Transcript of FROM FLIPPING COUCHES TO $100 MILLION IN REAL ESTATE || RYAN PINEDA || EPISODE 070

I was a baseball player. I played pro-baseball, got drafted by the Oakland A's. Thought that that was going to be my journey my whole life. Ryan Paneda has been in the real estate industry since 2010 and has invested in over $100 million of real estate. As an entrepreneur, he has founded seven different businesses that have generated seven to eight figures of revenue. He has amassed over 2 million followers on social media and has generated over 1 billion views online. Before his business success, he was a professional baseball player with the Oakland A's. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. I spent three years with them, got released because I just wasn't good enough. People always ask, What happened? Did you get hurt? Whatever. I'm like, I just wasn't good enough. It's that simple. And I tell business owners that all the time. They're like, I can't succeed. What's the problem? Is it the What do you want me as this? I'm like, no, you're just not good enough. Get better. Is that simple? And so I ended up playing five more seasons in other baseball league. But along the way, I was like, look, it's looking like baseball is not going to be what I thought it was for me.

So I'm going to have to start making money somehow I'm married now and I got to provide. I don't make any money in minor league baseballs, making 1,200 bucks a month. I start flipping couches. I randomly figured out how to do that just by buying furniture and furnishing my apartment and then just thinking like, I wonder if I flipped all this stuff if I could make money. And then sure enough, I could. Then I got into real estate investing and started flipping houses in 2015, and that changed my life. Max sent all my credit cards and went for it. Then after that, I started other businesses, and I kept doing that. I focused I've done that for many years. One became two, two became four, four became eight, and it just turned into a lot of deals.

How have your failures shaped the successes that you do have today?

Yeah, I mean, look, failing is inevitable in life, especially in business. I learned in baseball, if you fail seven out of 10 times, you're really good. That means you bat 300. I never wanted to live a life of regret, and I don't regret any failures. So even when people ask me, Would you change this or change that? I'm like, No, because I like where my life set today. Why would I change it? And I wouldn't be doing the things I'm doing today if those failures didn't occur. I don't want to live in some, what's that movie, the Butterfly Effect deal where I'm just trying to change my past so that it's perfect. No, I'm not perfect. I can relate to people who fail. I've made many mistakes, and I've learned from them, and I feel like I'm so much smarter and a better business person because of them.

What would you say is a side hustle for 2026 that people don't know of right now?

Well, I think it just depends what it is you want to do and how much time you have.

Would you Do you say it's better for somebody to stick to one thing before they end up diversifying and going to a different field? Or do you say it's circumstance are just a little different regarding that?

Here's what I think at this point. Having gone to lots of different fields, it's really hard to become an expert in one thing, period. You're definitely never going to become an expert focusing on multiple things. It's literally impossible. What I have done personally is...

The code to winning. Insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Today, We are in Sin City, Las Vegas. I'm in the studios of Ryan Paneda. Great, great entrepreneur. I've been following his journey for about four, five years. Finally, we're in his very studios today. I'm going to give you a brief introduction of who he is. Most of you actually do follow him because we have a very similar form of connection as well. But he did start his real estate journey about 15 years ago in 2010. However, he's been also a real estate investor for only the last 10 years as well. Ryan has built over seven different businesses that have generated seven or eight figures throughout the course of his journey as well. We're going to go a lot about real estate, more about entrepreneurship, about media as well. This is the episode for you. So without further ado, the man, the myth, the very legend himself, Ryan Paneda. How are you doing, sir?

Dude, we got to get you to narrate some books, man. You got a good voice.

Appreciate that. Thank you very much. Yeah. Awesome. I got to tell you how I first got a hold of you. I've been to a lot of Brad's stuff. Bradley. Bradley, just down the road as well. But I watched an episode about four or five years ago. You had blue hair, I think it was in that episode. And you spoke about your journey. And from then, I've been following you and so forth as well. This time, I'm going to attend your conference as well. Well, I've come. Cool.

Awesome, man. That's great.

Awesome. Can you just give my viewers a A bit of a brief introduction of who you are when you started your journey as well?

Yeah. I mean, today, I'm 36 years old. I've got a bunch of businesses, done over 100 million in real estate deals, four kids, married for 12 years. Life's good on the personal side. Christian, we've got a nonprofit. But yeah, leading up before all of that, I was a baseball player. I played pro-baseball, got drafted by the Oakland A's, thought that that was going to be journey my whole life. And unfortunately, it didn't work out. I spent three years with them, got released because I just wasn't good enough. People always ask, what happens? You get hurt? Whatever. I'm like, I just wasn't good enough. It's that simple. And I tell business owners that all the time. They're like, I can't succeed. What's the problem? Is it the economy? Is this? I'm like, no, you're just not good enough. Get better. It's that simple. And so I ended up playing five more seasons in other baseball league. But along the way, I was like, look, it's looking like baseball is not going to be what I thought it was for me, so I'm going to have to start making money somehow. I'm married now and I got to provide.

