Supercars vs Cops | The Crazy Story of DailyDrivenExotics (Damon Fryer)

When you leave school in grade eight, you just have to figure it out by making these mistakes. I didn't pay my taxes for four years. I got a half a million dollar tax bill. Damon Fryer has one of the largest automotive channels on YouTube, Daily Driven Exotics, where he films the reality of owning some of the most expensive cars in the world. So, what's the collective value of all your cars? 4.7 million. His multi-million dollar collection includes multiple Lamborghinis, Ferraris, McLarens, and more, which often lands him in quite a lot of trouble with law enforcement as he records for all of us to watch. Today, we're getting an inside look into the realities of owning exotic cars, how he was able to build his wealth, and all the details about his police interactions that he couldn't post on YouTube. Now, thank you, Graham, for that beautiful intro. As I'm sure you guys have all seen, our guest, Damon, films about every aspect of his life. 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Seriously, guys, StreamYard is the best way to start creating high-quality content without having to spend any money. They also offer a free package, so that means you can get started today with absolutely no money. They've also been a long-time supporter of the podcast, so it would mean a ton if you guys signed up with that link down below in the description. So, check out StreamYard today with the link down below in the description, and now let's get to the podcast. Welcome back to the Ice Coffee Hour here with Graham and Jack. You're here with Damon Fryer from Daily Driven Exotics. How was that for an intro? That was amazing. Thank you. That might be the best intro we've ever had on the podcast, honestly. I agree with that. Yeah. That was really good. And on top of that, first take. you also pulled up in not one, but two Lamborghinis. Correct. Two Lamborghinis. What is the reason for having two Lambos? Lambos, Jack. No? No, the SVJ. The SVJ and the Aventador S. Tell me about them. They're fantastic cars. Like, the SVJ, what's the MSRP of that car? If you if you could buy one right now, like 600 grand? I honestly don't know, cuz I'm not in the market for one, cuz I already have one. But, when I was fortunate enough to get that car, I got it just before the market went crazy. So, I got that car for uh Dave, what was it again? 666, I think we paid for it. Canadian, right? Canadian dollars, like 525. So, 525? Okay. And then they went nuts, and people were selling them or trying to sell them for over a million dollars. Yeah. Like, Do you think it's worth more now than it was when you bought it? It's I Yes, I believe they're all still up. I don't believe as many people are are actually getting the sales on them. I think a lot of people are kind of in a holding pattern, but I believe everyone's still asking something like that. I feel like I got to ask this question, because when we were outside looking at your cars, you were like slapping that You weren't slapping it around, but you were like kind of manhandling the You were touching your car a lot. You removed the entire hood to show us the engine, and you just set it on the roof of the car. And to me, that like broke my heart knowing how expensive that car is. Does it not worry you to just casually Cuz you said you put 30,000 km on it. Yeah, it's uh 30 33,000, I think, at at the moment. Does it not bother you to to drive such an expensive car or like luxury good and No. Um for two reasons. One, you have to remember the context. The context is I started a decade ago with a Gallardo. Mhm. And I also treated actually treated that car technically a lot worse than I'm even treating this current car. But, you know, I'd been doing this, and the idea was to daily drive supercars to show people, cuz a decade ago, it's like nothing like it is today. Mhm. Okay, like 10 years, a lot happens in 10 years. 10 years ago, if you saw a Lamborghini driving around, you know, especially where I live in Canada, where there's four seasons, there's a lot of rain, there's snow. So, when there's snow, there's salt and sand that gets put on the road. So, people the few and far between people who had those cars really wouldn't drive them. You'd see them the odd time in summer. I wanted to change all that. 10 years ago, um my passion was to eventually be able to afford a an exotic car. And I wanted to if I was going to have said exotic car, I was going to daily drive it. That was the whole idea, like quite literally. So, when you go into the idea of doing that, you can't care, at least where I live. At least it's not Southern California here in Las Vegas, where it's just sunny and dry, and the roads are just super clean, and the only thing that's really a technically maybe abusing the car is like how many miles you put on it or how hard you drive it, Mhm. where just the elements are beating the car up where we where we live. So, you have to go into it like obviously not caring about that. You know what I mean? So, from day one, I went into it with the idea that well, I'm just going to treat this like any other car. So, that's what I did, and it escalated from there. So, 10 So, fast forward 10 years of quote-unquote daily driving, daily using, and seeing and dealing with all the abuse that comes with that. I'm at a point where I'm so numb now. Like, it's just been I've been so fortunate that that's been my life for 10 years, that when I see that Lamborghini SVJ that you guys are like, "The Lamborghini SVJ?" It's like that to me, too. Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful, and I do appreciate that car for what it is. But, to me, it's like it's just a car. It still just takes gas, has oil, has four tires. But, can they handle the abuse that you put it through? 100%. 100%. I'm always so weary of that, because I see so many cars breaking down, or so many issues, or you do one thing, and all of a sudden it's like 30 grand to fix a clutch because you reverse the wrong way up a hill, or like something goes wrong. Do you find that happens or no? No, again, it it really depends on what period of supercar you own. You own a new modern supercar, the technology, the new systems, the the DCT transmissions, the newer engines, they're so good. You know what I mean? Like, the Huracan's the perfect example. This is a car that was engineered uh at the highest levels with, I believe, like Audi and, you know, the Volkswagen Group. And they're not handmade, you know, Murciélagos and Countaches anymore. Like, those are the days when if you had one of those cars, they were very expensive to maintain, and they would be very unreliable because they were put together by some Italian gentleman smoking a cigarette, you know, like you know, like doing one car at at a time, or whatever they did back in the day. Now, there's so much technology, so like the Huracan, I always joke, is the quite literally the Honda Civic of our, you know, supercar world. It's so reliable. You can do an oil change a year and put gas in it and drive it. Mhm. You know? Can you get it fixed up at like an Audi dealership or You probably could, but I think I think the way they want the branding to