 49 CC, stroke engine. And so I got really into those and I'd rent U-Haul vans and drive deep into Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana and try to buy lots of them. So I'd buy three or four at a time when I could find them on Craigslist. Those I actually did fix up and I had a friend who was even better at fixing them up, than I was. And, you know, I'd buy 'em for $200, $300 and, you know, sell 'em for $900 to $1,200. And through this, I was really using that money ultimately to fund my moped habit.
And I still have a collection of some of the rarest mopeds in the world that sit in my garage today.
Rob: Ah, dude, you're a true flipper at heart and I didn't even know about the moped. So that's so cool. But you did say a nugget that I wanted to pull out definitely on. Were these vans that you originally flipped?
Were you taking them? I know you're buying 'em off Craigslist. Were you using that website? Is that where you were selling them on the website were like all the, the people who were on the samba? Is that what it is? Yeah, the, yeah. Is that where you were selling them at?
Cool.
Grant: Yeah, I was selling 'em on The Samba. So, you know, my view of reselling anything, whether it's domains or vans or mopeds is I'm looking for that quick flip, and I'm looking for an undervalue to asset.
And so this is always so much easier to do when you have a passion for the topic. So I was looking for vans all the time because I love them. And, you know, I wanted to obviously find the best deals that I could in order to make money, but I also wanted to find great vans for myself. All the best mopeds I ever found, I ended up keeping as opposed to actually selling.
And so the actual flipping habit ended up funding, both my van habit and my moped habit. Probably not as much with my domains. I have about 800 domains that I own. I think I'm in the black, when it comes to, to buying domains, just cause I've bought so many but like I've always flipped, to make money, to support the hobby.
And now I do this in sports cards as well. As opposed to just doing, you know, it as an income source, like anything that I do, if, you know, if you can make money at it, it adds that extra level, you know, of enjoyment, but yes, I'd buy them on Craigslist and other local, you know, marketplaces as well.
So people that knew that I was buying these and interested in them, some family, friends, you know, when they would see you know, a for sale sign on a van, they'd send me a picture. You know, I had people out there looking for me as well just cuz I was that guy. At the time, you know, very few millennials were, were into van life were, you know, I was so early on that trend.
And people really weren't collecting Volkswagen vans was still very, very niche. Like Tom Hanks has a big collection of them. But it wasn't like it is now. I mean, you know, vans that I could buy for $12,000, $13,000 now are going for, you know, $40,000 $50,000 plus, today because they've appreciated, so much, you know, the ones that are in, in great condition.
And it's amazing for something that is an immense amount of effort to actually maintain, on a regular basis.
Melissa: These things are supposed to depreciate and they've appreciated. That's so crazy.
Rob: Insane.
Melissa: Yeah. That, do you still, are you still flipping vans and all still? No. Okay.
Grant: No, no, I still, I still look for vans.
But no, I, I found you know, kind of my holy grail van. And so that's the one, you know, that I'm sitting on. Never say never that I won't buy.
Melissa: Right.
Grant: Another one, the mopeds, I still actively hunt.
Melissa: Okay.
Grant: Those have also appreciated. I collect this very specific pook Magnum, moped series. And I'm still looking for, what's known as the UPS model, which is a very limited, brown and gold production from, from 1981.
I'm still hunting one of those down and you know, so I'm looking for that, that diamond in a rough and mopeds too, have gotten more popular. I don't know if you know anything about moped gangs, you know, they're called moped gangs. There's a website. Mopedarmy.com. And there's a lot of people, you know, kind of mid twenties to mid forties, kind of about a 20 year age gap of people who live in big cities who just have these little gangs.
And all it is is just like a group of 20 or 30 people that drive their mopeds around the city, you know, late at night and, you know, have some beers. And there are, you know, female only gangs and, you know, co-ed gangs and you know, they all their cool little logos and, you know, fix up mopeds and trade mopeds.
So that's also something that was much more niche and has now become much more mainstream. Like, I feel like so many things, you know, have done that and that's, what's made, you know, at least the flipping ecosystem, I think so valuable, is that, you know, everything really has value today in, in a way that I never would've thought, you know, it would have.
Rob: Absolutely.
Melissa: You can still find all those treasures too.
