Transcript of Bootstrapping to $100M: How Josh Snow Took on Colgate & Crest 🪥 E156

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special edition of the Money Money's podcast. We cover three core topics: how to make money, how to invest money, how to give away to charity. It is very rare that this podcast is not inside of an RV motorhome. However, right now we're going through the 100 Million Mastermind Experience. And this gentleman has been one of the instructors for all seven years. What does that mean? We bring in people that are between 5 and $50 million in revenue as members. And then we bring in instructors like our guests who have done over $100 million in sales, spent over $100 million on ads, or have been seen by over $100 million people. This gentleman has done all three. He's got the trifecta. And so this podcast will be between 32 and 36 minutes for your listening pleasure because the average workout is 45 minutes. The average community work is 45 minutes. This podcast episode will be under 40 minutes, so you can listen to the whole thing. We'll keep our 93% listen-through rate and stay as one of the top 50 podcasts on the planet because of you guys supporting us, sharing, liking, commenting, and subscribing.

So without further ado, Mr. Josh Snow. Give us the quick two-minute bio, so we get straight to the money.

Daniel, I love you, and that was awesome, man. And it's a huge pleasure to be on the show again. And so my name is Josh Snow. I'm most famous for my last name, Snow, which is Snow Oral Care. So I came with this crazy idea that I could go against Colgate and Crest and build a market share and mind share in the thing you do twice a day other than poop and eat, which is brush your teeth. And so I've worked with the Kardashian's. I've worked with so many top-level celebrities. We've been able to build a brand that helps people feel better about their smile, more confident, not just in their esthetic appearance, but the ingredients we use in the products. So we've made it better for you, whitening brand that you might have heard of, and it's called Snow. So I'm Josh Snow, and it's a pleasure, bro.

I mean, you're up against household name, 800 pound gorillas, the whole aisles and shelves dedicated to these brands. Literally everyone can name them. It's a very rare in any product category where literally everyone from six years old to 90 years old says this brand, that brand, that brand. They know Colgate, they know this brand, they know Crest. These are household name brands. How do you fight the 800 pound gorillas?

I think that's a very valid question, Dan. I think you think differently. And you got to have the chutzpa. You got to have, yeah. So you got to have the chutzpa. You got to put it... You're crazy. Yeah, you got to be crazy. Yeah, pretty much. But if you have something stuck in your mind that you can't get rid of, and you're just thinking of it over and over again... Because keep in mind, I bootstrapped the first $100 million in total sales, right? So I did it by myself. I didn't need...

No investors?

I did try. A little. But nobody wanted to join me in selling toothpaste, oral care against the big, big giants. And I just couldn't get out of my head. I'm going to be honest with you. I couldn't. And I wanted to a little bit. I'm stupid. What am I doing?

This is Procter & Gamble. These are like...

They're big, right? They've been around for a little I think I understand.

Hold on a second. It's the whole aisle. It's the whole walkway. I don't think people understand. There is not a retail store in the country, liquor store, convenience store, random store in the middle of Alabama that doesn't sell these Colgate Crest, Procter & Gamble type brands. You were fighting with them. How? How are you taking this market share?

I will tell you that adversity is your superpower. It doesn't matter if you're born as a billionaire's son, daughter, whatever. It doesn't I'm sorry. Adversity shows its face in many different ways. How you deal with that adversity could be your superpower. I really believe it. It doesn't matter if you're broke. It doesn't matter if nobody believed in you. That adversity creates an energy inside of you that you control how you output that energy. I think there's a lot of power. Look, I could have sold whatever Like, whatever it is. Sweaters, whatever. But I wanted something that meant something to me and my community. I'm Latino, I'm first-generation, all this stuff. I wanted to choose something that meant something, but it meant something to me. And when it means something to you, you have to do something about it. You almost feel compelled to do it. I don't know how to put that in words, but I think that when I was undergoing jaw and jaw surgery, and I did not feel okay with the manure of the manure of the manner in the manner that it was presented to me. But I think that I didn't like what was there.

And what do we always think as entrepreneurs? There's got to be a better way. We got to make it. And I did, I will say, selfishly, I I wanted something so difficult that I would never succeed in.

Wow.

Because that's the life I grew up in.

