I basically committed myself to literally 3 times a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for years, for like 7 years of posting, posting, posting while building that following. Built a following and it drove an amount of leads that you couldn't imagine. You couldn't pay for those number of leads and we couldn't have paid for it anyway because we didn't have any capital. The leads that come through organic, Are like 3 times more likely to make a purchase because they already know us.
Guys, welcome to The Home Service Expert. Today I got a really special guest. This one's gonna be fun. Cho Nguyen's with us. He sold his first company to Chegg. His second was acquired by Seasoned, then bought a 1974 Bronco that kept breaking down on the I-85. His wife told him their kids couldn't ride in classic cars without modern airbags. That moment led him to build Vintage Modern, a luxury vehicle company doing $60 million in revenue. He hand builds classic-inspired vehicles on modern platforms, each one of them taking 900 hours of craftsmanship. His clients include LeBron James, Jennifer Lopez, Mark Wahlberg, and Kevin Hart, and Tommy Mello. He has 4 million social media followers. Social media is his primary sales channel. He won EY Entrepreneur of the Year, which is absolutely phenomenal. Today, he breaks down how to charge premium prices for craft work, how to scale without losing quality, and how social media can replace your entire lead generation strategy. Joe, it's a pleasure to have you on, brother.
Thanks for having me, Tommy. That was quite the introduction. Great job.
So talk to me about, you know, you built and exited 2 tech companies and then you bought this old Bronco. And by the way, I think we've all bought a lot of old vehicles. And I think if anybody's like me, they've decided no more because they sit in the garage, they break down, they're always at the mechanic. But tell me about this moment in time that forced you to kind of innovate.
Yeah. You know, I think the cool thing about this whole story is that I never intentionally was— I never intentionally set out to build a car company, but I always loved cars. And so I buy this old Bronco and I went through this phase of cars where I bought old Land Cruiser, FJ40 Toyotas, old Defenders, old Mustangs, H1 Hummer. I kind of ran out of cool cars to buy that were modern. So I started buying old cars and they all had kind of a similar problem. They all looked cool. They all had major problems, things we take for granted, right? Like brakes. And steering, things that you don't think about. And so I buy this old Bronco, looks really cool from 10 feet away. Everything about that truck, Tommy, was a massive headache and very different from a modern car. And so it broke down, leaked everywhere. You mentioned, you know, it made my wife's hair smell like gas and her clothes smell like gas. And she's like, you got to get rid of this thing. And I didn't want to get rid of it because I just thought it was such a cool truck.
And basically asked myself, why can't it just look classic but operate like my Range Rover or G-Wagon? Because if it could, I would pick that over any car any day of the week. And that's how it all started, just purely out of a passion and a problem. And so that's how it all started.
So why, you know, talk to me about the early days. So you did a couple exits. Can we hear a little bit about those stories?
Yeah, a couple of what?
Uh, the early days, obviously you got Chag and then you, you got acquired by Seasoned. So how did you become an entrepreneur?
Yeah, I guess I watched my dad wake up every day at 4 AM and just grind it out. And he used to work for a big company, and then one day he decided to venture off on his own, and he did it on a much smaller scale, but I was just a witness to bootstrapped, scrappy, single entrepreneur guy. And I basically decided that that was going to be my life. And so I always had the dream of being an entrepreneur. And it is far less glamorous and way harder than I thought it was going to be. But at the end of the day, I'd rather be in control of my own destiny. And so that's what I did. So I started off as a coupon book company, turned mobile apps, built that to a top 100 app on the App Store, learned how to build technology and didn't raise any capital. So I had to, you know, figure out how to do a lot with very little and be, you know, very resourceful and built one of the fast-growing private companies called Canvas Special, which was a college-focused media company turned technology company and sold that to a publicly traded company in 2014.
And along the way I had bought, I wanna say around that time, 40, I'd had 40 cars just 'cause I was such a car fanatic. So I've had Ferraris and Lamborghinis and Bentleys and Aston Martins. And after I sold that company, I bought a Bronco for fun. And that Bronco for fun ended up being my real calling, which is building cars. So all the things I did before this were kind of a lead-up and building a foundation and muscle memory and learning how to build companies. Also just experiencing different kinds of cars for fun. Until it actually led me to my real true passion, which is building dream cars for people that, you know, they've always wanted but never wanted to deal with the problems. And so we took the problems away and it opened up a huge, massive market, which is not a restoration or restomod, but truly a classic-inspired luxury vehicle that was— had all of today's safety features, technology, and luxury. And it's a huge unlock because people have always wanted a car like that. But no company had ever really built a product at scale that had the quality, the service, the safety.
And so, yeah, it's a new category that we created.
That's awesome. Now, you've said in the past you didn't fund Vintage Modern with your own exit money.
So
how did you end up doing it?
Yeah, good old-fashioned way is you, you have sales and the sales create profit.
You sell the crap out of it.
You roll it right back into the company, which is— it's a funny question, right? Because I didn't know any other way. I grew up poor. I had, I had no money. My parents didn't have any money. And so when I started a business, the first thing I didn't think of was, well, let's go raise capital, right? That, you know, or go inject capital. It was, okay, well, if we make sales and we'll have profit and we have profit, we can put it back in the company. If we have cash, then we can go out and, you know, do what we wanted to do. And I think that's something that a lot of people get wrong. Hey, good for you if you have lots of capital to throw at it or you have lots of easy access to capital, but it's way harder than it sounds to just go out and raise a bunch of money. And because I wasn't in those circles, I didn't even know that was an option. So I just did it the old-fashioned way, man. We just made sales.
So, I really want to jump into the leads that you're able to generate, but let's go to this one first. Each of your vehicles takes 900 hours to build. That's handcrafted work at the highest level. You know, how do you charge what that's worth? And how do you get customers to see the value in 900 hours of craftsmanship instead of just comparing you to something cheaper? Yeah.
Yeah, it's a great question. You know, we actually didn't set that benchmark. We, we brought a product to market that had never been done before. So we were the first mover to truly build a, not a restoration or restomod. And for those that don't know, restoration restomod is an attempt to make a classic car more modern. There are a lot of limitations to that. And we built restorations and the client feedback was that it looked nice, but just didn't drive well, not reliable, no safety features. So we evolved the business from Restoration to Restomod. Restomod is modern restoration, modified restoration. So it's incrementally better than an old car, but not as good as a true modern vehicle that you drive today. And so we built Restomods, we built like 200 of them at our factory. And the feedback was clear that they were better than a restoration, but they still didn't quite drive like a modern car. And at this price point, $250,000 and up, people were comparing it to their Lamborghini Urus, Rolls-Royce Cullinan, G-Wagon, Range Rover, and their expectations were higher than a restomod could give them. And they had no safety features, which was a big, big deal because when your customers have families and kids and grandkids and their wife's going to drive it and they're going to drive it, then you really start to think, okay, well, how great of a product is it if you don't have safety features, you don't have airbags, you don't have, you know, all the things that you take for granted in your modern car?
So that was a big decision for us because it wasn't easy. We basically bet the farm. We bet the future that instead of building a restoration or restomod, we would do the opposite because our customers were telling us what they wanted. They didn't want a classic car. They thought they did. They wanted a classic looking car that had zero compromises on drivability, reliability, luxury. And then the most important thing was safety. Can you really build a great car company if your vehicle doesn't have modern safety features. So that was a big bet. And it was a big bet because it hadn't been done and it was a big risk, but it was very clear to us based on customer feedback. They were telling us what they wanted. And I also knew what they wanted because I was a customer. I wanted the same thing. And so, yeah, that was a big, big deal. And for us, the whole concept was that if we can give customers everything they wanted for no with no compromises. They would pay anything because we're at the top of the market now. So I'll backtrack a little bit. When restomods became hot, companies out there were already charging $200,000, $250,000, $300,000.