Rob: Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, that let's transition now into kind of, and you mentioned it, your, host or sorry, domain flipping. And that's totally different. Like this is like a totally different you're yeah a unique flipper is so, so cool to hear these different stories and stuff, but how did you get into domain flipping and kind of give a background?
What is it exactly? What, what, what exactly it is.
Grant: Yeah. So domains are the real estate of the internet and that's something that I recognized very early on. There's a limited number of.com domains out there. A limited number of one word domains, two word domains. And obviously when I started in the digital marketing space in 2010, you know, I knew, obviously this was going to be the future.
And like anything else, you know, I couldn't go out and buy, you know, a $350,000 house, but I could buy, you know, a $200 or $300 domain that I thought was valuable. And then, and then try to flip it. And this is one of the things where, you know, I'm such a, such a hunter, such a bargain hunter. I grew up, you know, thrift store shopping and flea market shopping, you know, with my mother, used to collect, you know, presidential memorabilia.
I grew up outside of Washington, DC. So I love the hunt and the great thing about hunting for domains and domain auctions is that, you know, you, you can sit there in the middle of the night, you know, on your phone, you know, hunting these, you know, just kind of like, you know, people do now looking at Zillow listings or Redfin listings, you know, this is the way I was and still am when it comes to, to domain auctions.
And so domain auctions, you know, Go Daddy is the big one. But there are a number of domain sites now where essentially a domain goes expired and doesn't get renewed. And then the registrar, you know, puts it ultimately up for auction so they can try to get as much money as they can for it. Over, you know, the past 10 plus years, you know, GoDaddy and Sedo and Dan.com, these sites, they've gotten much more sophisticated about knowing what domains are actually worth.
And they're you know in the business of making money. And so, it has gotten a little more competitive to go in and scoop some of these, these deals, but, there's so many of them out there, and this is one of those areas too, where having a passion, you know, for it makes the flipping fun. So not only is domain investing and, and flipping enjoyable because I'm a digital marketer, but I'm also an idea guy. And so whenever I have, I see something on TV or I read something in a book and I have an idea, then I go on and, and look for the domain. And in some cases, this really leads me down, you know, the topical rabbit hole. And so I have not only over 800 domains that I think are valuable, you know, I probably have a hundred business ideas just sitting there as well. And so these are always percolating and sometimes I never do anything with them but domain, you know, flipping it's as simple as finding an undervalued domain. And, and when you pay attention to the market, just like whether it's vans or mopeds, when you know the market and, and how much something goes for you can find deals relatively quickly. And so the average price for like a mid tier two word domain now is, you know, between $3,500 and $6,500.
When, you know, maybe five years ago, you know, that was in the $7 50 to $1,250 range. And so domains, including website valuations have continued to explode. And so I was, you know, relatively early, you know, on this trend, you know, I'm not, you know, sitting on any, you know, one or 2 million plus dollar domains.
But domains that, that I actually personally saw, you know, sell for $750,000, $100,000, you know, maybe seven to 10 years ago, you know, now we're selling for $10 to $15 million.
Rob: Wow.
Grant: You know, home, home.com. You know, is one of those domains, you know, recently that was picked up for over eight figures.
And I remember seeing that for sale for about six figures in the past, and so, it's like anything, you know, if I had a massive amount of money, I was investing in this, you know, early on I could have made a lot, but, I've probably made half a million dollars, $300 to $500,000, you know, flipping domains over the last 10 years. and that's certainly funded, funded my habit. And then sometimes I just, when I'm launching a new website, like bankbonus.com, my site, I launched, a little over a year and a half ago, you know, that's when I really go scouring and I look for all the related spellings and plural versions.
And so, you know, in some, in some cases I'm not finding those, you know, at auctions, I have to actually hunt down the owners and that's an entirely different strategy where, you know, you can find a domain that's undervalued, you know, look up the information and the, who is, global database. And sometimes it's private, but you can hunt them down.
And so I do all this searching through Google, you know, where I look and I find someone that owned the domain that you know, from an email address from the domain posted in a forum like 12 years ago. And then, you know, I, I really go down the rabbit hole to find these, and I've messaged people on Twitter and, you know, I actually sent one guy a letter cause I found his home address.