stay prestigious, they would turn you away. But, there are so many Audi parts for the R8, for example, that are used also with the Huracan. It's the same engine, the same transmission, right? Yeah. The only thing that it really changes is the exterior look, and the interior is reconfigured to have a lot more space. And that's really due to the exterior design. Sure. Like, the Huracan's so aggressive, like this wedge, has to have that Lamborghini, you know, uh flatness to it, almost. Exactly, like silhouette. Yes. They base everything off so you recognize the brand. And when you do that to that car, it obviously decreases making that car smaller, the interior space. Where an R8's essentially the same car, but you get in and you got so much more room. So. Very cool. So, uh tell us a little bit about your backstory. Go back to ninth grade, because I remember hearing that you like somewhat dropped out of school in ninth grade. Or what what was that about? actually. So, you dropped out in eighth grade? Yeah, you know, both of my parents uh are college/university educated people, uh as you do from their generation. And um they were not very happy about it. My dad more so, less happy. Um the short version is I didn't know then. I mean, I did, that's not true. I was diagnosed with dyslexia, like a severe case of dyslexia when I was quite young, because my parent I live in Canada, my parents put me in French immersion. They were like, "I'd be cool, you know, like uh I have a sister, too. They can learn a second language." So, they put me in French immersion, and I failed grade one, like horribly. They're like, "There's something obviously going on with your son." For the lack of a better word, there's something wrong with your son. And so, I went to a series of tests. I vaguely remember this, and um came out of it with this diagnosis of being very dyslexic. And so, with that, uh the challenge is reading. You know, reading, writing, um just seeing the way I see words and numbers, like they don't make sense to me. And so, what happened was at that time versus again now, you know, there were no computers, there was no teaching with like, you know, anything alternative than other than like lectures and a and a teacher sitting at the front of the room talking to you and then textbooks. So like everything was like the worst way for me to learn. So I couldn't really like absorb any information. And so that was very frustrating, but somehow I made it through you know, all the way to grade grade eight. And at that point I was just my grades were super awful. And I started kind of picking up on, you know, that I was good with people because I grew up in a family-run uh entrepreneurial environment where my parents had a motel and a restaurant. And so I grew up in a very adult environment getting my chores were doing real work. Like what a young teenager would call like their first job. That's what I did for chores. I would do like 4 hours of dinner service dishes in a commercial-grade kitchen like cleaning dishes with my family's restaurant. And interacting with like the waiters and the the wait staff who were like at best late teens, early 20s, right? And then whoever else in the business and all the adults coming in and customers. So that was the environment I was brought up in and I knew in grade eight that my option was you know, struggle through school hate my life uh probably not do very well and or give up school and go work for the family business. So that was my proposal to my parents. My dad was like, "Yeah, no. You're going back to school." But unfortunately for my dad who only had us every other weekend because my parents went through a divorce and separated when I was 12. He didn't I didn't live with my dad. I lived with my mom. And my mom at that time had taken over that business from my dad when they split. So my mom still had that business. So I just went and and worked with my mom. My mom was so busy that she just I just I took advantage of the fact that I knew she didn't have the time to like discipline me to really pull me back in school. Like she couldn't physically make me do that. So instead, she was like, "Okay. Like you're going to work with me." What did your dad think about that? He hated it. Yeah, that was awful. sure my parents had some fights behind closed doors over that one. Isn't there a law that that like says you can't do that? Or did your mom have to like sign something that says like you're just not going to school? Or did you just stop showing up? going to school. And nothing happened? Nothing happened. Your friends didn't your teachers no one like I was the kind of guy in school that was friends with everybody, but not friends with anyone. Mhm. Like I got along with a lot of groups. Um yeah. Like I kind of got along with everybody, but like I didn't have like a best friend. Uh I was into like skateboarding and snowboarding and I was kind of transitioning out of that into uh more almost like a preppy style phase of my life, you know, cleaned up cleaned up I was like a pretty rough-looking skateboarder longer hair big super oversized baggy pants that was the style at the time. And I got clean my clean my look up because I knew I needed to look more presentable going into my family's business. Yeah. Right? So yeah, there was a a change there. It's crazy to me you realize that at what? 14 years old? Probably 14, 14, right? Yeah, I was yeah, I was 13. Then you're just like, you know what? I was I was 14 because I was a year behind, remember? Cuz I failed grade one, so they put me back. So they took me out of French immersion, right? And put me back into grade one just straight English. You know what? Before we go into that, I just want to ask you Jack, you've been on top of your work lately. What's going on? You okay? Yeah, man. I'm totally fine. I've just been using today's sponsor Bitrix24. Is that the uh nail-biting chemical? No, Grim. That's Bitrix, also known as denatonium. Bitrix24 on the other hand is an all-in-one platform that simplifies your business by combining all of your tools and softwares into one. Okay. Why did you say "Okay" when I was still saying my thing? So does that mean you're still biting your nails? With over 12 million users worldwide, Bitrix24 is the most popular CRM and project management platform available. You can manage all your projects, tasks, or team communications all in one place using one of their 35 free tools. And another cool thing is that Bitrix24 is available in the cloud, on mobile, and as an open-source software. So that means no more switching between different softwares and devices. And most importantly, no more paying for multiple subscriptions. It's completely free to use, so it at least makes sense to give it a try and see if you like it. Once again, guys, try it out for completely free using the link down below and optimize your workflow for the last time. Again, the link is down below in the description to get started with Bitrix24 and back to the podcast. But to realize that it's probably smarter for you to go work for the family business rather than staying in school. Even just having the mindset that allows you to think that way at age 14 is just crazy. You think that it