I don't make any money in minor league baseball. I'm making 1,200 bucks a month. And so I'm like, All right. So I start hustling, dude. I mean, I started flipping couches. I randomly figured out how to do that just by buying furniture and furnishing my apartment and then just thinking like, I wonder if I flipped all this stuff if I could make money. And then sure enough, I could.

That was Facebook Marketplace, right?

Yeah. Well, I mean, no, Facebook Marketplace didn't exist back then. It was Craigslist. And then the offer up came up later, and then Facebook Marketplace ended up copying them. But then I got into real estate investing and started flipping houses in 2015, and that changed my life. Max sent all my credit cards and went for it. And then after that, I started other businesses, and I kept doing that. It was just I focused on that for many years. And one became two, two became four, four became eight, and it just turned into a lot of deals. But then I started doing coaching. I started doing a tax firm, a real estate brokerage. During COVID, I got on social media, and people started listening to me, and that led to more businesses and more things and tons of stuff. And that's led us to the point we're at today. But I'll say throughout the journey, there's been a lot of success, a lot of failures, a lot of things that I've learned along the way. So I'm just glad that I can share it with the world.

And I love that so much. One of the things I do appreciate, and I've also loved a lot, considering your journey, is the fact that you don't just share the successes, you stress on the failures as well. And I feel like the lack of transparency, especially in social media, with how things have been going, people always just focus on the wins and the wins and so forth as well. You just touch a bit more of how important it is to be transparent and also how have your failures shaped the successes that you do have today?

Yeah. I mean, look, failing is inevitable in life, especially in business. I learned in baseball, if you fail seven out of 10 times, you're really good. That means you bat 300. And so failure was normal to me. And before social media, I was used to failing. I was used to trying stuff, and it didn't work out. It's like, whatever. It only became until social media happened that then my failures became public. And then you get people scrutinizing you, making videos and lawsuits and all All this stuff. And for me, at the end of the day, does it mean I'm never going to try something new again? Absolutely not. I try new things all the time. I just started a new golf business. It was with this logo is, Mastermind 19. It's already a seven-figure business in three months. It's a golf mastermind. Nobody's doing that. It's a new thing. I don't know when I launched it how it was going to do, but it's been great. I'm sure there's going to be things with it that fail, and I'll figure it out and learn from them. But I think failure is It's really important to do because for one, if you never try it, you'll never know.

I never wanted to live a life of regret, and I don't regret any failures. Even when people ask me, Would you change this or change that? I'm like, No, because I like where my life set today. Why would I change it? I wouldn't be doing the things I'm doing today if those failures didn't occur. I don't want to live in some, what's that movie, the butterfly effect deal where I'm just trying to change my path so that it's perfect. It's like, no, I'm not perfect. I can relate to people who fail. I've made many mistakes, and I've learned from them. I feel like I'm so much smarter and a better business person because of them. If you only win, which I've had periods where it felt like all I did was win. I would say the first... For example, in real estate, my first 80 deals I never lost money on. Wow. They were all wins. My first, probably four or five businesses I started never lost money. They only And then it wasn't until as I just kept going, though, oh, dang, some of these real estate deals started to lose money. The market changed.

Oh, a couple of these businesses flopped, and now we got to deal with problems. And eventually, you will lose and you will fail, no matter how good you are. And I learned far more from those than I did from just only winning.

I love that. And I think from my journey, every time I've been interviewing a variety of entrepreneurs, founders, business leaders, multimillionaires, billionaires, and so forth as well, everyone just stresses on the importance of that learning effect that happens when they start failing. Because I think without that breakthrough, because if you had had those wins, those 80 deals, and it just continued that way, the lessons came from those losses that you actually gained as well. Which segues to the next question. I know you spoke about couch flipping back then. Right now, obviously, things are a little different. It's 2025. I want to ask a question. Side hustles are something that people feel like it's a way for them to try and generate form of income that they can start something when they're going to as well. What would you say is a side hustle for 2026 that people don't know of right now?

Well, I think it just depends what it is you want to do and how much time you have and what your goals are because they all work, right? I actually did a YouTube video recently about this, and I said, Man, these are my top five that I really think for 2026. One of them was still couch living. I was like, Look, I have people every day tell me they got Started flipping couches because they saw my video from five years ago, and dudes be making $20,000 a month from literally flipping couches. And there's no risk. It's very easy. Anyone can do it. Yeah, you might not make 20, but you can make five. So I still think flipping literally anything is a great side hustle. I mean, that's all I've ever done my whole life. I flipped houses, I flipped couches, I flipped cell phones, trading cards. I mean, look at the rise of these trading cards and these streams and sports And sports cards and Pokémon cards and all this stuff. It's all just trading. It's all collectibles. So I think that there's a huge opportunity in flipping in general. Pick what it is you want to specialize in with flipping if you're going to go buy random items.