And, and he actually ended up calling me. So, you know, when you're after a domain, you know, you, you can really, really go down the rabbit hole.
Rob: Yeah, that's awesome. Give me a, now I've never done this. So I mean, we are, we understand and relate to business ideas and Melissa's buying domains all the time for stuff that we think about.
But now, if I was going to flip domains, I know you said what $3,500 to $6,000 is on average, what you would you pay for a two tier? What did you say?
Grant: Just like a mid, a mid-tier domain, like, Bluebird restaurant or Bluebird cafe.com.
Melissa: Something easily remembered.
Rob: Okay. Now, if I was, if I was gonna buy something, is there a place that I can go and sell this domain or do I have to wait for somebody to seek me out and do it? Or how, how does the whole process work if I was gonna try to flip a domain?
Grant: Yeah. So there's two things. You can be a passive, or an active seller. And so, you know, and you can do all of this just through a GoDaddy account or a Sedo.com and what you can literally do is go and, and sign up for GoDaddy auctions. You know, it's like, I think $79 a year membership, and you can go in there and buy a domain for $200 and then immediately park it. And what you do when you immediately park it, is it basically, you know, you can have a form on there where people then contact you if they're interested in buying it, they can either reach out to GoDaddy and then GoDaddy reaches out to you or they can reach out to you directly. Most of the people who are doing this seriously, they just set up their own simple landing pages you know, through their host. And so you buy, you know, Grant the man.com and then you redirect that to a landing page that's just like grant, the man.com is for sale, you know, reach out. And there's tons of different marketplaces, third party marketplaces, you know, where you can simultaneously list domains for sale. One of the things that's happening is there's a lot of just, you know, consolidated listings and databases.
And so what'll happen is like, you know, a domain will be parked at name cheap.com and then GoDaddy's able, you know, I think through an API to get that listing. And so you start seeing a lot of listings, the same listings, across many, many different websites, but, you can sign up for these places to post them directly.
But in a lot of cases, if you have it just parked and posted for sale, the good ones, sometimes people actually then curate those domains. And so, you know, I subscribe to a number of free newsletters for website flippers and domain flippers. And so I get these emails that are like, we found these 12 domains that are in auction, you know, and they're real, you know, they're, they're great domains or they're brandable domains.
And so, you know, if you want to sell it it's pretty easy to park it. And then you can just wait, you know, for someone to reach out to you. So, you know, I had a domain I bought, you know, about 10 years ago, someone reached out to me recently, and made an offer. It was like $2,500 offer. I countered with $11,000.
And then we, you know, settled on $9,200. Oh. And so, and that all works just through GoDaddy. So they actually had contacted GoDaddy to buy it. GoDaddy reached out to me, and then the negotiation was through them. And then I ended up getting the money, you know, back into my account. So it's, it's really simple to do.
And then like anything, you know, you build relationships and people start to know that you specialize in a certain, you know, domain type, but you can also be proactive. So that's reactive. You're just sitting there waiting, you know, for someone to, to make an offer on your domain. Or if you're really good at trend spotting, you know, so the people who are like early, you know, in the NFT space and went and bought a bunch of NFT domains or alt type domains or crypto domains. They were just sitting on those and, and when the gold rush happened, they just completely made bank. So you can anticipate those types of, you know, cultural trends, you know, s well. I have a really funny story. I actually owned KimandKanye.Com, the web domain. And I bought that one night I was watching, Keeping Up With The Kardashians with my wife and Kanye West was kind of one of the guests, kind of the guest stars and, and he was flirting so hardcore in this episode, I believe, Kim was at her dash store in Miami. And I was like, dude, he's he's smitten with her. I immediately got on and bought Kimandkanye.com and Kanyeandkim.com. I ended up getting a cease and desist, from Kanye West because I launched a celebrity, sort of profile website on this domain that actually, it got covered in MTV Europe.
I had some great back links. So when, when Kim and Kanye actually became a couple, I was number two on Google. I did some shady black hat link buying, you know, I was just playing with this site, and ended up making a massive amount of money, you know, really quickly, but, you know, got a cease and desist, you know, for that website.