So that wasn't like a new thing if you wanted a really, really nice restomod. What we brought to market was a vehicle that actually was everything that a restomod wanted to be, but we physically crash tested it. It had safety features, it met today's safety standards, and that unlocks a huge market because now, you know, you could buy it and drive it like a normal car. So that was a big, big deal.
Yeah, no, when I saw the ads, very well done, by the way, all over social media. I want to get into this. So where did you learn how to market on social media?
Yeah, so that's a whole crazy, you know, story in itself. Well, my kids taught me how to use Instagram. And, uh, when I first started the company, I never even used Instagram, but I knew that we had to be, you know, out there because the product we built, uh, we're building at the time, restoration, was a very visual product. So you need pictures and you need video. And, and, and as a bootstrap guy, as an entrepreneur, you have to be able to learn things. And you have to be able to learn them fast. And because we had no capital, it's not like we just threw a few million dollars in the business and started it. You had to make sales. And to make sales, you have to market it. And so everything that we did on social media was learned. And it started with zero followers, no social media accounts, no social media background. But the difference was it was me. I was the one controlling pictures and video and music and captions. And because I was the customer, you know, a person that at that point in time had had over 50 cars. And I was, you know, I have a marketing background.
I basically learned how to position the product, the kind of brand voice. And I was essentially talking to our customers through the pictures and video and content that we made. And I could have never told you when I started that, that we would have, you know, 5 million followers and, you know, huge reach. I would have never thought that. But what I did know was social media gives you a very direct and clear feedback loop on if you're doing it well or not, right? So if you post something and it's crickets and nobody likes it, nobody comments, nobody shares, then you're cold. If you post something and, oh hey, this one got a lot more likes and a lot more shares, a lot more comments, then you're warm. And I love social media because it's very, very clear. if you're hot or cold. And I basically committed myself to literally 3 times a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for years, for like 7 years of posting, posting, posting while building that following. And it truly was a game. I always say the analogy of like Marco Polo, right? Cold or hot, you know, close or far.
And by doing that over and over and over, Built a following and it drove an amount of leads that you couldn't imagine. You couldn't pay for those number of leads and we couldn't have paid for it anyway because we didn't have any capital. And so it was kind of one of those necessary evils where, okay, we need to sell cars. To do that, we need to market. Social media was giving us this platform to show off our work, show behind the scenes, share our brand and personality and who we are. And it turned into a brand. And then attract the likes of celebrities, billionaires, athletes. And we use that to showcase who our clients were. And then that kept growing. So it's a fascinating thing, Tommy, that, you know, for, for, for businesses that can figure out how to leverage social media, your cost of acquisition is super low. You don't need to throw a lot of money at marketing. And in doing so, you own the asset, right? We don't rely on an agency or a company to go out and do that. We own our social media. And that's a huge unlock. I don't think we'd be here today if we hadn't excelled in building that social media following.
So, you've got organic social media and then you've got paid. How do you look at paid versus organic?
Yeah, you know, we have a love-hate relationship with paid because our organic is so big that, you know, if you look at the cost per impression, It's like nothing, right? It's basically free. It's someone's time. Whereas when you go to paid, you're paying a lot of money. And I could see why if a company did not have that reach, that social organic reach, then they're beholden to Meta and Google and you have to pay a lot of money because you can't generate leads. So 2 things. Number one, organic obviously is free and so significantly Number 2, the leads that come through organic are like 3 times more likely to make a purchase because they already know us. They already followed us. They already know the story. They've already been drooling over all the posts and the colors, and they've seen the stories and the testimonials and the behind the scenes. So their level of trust in our brand is significantly higher. Whereas paid, you know, like you could just be driving down the street and, you know, you're at a red light and you see a billboard and you're like, light and you, you know, take a quick peek and an ad served to you, you've never heard of it before and you sign up.
So it's kind of like hot versus cold and you can still nurture those leads and they still convert, but the cost is significantly higher and their familiarity and how warmed up they are is significantly lower. And so for us, organic all day and paid is more of a supplement. I think if you rely on all paid, your business, you have to have a lot of money to spend or you have to have a really, really great margin to be able to spend the kind of money that it takes to rely, you know, on paid acquisition. And so most, you know, the majority of all our sales are organic.
So I know you guys are working on some new, I guess, prototypes. We can't go into super details on this, but how many people do you think of your current clientele will come back kind of like me and go into another project?
Yep. You know, I think I'll answer that 2 ways. I think that the product, whether it's digital, physical, a service, it has to be really, really great. Right. And everyone, I think when they think about product, they're like, no, no, no, my product's great. My product's great. Your product is probably not as good as you think it is. I think entrepreneurs tend to be overly optimistic. And if you are biased in any way and you're not objective, brutally honest about your product, then I think what you're really doing is you've got a bucket and it's got a hole in it. And then when you pour water in it, you don't retain as much water as you expect. Right. And the worse your product is, the water just kind of goes right through. So no amount of marketing or spend or anything is going to sustain that because your product doesn't hold water, right? And, you know, I built a lot of products, digital, in the past. This was my first physical product. And it was a car, which is not like an easy product to build. And it was an expensive car too. I think the thing that made, that allowed us to build a great product was that I knew personally deep down long before I started the company, what a good car at this price point should be.
And this is the advantage of deeply, intimately understanding what's in the head of the customer. And when you've had Ferraris and Lamborghinis and Rolls-Royces and you build a car that costs, you know, $300,000, you're not confused as to what good looks like. You know what it's like and you know what you would expect and you know what your customers would expect. And that, that simple concept alone, allowed us to never be satisfied through our product iteration of restoration to restomod to what we build today because we never compromised because we knew, we knew that until I was happy with the product, then it wasn't gonna be good enough. And that's why we just kept pushing the envelope on making it better and better and better. And so here's what, here's what happened when we released our classic-inspired luxury car, the Modern Classic Truck. It was very clear that we had given the customers what they wanted because they loved it. The feedback was very, very strong. Today, I hadn't told you this yet, but we're getting very close to shipping build number 500 on that new modern platform. And so when you get that many customers at this price point who have the nicest cars money can buy telling you that the craftsmanship and the quality exceeds their expectations and it's their favorite car, now you know you've actually built a product that's good enough.
Not because we think it is, because our customers tell us. So to answer your question, once you've nailed that and your customers know what to expect, quality, service, what happens after the sale, you know, do we deliver on time? Did we meet the promises that we made? Then selling the next product to the same customers is actually very easy. And I'm excited that you're on the list, by the way, and you were an easy sale because You knew what to expect, right? There wasn't a lot of convincing because this time around it was just different style, different, you know, model, but you knew what the quality would be like. You knew what the service would be like. You knew what the concept was. And so great news is that when you deliver and you exceed client expectations, selling the next product to your clients, it's actually very easy. And that's a testament to the team because no amount of smoke and mirrors or sales and marketing or paid or unpaid would make that happen. The customer's either gonna go, yeah, I want more, or no, I don't want more. And, you know, so far we've only offered it to our existing clients and the take rate is very, very high.
So we feel really, really confident that not only our existing clients will love the new model, the public is gonna really, really be excited about it. And we've come a long, long way since we built the very, very first modern classic truck.
You know what's interesting? Obviously you've owned Ferraris, And my neighbor actually owns the number one jewelry store in Arizona. And I was sitting with him the other night and he's like, you think I could get like unlimited Rolexes or Patek Philippe? He's like, I have to write a letter to Patek to even get a watch for a client. They want to know when they're going to be wearing it. Are they going to ever sell it? And I think what you've kind of understood through owning certain select cars is The idea of, um, what's the idea here? Um, you're not gonna make a ton. You've only got certain capacity. You've got to be part of the club. Um, what's the word? What's the word?
Exclusivity.
Exclusivity is one of them. And then just not making enough for everybody that wants them. It's,
uh,
because when you called, you said, look, I might be able to get you on the list, basically. So, oh man, brain farting.