was the the faster maturity that you received by working in the family business? I I would I would attribute a lot of how I think today to the early environment I was, you know, witness to for sure. My family's business, adults you know, I didn't have it like I said, I didn't have a lot of close friends. So like don't get me wrong, when you have a restaurant and even though it's a motel, not a hotel, nothing fancy, but where I grew up in Port Alberni, like it was the place to go for the restaurant industry. Like my parents went through a tough time in the '80s when there was the recession. So my mom and dad sat down and came up with the marketing idea, which I love cuz this is what I do now, right? Ironically. But uh my mom and dad were like, "Hey, you know, like there's this massive recession. How we going to make it through this?" And so I believe my dad and my mom sat down and came up with like, "What if we made our restaurant the special occasion place?" Cuz everyone's going to celebrate birthdays or an anniversary or whatever. So they branded their restaurant, which was like like nice, more fine dining, white tablecloth, you know, steak, lobster, stuff like that on the menu. Uh this was the special occasion place to come to. And that's what actually my dad says got him through the recession because everybody would come there for for that. So it's kind of neat. Marketing. It's very smart it's like the It's just marketing. It's like come here and you're going to get treated really well for your birthday or anniversary cuz those moments in your life matter to you, they matter to us. Yeah. Right. And during the recession probably very few other restaurants were thinking that, right? Yeah, I mean as far as I know, my dad says that's what that's what got him through that or they would have been hooped. Especially if you're only going to the restaurant, let's just say maybe two to three times a year. Mhm. You're going to go to the place that's known for like the special occasions. Yeah. So that's how they got through it. Yeah. That's interesting. But yes, going back to your original question, I would say that my mindset from a very very early age was molded by a more mature audience that I got to observe. And the consequences of how someone would act I was always paying attention because again remember I I'm dyslexic. I know this now. I didn't know it then, but my ability to learn comes from watching something, right? Visually seeing it happen in front of me. And or having a mentor like do it and then I do it. Like, you know, kind of like like they say like to teach a monkey how to do something, right? You show them over and over again and then let the monkey do it. They'll figure it out after a while. I was like the monkey. So always being in an environment where I'm observing something visually that's how I learned. That's how I absorbed information and retained it more importantly. So I grew up in this environment of seeing all these adults and their interactions with each other as humans. And I would see like, "Oh, this person's body language and tone." And they were, you know, maybe having a conflict with someone, right? Sure. Especially in the restaurant industry like wait staff get in arguments with the kitchen or whatever, right? Or a customer gets irate. I was witness to all of that. So I got to see a lot of examples, thousands of examples of like human interaction. And like if you do this then that could happen, right? Good or bad reaction. And so It's hard going from that though to then school. Like even when you were still going to school, how did you do that? Because I know for me when I started working part-time, I couldn't separate like the work aspect from school. Cuz once once I got like a taste of working and what that was like to be around adults, everything else in school just felt like, "Why am I doing this? This is so like silly. It's stupid." Yeah, like when I was just working at my parent my like my parents' restaurant from a chores perspective and then still going to school everything in school didn't make sense to me. And like the what the structure and it also didn't make sense to me like why people my age acted the way they did. Because you know, don't get me wrong, I I was obviously super immature in my own ways, too. But much more mature than the average person my age. And so I'd watch people say or do things or tease other people. I got teased a lot in school, you know, bullied, beat up. Um I was a very small uh teenager, you know, until long after I'd left I'd already dropped out and a few years later my, you know, 16, 17-year-old age I started going to the gym and that changed everything for me physically, but yeah, it was uh it was weird. I didn't understand school. Let's put it that way. That's why I left. I was like, "This doesn't make sense to me. I can't figure anything out. I'm done. I'm out. Pulling the shoot." Now, I had a solution though. I went to my parents. I said, "Hey, I'll leave. Let me work in the business." How much were you making when you first started? Minimum wage like less like I don't know what it was like seven bucks an hour. Sure. And what were you doing with the money? Were you just saving it? What was the goal at the time? Like what what did you want to do with the money? The only goal was to get out of school and go work for my parents. I had no goal. My dad was after a couple of years, my dad became accepting of the fact that I wasn't going back to school, at least not then. And so he tried to instill in me some like financial advice. So he'd give me a book. You know, ironically, I hated reading, but I actually got my way through like David Chilton's The Wealthy Barber, uh Robert Kiyosaki's like uh Rich Dad Poor Dad, the Cashflow Quadrant. And the more I started to read things I was genuinely interested in, I would force myself to get through the book or I'd read it more than once because that's what it took for me to retain that that information cuz that wasn't the way that I learned. But um some stuff stuck with me and some things didn't, you know, like I I have three kids, two of them are adults, and my only advice to them is like you're going to learn more from trying and making your own mistakes than you'll ever learn from me sitting here and trying to lecture you. It just won't stick the same way as the pain and suffering and trauma of learning something or losing something that you worked for versus me saying, "Hey, don't do this because this could happen to you." That makes sense. Yeah, it does. What's it like trying to read as a dyslexic? I wouldn't know how to explain it cuz I wouldn't know what the normal version is. What is Do you have to reread certain passages like backwards. You just don't know you see them that way. Here's a good example. When I first started vlogging, I would I had to do everything on my own when I first started the channel, our channel. So I started vlogging once I came across uh Casey Neistat. I was like, "Oh, there's this there's this way of creating content where you just kind of like uh you know, video capture your day and then try to tell a story out of it, right? That's appealing to a mass audience. So I tried that but with cars, right? Cuz