So there's fun projects, you know, that you can do, you know, when you're buying and selling domains, as well, but like I said, you can be proactive. And so, you know, if you find, if there's a restaurant down the street, you know, called, you know, the Bluebird and you know, their website's like Bluebird, You know, cafe for miami.com or something, and you happen to be in a domain, you know, auction and you see thebluebird.com for sale for, you know, $1,200 you know, you can go in and buy it and then reach out to the restaurant and say, hey, I own thebluebird.com.
You know, would you want to buy this for, you know, $2,500, you know, make it really easy for you. And you can, pick buyers that way that never knew, that that domain, you know, was for sale. You can also pick expired domains from people that just aren't paying attention. And so they expire and then you can sell them back, you know, to their original owner, as well.
That actually happened to me. Yeah. So I had grantsabatier.com and, and I let it expire. I don't know why it expired, but I let it expire. And someone bought it and then I ended up having to buy it from them, so they made a quick thousand bucks. So I've been victim to that as well. So you gotta pay attention.
Rob: You got my wheels, just like turning here. Like I love real estate in the first place. And now you put it onto an online where you can touch real estate for like $200, whatever it is, and either try and approach people and sell it or park it and wait for somebody to come. And so that's exciting.
That's, yeah.
Grant: I'm literally sitting here with a domain auction that's like right in this right corner. I'm not kidding. There's one that I found that's it's selling in, in. 27 minutes. Okay.
Rob: Hurry up, Rob Melissa. So hurry up. Hurry up. I gotta get it.
Grant: No, no, no. I'm just evaluating. It's still my, my that's fine.
You know, it's in my purview. That's fine. I don't think I'm gonna buy it, but, and I haven't closed out the window yet.
Melissa: When we started working with you, we were like, our brand was mostly just Rob. And like, you kind of got our branch be more our family and everything. Yeah. And, we had fleamarketflipper.com and I waited so long.
I wanted fleamarketflippers, cuz everybody refers to us as flea market flippers with an S and it was like $3,500. I'm like, ah, I don't wanna pay that for the stupid.
Rob: What are you talking about?
This is Grant who is doing this to, he saw the potential that he went and bought it and tried to tell it to us.
I'm just playing.
Melissa: But he, that, that would be a really good idea. But, so I waited and then all of a sudden the person didn't, redo it and it was like $300 on Godaddy. I'm like, yeah, got it. So now we got that one.
Grant: That's still, that's worth $3,500. And that's the thing is you can wait or you can take, you know, cause this is the thing once a domain's gone, you know, you might never see it again.
Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa: And I definitely think it was worth that, but I was like, I really, I was like, ah, I don't wanna pay it. So, but yeah.
Grant: Well brands are everything online, you know what I mean? I paid, I paid $17,500 for bankbonus.com, which was an absolute steal. You know, it's probably a $50,00 to $75,000 domain.
So I knew it was undervalued. So I had the idea for the site and I knew that I could just buy it for that amount. And, and likely flip it for a profit, if the idea didn't end up working out. Yeah. Or the thing about domains, I don't have the actual data on the percentage appreciation annually, but it definitely outpaces the stock market.
And so that's one of the things I could just sit on it, and ultimately wait, because they're only they're limited amount.
Melissa: I mean, they will run out all these words. There's only so many combinations of stuff.
Rob: Dude. You're related to real estate. Just like what you're talking about.
There's only so much of where it's at. Yeah. It's just gonna keep going up. That's really, really cool. That's a cool concept for sure.
Melissa: So, yeah, I think we have like 80 and I thought we had a lot.
Rob: All right. Let's switch gears again.
Melissa: Wait.
Rob: Okay, go ahead.
Melissa: Oh, sorry. I had a question.
I was just gonna switch gears and talk about kind of like, I mean, this is awesome.
Rob: All of your backstory, what are you doing right now? I mean, Melissa, and I know that you got millennial money back. What, what,
Melissa: That was what I was gonna ask is how many websites and are you running right now? Like what does that look like?
Grant: Yeah. So I'm currently running three websites. The two primary ones are bankbonus.com and millennialmoney.com. I just reacquired millennial money on July 11th 2022, after selling it 20 months before to the Motley fool. And so I ended up buying it for a significant discount for what I sold it for. And so now I actually have a website holding company it's called MMG media group.