That's deep. When you walk into a retail chain and you look them in the face and say, buy Snow Teeth Lighting, buy Snow Oral Care, we are going to take market share from the brands you've been buying for decades, if not, 10, 30, 40, 50 years. Hey, I'm Josh Snow. Here's my Oral Care household name chain store. Buy my products and take away some of their space and give it to me. How do you tell them to get rid of that shelf space and give it to you? What does that meeting look like? Most people don't get the meeting, but you've done it over and over and over.

That meeting is an opportunity for you to show what you got. And that's how I come into it, right? So I'm coming in, I'm Conor McGregor. I'm the best fighter ever. But yeah. If you got the right shit, if you got the right stuff, you should go in there with that rigor. You should. And even if you don't, and maybe for some reason you're doubting yourself, but you can't at that level. You can't. Paul brothers, right? All this stuff, you can't doubt yourself at that level.

No, of course not. You know what I mean? Those guys fought Floyd Mayweather, Mike Tyson. You can't. Some household name fighters. So when someone walks down the aisle, a mother and her two kids, or a wealthy family, or someone, they're just walking down the aisle, and they're walking by their normal Colgate crest, et cetera, what do you think makes it stand out when they see your brand? Asthetics.

The packaging?

The name? All of it. Combination? Yeah. The aura? Yeah.

It's definitely the aura. I think ultimately, it's the aura. I think you nailed it. It's the aura. You walk down and you feel something, you want to try something different. Because I've talked to... We have millions and millions of customers, but That's like... We're like a baby company, even though...

Yeah, 100 million, 200 million. That sounds like a lot to us. That's a day for some of these brands. Correct. Like an actual day. Yeah.

Like, literally a day. And you're sitting there and you're like, What if they wanted to buy you right now?

What would you do?

I'm not ready to, man. We got some great partnership.

We just-You keep fighting the good fight?

I think you got to stay in the business long enough to make your own luck. You can't die. You cannot die. If it's a big industry, you cannot die. Because if you die, you give it up to whoever fucking wants it, freaking wants it. And I think that in that moment, you have admitted a certain level of defeat that is so soul-crushing to a type of entrepreneur that I am, that I couldn't do it. And a lot of people think, Oh, he's got a Rolls-Royce. He's got this, all that stuff. I I paid myself a penny from Snow. Nothing.

Didn't raise capital, and you weren't taking money out?

I didn't take a penny.

Wow.

I didn't take a penny. Snow saved my life, man. It did. It gave me a calling that I was looking for. I put it into the market, right? But I didn't know how hard it would be. I did, but I didn't know it was that hard. Not that hard. You know what I'm saying? I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn't know it was going to be that hard.

If one of the big guys bought you, Colgate Cres, Procter & Gamble type brand, do you think that they would show you? Do you think they'd put you away Or do you think that they would keep growing the brand? When Coca-Cola bought vitamin water, do you see vitamin water anywhere? They bought them for billions of dollars. What was it? 4. 1 billion or something crazy? And I don't see vitamin water anywhere. They wanted their shelf space. Do you think that they would come in to try to to scale you? Or do you think some of them would just buy you to put you away to stop you? I think Gatorade should have bought Prime just so Prime would stop taking shelf space.

Quick. I would have done a quick. Quick. Done.

Go give Logan a billion. Couple Billy. Stop. Yeah, one Billy, sure. Just stop. Two billion, stop.

Done.

Because you walk into Walmart and Prime has a freaking end cap.

A lot of nutrition, bloom nutrition. You go all these brands that are taking over these shelves that were held by the industrialists. Snow is the growth measure and the growth factor for whoever who buys us. And that can be Estée Lauder, L'Oréal, Crest, Colgate. We're the growth factor. Because when aluminum-free deodorant came on the market. It took over. That's one of our top factors. We're known for that. I have never used fluoride in any one of the products that I developed for snow. Why? Why? Twelve years ago, you used fluoride. You're stupid. And I've had some of my mentors, Bruce Halley, rest in peace, founder of Discount Tire, Dr. Robert Chaldini, producer of the whole influence and persuasion. Also, my mentors have told me, You're stupid. You should try that. Some of them. And they're not wrong. They're not wrong. But I built this thing because I want to use my own product. And I believe a lot of people have teeth, and if somebody wants to use it as well, they should be able to use that. They should be able to feel confident, not just on the outside of the product working, which is why nobody returns our product.