Scarcity.
Scarcity. There you go. That's the word I was looking for. So when you built scarcity, I mean, did you learn that from some of the cars you've owned in the past, or is that just something based on— because I know you got about 160 people now. You started with, with 12, and you're building about 250 cars a year. Um, it's just, you know, you could probably take the capacity up, but that doesn't— the scarcity is what makes it so valuable.
Yeah, you know, I think scarcity is a really important, um, concept, especially at this price point, because when you get to the luxury and high-end market, uh, those customers, they obviously value quality and service and functionality and all that, but they have this other box that they need to check, which is, do I have something no one else has? And I understood that again because I was a customer. And I also think I understood it better because I also started with nothing at all. And when you start from the bottom and you work your way up, you start to understand the universe of customers out there. Whereas if I had never made it, you know, I was never successful, I would only understand this level. Or if I was born into it, into it like my kids. They only understand, you know, this level. By understanding the psyche, the psychological things that make people buy, desire, what makes people want certain things, and knowing that full spectrum, because I knew it myself, it was actually very easy for us to create the marketing strategy, which was you want a car, especially when it comes to cars, right?
Cars at this price point, it's also about prestige.
Right.
Right. And so building a brand around a vehicle of this price point was really, really important because nobody wants to roll up to a place and have to explain to people what the heck that is. And no one's ever heard of it. And, you know, it's like this kind of like, you know, one-off thing. And so social media allowed us to show the world who we were, our quality, and we strategically placed it in places that built up the value of the vehicle, right? And when you see it next to Ferraris and Lamborghinis, when you see it at a private airport, when you see it in Beverly Hills and Palm Beach and Aspen and the Hamptons, that's how you create this image in people's minds that, you know, that's, that's a nice car. And it really was a nice car too, but you also have to do more than just, you know, say it's a nice car. So that marketing, that branding, that packaging was meant for the person who they could buy a Ferrari or Rolls-Royce or Bentley. But when they see the vehicle, they go, wow, I really want that. Okay. Well, A, is it quality, right?
It's got to be quality. B, how do I get it serviced? Is this some random company I never heard of that I'm never going to be able to get service for? And then C, like, is this a cool car that like, you know, people want, but you can't get it easily? And I think the celebrity angle, that was a really important part of that. And when you can pick up clients like Jennifer Lopez and Mark Wahlberg and LeBron James and all those guys, other people follow They're, they're called influencers for a reason. And so, you know, Tommy, we never paid any of those guys to promote it. They just loved the product so much that they did it on their own, which is really, really cool. So it goes back to having a great product, right? But yeah, all those things combined create the brand persona, which is this is a high-quality product that everybody wants, that's hard to get, that is driven around by the elite of the elite. And, you know, you don't want to pull up to your country club or your, you know, restaurant and see 5 other of the same car.
And so I think that's a really big part of it. When demand exceeds supply, good things happen. So if your friend that owns the jewelry business, you know, hopefully that never changes. But when you are building a product that more people want than you can build, it's an excellent place to be because now you actually have the built-in You know, scarcity. And today, even if we doubled or tripled the number of builds we did, it would, we were, it would still be such a small fraction compared to mass-produced cars. And so, you know, we're pretty conscious of, of keeping it exclusive, but I can tell you even where we are today, it's a drop in the bucket compared to how many people want, you know, a fully modernized car that has safety features that looks classic. It's a big market.
You brought up a good point I actually had on here, influencers. Why not? I guess it's like paying for an endorsement, but why not? If it moves the needle that much, why not do more influencer marketing and actually say, hey, we're going to build 3 for these people and they got to use their social media? Because if you've got 5 million and they've got 20 million, wouldn't
that
grow faster? What's the reason of not doing— if they want the vehicle, obviously they gotta— it's gotta be a match for them. But what would be the advantage of not wanting to pay for influencers?
Yeah, um, I think, I think had we not picked up so many celebrity clients in the beginning and, and even through now, We probably would have done it. And the list is very long. You know, I mean, it's the who's who list from, you know, NFL, MLB, NBA. Then you have singers, musicians, actors, billionaires, all kinds of people. I think, I think for us, it's really more of the fact that we've been spoiled by having the trust of the elite group of clients. And because their love of the product and the brand is real, Um, my guess is that, uh, with the right influencers that you pay, you know, they, they will be able to convey that. But when you don't pay them and they do it just out of pure love, uh, it's way more real and raw and organic. And you don't have to say, okay, you must give me X posts and you have to do the following. And, uh, I don't know. I think, I guess for us, we've been spoiled and we didn't have to. And but sure, I guess if the right celebrity wanted to do that, we'd be open to conversation, but we don't seek it out.
And when the top, top celebrities in the world are willing to do it for free because they love your brand, it's tougher for the people who are not quite at their status to charge, charge for it. And plus, you know, I'm just a bootstrap guy deep down, still feel like a poor kid who grew up with nothing. And so we try to be as capital efficient as possible. So if we don't have to, then we won't. But to your point, if it moved the needle massively, then we would. But we're proud of the fact that we haven't had to pay people. And we get asked all the time, you know, does Dave Portnoy pay? Does Mark Wahlberg pay? No, no, we don't pay them. It's just a testament to the fact that they love the product, which means, you know, going back to if you build a product people love so much, they will shout from the rooftops for free and do it with pride because they love it, which is really, really cool.
So let me ask you a question. There's a lot of people that listen, obviously, in the blue-collar arena, home service, home improvement. I do garage doors. A lot of HVAC, plumbing, electrical companies, a lot of pest control companies listening.
Mm-hmm.
How do you market to the affluent and make— obviously, you could do 3 things. You could be the best quality, background checks, drug tests, show up when you say you will. You could be the fastest, meaning that if you call me today, I'm out there right now. Or you could be the cheapest. Usually those are the 3 and you can do 2 out of the 3. That's what we've always heard, at least. Elon Musk might say differently. He thinks you could be all 3. You innovate correctly. But for companies like home service, blue collar, what would you do to stand out with social media?
Yeah, man, this is such a great question. Okay. Affluent people, let's just talk about it, right? I think a lot of people are afraid to talk about money. And I always remind people I came up with nothing and grew up poor, which is why I think I've been so effective in building this type of company, because I understood what it was like all the way through from, from bottom to top. And when you have a lot of money, when you are affluent and money is not something you have to worry about, A, it's a great place to be. But B, you, you can buy anything you want. You want the best, right? When you have that kind of money, you want the best, the best, whatever, pest control, home services, garage door company, building cars, whatever it is, you want the best. I believe it is the company service person's ability to tell the story that they are the best. And let's say pest control, for example, right? I'm just picking an example. The best would be not price, because, you know, although they are price conscious, they're actually gonna value service, quality of service, dependability.
Are you gonna do what you said you'd do? And will you do it, you know, at a fair price, but you're gonna do it on time, you do it well. And this seems so obvious to people, but I can tell you, by the way, a lot of our clients are people in the home services business and the businesses you mentioned, and they built, you know, companies from scratch and they made it really, really big. Maybe they sold to private equity, maybe they took it public, um, you know, like you. And so ultimately you just have to do what it is you say you're going to do really well, consistently. And ideally you're actually doing it above what it is you say. And so there's 2 parts to it. There's getting the business, then there's keeping the business. And from a sales and marketing side, it is how well can you articulate how elite your company, product, or service is in a way that a person who knows what good looks like, you know, if you have this kind of money, you're smart, you you've made it, more than likely you're successful. They know, they can see through it.