And it's me, I'm the majority partner, but I have four other partners. So these are, four people who are the best of the best that that I've worked with in my career, the best front end web designer back end, you know, web database expert and two SEO team members. And they're really the best that I've ever worked with. And I decided, you know, after selling millennial money, I had no non-compete. And so I started touring with this idea of creating a, you know, using what I'd learned and creating a holding company and our actual tagline is, build by scale, scale sell websites in the financial services sector. So it's one of the things where we have a model and, and we know what we're doing. And like a lot like domains, personal finance websites, the good ones, the, the valuation metrics only continue to go up. And so if you can build a website, that's generating, you know, a fair amount of income, you know, right now millennial money operates on a 92% net profit margin.
Right. Which you, you know, you really can't get a better margin than that literally on anything. You know, unless you're like selling, you know, vape pens or something, you know, like it's like, it's, it's really ridiculous. And so it's an incredible business. And so we're really rinsing and repeating, and actively out there looking for, for websites to buy.
So I'm trying to, to buy as many, undervalued sites as I can, as well as partner, with people who have websites. That I view as being, you know, under monetized or under leveraged. And so, you know, we've talked to about 10 different, brands, and I'm in the final stages of, of bringing on, a partner website.
So kinda like a sister website, under the MMG media ecosystem, to leverage our team and our talents, and then the ultimate plans to scale and sell them. You kind of take something that's undervalued and you buy it and you fix it up and you add content to it and you increase the affiliate payouts.
And then, you know, you actively go find a buyer. And so one of the beautiful things about the millennial money acquisition process is I talked to 21 different buyers and really learned an immense amount about, you know, how to value a website. Structure a website to sell. And so now I have all these connections in this industry, and, and really operate in a very, very unique space.
And I'm having so much fun doing it and it's extremely profitable. And so, that's what I'm focused on now. And I'm also writing the follow up to financial freedom. And so this is my second book with penguin random house and it's focused on entrepreneurship.
And so, whereas that was a personal finance book. I'm writing my first business book, which is really, built around, kind of this new holding company model, which I, I think is really the future in business. And so I call it the diversified. The title's not the diversified entrepreneur, but that's what I call the idea where, you know, when you have these companies that, that turn off so much profit, you can only put so much back into the business, you know, without wasting it.
So what do you do with that money? You go out and, and invest in other companies and you buy other companies. And so I really think in the future, everyone, they they're gonna be their, you know, own little Warren Buffets or, you know, Jay-Zs or LeBron Jameses in terms of owning, you know, different types of companies and diversifying income streams.
And, you know, I'm looking to buy an HVAC company, right now where I live in Columbus, Ohio. That's an industry that I've no experience in, but I've identified that as, as being, you know, a really lucrative opportunity, in this market. And then, you know, looking to buy that underneath my holding company and use kind of a similar model in terms of generating leads and building a business. So I actually have a money making problem. I would admit it. I have a, I have an actual problem. But I think there, there are worse problems now there're worse problems.
Melissa: So do you own diversifiedentrepreneur.com?
Grant: No, no. I know someone can go buy that, you know, right now, I don't think it's a great domain. It's too long and it's too easy to misspell. Entrepreneur. Entrepreneur is a hard one to, yeah. You want something? That's why I own all the different variations spells of millennial, cuz every, you know, for millennial money, everyone misspells it, but you know, it's not an issue when you own all the, all the different spellings.
Melissa: We just launched an appliance flipping course. And so I just, I got applianceflipping.com was available appliance flipping course. I'm like, and they were cheap. I'm like sweet. We got these, yeah. Lead 'em all back.
I did wanna ask you though you're seem to be you're everywhere. Like you're, you're in all of these things, doing all these things, and you're definitely a serial entrepreneur and like always thinking that way. But how did, how did you get started? Like, yeah, in an entrepreneur, like, was that just natural?
Like how did, like, when did you start really diving into all this business stuff?
Grant: Yeah. I'm just really curious naturally I think that that helps. So whenever I buy anything, now, the number one thing I think about is, you know, what's the margin of this. What's the business model, you know, I just bought my first home, during the pandemic.