Yeah, the product works. Snow works. Got it. But it's also vegan, gluten-free, kosher. It's got all the other stuff. We got that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the product's got to work. And I was shocked. Just like the last company I sold for $70 million, I bootstrapped it with my partner. Actually, less than 20 people. We sold that thing to a public company. I would be willing to sell if snow is the growth factor. That's it. I'm good. You know what I'm saying? You know me. I'm good. Why would I... For what? Extra 100 million in my pocket? What do we do with that? We can figure it out. We'll spend that. We'll figure that out. There's something for you.

So as you're building this brand, you win the deals with Floyd Mayweather and Chuck Liddell and the Kardashian's and all these different interesting characters. What do you think about the celebrity partnership category? If someone out there is thinking that they want to go do it, what should they know about trying to do a deal with a big-name celebrity?

Dude, you're the only guy that has done more celebrity deals in my circle than me. It's like, and you're by a multiple. Nobody else.

I'm just old.

No, it's not that. But really, you're deep-seated, right? And I'm deep-seated, too, because I had to figure it out. I didn't know Hollywood. I didn't know anything, right? You just got to go in there and figure it out while you figure it out. Boom. But I would say So I bought a domain years ago called affiliatemarketing. Com. It's a good domain. It's a good one, yeah. But I didn't know what it would become. And it has changed my entire outlook on the entire industry, man. I've been in e-commerce since I was 13. So about 20 years. I'm 33, so 20 years, right? I don't like to say it that much because I'm like, damn, I've been in there for that long. And there's the old, reminiscent version of me that's like, You should have seven billion right now and 300 yachts. There's a part of me that feels that. But I was being real with you. But I think-When you retire, someone gave you $7 billion, would you never work again? Yeah. That's it? Right now, yes. Right now, I would.

What would you do with your life?

I would be a great father. I would have kids. I'd be a great husband. I'd be a great friend. I'd bring my friends on all the experiences that I want to go on. I would be more present. I would be more present. I wish I could. And it doesn't need $7 billion. But we're rich, but it's... Okay, So rich. You're Elon Musk all of a sudden. But I think that I definitely would, for way less. I'm a gentleman. I will not tell her price.

So what do you think holds people back? They start their brand, they have this idea. What holds them back from selling? You are willing to go call the major retailers. You are willing to spend money on ads. You are willing to beat your chest and build your brand, talk about your brand. Why do you think most people are like, I'm going to post once a week or once a month about my brand, and it's going to work out great. They're scared to post about it.

It's normal. It's normal, and I hate to say that. And you do, too. We know this. We know this. But I've started brands with the biggest celebrities in the world. You have as well. We know. But that's a perfect question because I would say, who cares? Who cares, really? Oh, my gosh. So-and-so is going to see me promoting some product where I'm making money for my family. God forbid. God forbid. Oh, my gosh. You become an and you're getting all these views and you're making money for your family. God forbid that, huh? We care too much about what other people think. Nobody cares more about what people think than themselves. They do not care about you. And not to say, Nobody cares about you. It's just like...

They don't actually.

They don't. But I'm not trying to be all dark and stuff. It's just people don't care as much as you think. They care about themselves and their own survival. It is I don't care if you're Jewish, Muslim, you can be anything you want. I love you. Perfect. We all believe the same. People are self-preservation experts. We must be. So We self-preserve at the layer at which we have found the most comfort in exchange for our goals. So then what are the variables in that? And I think I've gotten old enough now that I can see a little bit of that. I I go, wow. Maybe I shouldn't have blown tens of millions of dollars. Maybe. But also, I did it. I learned from it. I'll tell you, Dan, I went to I went to my number one mentor in my life and in my business, and I went to breakfast with him. I first watched. You know first watch? It's cute. So we went to breakfast, boom. Actually, we're probably at somewhere else, but whatever. We got to first watch a lot together. He goes, How's business, Josh? He's 89 now. I said, It's not as good as I like it to be.