And so for us, we just told the story really well and it was real. The story was a guy buys an old classic car. It has lots of problems, no safety features for his kids. His wife hates it and decides to make it better. And in doing so, built restoration, restomod, and then built a modern vehicle that you can put your kids in, crash tested, FMVSS compliant. And people who heard that story said, wow, that makes sense. Oh, by the way, the founder of that company has had all the same cars as me, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce, Bentley. So that story, the way we told it through social media, and it was just the real truth. It was easy for our customers to go, I, I hear that. That's what I want. That's what my wife wants. That's what I want for my kids. And the story makes sense. So they bought. Now, the way we packaged it through social media was our, um, you know, strongest way. And because social media also is very real today, it's very raw. You have testimonials, you have behind the scenes, you have client reviews. It just makes it very real.
So our customers are buying sight unseen a car that costs $300,000, 2,000 miles away, because we told the story really well. I think that for the home services business, same thing, right? Any category, you just have to be able to communicate who you are, what you do, and why it's the best. Because when you can afford anything, you want the best. So that's sales and marketing. Now you actually have to deliver because if you convince somebody who can buy your product and then you let them down with a lesser quality product or service that you promised, then they're going to churn. And especially in a subscription business, right? Like pest control. You don't show up, you don't take care of the problem, you don't respond fast, you don't do a good job, they'll cut you off and they'll go to the next guy. For us, We were always obsessed with exceeding customer expectations. And I think that to answer your question, not just getting them, but keeping them, it is that simple. Deliver more than they expect. And if you do that, they'll never leave you. And that's what we did with our car. We delivered on time and we made sure that that quality and the craftsmanship was going to be better than they expected.
And then we made sure that the service part, like post-sale, service warranty was gonna be better than they thought. Not easy to do, expensive, and it'll seem unorthodox and, and non-traditional. Like we fly our certified traveling technicians to our people's homes, to our clients' homes if something comes up after, after, after delivery. Not something that Ferrari and Lamborghini will do. Well, we do it because we know that that's better than taking it to a dealership, waiting in line, and then being charged for it. So I would say, and this universal advice doesn't matter what industry you're in, if you deliver above consistently what your clients and your paying customers expect, you're going to win and you got to be able to do it over and over and over. And that's what we obsess over. It really is our, our secret sauce, right? Just do more and better than the client expects.
Yeah, there's, there's a lot of people. Dan Kennedy is one of them. Alex Hormozi talks about it, but Why not just market to the affluent? I will say that that has its own challenges. You know, I've got a buddy that has Persian rugs. They're $25 grand a pop. And he's like, you got to roll out the red carpet, white glove treatment. Can't make a mistake. But it's worth it. What have you noticed about— you've been dealing with the affluent for a long time. What are some of the most important things to remember?
Yeah. Well, a few things. I think that the, that advice about exceeding customer expectations isn't just for the affluent. Every category of customer, top to bottom, all has that own version, right? They have their own version. So it doesn't matter if your product is $50 a month or $500 a month or $5,000 a month or more. Paying customers have expectations at every level. And the strategy should be very simple. No matter what level customer you have, affluent or not, you have to be able to deliver above that. And what I learned, because when we first got in the car business, we were building $50,000 restomods, still a lot of money, right? But it's not a $100,000 car or $200,000 car or $300,000 car. Everyone had their own set of expectations. And so I think ultimately, If you are trying to break into the affluent market, you have to understand that those people, they're very smart, they're very successful. And if they came from nothing, they're going to be even tighter with their money than you think. I think a lot of people think, oh, you know, you go into a nice neighborhood, you have $4 or $5 million homes, you're going to name your price.
I can tell you, you're not going to come and quote me for something that's like 3 times more than market and I'm going to be okay with it. So I think that's a misconception. Is that you can charge whatever you want. You can charge whatever you want if you're actually delivering value that is beyond what anyone else is charging. But in a business that's, you know, a commodity business where you have a lot of competitors, you know, there's only so, you know, much of a threshold of what you can charge. I would zero in on, you know, what is it the customer wants and how do you deliver it consistently every time above what they expect? And that I would say the more sophisticated and successful and affluent the customer is, the pickier they're going to be and the smarter they're going to be. And so there's no smoke and mirrors, you know, at that price point, right? They're, they're, they're consumers. They know, and they've been through it. And, you know, I think in our normal lives, I don't know, 95% of the products and services we consume, we're not in love with, right?
They didn't exceed expectations. You went to a restaurant and the service was bad, or you bought some service online you're excited about and they let you down. And therefore, all you have to do is actually beat everybody else by simply overdelivering on whatever your value proposition is.
I love this stuff, man. This is so much fun. So, your clients, like you said, LeBron James, Jennifer Lopez, Mark Wahlberg, Kevin Hart, Ryan Reynolds, did they all find you through social media? And are you dealing directly with them or usually you're dealing with Somebody on their staff?
Yeah, both. So most of them came through social media and you'd be very, very surprised how a celebrity that has 100 million followers, they're holding their phone. That's them behind the screen. And a lot of them do their own deals, which is really, really cool. So I've met a fascinating list of people that I've become friends with through, through doing this. And they're just right there on their phone. And you wouldn't think that. But today, I think we live in a world where, you know, like whether you have 5,000 followers or 5 million or 500 million, people are behind their social media account. And so we've had a mix of both. Some people have people and they send their people and then some people, you know, they'll, they'll just DM you. So I woke up to a DM from Mark Wahlberg one day and he's like, hey, Been following you guys for a long time. Love what you do. Let's build something together. And I was like, awesome. So it kind of depends. So yes, I would say for the most part, they are the ones managing their social media and social media is the number one way that they contact and connect with us.
The other part is just good old-fashioned word of mouth. And here's the other great thing about the high-end market. And the super affluent celebrity market, if you can deliver on your promise, if you are a trustworthy, credible company that actually does what it is you say you'll do, then I think the ability to get referrals at that level is the highest. And the reason why is because when you can afford the best and you know that most of the time the services, products you engage in let you down, you don't want to give referrals, right? Who wants to give a referral? to a friend that they're afraid that that company is going to let them down and make them look bad, right? That's like, you don't want to do that, especially, you know, at this level. And I also think too, the super high-end market, affluent market, they're used to being taken advantage of because they have a lot of money, right? And everybody knows. So if you're an athlete and you make $40 million a year, everyone's coming at you to get your money. And so you have to be really guarded and paranoid if you're smart to be able to hang on to that money.
And therefore, when a company product service does meet or ideally exceed their expectations, they're going to tell their friends. And it's amazing because when we had our first NFL player, we got more NFL players. We had our first hockey player, we got more hockey players. When you get your first, you know, musician, actor, whatever, they all hang out together, right? And so the circle is very, very small. And the standard is very, very high. If you can deliver on that, they'll tell their friends. And so a lot of the other non-social media generated referrals just come from friends. Mark Wahlberg referred us to Tyler Perry. He's referred us to multiple clients. And that's just, again, we don't pay him anything for it. He just loves it so much. So it goes back to earning people's trust, exceeding their expectations, and then you'd be blown away. And my guess is whoever does Mark's normal, you know, non-car things, if they're good, They're getting a referral, you know? And so it sounds so simple. And I know, you know this, Tommy, because you've done an exceptional job building your empire. You just have to beat everybody else.
And beating everybody else is simply exceeding the expectations of the customer on product quality, service, follow-up, and all those things. When you do that consistently, it's almost like an unfair advantage. You know, I think before I built all this, maybe I thought it was something else or some secret to it, but It's good old-fashioned, you know, blowing your customers away on a regular basis, and they will shout from the rooftops about your product.
Do you think that building your own, you know, as the CEO and founder, you think building your own channels is just as important as the company itself? What is your take on that? Because if you look at Elon Musk, his channel's way bigger than Tesla or SpaceX. You look at anybody really, you look at Jeff Bezos, Any one of these people, their personal following is greater. And at one point it's probably the company and then it goes to them and then it goes back and forth. What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah. Now you're talking, man. This is a big, big, big time important subject that I believe is relatively new on social media. The founder behind the company is always kind of a really interesting part of the brand. Because people are always curious. They want to know, you know, and the founder's job is to inject his or her values into the DNA of the company. And therefore, by knowing the founder, you can have a good sense of what the brand, the company, the product, the service is going to be like. And this has always been the case, but I think over the last year or so, it's really become big. And it doesn't matter how big or small your company is. Hell, I think even, even the smaller companies, it matters even more because you don't have this like big company behind it. The founder or owner might only be one of 20 people in the whole organization, right? So it really matters. I think the personal brand thing is huge today and is a whole nother ballgame of advertising marketing channel that every company I think needs to tap into. And the reason why is because we're so desensitized today by AI, the flood of paid ads everywhere.