I was that was cars were my passion. I was trying to get into doing something with cars. I would do anyhow as a hobby, but I was I was knowledgeable enough from growing up with entrepreneurial parents and seeing a business work how it works that there was benefits to owning a business and the tax implications and all that sort of stuff, right? Like write-offs. Just just at the most basic level. So I was like, "Well, how do I take my hobby of cars and turn it into a business so I can go build cars and play with cars and it's a write-off. Like it's all tax-free. Yeah. So I I had to figure that out. One of the things that held me back was coming up with a way to make consistent content. And I was like, "Well, I just you know, was trying to wrap my head around that for years and then I came across this vlogging, right? And I was like, "Well, this is easy. I could just go out and do something with a car, an exotic car every day and it would be like I'm just vlogging. Like this is what my life's like driving an exotic car." So that's how that came about. Where I'm going with this story is in some of the first videos I made, I would just go out and drive around town and do like errands or like typical stuff like at the infancy of this channel. You know, what's it like to go get groceries with a exotic car, right? All the myths. Those are the things I started with. So I'd go out and I'd park in a parking stall in town where you'd have a meter and you'd have to pay for it, right? And I'd be like, "Oh, I'm here in Victoria, British Columbia just paying for the Lamborghini's parking. I'm at meter blah blah blah blah blah." And go on about my day. Then I'd get home later and I'd be editing the footage and I would realize I read the damn meter numbers backwards and I would do this every time. And that's when it hit me. I was 33, right? So uh 11 years ago when I first started vlogging. Actually, no, it wasn't even that long ago. It would have been 33 or 34. Yeah, probably like around 35, 36. When I first actually started vlogging, that's how old I would have been. So I was 36 years old when it finally hit me what it was to be dyslexic cuz I started noticing I was saying business names backwards. I was reading more of more importantly was just the numbers for like parking stalls when I go to pay for parking cuz I get a ticket. Like I paid for the parking. I was too busy. I was like, "Whatever." Just took the ticket. Deal with it later. if you get numbers backwards, do they always appear backwards in the same way or do they constantly change around? Like couldn't you No, I would just go from back to front. Instead of reading the number from the top to the bottom, I would for whatever reason I'd read it from the bottom to the top or if it was, you know, left to right, I'd for whatever reason read them right to left. And but in the moment like I have no idea I'm doing it Got it. until I see myself and it's captured on video. Who knows? That's what it That's what it's like for me. Let's talk about the the after you left middle school, it was cuz it was eighth grade, and then you went on to work for the family business. How do you get from there to the point of buying a Gallardo? That's a good question. So teenage years, um worked for the family business for a while, then left that, then uh did some nor quite normal jobs at other places just to have some other experience so it wasn't like my resume was like, "Where'd you work? For mom." You know, like uh because in a town as small as the one I grew up in, everybody knew I worked for my mom. All right? There's no hiding it. So I wanted to have some other things on my resume. So I worked for a little pizza place very briefly delivering pizzas. I worked in a sawmill. I worked at a Chinese food restaurant and some things like that cuz I was familiar, right? And I did try to branch out do some other things with the intent that they paid more. That was important to me. I wanted to be paid more money. I felt like my time was worth more. I was a a strong, capable male. You know, there were these very men type jobs like working in a wood mill that would pay like $21, $22 an hour because it was just a more hazardous job, right? So I was trying to do that and they didn't work out for me. Then I got into the world in my late teens into the world of MLM businesses, right? Someone pitched me one. I didn't know anything about them. I didn't know anything good or bad. Like I just didn't know anything about them. But I was very intrigued by the human-to-human uh selling of a business model. And the way I was pitched it was like they were like, "Hey, you know how you know, franchising works, right?" And I think this is used a lot in MLMs probably still. It's a great analogy. It's like, "Well, there's a predesigned business model. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, right?" You take that business model with a product or service attached to it and you sell said product or service. But you can also franchise this business out to other people. And when you do that, you get to make some money from what they sell. Why? Because you brought them in and you train them and you help them learn about the product and service of said company, right? And you, you know, uh coach them or continue to help them. The more you help them and find some good, strong leaders, they can then go do the same and there's this financial structure of what you start will continue to pay you, right? Type of thing. Just like franchise. So I was interested in that and I got involved with a few companies and I did quite well for a little over a year with a company called uh Excel Communications. Are you familiar with them? No. Phenomenal story, really. Founded by a guy named Kenny Troutt. And he was the fastest growing company to go from zero to a billion dollars. It was an MLM company at that time. And they wrote a book about him called The Excel Phenomenon. It's out of Dallas, Texas. And so they sold telecom services like long distance back when we had landlines. Like this is You have to remember this is before like cell phones, right? What year was this? Well, I would have been I would have been like 20. So it was 24 years ago. So Would that 1999? Yeah, 1998, 99. Wow. Okay. Okay? So I got into that and when you get involved with uh a good group of people within an a network marketing company, they coach you on the number one thing any human being on this planet needs to be successful at anything. A good mindset. Your mindset has to be grounded and found the foundation has to be in a positive, you know, supportive environment and foundation. You have to develop the very foundation of your mindset to be like you believe you can accomplish anything, right? Whatever it is. And then all the other, you know, kind of like keywords like being persistent, you know, having discipline, uh all that stuff, right? So I got involved with a group of people in that company who did that for me. You know, they saw leadership skills in me. They saw I had really good people skills and I told them why cuz I grew up in this business with my parents, worked with people since I was a kid like 9 years old. And um they saw that in me and then helped develop my mindset