But I also said I still love wholesaling and flipping houses. I think that those are massive opportunities. I'm still wholesaling to this very day. I'm still doing the same thing I was doing 10 plus years ago because it's still a great business, and real estate is not going anywhere. So I love those as side hustles. And I like real estate more than flipping stuff because you know that real estate can build long term wealth. Exactly. Right? You know that, yeah, I could flip couches and make an extra five grand, but it's never long term wealth. It's just Time for money. Whereas with real estate, I know that it could eventually become millions. I know that you could buy them and hold them. I know that one deal could make $50,000. So I like real estate for that reason. That's why we've taught so many students over the years, because I just still believe in it. But I would say the other thing I would focus on if it wasn't those two. So let's just say, flipping couches and stuff is the easiest make money quick solution. Fair enough. Real estate is the best long term solution.

You could still make money relatively quick. You can make a big check in the next three to six months, right? I would say the middle ground solution is getting really good at AI and marketing. I just think there's so much opportunity right now for businesses who need AI, who need marketing, and whether that be learning to run ads, whether that be learning to create social media content for businesses, whether that be learning how to implement AI into their business for following up with customers and phone sales. And well, it's not quite there yet on phone sales. It will be soon, but like setters and text messaging and all that stuff. So I think there's huge opportunity in that field as well. And I'd be honest, if it was me, it just depends how much money I got. If I need money tomorrow, I'm flipping a couch. If I wanted to build something more long term, I'm doing real estate. If I wanted to pick something in between, I'm probably doing the AI thing.

And then just with the real estate thing, there was a boom in COVID time with the Airbnb, the arbitrage, and so forth as well. Things have died out. I think back then, even in 2020, 2021, you throw something, it will just stick. People People were killing it. They were in that mode where the trajectory was just upward and nonstop. And then boom, everything just came down like 2023 or so forth as well. Where do you think the the the trajectory lies with AirBnB?

So I was really early on AirBnB. I bought my first one in 2017. And back then, literally, it was like a new thing.

Was it arbitrage or was it-No, I bought it.

Okay. And I remember I was... I I accidentally fell into it, like flipping couches. It's weird because in that span of... I started flipping couches at the end of 2013. I started flipping houses in 2015. Then I bought my first AirBnB in 2017. So in the span of a few years, I did three different things that were really important moments in my life. But in 2017, I was like, Man, I'm doing really good flipping houses. I had made a lot of money. I was like, I'm going to buy a second That would be really cool. One of my investors was like, Dude, you should get a vacation home. Don't go crazy, but you could rent it out. It could break even. It'll just be a good investment for you. I was like, You're right. That would be cool. So I just started looking around Vegas, and I'm like, Where would be a cool second spot, like near Vegas. And I stumbled upon Big Bear, California, which is in about a two and a half, three hour drive from Vegas. And it's cool. They got snowboarding, cabins, They got a nice lake, all this stuff. And I started looking at the prices.

And back at that time, I mean, dude, the prices were like 200, 250 grand for a cabin. And I was like, that is so cheap for California. Mortgage is going to be like, 1,300, 1,400 bucks a month. I could easily rent this out and break even. So I started looking into it deeper, and I started to realize, I'm like, Dude, these things are renting for like, 300, 400 a night on the weekends and $200 It's a night on the weekdays. If this is rented all the time, I mean, this thing's going to rent for like, 5, 6, 7 grand a month. Is this real? Because I'm looking at Airbnb, which at that time was still very unproven, and people were skeptical at staying in other people's houses. I'm like, I don't know. The only way to find out is to do it. I found a deal, bought it for 200 grand, put about 30, 40,000 into it, put it up for rent, refinanced it, all that good stuff. And I kid you not, from the get-go, it started just renting for four grand a month. And my mortgage was like, 1,300 bucks. And I was managing it myself, just learning the game.

And I furnished it myself and brought all the furniture up from Vegas. Because, dude, I saw that couch-slipping mentality. I got all this stuff and brought it to Big Bear. I could not believe how much money it made. And we got to stay there. We enjoyed it. Then I saw another deal a few months later, bought it, bought another one, bought another one, another one. But within a couple of years, I had 10 of them. And we were doing half a million dollars a year in just revenue. Cash flowing, I don't even know, six figures plus. Wow. And then it's funny, at that point, it just became a business and less of a second home. I'm like, Yeah, I don't really need to stay in them. It's all good. They're just assets. I sold most of them about five years later because most of them have either doubled or It tripled. And it was a good investment. And the reason partly why I sold them, too, was I just realized that Airbnb was in less demand, that guests expected more, that There's more competition and more regulation, and all these things were happening. Big Bear passed more laws because I started getting on social media telling people to buy in Big Bear because I was making a killing, and they didn't like me.