There's content everywhere. Everybody's flooding, flooding the market. And if you don't have human beings behind it, if you don't have a real face, a real person that is you know, transparent, that is likable, that is open and honest, then I think the brand becomes nameless, faceless, and it kind of falls in a bucket of like you don't really know who's behind it. I think there's a huge opportunity for people today to leverage that more than ever. And that even in our channel, I used to be kind of anonymous when it came to vintage because I, no one knew I was the one building the social media. I never told people that, you know, I did the first 4,666 posts myself for like 7 years. And then when I saw this change, this is a new thing in my opinion, and it's only gonna get bigger and bigger and bigger that, okay, shoot, instead of being behind the camera, I need to be in front of the camera now. And that wasn't easy for me because I'm not like, I never took selfies of myself. I'm not like a Hey, look at me kind of guy.
I was the opposite. So that was hard for me. But once I started doing it, it paid off big time and I got comfortable with it because think about it, for us, we're building a $300,000 car and we're not Lamborghini, Ferrari, you know, Rolls-Royce yet, right? So we have to earn more trust than those brands because they have this built-in credibility. And so who better than the founder to get in front of the camera and just say, hey, here's who I am, here's who we are, here's how we do things. And be real about it, right? It can't be fake. And I think the difference between companies that, that have a founder who has a personal brand and is constantly sharing and telling stories and, you know, going behind the scenes and filming, it makes a huge difference. So we do it all the time now and it can't be fake. I think if it's fake, it'll backfire, right? And so people are desensitized to the perfectly manicured content that, you know, was shot perfectly with You know, a great camera and great scripts and great— today you just want to feel like you're there, you know?
And so we walk around, we talk to our people, we share, you know, behind the scenes. When it comes to hiring, we're super transparent about the company culture, what it's like to work here. And these are things I would never thought I would do, but I know it's important for the company. And what's really cool about it, back to your question about paid versus organic, is that the people who follow us, who pay attention to all that content, by the time that they talk to our sales rep, they're ready to buy. They already know who we are. They already know our philosophy. They've already seen the behind the scenes. They feel like they already know us. And the alternative to that is you're this company that just makes a bunch of ads and then they've got to figure out, is this real or is it not real? I think the personal brand thing is huge and that everybody should start by starting. And if you're like me, you probably felt really intimidated and you felt like this is like awkward and you don't want to, you know, get on camera and you're all your friends like, what are you, an influencer?
I'm not trying to be an influencer. I just want to be a great promoter of the company by sharing transparently who we are. And the more raw and organic and real and transparent you are about the good and the bad, the ugly, the more trust you'll build. And so don't be afraid to talk about the problems because we had plenty of problems, especially when we first started the company and we still have problems today. We talk about it openly, which makes people trust us more.
I love that. Yeah, I think more people need to talk about the problems. But if you could do it, talk about the problems and talk about how you rectified it, because that's 100% transparency. You've said you want to compete with Ferrari and Lamborghini. It's a pretty big statement. You know, you guys are $60 million. What does that next level look like?
Yeah. So, um, When I say compete, we, our aspiration is to build one of the most desirable luxury car brands, but our value proposition is very, very focused on classic-inspired design. And the other companies are not focused on that. And we think that that market is massive and that market is global and it is just going to keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger as we go into time. Because we're so spoiled today by modern-day reliability, technology, engineering. It is so hard to go back 50 years in time when that didn't exist. And so I think what we're after is to build a car brand that meets or exceeds and delivers a level of quality and craftsmanship that you only find in the absolute highest, most elite car brands. And What we'll give you is what you've always wanted. It's what people always wanted, which is a classic vehicle without any of the classic car problems. And that market is very, very big. So we, when we say compete with them, that's what we mean by it. And we think that we're well on our way. And a big, big part of that is that you have to consistently deliver and overdeliver to be able to play at that price point.
And to be able to get to that level. The great thing is for us, like demand exceeds supply. There are more people on this planet that want the kind of vehicle that we build. And we were first mover in creating this category that didn't exist in automotive before. It had done— it had been done on a smaller scale, one-off, but not to this level of quality and scale. And we think that the runway ahead, it is significantly, you know, bigger than the ground we've covered so far. So this is just the beginning, Tommy. And I also think too, to build a company like that, it's kind of a once in a generation type company. It has to have a founder who sees a vision and is so passionate about making that happen that you'll be relentless in getting there. And that is me. I was born to do this. And all the things I did before was just kind of a warmup to this. And the other thing that we've done is we've built an exceptional team. behind the scenes, because as you know, founder CEO is one person. You have to have an incredible team of people who are aligned with that mission.
And we haven't talked about it a lot on this, on this podcast. But what I can tell you is other than our social media, which is a massive unfair advantage, our team, the people behind the scenes, the culture, I would say is tied for our unfair advantage because great, you have a plan and a vision and this thing that you want to build. You have to have people behind the scenes who love it as much, are obsessed as much, believe in the mission, and they come in every day, you know, rowing in the same direction. Very, very hard to do. But once you do it, man, watch out world. So yes, that is our aspiration. And we feel extremely confident that we're going to be the company to do it.
This is, it's a question I think about. Obviously, I'm in garage doors, people park their cars in garages. I was looking at something this morning about robotaxis. these robo-taxis work all day and everyone's saying, the smartest people I know, good buddies, are like, I'm going to buy 50. And unfortunately, well, I'll say this, I still like to drive. I was with a buddy in Nashville and the Cybertruck came out, pulled up in the rain. He hit a button on his phone and it came around and pulled up. Now, they got to get behind the car. And this is the first year I've just read that on Teslas, if you put a governor in and you don't touch the steering wheel, your insurance drops significantly. There's a new insurance program out. Obviously, you probably do SWOT analysis all the time and opportunities, threats, weaknesses in the process. What is your take on the future of autonomous vehicles? And by the way, you can put those on anything vintage you want if you do it right. Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. You know, I've had 2 Teslas myself. Both of them had self-driving. I had the early version. Today is way better than it was when I had the Teslas. I'm not anti-EV at all, and I'm not anti-autonomous driving at all. You know, the way we think about it is we are very, very focused on what our paying customers want. And if our paying customers say, hey, we badly want an EV version and it's big enough to matter, it's a big chunk of our customers, then we're going to listen. If they tell us we want self-driving, then we're going to listen. I can tell you today, at least the number of our paying customers that want EV or self-driving, it comes up that much of the conversation out of that much of the time. Not to say it wouldn't change, but we're very like agnostic to what our customers want. Yeah. And so if that changes over time and it won't change overnight, my guess is that if it does change, it'll kind of creep up and it'll be very obvious because we're very close to our customers. We talk to them, we take feedback, and we listen to what they say.
And so to answer that question, I'll tell you that if we did it, it'd be because it was very, very obvious that our customers say, hey, we want, you know, X, Y, Z, whatever it is. And so going back to our product evolution, Our customers told us we want a car that looks classic, that doesn't have problems and issues and drive like an old car, and we want safety features. So we gave it to them. And so the point that they want it to fly or drive by itself or be electric or hydrogen or whatever, then, you know, we're always going to listen to our customers. And that's probably, again, something that's so obvious that people don't do. Your paying customers pay your paycheck, and so you have to give them what they want, and you have to be able to decipher, you know, what it is they want. Because it would've been easy for us to go down a path of, okay, well, we're gonna try to make these old cars have airbags, which actually isn't possible. So you have to listen to it and you have to kind of, you know, filter it and distill it down into what did they really want?