to being that of a of a leader, uh of a salesperson, and all that sort of stuff at like, you know, 19, 20. And I was with them through that company cuz it eventually went under and not because Excel did anything wrong, but Kenny Troutt, the founder, figured it was time to sell it. He I guess he got a really good offer and he sold the company to another company that was severely in debt. And all that happened was this other company bought the company I was working with and essentially the debt that it had eventually, just like a leech, just sucked all the money out of that company and not only did this company go down, it took the other company with it. Nice, okay. Yeah, unfortunately. So, that was one of two things. One, my first experience at really doing uh like commission-based sales, right? So, my first experience at like the harder you work, the more money you can make if if you can convert, right? And so, I also learned some very valuable leadership skills um that I didn't learn in the restaurant industry because in the restaurant industry, you're serving someone. Now, you're still serving someone in network marketing, but it's there's a different aspect to it because you're commission-based, right? It was a different incentive, I should say. Sure. You know, if I was getting a piece of the cheesecake sale, I would sell a lot more cheesecake at the end of the night, right? Or whatever it is. You're more incentivized. So, anyhow, I went through all that and came out of that going into another MLM business with that same group of people. And just the difference in that product is we went from basically selling telecom services, which I liked because there was nothing tangible tangible about it. I didn't have to say like you know, make this coffee, right, in your home, consume this coffee so that you could qualify to get paid and blah blah blah. Mhm. With the telecom services, it was easy because it was like, "Do you have a phone?" Yes. "Do you use it?" Yes. "Do you pay a telephone bill every month?" Yes. "If I could save you money on that exact telephone bill and change nothing in your habits, would you be open to doing that?" What are you going to say? No? Oh, [ __ ] you, I don't want to save money. No, everybody was like, "Yeah, of course." So, it was such an easy process. do exactly? It saved people money. It was just a cheaper long-distance line or or cheaper Wi-Fi or it was the same cost to their current Wi-Fi, but the hook would be why I know you. You always go to warm market first, right? Like friends, family. So, it's like, "Hey, if I could put you on a different internet service and it was the same amount of money or less, would you support me in instead of supporting the big giant?" Yeah. And people were like, "Yeah, sure." But then, how did they then sell other people on it? Like how much of your business was selling them on the product itself versus like, "Hey, this is also a good business opportunity." Number one was product. So, number one is you know, take everybody you knew that was already using these products and services and get them on our products and services, which will create revenue for you and also the company, which is why we're all here. And and then on top of that, it was like, "That also qualifies you. You have to have so many people on so many services to qualify to even get paid." Right? So, if you didn't have that in place, it didn't matter if you recruited people because you don't really qualify to get paid off of them at the full potential because you need to you need to sell a product and service. You can't just sell the business. Like there's no business opportunity without a product or service. in most of the situations, most people don't make money. So, were was the business built around maybe that most people don't get to that minimum qualification or they might just get like one person signing up or like how did that aspect work? Or was there like an amount you had to pay up front? Yeah, so you would you would pay almost like a franchising style fee. You know, just like you don't get McDonald's for free. You have to pay whatever it is. Back in the day, it was like a million bucks, I think was the standard number. So, for us, it was like a thousand bucks. And then with that, you would get a package and coaching and training that went with that that you had to facilitate and then part of the thousand dollars, I don't remember how much it was again, but it was several hundred of the dollars would then get kicked back to the direct person who brought you in and trained you. So, you had to do the work. So, there was an upfront commission for bringing people in, but then you the incentive to actually get that money was also you had to get their first, I think it was like six customers, too. So, you had to help them come in the business, get their first six customers, and train them and coach them on how everything worked and so they had a solid knowledge of, you know, how the compensation plan worked and everything. You couldn't mislead anybody like at least with this company. It was very straightforward. So, how much were you making back then? In the MLM business? Yeah. That was the first time ever I'd ever made $10,000 in a month. I thought I was so rich. Really? How long did it take to you to get to that point of 10K a month? Uh took me seven months. That's really good. brought 1,200 people into the business directly. How? I was really good at recruiting people. What was your strategy? Like what was the secret? everybody. I wasn't scared to talk to people. I talked to I I'd signed up oh I was the only person in the company that signed up over 200 of those people cold off the street, off a sidewalk in under 30 minutes. How? What Like what walk us through like from start to finish what you would say, what your thought process was like, what the interaction was like. Okay. So, I would visually assess someone first, obviously, cuz I don't know anybody. So, you're visually assessing someone based on how they do their hair, how they're dressed. Um and you can get a pretty good idea of if someone is, you know, what type of profession they're in. Like they're wearing a suit versus a guy who's in construction who's wearing like, you know, Dickies and work boots and covered in, you know, drywall dust. So, I was really good at seeing people who look like they were likely in a career that I would say statistically, again, I had no hard data on this, but in my head, this is how I thought. Yeah. Statistically, this person's probably not happy with what they're doing. So, I just walk up to a guy maybe in front of a coffee shop. Coffee shops were good. So, I'd walk up to somebody at a coffee shop and say, "Hey, how's it how's it going?" They'd say, "Good." And I'd say, "I I noticed you're in a you know, some construction uh attire. You Are you working on a site close to here?" And he would say, "Oh yeah, I'm just on my lunch break grabbing a coffee. I work I'm working on this building over here." I said, "Oh man, that's cool. It's like, you get up on that on the scaffolding?" He'd be like, "Yeah." I was like, "Man, I'm just too scared of heights to get up there." And he's like, "Yeah, I don't like it, either." I