And so they basically passed saying, Hey, an investor can only own one property on your Airbnb. I was like, All right, that's not going to be good for this economy. I was like, I'm going to start selling them all.

Awesome. Right now with everything going, I don't know how the housing market looks like in Vegas, but it's been atrocious down in Utah. It's been awful in California. I lived in the Bay Area for a while as well, closer towards Sacramento and San Francisco in between then. But with the Where would people see an opportunity in terms of investing right now with how crazy the market has been in housing?

Yeah, I mean, look, these last three years in real estate have been the hardest three years of my lifetime. And statistically, a lot of people don't know this, but we think that the worst time in real estate was in 2008 with the Great Recession. And yeah, the prices dropped the most then because it was inflated by fake loans and all this stuff. But the last three years have had the lowest transaction volume in the last 30-something years. So to think about that, 30 years ago, there was more housing deals being done than there is today when there's way more housing. That must mean that not a lot is happening. And when there's no transactions happening, that's bad for everybody. It means realtors don't make commissions, lenders don't do loans, refinances aren't happening with high rates, title companies don't close deals, wholesalers They don't have people to sell to, landlords aren't buying, primary residence owners aren't selling because their rates are too low and they can't afford anything else. So we've created this weird environment where it's frozen. People just are not transacting. Now, all that being said, you still can make money, but it's just a very hard environment compared to what it was in 2020, 2021, or even 2015 when I first got started.

It's harder today than it was Now, will that last forever? No. I think that once rates start to lower, you'll see transactions start to go. I think that you're already seeing foreclosures happen. People who had low interest rates, they can't even afford them anymore. Those will start going away. But I would just say I wouldn't look at it from a certain market perspective. I don't do enough analysis to say these markets are the ones on the rise. In the end, I think you could pick any market, and you just got to get good deals. Pick Vegas, pick Utah, pick the Bay. Just get undervalued real estate, and you have instant equity from day one.

I love that. I love that. Now, I want to segue right in towards media and building a team right now. I know when I'm speaking with... I'm close to some of Andy's guys, and they speak very highly of you and your team and all that. I want to talk about, obviously, building a team and how important it is to hire They're the right people as well. I want to give an example personally for me. So I have about four editors, two in Utah, two outside of Utah. And often people ask me, Okay, now that you've got these guests like yourself and many others, what's the hottest thing about running a podcast? I tell them it's the editors. Because I watch your podcast, I watch Brad's, and then I watch Steven Bartlet. Obviously, you guys all interview different You guys have different ways of engaging. I love your very lazey, very nonchalant approach in how you interview people. I love Brad's humor and sarcasm. I love Steven Bartlet's very professionalism. There's three people that just are so different but are so good at what they do. Which segues to my question, how important is it today to build a solid team?

Yeah, I mean, no matter what you're trying to do, whether it's podcast, whether it's flip houses, do anything, your team is going to be what matters. And so I always teach people like this. There's three investments that you have to make, and they go in this order. The first investment is in yourself. If you don't make enough money, you don't No, you're not where you want to be. It starts with you. All it simply means is, I said this earlier, you're not good enough. You don't make as much as you want, you're not good enough. You just don't have enough talent yet. Today, you don't. And so I always tell people, You got to first You learn skills. That means investing in yourself. The second investment is once you have the skills and the knowledge, you then invest in the business. And so does the business actually have what it needs to succeed? Does it have the mics and the cameras and the lights and the studio and all the things that it would need to actually succeed. Same thing with real estate. Do you have leads? Do you have softwares? Do you have all the things that are needed to succeed to hit the goals that you want?

Because it's impossible to hit certain goals if you don't have the right tools and inputs. Once the business is invested in, the third investment is then in people. So once you have skills and knowledge, you know what needs to be done, you know what works, then you have a business that you've invested in, you have all the tools and resources needed to succeed. The last piece is investing in people. And that means time to train them, to interview, to set culture. It means what you pay them. It means all those things. And I'll give you a perfect example. For me, My media team right now, I think we have five people. They're all in-house, too. None of them are virtual. I think that a lot of people have virtual teams, and they wonder why communication is tough, why they can't get a hold of them. For me in this I was like, This podcast, what did I do? I just finished a meeting. I've been in meetings all day. I walked straight down. You were already here set up. The team had set it all up. My assistant took care of you. I didn't talk to you to book this.

I'm here. You just saw five different pieces of the puzzle all come together, and my time is now here, and this looks great. The team's good. But for me, recently, we just started my golf channel for the new golf business. That's a whole different style of video. They don't understand golf the way that I do. They understand podcasting, they understand YouTube, but they don't understand the nuances of golf yet. I needed to hire more people. We're now finding that it takes longer to edit those videos because it's four hours of footage across multiple cameras and GoPros, and it's a lot. I find myself getting frustrated that they keep making similar mistakes, but I also remind myself that this is all new and that it's just going to take time invested into them for them to get it. I'll guess that in about six months, all that time will be good and worthwhile, and I won't have to spend as much down the road. We're going to have a better product, better everything, and they're going to get it. And so I think it's time and money when it comes to team. You got to spend time setting the culture, hiring them, developing them, all those things, understanding they're going to fail, being okay with it.