It was the first time. It was a negative response. In 15 years of him mentoring me. You know his response, man? He laughed. He laughed at me because he said, For you to learn that at 30 instead of 60, you are blessed. Shut up. I'm going to share everything with you here. But he was like, Shut up. Stop complaining. He saw you look like a crab baby boy. I was like, I'm hurting. This is tough for me. We've been used... Every business I've started is double, double, double, double, double I'm my mentor, so I'm going to bring that to you, and you're going to laugh at me. I think that whether you believe in God or not, whatever, it doesn't matter. You are built for what you are in front of. Whether you choose to own it in the devices that you should own it in is up to your wisdom, which comes from experience and other people's experience. That's why I think that coaching, mentoring, being a part of an event, being a part of a hundred million mastermind. You got to be in the nexus to develop a complex that learns from other people's failures, not your own, which is the smartest way to do it.

We all know that now. But some things you have to learn on your own.

Let's talk about the investing side of things. As an entrepreneur starts to make money, at some point, they have some extra capital to start investing, but they have so many choices: real estate, stock market, Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, cash flow in businesses, their friend's new restaurant. There's so many things getting pitched at them. How can someone decide with all these different options what they should consider investing into?

My number one response to that, and You ask the best questions always. I've known you forever, and you always do. But my number one response to be, Don't do it. Just don't do it. If you do not... I'm not talking about a compelling nature inside of you. They're like, This is my brother. He's starting an Asian fusion, Japanese and this and that. Just don't do it. You got to make enough money to lose it to take that hit on the chin. Because I've lost tens of millions of dollars. If you take that hit, you take that hit. That's why my mentor laughed at me. He's like, Ha, ha, ha. I get it now. I do. I think I get some of it. I don't think I get all of it. He's still alive today. He's one of my best friends. I love him to death. I think I'm still discovering what that is. But I will tell you, based on my past, and this might sound pessimistic. I'm over here like, Don't do it. But if you can't obsess over it, control it, or it doesn't fit your dynamic of world that you've created that you control, do not do it.

If you're willing to lose it times five, how about that? Fine. Make it easy. You put 100,000 in, you're willing to lose 500,000, negative, negative 500,000 on your bankroll. Do it. If you're not, then don't cry about it when you lose your money. Because that's called investing, brother. You lose money, you make money, you lose money, you make money. It's up to you. The highest paid skill in the world is judgment. More Warren Buffet. It's the highest paid skill. If you don't have it, you don't have it. So don't ask if I could do it because you're going to lose a little bit of money. We're going to put it on your chin.

Let's talk about the charity side of things. Do you think that brands or products are services should have a certain percentage go to charity or philanthropy?

The easy answer is yes. But I'm going to, of course-Elaborate. Elaborate on the answer. That's why you're here. I know. But I think you got to It's not a yes or no podcast. I know. Definitely not. Well, I think choose it. Choose it. Feel good about it.

It's like a charity that you care about, you mean? Correct.

Just make it worthwhile. Don't just check a box.

Correct.

Tax write off, boom. Unfortunately, unfortunately, the tax code is written that way that you can just write off a bunch of money, writing it to make a wish. But if it's, for me, growing up, I didn't have a lot of money. So having lunch, breakfast, these things, they sound like necessities. They are. Feed the child when you have them all day. But they don't have the resources to do that. I played piano, cello, violin, clarinet growing up. They canceled our music program, our arts and music, whatever. But they canceled it, whatever. We didn't have that at a certain point. That wasn't cool. That's why I started the Phoenix Coding Academy with the best group of donors and just like, what if poor people had the same opportunity? That's my view, because that's where I grew up. But I did. I did. Somehow I got the opportunity, and look what I've done so far. I'm just getting started. But what if everybody I had the same opportunity. I am a capitalist, and I would die on the stakes, saying I'm a capitalist. If you help people that don't have a lot of money, but have a lot of pride in who they want to become, a lot of passion.