was like, "Oh, you don't like it?" And he'd go, "Uh it's yeah, it's I'm just it's just temporary." I was like, "Oh, what what would you like to do?" And then 99.9% of people have no idea what they'd actually like to do, which is why they are where they are. So, I'd say, "Oh, well, you know, is it that you don't like doing it because you're not getting paid what you think you're worth?" And most people never heard that. No most people are not been spoken to in a manner where they've even they've even consciously thought, "What am I worth?" Mhm. Right? "What am I worth?" And when you look at what you're worth, you always need to go back to really what's your time worth. There's 24 hours in a day. That's how we judge, you know, uh you know, that's how we pay people. That's our pay structure. So, it's familiar. So, you know, the guy would say something like, "Yeah, you know, it's just like I don't love doing it. It's not I'm not passionate about it. And yeah, I think I could make more money doing something else." I said, "If I could show you how to make more money, like significantly more money, is that something that would interest you?" And like nine times out of 10, they they would say, "Yeah, for sure." I said, "I don't know if now is a good time. Like maybe you don't want to get into it right now, but I could definitely show you how to make some more money. I think you're worth more. You know? You look like a smart guy. You know? I think I think if you worked with me and my team, I think we'd get you I think we'd get you somewhere where you'd be a lot more happy than you are now." And he would say, "Well, I'm really I'm interested. Like when can we talk about it?" I was like, "We can talk about it right now if you want." And he would say, "Yeah, sure." I'd say, "Okay, cool. Can I buy you coffee? How about I buy you lunch?" So, I'd buy the guy like his sandwich and his coffee and I'd say, "I'll buy you lunch if you're willing to sit down with me and just listen to what I have to say for 20 minutes. If you're not interested, you know, you have to go back to work. You can go back to work regardless. You know, I ended up working at a furniture um a furniture store called The Brick in Canada and my sales manager had a half-brother that would come in every once in a while and I thought this guy was a drug dealer, right? Like brand new Escalade, brand new Corvette, treated an ATM like it was his piggy bank when we go up go out as a group. I was like, "What's this guy do?" He's like, "This guy's a drug dealer." Because my brain wasn't capable at that time of thinking he did anything anything else. This also based on the way he dressed and stuff like that. Turns out he was an online marketer. Specifically, email marketing. So, he was doing bulk email mark commercial email marketing with affiliate products. So, affiliate products, if you don't know what they are, is just simply, you know, Huggies or Tide or whoever uh gives you the opportunity to do advertisements on the internet for them and they give you a link. So, when a sale or a click or whatever conversion they're looking for is made, they give you a piece of they get they pay you. They give you some money for a different tiers of whatever they're trying to achieve, right? You're familiar with it. So, that's what he was doing. I learned very quickly the power of scale. So, it was like, "Cool." It was very complicated to set up all the things you need to set up to be able to efficiently send email out and end up in the inbox and not in the spam folder. That was complicated, but if you could do it and you had a large email list, the second you hit send, well, imagine what you'd have to convert if you're sending 8 million people, which is what he was, 8 million people an email that would go out in 2 hours. So, in 2 hours he could reach 8 million people's inboxes. What do you think the conversion rate would have to be if you're getting paid $8 for every person that just clicks that link and opens it up and goes to the website? Like it was stupid money. The guy's making like $750,000 a month by himself. Like that was like How do you get access to those emails? Is it sketchy? That's a whole 'nother podcast. So, they that just going back to that when I'm the type of person that when I find out that someone's doing something like that and I'm in that intrigues me. I my brain immediately goes to well, if he can do it, I can do it. That's just how that's just how I'm built. For whatever reason in my up Like I said, my upbringing, the environment I was raised in, the way my my parents coached me when I played sports, my parents were like, you can do this. My coaches were like, you can do this, right? So, I was instilled and got that self-confidence from a young age and when I became a an adult, you know, and I'd see someone doing something that's that's how my brain worked. So, I was super intrigued by this. I was like, this guy's living truly living that laptop lifestyle. So, he could go anywhere he wanted in the world with an internet connection, connect to his virtual mailing software that virtually held all the data and worked with what's called an an affiliate network, which doesn't charge you anything to sign up. You just sign up and they have thousands of affiliate offers, thousands of companies that have affiliate links to sell their product or service or whatever, right? Some are on conversion where you have to buy something to get paid. Some are just you can get paid just for someone clicking a link and opening up just for impressions, right? So, I was like, man, this is nuts. So, anyhow, we ended up becoming closer friends over the course of the the next year. And when we were hanging out, he always wanted me to stay longer, but I had commitments. I had work on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. He wanted to go party. I was like, I can't I can't go party with you. I have a job. So, eventually that annoyed him enough that he was like, quit your job, come work for me. I need you to come party with me. Like quite literally. Wow. And so, I eventually left that furniture job I was at for 4 and 1/2 years and went back to or went back into some type of a entrepreneurial type of uh situation with him. That year was the one of the most interesting years of my life because I learned so much about this new industry. I got to travel with him. Um it was very exciting in a lot of ways, but it was also one of the most toxic relationships I'd ever been in because his partying was in excess and it was too much for me. Like what's too much? Well, first of all, we got to I got to back it up for 2 seconds. You know, we're talking when I was like 23, 24 years old at this point. Um 25 Sorry, 20 23, 24, 25 was I was you know, I worked at that business for 4 and 1/2 years. So, I would have been at this time when I was meeting him, I would have been what? 20 27 and then going into my going into 28. So, I'm 27 No, 28 years old and I had my first daughter when I was 23 and my second daughter when I was 25. So, I have two little girls. So, my lifestyle uh was What was important to me was to be a good dad, but to also get myself out of this financial rut I was in and actually find something that could