And then also, too, you spend enough time with them, you'll know whether they're the right person or not, and if you need to get rid of them, because spending time will tell you that. And then you got to have the money to pay for good people. You get what you pay for. And so if you don't I love talented people, I always say, I'm like, Well, something went wrong because there's plenty of talented people in the world. You either did not prospect properly and get enough... Hiring people is just like getting a customer.

But just sorry to cut you off, just to add on this thing, the only problem I'm having is, what if they don't have the same passion that you have? I sleep four hours. This whole thing, I watched a lot of your episodes before I came inside. I wanted to make it a bit more unique. I don't want to talk about the very similar stuff spoken to. What if they don't have the same passion that you have?

That's my concern.

They won't.

Why would you expect them to? Why would they work for you then? If they were so passionate and so just hyper all these things, they'd probably have their own thing going on. You got to just understand that when you're going to hire people, most people are 9: 00 to 5: 00 employees. They crave security. They like being told what to do, and they like clocking in and clocking out. Now, I've got people who, yeah, we are 9: 00 to 5: 00 physically, but I'll text them in the middle of the night. I'll text them in the morning, and they understand that that's going to happen with the job. Sometimes they respond, sometimes they don't, but they know what I'm thinking. But it's like, I don't expect them to have the same drive that I have, or else they would be me, and they wouldn't work for me. They'd be busy being you or being whoever. It's just an It's a realistic expectation. I have these guys who are like, let's just say they're in their 30s or even their 40s and they're still single. It's like, Bro, I just want a girl who is like that, that traditional woman and wife and everything else and doesn't want me for just my money and X, Y, Z.

But she can also... She's also got her own thing going on. I'm like, You realize they're not the same? It's literally impossible to get what you're asking for because if you want a girl who's got her own business, her own thing going on, why in the world would she want to be a traditional wife? It doesn't make any sense. Unrealistic expectations. Yeah. I'm like, What you're asking for literally makes no sense. And I was talking to one of the guys on my podcast, and I won't say who, and it was like the light bulb went off. He was like, Oh, I never thought of that. It just didn't occur to me that, Yeah, those two things just don't go together. I'm like, Yeah, Demi, you think that what you're asking for would never happen? I was like, The traditional wives got married when traditional wives get married. They got married young.

Very young. 19, 20, 21 in Utah.

Yeah. 18, 17. We got married right when my wife turned 21. Duh. So it's just like you think about that and you're like, it's just unrealistic sometimes when we put these expectations, we're looking at incompatible things. Like, I don't want them to have the same drive in this and that. I want to pay them this amount of It's like, bro, nobody is taking that amount of money with that amount of drive. You want somebody like you? Well, what do you make? That's what you're going to pay them.

No, I love that. I love that perspective. And it's very, very accurate. It's so true. It's so true. And I think that's the hardest thing as well, because I think when the first book I read was obviously Rich Dad, Poor Dad, then I went to the catch-book quadrant, and you start learning about the E-S, and you start seeing the B-I and how you want to try. People are often stuck in the S. They become the small businesses, but they end up doing everything without end up delegating, without getting the right people, without finding the right team as well to try and get to a B. I think structure is so important in business. I think it's easy once you get the fundamentals, and I want to touch on this a bit again, the fundamentals to try and just use that same system in opening up a newer business, a newer field as well. Would you agree on that?

Oh, yeah. I mean, business is business. So everything that I've ever done with all the different businesses, it's the same principles. It's marketing, it's sales, it's product, it's hiring, it's fulfillment, it's financials. They all literally run with the same fundamentals. It's just they're all different in how you do those different things, how a market is different, the type of customer we attract is different. The landing page is different. The fulfillment looks different. But the fundamentals are the same.

Then would you say it's better for somebody to stick to one thing before they end up diversifying and going to a different field? Or do you say the circumstances are just a little different regarding that?

Here's what I think at this point, having gone to lots of different fields, it's really hard to become an expert in one thing, period. You're definitely never going to become an expert focusing on multiple things. It's literally impossible. What I have done personally is I have focused on one thing for whatever that period of time was before Or I then focused on another thing. And in most cases, I was able to delegate that one thing to somebody else so that I could then focus on the next thing versus just quitting the thing and starting a new thing. That's what a lot of people do. They spend all this time learning this thing, they get burnt out, and then they quit, and they go start from zero at the next thing. So for me, if I was to give an example of, let's say, learning new skills. So I spent pretty much all my life learning baseball, and I become good enough to get drafted and be a pro. That's very difficult to do. I must have been pretty good. And while I'm doing that, I am not making money. And so I say, Look, man, I got to make money.