Going back to what Henry Ford said, you, if they had, if he had just done what they wanted, he would've built faster horses, right? And we knew what the customer, our customers wanted. What they wanted, what they're really saying is make it look classic, but make it brand new. And so that's how we arrived at it. So to answer your question and for everybody else, like super hyperfocus obsessively over what your paying customers want. And it's usually not rocket science, right? It's usually very obvious. They just want what it is your product or service should deliver. And then you deliver above that every time. And you'd be very surprised how quickly you're going to win because And most companies can't do it.
I got— this is great. I absolutely love that information. Let me ask you a few more questions. So, you wrote in Forbes that the most vulnerable moment in any business is when things are going well, and that success is deceptive because it reinforced the very assumptions that created it. Well, your business is going really well. What are you watching for? What keeps you sharp?
Yeah. Well, we use the term productive paranoia here a lot. And what we mean by that is it doesn't matter if we're winning, winning big, winning small, losing, tie. We operate with this paranoia that we have to come in every single day and earn it. And that the best offense is a good defense. And so if you walk through here and you look at the intensity and the purpose and the passion at which our people move at, That is our culture. Our culture is, doesn't matter what's happening. What matters is what we do and that we never take our foot off the pedal. And it's like the fable, the rabbit, the tortoise and the hare, right? Okay, great. You're ahead, but doesn't mean you're going to win. I think a lot of companies focus on launch and they should be focusing on landing, right? Launching is easy. Hey, we started this thing. We started a new company, we launched a new product. Okay, great. Is it good? Do the customers like it? So landing, in my opinion, is more important because you got to be able to get back, right? And you got to be able to get on the ground.
Being first mover, I think a lot of people obsess over that too much too. Great. Okay, you're first mover, but competition's coming. So are you first mover or are you going to be the last mover? And we want to be the last. We want to be the company and that in people's minds as the very, very best. And so to me, it's what keeps us going is the fear of losing. We don't want to lose. We want to win. And we believe in where we're taking this. We know how big the market is. And we know that it's full of risks and obstacles and challenges. And so I would say we have the opposite of lean back and kick your feet up on the desk and feel like you've won. We think that most of the work is ahead of us. And I think that productive paranoia is a great thing because the moment you feel like you've won, the moment you ease up, the moment you you feel like you're good and you don't get close to it, I think that's where things fall apart. And so as a founder, I unfortunately live with the most paranoia that it won't always be good.
And then there's things out of your control like COVID, supply chain. I started Vintage right during COVID I started the company and then COVID hit like 3 months later. And then after that, supply chain crisis hit 3 months, you know, a year later. So imagine how hard that was. So we've been through a lot, and because of that, we've been conditioned that all is not good, right? That's our philosophy. And I think that you're way better off hoping for the best and expecting the worst, and then creating playbook and strategies and a plan B and C and D for when things don't go well versus assuming that'll go well. I would say the smartest, most successful you know, people that I'm around, they share that mentality. And when I was young and I was around those guys, I was like, why are you always so skeptical? How come you're so, you know, you don't believe, like, you know, you know what it is I've done. And I recruited a great board as well. And they were, you know, they're very, very accomplished. And I felt like I was always having to convince them. And what I learned was prove it, right?
No matter what you say or you have this idea or you have so much conviction, you have to go prove it. So for us, we're proving ourselves every day. And the day that we stop proving ourselves, the day I think we will die.
Yeah, I know about what you're talking about. I got a lot of people that are absolutely going to say no, and they're paranoid, and they say, prove it. And it's tough environment, but what we're going to be doing here in Q4 is saying, if we're going to have a full day and just say, if we wanted to take down A1, how would we do it? My company, what would we do if we wanted to beat them? At everything. And just make sure we're sharpening our toolset, like make sure that everything that we make on that list, we're hypersensitive to. What's one piece of advice that you give every entrepreneur listening?
Man, it's a tough one because there's a lot of advice. Yeah, I've given different pieces of advice throughout all the interviews I've done. I'm going to share one with you I haven't shared with other people. Which is you have to believe that it is possible for you to succeed beyond your wildest dreams. And someone can look at what it is you've accomplished, which is incredible, right? And go, wow, I can never do that. Or I don't know if I could ever get to that level, right? I can never, you know, get to a company that would, you know, do that kind of revenue or valuation or exit or whatever. And, um, you have to believe more than anybody, even if the odds are stacked against you, because the odds are stacked against you, you know, and you can't be afraid to fail. And, um, I think for me, I, I was conditioned by my parents. I watched my dad, you know, get up and grind every day. And then I saw, you know, other people winning. And I always had this mentality that if Someone else is doing it, then I should be able to do it too.
And it doesn't mean it's guaranteed and there's a lot of work involved, but it starts with the belief because if you don't believe, then, you know, nothing you do is going to get you there. And you have to have this like unwavering sense of confidence that you're, you're going to make it happen. And I think that, um, that's so important for entrepreneurs, especially in the early stage, because it's going to be hard. It's really, really hard and it's gut-wrenching and you're going to feel like you're going to fail and you want to quit and bad things happen and all the plans that you had in your head and in your business plan don't go according to plan like it never does. And you have to be able to stand behind and go, no, I'm still going to win. You have to be relentless, you know, but it starts with that belief and you've got to be the voice inside your head that says you can do this and you will fail. It will be hard. And you'll, you'll maybe be embarrassed by, you know, what your friends might think or what the public might think.
And you might even fail a few times. And I've had companies, I'm sure you've had too, where they didn't work out, right? You had startups and you thought it was a good idea and it didn't work. I would think of starting a company less like a one-and-done shot. You're just going to do it and you're going to win and kind of more like, you know, you're shooting a 3-point shot, right? Even the best NBA players, they're making at best half of those shots, right? The best MLB baseball players, if they're batting .300, they're Hall of Fame, which means you will miss 70% of the time and you will make 30% of the time. And I think that if you have that belief and you, you have that burning desire to go chase something and you really, really believe in yourself, then, then I think you should go after it. Don't be afraid to fail and you should do it early before your life gets complicated and you have, you know, too many commitments and all that kind of stuff. So I would say, believe in yourself. I had nothing when I started. My family, we had nothing, but I observed all the other people who had more.
And I was like, there's gotta be a way to do that. And so, and that was really what it was. It was a puzzle and I figured it out for myself. And I was relentless. I wanted it more than how hard it was to get it because it was hard. And so, you know, deep, deep down, if you're hearing this and you've got that itch, you can do it. It won't be easy, but if you really love it and you're relentless, you would shock yourself with what's possible. And that's a really cool thing. And so you've got to be, you know, your number one cheerleader. And deep, deep down in your mind, you have to know that you're capable and then you just have to work like hell to make it happen.
So, so one follow-up question is it, do you think based on your experiences, is it working harder or recruiting The people that could probably run circles around you at their specific trait or skill.
Yeah, you know, I think it's all the above. Um, you know, to me it's like a game of survival, especially early stage, right? But it, it's, it tends to be that way for a while. Early stages, you have an idea and now you're going to try to, you know, take it from your head to, to something, right? Those early stages are the most difficult because you've got to Be able to survive. And I always use the analogy that if you found yourself on a deserted island, right, and you've, you've got to somehow, some way get off that, you have to survive. The instincts of a human being for survival is way greater than people think, right? But typically people don't put themselves in that position, so they never get tested. Well, when you start a company, that is that position. You've got to survive. So to answer your question, is it, you know, recruiting? Is it, you know, pushing yourself and working hard? I think it's anything and everything that's required to win and survive in the beginning. It's everything. And if you saw me in the early days, and I still pretty much do it now, I was the marketer.