make me, you know, change my life financially cuz I knew what I wanted 10,000 a month that you were making? Well, that was in that that was in that MLM business that went under. So, that was gone. But but what were you doing with the money that you were making at the time? I was really reinvesting it in what I thought was me and my business. So, I spent a lot of it on travel, traveling cuz when I when I built that business, like we were going like all over Canada, all over the US. All the big conferences for that company was in the US cuz they were based out of Dallas, Texas. So, I'd been to I'd been to Texas and Southern California back then and Yeah. Okay. So, I spent the money on on me and my team, reinvesting it and helping other people cuz I wanted I could see it was working. I could see the multiplication, you know, the scale of it was working. So, I was just throwing all the money back in. And then the company went down, I had no money. Yeah. Um and then I worked at that furniture store cuz I needed stability cuz I had two kids. So, party life. What's too much? Uh we went to Vegas one time, stayed there for 45 days straight. He spent just shy of $2 million on quite literally alcohol and the strip club in 40 in 45 days. Was he was he gambling at all or no? Was it just like he actually made money gambling. He was quite good at gambling or lucky. Wow. Probably luck. And let's go with luck. Good luck. Good luck there. Wow. Just reckless luck. Yeah. Yeah, I'd never seen anything like it since. It was too much. Like I was like the daily spend like of this guy? If I picture if I could say like just picture what you would think Mötley Crüe in their prime would be like. Yeah. Without without the drugs. He didn't do any He didn't do any drugs. He was just a smoker and a drinker. Yeah. So. Wow. And you went out Wait, he went out like nearly every night? Oh, every day. Day club during the day, night club at night. But that's the crazy part was like he would party all night, get like 5 hours of sleep, beat me to waking up cuz I'd wake up to like the smell of like cigarettes and ketchup cuz he'd ordered room service at 3:00 in the morning and I was just destroyed. I'm like, I don't know how long how much longer I can keep up with this, but I was learning, right? That was just so valuable and I was meeting contacts of his that he knew and so I was just willing to sacrifice something for a little while, right? I knew eventually I'd pull the rip cord cuz I was just like, I can't keep doing this. But um Yeah, he'd wake up first thing in the morning and just be like, Some people could do that though on like 3 hours of sleep. Like he'd be he'd be working Get his Get his mail out in the morning. Yeah, get his mail out in the morning that that that that email. He'd get it most of it going, but it runs, right? Like once you send it, you hit send, it runs. Now, you do need to watch it, you know, depending on what mail you're sending because you can get error codes on certain IPs and you have to get rid of those IPs so it doesn't take out all the like those error codes don't take out all the IPs. Getting kind of into the postmaster side of things, but um yeah, it was wild. So, he'd work in the morning and then check on stuff during the day and And back then it was quite simple. Then email got a lot more complicated, but we're talking, you know, back in the wild wild west when it was just the CAN-SPAM Act where nothing really happened. So, how did that then lead to a Lambo? How much were you making with him? Uh I was making like 10 to 15,000 a month just working for him and just just sending out some of his email. Wow. And he also had other people besides me. So, he had some That's how when you said, when did he work? He would check on stuff, but then he also had like more versions of me. You know, the minions. Yeah, sure. And um Yeah, I did that for a little over a year with him and then we had a falling out over some like stupid stuff and then he just I'm like, I just can't keep up with this. So, I took what I learned and went, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to be him. I'm going to make $500,000 a month. Right? I didn't I didn't make $500,000 a month right away, but I started going from making 10 to 15,000 a month to making 100, which was like, this is crazy. Um And when you first get into that world, you're like, this isn't really This is like my dad would always say this to me. You know, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Yeah. And I've learned, don't ever believe that. Don't ever get that in your head cuz there are so many things that sound too good to be true that are [ __ ] true that can change your life. So, I would tell you to be more on the side of optimistic and be willing to use your judgment and your morals and your values to judge certain things, but there are plenty of things that sound too good to be true in the world we live in now thanks to the internet that are very real. So, how did you start this business though? Like how did that work? Okay. So, I take that knowledge and I have a whole bunch of holes that I have to fill because the guy I worked with did all this stuff on the back end that I never learned. I was just the guy I was the monkey on the front of the computer, you know, pushing the basic buttons to send the email out. I knew that part. I knew to take an affiliate offer from the network, the HTML and all that stuff in the links and I knew how to build it all in the back of a mail program, but I didn't know where the I didn't have a list. I didn't know where to get a list. I didn't even know what program to use. I had to go find all that stuff. And that's just where, you know, willpower and persistence and determination and a little bit of saved money and networking can solve those problems. So, I got my own mail software called Robo Mail. Shout out to those guys. Um I worked for with them for years. They were phenomenal. And you basically buy or lease mail software from these companies and their techs help you set up all the stuff that you don't know how to do. So, I was just like, "Hey, I need mail software. I worked with this guy. I don't know how to do any of the stuff on the back end. Can you guys help me?" And they were like, "Yeah, sure. Pay us this and we'll do it for you." So, problem solved. Mail software. Now, I need a list. So, then I just started asking everybody I'd networked with after being to like certain conferences in that industry, you know, uh in fact here in Vegas, Affiliate Summit West comes every year. You familiar with that? Mhm. Oh, so that's like a big affiliate online, you know, uh conference that comes to Las Vegas. A lot of conferences come to Vegas, but they come here. They do West and East. One's in New York, one's here. And that's where like once a year all the online marketers come here. Like anybody doing email marketing, anybody doing Google Ads, anybody doing native ads, anybody doing Facebook Ads. Anybody doing anything to do with selling affiliate products on the internet in one way, shape, or another all come to Vegas once a year, party it up like rock stars, network, and exchange information. So, I came to one of those once I'd left that guy and