So I just devote all my time to learning flipping couches. And that was all I did. I just flipped couches, and that was cool. But I was also training for baseball in the offseason, and so it's not like I gave up that. Eventually, I learned how to flip houses. And at that point, I just start flipping houses and learning that game. And I'm still flipping couches, too, to make active income and all this stuff. Baseball is still happening during this time, but I added this new skill set. Eventually, flipping houses replaces couches completely because it's just so much better. And it's not like I forgot how. It was just like, Bro, this is just not even worth continuing to do now that I do this. And so I focus on houses. After about my third year of flipping houses, I retired from baseball, and I devoted all my time and energy to just taking house flipping to the next level. And what's interesting is my first year of flipping houses, I did five. My next year, I did 20. The year I retired, about halfway through the year, I did 50. And then my first full year as an entrepreneur, No baseball, no nothing, just focused solely on flipping houses.

I did 150. So there's something to be said about focus. And I literally just only worried about flipping houses from 2015 to basically Then I get into content in 2020 because I see this big opportunity with COVID and TikTok and YouTube. I'm like, Dude, I think that this is going to be a really big deal. I just devote myself to learning content and learning TikTok. And at this point, TikTok is not proven. We don't know that YouTube Shorts and Reels are going to be a thing years later, but I just really believed that it was. I spent And for that full year and for the next probably three years, just learning how to make organic content. And it ended up paying off tremendously. And so I did that. And then along the way, I learned how to do education business and other businesses and build teams and all this other stuff. And then I would say the last couple of years, I really devoted myself to learning paid ads because I got really good at organic. And I said, we don't even run paid ads. How the heck are you supposed to do that? And so I learned how to become a marketer on that side of it.

And so why am I saying all this? Well, all the skills I possess today were focused on for years at a time before I finally was like, Okay, this skill is, I don't want to say mastered because it's never mastered, but it's at a level that I deem sufficient, and now I'm going to go focus and learn another skill.

Love that. I'm glad you mentioned paid ads because I know you guys have a Facebook paid ads, which I want to touch I want to give you a brief example. So when I first started off, I think we spoke about it before we started the podcast. Obviously, my first three guests helped put my podcast on the map, if that makes a bit of sense, considering the fact that it was a very saturated market. So you want to make sure you make it worthwhile for people that are going to be watching. However, I was not doing things the right way. So obviously, I went to college in Idaho, BIO, Idaho. And what happened when I was in BIO, after I had gotten all these guests, I'm like, Listen, let's try and be a bit more creative. Let me start DoorDashing. So what I would do, I printed out a pamphlet. At this time, this was not my logo yet. I think it could have been after this. Printed out my logo, and I started DoorDashing. Started telling people, Hey, listen, don't tip me, don't do anything. Just subscribe to my YouTube channel with a QR code.

I'm out there driving everywhere. I was just driving in Pocetello, driving in Adderall Falls, telling everybody, Listen, this is the QR code. Do not-How long ago was this? Two years ago.

Wow, that's crazy. Okay.

And so the problem was happening. I was getting these subscribers, but my watch hours were down because people were just subscribing because they liked the fact that, Hey, this guy's actually putting himself out there. And that's when I met a gentleman who used to work in Google. It's like, Dude, what are you doing? Have you heard about paid ads, promotion, blah, blah, blah? And then I got to a point where I started promoting ads, doing some paid ads, and then I qualified for a YouTube partner manager. And then we started doing, obviously, Perf, Max, campaigns, and all that stuff. But I'm glad you spoke about paid ads, and I used to do things the hard way rather than the smart way, when I could have done the smart way as well. How important is paid ads today? And what have you learned from that?

Well, I think that how you're going to market is obviously the most important thing you're going to do in business, because if you have no leads, then you have no business. And so however you're going to choose to get attention, you got to be That's what I'm really good at it. And so for me, I chose to get attention through organic content in the early days. And look, I will say that organic will be paid every time because it doesn't cost anything. There's infinite amounts of customers you can get if you're really good at making content. So literally, when I make videos and people just buy a $10,000 product from me and it costs me nothing to acquire the customer, that's a very profitable thing. At the same time, paid is also really important because there's lots of people who don't know me, who don't see my organic content, and then they become aware of me. And then when they become aware of me, a lot of them start following. And then eventually, They do become a buyer because they started off as paid, then they get nurtured through organic, and then eventually they become a client.

But then there are people who see paid and they just buy right away. So both are very, very important. One thing I'll say is if you have brand and you have good organic content, it will always amplify paid. Paid is very difficult if you don't have a brand. When people try to just run ads out of the blue, they have no content, no one knows who they are and everything else. It's hard because The way the world is, everyone's very skeptical today. So if you see a paid ad for something, the first thing you're going to go do is look at the person's profile. You're going to look at what's going on. And if they don't like what they see, they're definitely not buying. So for me, they They both go hand in hand. They're both necessary. I don't think it's a one or the other type deal. I think it's a you need both type deal at this point. And it didn't used to always be the case. It used to be, call it five years ago, even more, 10 years ago, you could literally run ads because no one was doing it on Facebook and YouTube and everything else and just go crush it.