I was a sales guy. I was the designer. I was the procurement guy. I was, you know, everything. And I didn't care what it took because if I didn't do all that in the beginning, then we would have failed. And ultimately, as a founder, this is how I like to do things. I like to be very, very close to things. I like to understand every nook and cranny because it's hard to hire people and try to vet if they're the right person or not. And then it's hard to manage them because if you don't know what you're talking about, you have no idea, or at least you don't know enough to be dangerous. You have no idea, right? So I always was very curious in general, but I also understood the importance of knowing what you're talking about, because then when you recruit people, especially the early people who really, really matter, you have no idea what you're talking about. How are you going to know? You know? And so for me, I always wanted to know enough to understand, to be able to help recruit and train and manage. But I also felt that the respect that your team will give you when you are close to things, you're out there, you're hands-on, and you're not just flying high in your office somewhere telling people what to do.
The respect you get is immensely higher. And I'll give you an example. In the early days, I, uh, I built this factory and I had this office that I'm sitting in here. And I had this instinct that the more time I spend in my office, the worse this is going to be. And so I was right about that. And so I spent as much time as I could on the factory floor with my people on my hands and knees. And they knew I had had success before. So they're like, why is Cho on his hands and knees with a flashlight and a ruler and a magnifying glass on a creeper under the car? He doesn't have to do that. And that's exactly the point is that by my willingness to do that, to get my, literally my pants dirty and my sleeves dirty, my wife would come home and she'd be like, why are your clothes all black? I thought you were CEO, not mechanic. It was because I wanted to show my people that I wasn't too good to do it. And I had a burning curiosity to go, huh, if we're having that problem, why?
Let me go look at it. You know, and leading by example is probably far and away the most important thing I think a leader can do, which means if you're not in it, close to it with your people, you know, where the action's happening, then you don't know there's gaps. They won't respect you as much. And you're going to create a culture of, hey, when you become a manager or a boss or a leader, you go sit in your office. We want our people with the vehicle on the floor, even if they're the chief, whatever. It doesn't matter. We tell people in the interview, if you're an office kind of guy, it doesn't matter if you're at the entry level or at the C-level, you're not going to succeed here because we're hands-on, you know? So, so yeah, I think it's really, really important to To get your hands dirty, be close to it, lead by example. And if you love it, by the way, you'll want to be close to it. The days that I'm not with my team, you know, on the factory floor, I hate it because it means I'm behind a computer and not in the action.
So that's, that's my take on it.
I agree. Is there a book, Joe, that changed the way you look at business? One that like comes to mind that really stands out in your mind?
Yeah, definitely. There's, there's 2. One is Good to Great by Jim Collins. You know it?
I know it well. Built to Last and Good to Great. Yep.
Yeah.
And then I
love—
there's another one, 2.0, that he's—
Yeah, he's got a whole library. I love anything Jim Collins writes. And I know that book isn't new, but I can tell you the way they explained it, it is so simple to understand. And it's a lot of what I'm talking about, right? Do you want to build a bad company, a good company, or a great company? And in my opinion, bad and good and great is actually the same amount of effort. You know, okay, fine. Maybe you have to put in more effort, but you're putting in the effort anyway. You're putting the time anyway. It's gonna be hard anyway. You might as well aim for great. And, and I think Good to Great really explains the difference between You know, the good to great companies, and it's very obvious. And a lot of things I've been talking about, right? Like they have the right people in the right positions, and then they just do the right thing. Logic, right? It's not like the secret sauce that, you know, it applies to all industries. And I just think that they do such a great job explaining it. Good to Great, I would say, if you're an entrepreneur, you read that and really like deeply read it.
When I read a book, which I don't read like paper books, I do Audible. I listen to it over and over and over until it like is ingrained in my mind. Because to me, it's a $15 free, like $15 private lesson from someone who's done it before and done it well. And more than likely to change your paradigm, to change how you think, you're going to have to hear it more than one time. So I've probably listened to Good to Great, like, I don't know, 50 times. And I do it while I'm driving, right? I'll just have windshield time and I'll hit play. The alternative is I listen to music and I love music, but this is me learning, right? So Good to Great, Jim Collins, highly recommend. And then the other one is about people. Okay, great. Now you're building a business. You got to hire people. Hiring is way harder to do well than people think. And I got it wrong for a long time. Who, not how. Yeah. It's a fascinating— you know this one?
Yeah, he's a good buddy of mine, Benjamin, uh, Dr. Ben Hardy and Dan Sullivan. Yeah, I could introduce you.
Oh yeah, I would love to meet them. And, uh, I love this book because I think that hiring is way trickier than people think. And in Who Not How, they simply explain that for everything that you as the founder, entrepreneur, or your people dislike doing, not good at, don't know how to do, put off as their least favorite activity, there's a person out there who loves doing that, is great at it. It'd be the first thing they do. And that is the simplest summary of that book. Go find those people. Like, I bet you a lot of people are watching this going, well, I suck at social media. I don't like social media. I'm not good at that. How do I do that? Okay. Well, maybe, maybe either you have to learn it, right? Which founders have to be great at learning things. And learn things fast, then you need to go find somebody and they obsess over social media. They love to do that. That'd be the first thing on their list. And when you have a whole team of people, you need people who love what they do, are good at what they do in all different disciplines.
And the moment we figured that out, man, oh my God, the amount of leverage we created and the retention rate that we had and the less turnover we had. When we hire people, they might be great people, but if you stick somebody who hates social media into social media, they will probably fail and hate it. And then you'll think they weren't good. They're probably good. Maybe you just had them in the wrong role, which goes back to Good to Great. The first thing Jim Collins says is you have to get the wrong people off the bus, the right people on the bus, and then the right people in the right seats. Tricky to do in a startup or early stage company when you don't have the budget to have one of every, you know, discipline that you need. You might need 50 people. So what do you do if you have 5 people but you need 50, or you have 10 people and you need 50? Well, you need those people to be good enough to do all those things, or you will fail. So those 2 books I love. If I had had nothing else but that and that, you know what is required to build a great company, and now you have the people to plug in to be able to build a great company.
There's many others, but those are 2 of my favorites.
Fantastic. Great books. So where can people find more about you, Cho? What's the best way to find Vintage Modern and follow the builds and connect with you?
Sure. So there's the traditional way, vintagemodern.com, which is our website. I highly recommend though our social media and specifically Instagram. And if you go on Instagram @vintagemodern, you'll, you'll see a very transparent view of who we are, our values, what we do, how we do it. We publish it every single day, super transparently for the world to see. I highly suggest you check that out and you're going to see all the things that we talked about today, all kind of, you know, embedded in the DNA. And some people might see pictures and video, but it's not just pictures and video. This is how we tell the story of who we are. And by doing so, we attract great talent. And clients. Pretty fascinating thing. So I checked that out. And then me personally, there's a link to my account where I share a lot of behind the scenes too. And I talk a lot about this kind of stuff. I love talking about this stuff. I knew none of it. I'm just sharing it with people. And I don't have a course. I don't charge for it. It's just, you know, what I love to do.
And you'll find my Instagram handle, Chauism, C-H-A-U-I-S-M, on Instagram and link to our Vintage Modern page as well.
How long did it take you, by the way? Just, this is one of the last questions is, uh, sounds like you didn't give up. You didn't wake up with that many followers. You kept constant and it seems like it's really starting to take off now, but I'm guessing there are days you woke up and are like, I'm sure you had success, but now it's kind of become a little bit easier. You've kind of figured out the formula.