So I always lived in apartments, but actually have a house now with the garage and you know, all that, that entails. And so immediately. Buying all these things from my home, I started thinking about, you know, what are these business models? Oh, should I get into the tree trimming business? Should I get into the, you know, like the mosquito repellant business.
I mean, some of these businesses are incredible, like the subscription revenue. So like, I like love that. I love. And I'm so curious about all these business models. This really started from, you know, growing up with, you know, parents who had very little money and were always stressed about money. And so, you know, this is something that, you know, I've always thought about money, pretty intensely. It was always associated with stress you know, with me. And so I didn't wanna be stressed about money and really started, you know, in my, in my early to mid twenties, just thinking about money really as a form of energy, as opposed to just a tool. And so this is, you know, one of these concepts, which, you know, money is really alive.
There's, there's very few things that are as powerful, you know, as money in our world or have the amount of power, you know, to shape, you know, our lives and our family's lives. And so that's something just philosophically that I'm passionate about. And we live in such a remarkable time in history where, what I'm doing and how I'm able to, you know, wake up.
And literally by the time I have my cup of coffee, you know, at nine 30 in the morning, you know, I've made, you know, three or $4,000 on my websites and I've just woken up and had my coffee. It it's like ridiculous that this is even possible. And I know it's not gonna last forever. Nd so I really think that we're kind of the, the golden age of making money online. You know, we've gotten through those early hurdles of where the barrier to entry was high and it was tough to build a website or, you know, obviously launch a course or different. So now it's so easy to do, whereas I think whenever you make something so easy to do, when everything's easy to do it naturally just gets more competitive.
And so we're in this sweet spot where like, people are really, it's getting easier and easier, so more and more people are doing it. And so I think we're in this last age where people who've been doing it for, you know, seven, 10 years can use all their knowledge and skill sets. Like I can out SEO anyone that's started SEO in the last five years, but that's not, you know, gonna be the case as now more and more people are switching and searching on TikTok, you know, instead of Google and you know, these, these sort of trend shifts happen. And so I think we're in that last golden age, where for me, like, I have more money than I'll ever need already.
I'm doing it to make my team wealthier. All of them are still pursuing financial independence. I'm doing it, you know, to have some fun. And ultimately I know that. You know, I'm only gonna be able to play in the NBA, you know for three or four more years. You know what I mean? I feel like I've become a really good basketball player and I'm in the NBA.
And I just wanna like hang on for a little bit longer. But you know, I wrote a post about this when. When it came to reacquiring millennial money, I'm like 37 years old, you know, but I'm like 225 years old in internet years. And so this is one of the things where I'm in that sweet spot where, you know I'm gonna try to milk it for all I can.
And then probably hit like 40, 42 and just fade out, you know what I mean? Hopefully people still care about the books, the books I write and, and, you know, I'll be investing in other things, but, it's just ridiculous. What's possible right now. And that's why I'm writing the book about it cuz I want other people to recognize that, there there's a timestamp to this.
And especially as our world changes so rapidly, you know, I think we should try to make as much money as we can, as quickly as we can and diversify because you know, there there's, there's clearly an increasing amount of uncertainty, you know, in our world. And, and we have an opportunity now that, might not exist, you know, in the future.
Melissa: Yeah.
Rob: Absolutely. Grant you, I mean, you got my wheels just spinning, like crazy. So hopefully everybody listening.
Melissa: We're trying to focus. We're trying to focus.
Rob: Everybody listening to this. This is what we got to see years and years ago when, Grant did a presentation and I'm like, dude, this guy is awesome.
We gotta us. Talk to him. We gotta get him to coach this. So, Grant yeah, let everybody know who's gonna absolutely love this, let them know how they can find you, how they can reach out, how they can follow you, cuz I'm sure you'll get that, from this episode for sure. So how can people find you?
Grant: Yeah, pro probably the best thing, check out my book, financial freedom, just Google financial freedom book.
You'll find it. I talk all about kind of the core tenants, which whenever you're an entrepreneur, you know, having six to 12 months of expenses already saved, makes it much less risky to dive in much less stressful to actually put your whole heart into any form of business or any type of risk taking.