There was tons of gurus doing that who had no organic content or anything, just crushed it from their commercials and their ads. Then in 2020, when COVID happened and you started to see the rise of influencers and business personalities, they started to wash those guys out of the market because you see guys like you said, Stephen Bartlet and Brad and Hormozy and Cody Sanchez and me and whoever coming out. I know, like and trust those guys. I see really good content with them. I'll pay for what they got. Who are you? I never heard of you. And that becomes the thing. And so Because business people got so good at content, it forced the paid ad people to either get good at content and do that, too, or get out. Some have gotten out. Some are still around.

I love it. It's funny that you mention all those names. That's my algorithm on Instagram right now. They're all the same.

I mean, I tell this to people. We're in a weird environment now where... When I started TikTok in 2020, lots of random people were popping up on the feed because very few people were creating content. And business owners, smart people started to see that, Man, dude, this social media thing is really powerful. I need to start creating content for my business. And sure enough, they did. And they had resources, talent, money, staff, all these things to outperform anyone who wants to compete. And so when you look at that and you just envision the future, it's like, Yeah, dude, it It is tough to break through on social media and be like one of the known people. Now, I still think that even if you have a small following, you can make a ton of money on social media. You can have 5,000 followers, make a million bucks for sure, especially if you're appealing to a very niche audience where you're the authority in that niche. But man, if you want to be one of these biggest people that I was just naming, it's going to be tough to compete because all of them have this.

They all have money. They all have years of being known. They all have credibility. They all collaboration, relationships, all these things that make it hard for somebody new to break through.

But one thing I did like that you mentioned in the beginning is that you don't have the talent or whatever it may be right now. In other words, there's a availability where you can invest in a coaching where they could... The nice thing about coaching is that people help you see a way and help you shortcut and prevent something that they wouldn't have prevented as well. I think it's important because... Do you think there's a future in streaming? Because right now, if you see right streaming, all the streamers have become the new celebrities.

Yeah, I agree. I think streaming is an interesting one. I've been thinking a lot about that. I was just on one of our masterminds. So mastermind 19 is my golf mastermind. And so we have a lot of... Well, you have to be making over seven figures in your business to even qualify. Exactly. So we got seven, eight, and nine-figure guys. And so we were on our trip in Florida last week. Actually, I just got back last night. I was talking to two guys who are doing seven figures. One guy is about to do eight figures this year on the live selling on TikTok shop and whatnot. I've heard Gary Vee talk about it and other stuff. But they're selling trading cards and golf gear and all this stuff, 12 hours a day on these apps. Now, they themselves aren't doing it. They're businesses. They have streamers who they pay, who literally their job is to go sell basically on these live I was like, This is really interesting. They started to show me, literally, while they were with me golfing, the stream going on. I'm like, That guy just bought that putter for this. That guy just bought that head cover.

That guy just bought that trading. This is crazy. They're like, Yeah, we do X amount per day pretty consistently on these platforms. I was like, Wow. It cost them no money because it's free to stream. I was like, That's crazy, but it makes sense. And then, yeah, you see all these other guys streaming who is not live or Live selling, but whatever, the Kaizenets and the-I Show Speed and stuff. All these guys, right? And it's interesting because I'm like, what do they do? And they're like, I don't know. They just hang out with people. I'm like, what? Because it used to be... Streaming was like playing video games. Exactly. That's what I always...

Call of Duty and stuff like that.

Yeah. I was like, Yeah, those guys like Ninja and whoever were the biggest, and they got paid mega money. But now streaming is, from what I see, just hanging out. I'm like, this is crazy, but okay. So So, yeah, I mean, dude, these guys are making bank. I'll be curious to see if that translates to business, though, like to the business owner type universe.

It's funny because, like I said, I had just finished interviewing one of a politician in Utah, and I just saw a massive group just flooding. I'm like, What is going on? I Show Speed was in Utah that time, close to the capital and stuff like that. And it's all these young kids that were just following, losing their minds, getting super excited. In my mind, I started seeing because obviously, apart from the business stuff that I listened to with those five names that you mentioned of the podcast and all that, every now and then, for instance, my Tesla is in Salt Lake, but they gave me a loner car, which is like a Model Y, which same range as what I have. I drive down here. Usually, my long drives, I'll listen to something to tone down. Rather than business, I listen to my sports. But now streaming is a big sports thing in the UK as well. I I think that is the future, personally, for me. I think streaming is. But again, it's how they figured out their niche because I show speed targeted the biggest celebrity in the world, who is Cristiano Ronaldo.