That's what America is built off of. We export what? Innovation, entrepreneurialism. If we look at our actual exports, it's the innovation. Yeah, The Kardashian's. But you want to be us, baby, because we're free. We can say whatever we want. We get all this stuff. I think ultimately, I think every company should have some type of give-back component. Every company should have a give-back component. But I think that you should choose, because if you're the founder or you have co-founders and stuff, choose something that you feel really good about. Because everybody can get a tax write-off. But if it feels good, it makes you do more of that. If more of that means make more money and help more people, and then you get to give more, that's It's just self-fulfilling prophecy. I would just say that, not that I'm better than anyway. It's just if you're going to give to an organization, choose it. Go on Charity Navigator and see, does 99% of the money go to the kids? Or do a little bit of research. Because as a donor, you have just as much responsibility of where that money goes. And I think that is overseen in the majority of population.

But yeah, just choose something. I don't care. You could tell me, I donate to kidney foundation. Love that. I take the chair navigator all right. I love that. It's better than doing nothing.

So there's only one question that I ask on every episode, and I've never gotten the same answer before. I'm I'm not going to get the same answer right now. Josh Snow. You end up selling Snow Oral Care for billions of dollars. Affiliatemarketing. Com for another billion dollars. And all these different brands of products, you end up becoming a multibillionaire, which is a foregone conclusion for the Josh Snow future. But along the way, you end up having two beautiful children. What percentage of your net worth do you leave to those children?

Eighty %. Fuck them up.

Definitely fuck them up.

Eighty %. No, I know for sure. Yeah, I will. It's okay. Because if I didn't do a good enough job, that's all right, too. We're living the human experience. But I'm going to spend as much as I can because Daddy earned it, and Daddy and mommy are going to spend that. But they're going to be all right, regardless. Maybe we spend it all. I don't know. We'll see.

Bill Perkins has that book, Die with Zero.

Correct. Depending on Brian Johnson is out here, You could live to 180. I'm like, damn, I don't know if I got money like that. I don't know if I got money like that. But a billion won't cut it.

I won't cut it.

Yeah, I did a couple of those. But I think that right now, ask me in a few years, but I think that's why you never get the same answer.

I've never had someone say 80, fuck them up. That's for sure. They'll give me a T-shirt.

We'll take that. Give it to them. You know what I'm saying? But why not? Those are your kin. Let's give it to them and see if you did a good enough job. And maybe didn't, so you bifurcate, but you give the majority of them the majority of what you have left. Why not? What are you going to do with it? What are you going to do with it? Can't take it with you. Let my kids... Have you heard of Alice Walton? Where does she do? She's dope. She built a massive, one of the, I think the biggest private collection of private art and made it a public exhibition. Fuck out. I don't know. If I'm that rich, she wants ponies. She's got pony outlet. Everybody gets to ride a pony. But I'm going to teach my kids well enough. And if I don't, I'm going to spend it all.

Where can people find you online? Where can they find the brand's product services?

I'm at Josh Snow on Instagram and @Snow Everywhere for my brand that I've given my life to and I'm very proud of. And then I'm on a TV show that you were on and crush it, goingpublic. Com. So goingpublic. Com, you can see my TV show as well. But I'm at Josh Snow, @Snow, for my brand, and you'll figure it out from there for sure.

So as you guys know, I've been running these commercial-free for almost three years now. I have done some endorsement deals with a company called Go High Level because it's part of my entire ecosystem. They're my whole back-end. They were just with us at dinner a few minutes ago. Go High Level is not something I'm giving you an affiliate code to. It's just a brand that I'm part of. And then Fanbasis. Fanbasis, obviously, some company you've heard me talk about over and over and over because all my version processing, everything goes through Fanbasis. Again, it's not an affiliate code thing. It's just these are brands that go high level on fan bases that are part of my ecosystem. When you look at Josh Snow, it is a foreground conclusion that he's building multi-billion dollar companies. You're going to see him on social, you're going to see him in the press, you're going to see him do celebrity partnerships. These podcasts that you listen to are not just for It's for your friends, family, and followers. It's also for people from your past, present, and future. You might only be focused on real estate. You're like, What do I care about snow teeth whitening?

Maybe one of your friends in the future might be someone creating a consumer product. You're like, Oh, you should follow Josh Snow. Listen to this Money Mondays podcast. You might be at a lunch two years from now and remember, Oh, there's this episode of Josh Snow. You should listen to it. That's why these podcasts are so important. They're not just for you. They're people for your past, present, and future. I appreciate you guys. Check us out on the Money Mondays. Com. Check out Josh Snow. We'll see you guys next week.