So, you know, I think that's really, really valuable and important. If you wanna follow my journey, you can go to a grantsabatier.com or millennialmoney.Com and just sign up for my newsletter. I send out a ton of value, on that, whole host of topics around what's going on in my life and what you know, I'm thinking about.
And then just @grantsabatier on Instagram is the best way to, to get in touch with me if you want to, to DM me. Cuz it's very hard to get in touch with me, you know, via email, but not a huge social media poster just cuz I've determined that the ROI from a business perspective is actually insanely low.
Melissa: So I was gonna ask you about that because I was wondering when you know, we are having this shift. So do you see this shift going more towards social media or do you think it's still not a great business move for, for people?
Grant: For entrepreneurs? I think it depends on the business. So if you wanna build a personal brand, there's no better place to do it than on social media.
Grant: The risk with that is that, you know, obviously, you don't own your content or the platform. And so, you know, you can get canceled or you can build up an Instagram following and all of a sudden, you know, all the algorithm cares about as reals and, and you're ultimately done. I think diversification obviously is very important as long as you can keep the quality of your content engaged, you know, extremely high. So I think this idea that like, you know, quantity over quality that Gary Vaynerchuck pioneered, I think has led to a lot of really homogenous content that ultimately, is a limiting factor, for people in their growth. I think things will continue to get more niche and I think, we're obviously in the age of vulnerability, I think you're, we're clearly seeing, when I started doing this in 2015, the people that are, are more open, with the struggles that they're having in their business and the mistakes they've made, and the challenges ultimately, are connecting better, with people I think.
That's gonna continue to increase. And so being extremely open, you know, online, and also from a business perspective, showing how, your business fits into your life, not your life fitting into your business. I think the perfect example of this, that I loved is when I saw you all took the road trip, you know, across the country, doing that flipping trip where you're posting content, you know, you're doing what you love, you're buying things to flip and make money, but you're clearly showing your children, the U.S. and going on a family trip and making it, you know, an experience. And so I think that's the perfect example of fitting your business into your life than the other way around.
And so I think more and more people are gonna be looking for those models. But I think for me, really. Thankfully, you know, I'd already made all the money I would need, before I really needed to post that much on social media. I'm such a huge fan of SEO and I'd rather have someone find me on, you know, their own terms.
Yeah. And engage with me on their own terms than, than having to go out, and be more re you know, proactive, you know, on social media. And I think it also comes down to valuing, you know, time more than money, you know, for me. And so I, I, I realized pretty quickly that, you know, if I was gonna sit on Twitter all day and you know, I figured out something like if you've tweeted, you know, 12,000 times you've spent two entire weeks of your life, you know, tweeting.
And these are things that I saw. It's like, you know, Twitter never led to book sales or Instagram never led to book sales. You know, those things, you know, if you really wanna engage in them and they add value in somebody to your life, they can certainly be valuable. But I think from a business perspective, unless you're a media company like Harry, my friend at the ride share guy, you know, being across all the platforms, or if you have a very specific, you know, lead funnel, certainly, and you understand the ROI of it obviously can make sense, but I think most people just do what everyone else does and they're not successful. And they wonder why. Oh.
Rob: That is awesome.
Yeah. Great, great advice for sure. So, Grant thank you so much for jumping on here and spending time with us. It was great to reconnect guys.
Melissa: You can go buy some more domains.
Rob: Exactly. We'll put the links below so you can contact Grant. You can check out his books, check out all that stuff. So we'll have it below.
Melissa: I'm excited for your second book.
Rob: Yeah, we are. Yeah. It's gonna be amazing. So.
Grant: It's dope.
I was up till 3:00 AM writing and I'm so tired right now. I'm like, why do I do this? I told my publisher, I'd never write another money book.
Rob: I remember when you said that.
Grant: Yeah. I said never do it again. And now here I am doing it again and loving every minute of it.
Melissa: You were in middle of writing financial freedom before when we were, when we were coaching with you.
Rob: Yeah. So. That is so awesome. Like I said, Grant it's been a pleasure. It's been amazing. Thank you for all the great information that you provided. Yeah, can't wait to, follow up and keep an eye on your journey.
We're so excited to see you. So thank you so much.
Grant: Yeah. Congrats on your success too, you know, congrats.