Started building a brand off Ronaldo. And by getting that thing, started getting a following outside the United States. And so everyone in South Africa knows speed. They don't know Kaizenet as well. People in the UK, everyone knows speed. People that are listening to some of the streams in soccer, I think it's how you figure out a niche, market it, and you're known for something specific. So he was known as Ronaldo's biggest fan, Ronaldo being the biggest sports athlete, the LeBron James of soccer outside the United States. I'm curious as well to figure out where streaming goes regarding that. I feel like it's not as big in the business and entrepreneurial world yet. I'm trying to look for a specific streamer I could listen to because I think I want to try and do that as well by January in terms of collaboration and try and see this potential opportunity for that, but there isn't.

Yeah, here's what I I think is it's definitely huge for just, I call them consumers. Yeah, kids and normal everyday people because they just watch entertainment. It's a new form of entertainment, whatever. That's why I think these shows that sell stuff is just entertainment. When you just look at business and what business people want to watch, we actually just want to watch tactical things that can improve our lives. It's literally impossible to do that on an eight-hour It's just not going to be that. The other part is we don't have eight hours to go watch this whole thing. I have two things I've thought about because it has been done before in business. One is Dave Ramsey's had his radio show for literally 30 years. This dude's been live streaming for 30 years straight, three hours a day. Clearly, it works. Charlie Kirk had his show that he was doing every day. Live streaming It has worked with higher-end people for sure. Well, people who listen to Dave Ramsey or even the news and maybe not as high-end for that. But Patrick B. David is starting to livestream more. I've seen Hormozy start testing out streams, and he basically livestreamed for 72 hours when he did his launch.

Yeah, exactly. $100 million. Yeah. Yeah.

And he basically was selling for 70 hours straight. That's no easy task. I don't know what it looks like. I think it's a good thing to potentially do for a launch or something like that. But I can't see it being a thing like speed or these guys where it's like how a business person just does it. I just don't see that.

I couldn't agree more because, like I said, I only end up listening to those podcasts when I have the time.

Exactly. You want to watch it on 2X speed and all this stuff. That just can't happen on stream.

Awesome. Now, let's get back to the questions, shall we? Yeah. I'm joking. These are my favorite podcasts when I have about 25 questions and I haven't even asked the first one. I wanted to figure out actually in terms of how do you decide which opportunities are worth pursuing or versus passing on as well in terms of business and also real estate.

Yeah. I mean, I used to define it as, Hey, does this thing have the potential to make me more than what I'm currently doing? If that's the case, then it's worth doing. I don't know that that's how I look at it anymore. I look at opportunities now in a different light, seeing as I've had many opportunities that look like great opportunities fail. Now I look at it like, Hey, is this opportunity, how much time is it going to take out of my life? Because that's the only limited resource I have. How much time is it going to take? And is that a good use of that time? Because I have only limited hours. That's number one. Number two, Hey, if this involves a partner, to be truthful, now it's like, Are we equally yoked as Christians? I will not partner with anyone who's not a Christian anymore, and a real equally yoked Christian. I've just now realized that it doesn't work, especially as I grow deeper in faith and everything else. That's what I That's checkmark number 2. That's a biblical teaching. I thought equally, Yoke had to only do with marriage, but it actually has to do with partnerships and everything else, too.

That's number 2. Number 3, does this align with my existing businesses? And so for now, I'm really only looking at things that my existing customers would also want to buy. Because once again, I think that paid ads and customer acquisition cost is the most expensive thing now. So if I'm going to look at something, I want something that I already know will instantly pop off because I already have the customers for it. They already know, like and trust me from other businesses and things. And so if it's something random where I have to create all new customers, I don't want to do it. I only want things that align with what my current customers would want. Those will be the three main things I personally look at now.

I love that so much. I actually promised Tiffany I was going to respect I appreciate your time. You've given your time. I really appreciate that. I always ask one last question just towards the end, just to wrap up. Again, for those that are very interested in learning about real estate, learning about flipping, I'm also going to add in the description section below, Ryan Panader's Coaching Program, the website. The last and final question, the code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. What is your definition of winning?

I I had Tim Grover at one of my wealth cons, and so he wrote a book called Winning. It's funny, you think about brand, and when you said the word winning, I was like, Oh, yeah, Tim Grover. That's interesting that people associate words with brands. I've tried to own the brand wealthy, and people might associate me with golf now soon and other things. But to me, winning is just not giving up. I really just believe that you win if you don't quit. Life doesn't have a shot clock that we can see anyways. We don't know when it ends. Business is like a never-ending game. You just win if you don't give up. I mean, even if you're out of shape right now, you haven't lost yet. You're still alive. You can win. You just choose to get in shape today. Your financial position sucks. You're still alive. You haven't lost yet. You can win if you just change and you keep going. To me, winning is just outlasting the competition. That's really all it is.

Ryan, the code to winning insights you need today to see the world tomorrow. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.