Codie Sanchez: Entrepreneur and investor in over 100 companies; ex-Wall Street finance professional and journalist who now teaches people to buy 'boring businesses' and runs a holding company doing ~$70M revenue plus a fund.
What this episode covers
Codie Sanchez tells Steven Bartlett how she stair-stepped out of a corporate finance career by buying small 'boring' businesses like laundromats, often with little or no money down using seller financing and performance-based deals. She argues most people fail to reach financial freedom because of an emotional, fearful relationship with money rather than a lack of knowledge, and that the real secret is learning the language of deals. She breaks down how celebrities like The Rock and Reese Witherspoon hide their actual deal structures, and why ownership beats salary. The conversation also covers reaching wealthy mentors through value-first outreach, building wealth via content instead of cold outreach, the personal cost of her divorce, and managing teams by removing B players and giving everyone skin in the game.
The guest's own work
Happy Sexy Millionaire
Steven Bartlett
“That's why my book is called Happy Sexy Millionaire, because I thought if I became a sexy millionaire, then I would become everything I needed to be.”— Steven Bartlett
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
Who Not How
Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy
“And I do think that book, Who Not How, people usually read it as a leaders because it's a lot about hiring, but I think it's actually about life.”— Codie Sanchez
Teremana Tequila
Dwayne Johnson
“If The Rock makes a billion dollars off of Teremana, couldn't he then say, 'We would never have done a billion-dollar deal unless you guys bought it.'”— Codie Sanchez
Draper James
Reese Witherspoon
“When you create that much wealth and you do it continuously multiple times like Reese has done with Draper James, too, you definitely know what's going on.”— Codie Sanchez
Duolingo
Duolingo
“everything we do is to try to normalize deal making or the language of finance. We're like the Duolingo to finance on the internet.”— Codie Sanchez
Big reveals from this episode
- Codie's first acquisition was a laundromat deal for around $100K, bought because it could run without her full-time while she still worked 60-70 hour finance weeks.
- She has bought businesses for $3,000, $8,000, and even $0 by structuring deals with seller financing and performance-based payment.
- She bought a podcast/video production company for about $10K down that grew to roughly $300-400K a year by introducing it to new clients.
- Nearly 80% of The Rock's Instagram posts are effectively ads for companies he owns, disguised as lifestyle content.
- Reese Witherspoon's book club secretly secured movie rights to authors' books, which she turned into hundreds of millions in film revenue.
- Codie had to get divorced, quit her job, and move cities to shed a built-up identity that no longer fit who she was becoming.
- Her scariest moment was deciding to NOT summit Mount Baker, realizing she had spent her life chasing goals she didn't care about to please others.
Worth remembering
- For the first time in 25 years, the richest 1% will control more than half of the world's wealth by next year.
- There are tens of millions of small businesses for sale in the US that will never sell, and many owners shut down rather than realize they could sell.
- About 60% of small businesses under $10 million in revenue sell with some component of seller financing.
- Small businesses typically sell for two to five times profit.
- Only one in 10 people dies wealthy in the US; most die without extra cash to pass on.
- Geoffrey Kent ran Abercrombie & Kent for 61 years and was the first to open the Chinese travel market in 1976.
- A study found sitting next to a high performer boosts your output by 15%, while a low performer cuts your productivity by 30%.
- Altitude sickness can be hallucinogenic; Codie experienced the tent appearing to move while recovering at camp.