Yeah, well, I'll answer that 2 ways. I think you have to be willing to grind because I think as human beings, we are— we tend to be too optimistic and we underestimate how hard something is, how long it's going to take. And we want things faster, instant gratification. And we are— we tend to not be patient and we tend to Far underestimate how long something will take. By nature, I'm a grinder, right? I can just grind and grind and I just don't get tired of doing it. So for me, I'm kind of an outlier there in that I don't mind doing that. And I also know that that's what it takes. So for me, it's very, very normal for me. So you can imagine if you start Instagram with zero followers and you look at it and you're at like 100, you look at it, you're like 500, it's nothing, right? And everybody thinks that they need to be at a million and need to be, you know, famous, all that stuff. Don't worry about that. Compounding interest is real. Meaning when you do something, you do it over and over. Don't do it every month or every now and then or every quarter.
Like you literally do it every single day. That is how we built our social media to 5 million followers. There was no easy way. We didn't buy followers. We didn't have like these special collabs that like gave us big, you know, blips in growth. We just grinded it. And we did one thing on social media specifically, much like your paying customers, you have to give them what they want and exceed their expectations. When you're building audience, it's actually very simple. You have to give your audience what they love in this way, in this example, content, right? Content that people love. Well, how do you know if you're giving people content they love? Likes, shares, comments. They'll tell you if they don't like it, crickets. If they like it, they'll tell you, and then you keep doing it. Double down on things that work, stop doing the things that don't, right? And then you just keep playing this game of like refinement and then you keep hitting it. And so that's how we built our social media. We grinded and the compounding interest paid off over time. I'm really glad we did it because I don't think we would exist if we hadn't done that well.
And so that's, that's one part of it. What was your other part of the question that you asked?
Yeah, no, I was just wondering about the social media side of like getting bored with it. Like a lot of entrepreneurs, they think there's this magic pill that you do like You hire this one person or you do this one campaign and it's so much different. They think they're gonna get this piece of software, you know, Hootsuite to time when the stuff gets posted and that's gonna be the game changer. And it's not, it's just hard work. I think you answered that perfect.
Yeah. Well, your other part of the question was, is it easier now today? Well, I'll say it's easier in some ways, but harder than others. Like if, if, if my goal and our goal was to just, you know, keep doing what we're doing and maybe have incremental growth, then I would be set. I wouldn't have to show up and everything would be great. But our goals are huge, right? Our goals is we want to be the number one player in the space globally. And therefore, the amount of work that we have to do is actually greater than the work we've done. And so it is easier in some ways, but harder than others because the kind of levels that we want to get to are orders of magnitude of where we are today. But I think when you have a great team, that's what makes it easier. I don't have to worry about every single little thing anymore because I've got great people to worry about all of these things. I'm focused on the future. I'm focused on strategy. I'm focused on, you know, models that are upcoming. And, and so, yeah, it's, it never gets easier so long as you keep aiming higher.
But when you have a great team and you, and they really are aligned with you, it's actually a lot of fun. And we haven't talked about that enough. Winning is fun. Winning with a great team is a lot of fun. It's still hard and challenging, but doing it with a great team, it's like being on a sports team and winning a game that was really, really close that you really needed to win. And that grows, you know, the camaraderie and the chemistry. I'm just having fun doing it, so I'll never stop.
I love it. I love it. Last— well, I just wanted a quick sneak peek. We talked about this before we started the podcast. You said, look, there's a lot of things that are still secrets. You've got some, some really good opportunities out there to debut some new things. What can you share?
Yeah. So, so we're best known for our Modern Classic truck. We are about to ship vehicle number 500 on that modern car chassis. It's been a huge, huge hit. We've learned a lot. We have taken a lot of customer feedback and the world wants the product that we're building. And so we keep building that product and we're about to launch. I know you know what it is since you have one on order, a new product which is gonna check a different box. So today we have the cool SUV convertible beach cruiser. We're going to announce soon a world-class sports car. Some people would call it a supercar. And it's going to have 840 horsepower, carbon fiber body. It'll have numbers on a piece of paper that will rival any vehicle you can buy at this price point, quality and craftsmanship that people expect from a brand, luxury though that you'd expect in like a Bentley, not a supercar, and all packaged in a way that no one else has this. And that's big for our customers. You know, you go to Miami, you go to LA, a lot of Lamborghini Huracáns, a lot of McLarens, a lot of the same vehicles.
This is going to be a vehicle that checks every box that doesn't exist today. And today I'm way more obsessed with building cars than buying them. And so this is one that I want. I want a fast, light, handles well, world-class sports car that looks like nothing else on the road. And so that'll be released soon and you won't miss it. And I think it's gonna be a big, big deal. And it's just the beginning. We're building a luxury car brand and our focus is gonna be classic-inspired design, performance, luxury, craftsmanship, service, and then safety. And that's the number one thing you don't get in classic cars today or restomods. And so we're very, very excited about it and we're very bullish about it. And when we release it, we'll have to do a round 2 and we'll, we'll show the fans your build, which I'm really excited about too. So yeah, pretty excited.
I can't wait. So this has been phenomenal. I really appreciate you taking the time with me. When I come to Atlanta to come see what you're working on, we'll have to get together, go get dinner. And if you're ever here in Paradise Valley, Phoenix, whatever area you're in, let's hang out.
Yeah, let's do it, man. And appreciate you having me on today. Love what you're doing. Congrats on your success as well. And appreciate the business as well. Thank you for allowing us to build your dream cars for you. It means a lot to us.
I love it, man. Well, thanks again, and we'll chat soon. I'm sure I'll be texting you here every week to get updates.
Sounds good, Tommy. Looking forward to it.
Thanks, buddy. Appreciate you.
Thanks, man. You too. Take care.
🚀 FREEDOM 2026 Get your Tickets Today! https://freedomevent.com Chau Nguyen sold two tech companies, bought a 1974 Bronco that kept breaking down, and turned that headache into Vintage Modern, a $60 million luxury vehicle company that hand builds classic inspired trucks for LeBron James, Mark Wahlberg, Jennifer Lopez, and Tommy himself. He did it with no outside capital and no ad budget: he posted three times a day for seven years, built a following of millions, and made social media his number one sales channel. In this episode he breaks down why organic leads buy at three times the rate of paid leads, why rich customers are tighter with money than most contractors assume, how to market a home service company to the affluent, why the founder has to be the face of the brand now, and the hiring mistake that nearly held his company back. Vintage Modern ⟶ https://vintagemodern.co Follow Vintage Modern ⟶ https://www.instagram.com/vintagemodern/ -- 🕐 TIMESTAMPS 🕐 -- 00:00 - Introduction 01:37 - The Bronco That Made His Wife Smell Like Gas 03:33 - From Coupon Books To A Top 100 App To 40 Cars 06:14 - No Investors: Sales Paid For Everything 07:15 - How Do You Charge For 900 Hours Of Craftsmanship? 10:42 - His Kids Taught Him Instagram 14:23 - Organic Vs Paid: Why Organic Leads Buy 3X More 16:25 - Your Product Probably Has A Hole In It 20:46 - Scarcity, Exclusivity, And Selling To The Elite 26:30 - Why He Has Never Paid An Influencer 29:18 - How A Home Service Company Markets To The Affluent 35:13 - Rich Customers Are Tighter Than You Think 38:12 - The Mark Wahlberg DM And The Tyler Perry Referral 42:16 - Should The Founder Be The Brand? 47:36 - Competing With Ferrari At $60 Million 51:03 - Robotaxis, EVs, And Listening To Paying Customers 54:52 - Productive Paranoia: Why Winning Is The Dangerous Moment 59:07 - The One Piece Of Advice He Has Never Shared 1:03:03 - On His Hands And Knees Under The Car 1:07:36 - The Two Books He Has Listened To 50 Times 1:12:11 - Where To Find Chau 1:13:36 - Grinding From Zero To 5 Million Followers 1:18:00 - What Comes Next For Vintage Modern 🚀 FREEDOM 2026 Get your Tickets Today! https://freedomevent.com Check Out My Social Media: Tiktok ⟶ https://www.tiktok.com/@officialtommymello Instagram ⟶ https://www.instagram.com/officialtommymello/ Facebook ⟶ https://www.facebook.com/thomasmello/