started networking with the people who I knew and one thing leads to another and you fill in all the gaps. Next thing you know, I was a self-employed active email person myself. And um yeah, it it completely changed my life. How long did it take between you quitting that job with this guy and then making your first $100,000 month? Um fast. 90 days. Jeez. Well, when did you go from that then to buying a Lamborghini? At what point did you feel financially comfortable enough to pull the trigger? So, you pick up a few bad habits along the way. You always are going to be some version of the people you surround yourself with. All of a sudden you start making $100,000 90 days, right? You know, $10,000, $15,000 a month consistently was like life-changing for me. Making $100,000 was like winning the lottery. And when you're doing something you think it's going to last forever. So, I spent it on all the dumb experiences you can imagine. Like I wanted to drive supercars, so I went I came to LA for 3 weeks, lived in a really expensive hotel, and went to Platinum back then, Sam and the guys, like all the all the guys at Platinum Motorsports. And I rented a Ferrari F430 from them for 3 weeks and just drove around LA and like went to the club with a couple of friends. In fact, I didn't have many friends, so I had like my my tech guy, um a couple of guys that were going to work with me and do email with me cuz I was just emulating what I saw the other guy do, right? So, I was like, "Oh, I'll get a couple of guys to do mail for me." Excuse me. So, I was trying to show them a good time and just have some fun and yeah, I just blew the money. Just on experiences. How was it like though having a family? And how how were you able to do that though? Like having kids at home and be like, "Hey, honey, I'm I'm just going to rent a Ferrari in LA and go to the with I wasn't I wasn't with the mother anymore at that point. Got it. Yeah, we had already separated back when I still had the furniture store. Got it. This all happened afterwards. So, I had like a a a custody of, you know, I was like the typical every second weekend dad, unfortunately, and you know, she was a phenomenal mom and still is and we did our best to co-parent our daughters to the best of our ability and I paid child support and she didn't work. So, it was also beneficial for me and for her to work together in that environment cuz I was ambitious and I wanted to make money and she really wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. That was actually always her goal. So, she was living her dream in a lot of ways and then I financially supported them the best I could, you know, and and was there for my kids. I go home. I go home all the time. So, I've been to every soccer game, school Christmas play, all that stuff. I missed a lot cuz you have I made sacrifices. I missed a lot, but I was there for the I think I believe I was there for the really important stuff. Yeah. My daughters told me I was, so. You said you spent a lot of the money. How long did it last for? Well, yeah, I mean it's a commission-based business, right? So, it's like there's highs and lows. Um you can make $100,000 one month and then make nothing for 2 months because the IPs that you use to send mail traffic on can get blocked by the email provider if there are too many complaints. A complaint is based on when someone sends you an email and it goes to your inbox. That little button that says junk or spam, that's actually registering with the email service provider uh almost like a informal complaint because it's like when you click junk or click spam you're really telling them someone sent you a piece of email you didn't want. So, if you get too many of those based on the volume of mail you went you sent out, if it exceeds the threshold, you know, for example, AOL, that's who I mailed. You're only allowed one complaint per thousand emails. If you have more than that threshold, the IP address that sent that email, they can just turn it off in the back end and be like, you know, "Well, we don't want any more mail from that." So, your IPs get burned. There's this cat and mouse game that's played in that industry with the service providers. So, yeah, you you could get your IP shut down and then there's this whole warm-up process of slowly sending mail and plus all the time to set up the IPs or sourcing the IPs and buying and renting servers to set it all up on the back end. That could take a month or two before you can actually get going where you're sending mail to the inbox cuz the inbox is the only place that makes money. You sent 8 million emails out to the spam folder, you're going to make nothing that's going to counter how much money it cost you to rent or lease those IPs. So, you have to do it right. That's what was tricky about it and that's why not everybody was doing it. Got it. So, even though it was inconsistent though, at what point did you decide to buy a Lamborghini? All right. So, I'd done this for several several years at this point and I got to a place where I was just like my dream's always yeah, to have a a Lamborghini. I went to buy one. I actually wimped out. I ended up buying a Maserati GranTurismo instead because it had four seats and like I said my kids were important to me and I wanted to be able to bring my daughters with me, so I kind of like I don't know. You guys can judge this. Like is that an exotic car? Well, I'll tell you back in 2011, that was really exotic for where I lived on Vancouver Island. So, I kind of say that's my first exotic, but then a year later I went back and bought the Gallardo and that was just a 2006 E-Gear, pretty basic Gallardo. How much were you making at the time that you decided to buy a Lamborghini? Yeah, at that point I was fairly consistent at being able to make, you know, the company I should say the company. You got to remember I have a corporation set up. Yeah. So, the corporation's making um around $100,000 a month. But there are obviously expenses of uh IP leasing. Typically, you don't buy IPs. You just lease you lease them from a company and servers and all that stuff and cleaning of new data, so there's new data always coming in. The overhead wasn't excessive, but it fluctuated, so if the company made $100,000, there was probably at least 40 to 45,000 in expenses. Um and then you you know, you don't want to save or not spend every penny of the profit because you might have a month or two that could be down. I kind of figured the game out at that point. So, yeah, I'd say on average, you know, profiting company was profiting $50,000 a month. Um but then I made the ultimate mistake, which was I didn't pay my taxes for 4 years. How? Well, man, I'm telling you when you leave school in grade eight, you just have to figure it out by making these mistakes. And so, I finally got an accountant and filed 4 years of taxes after making significantly good money. Oh my gosh. I got a half a million dollar tax bill and had like What were the penalties like? 50 grand in the bank. Well, the penalties were not good. Um the worst part was this was at the tail end of kind of my email career because it was getting harder and harder to send email and this was right around the time that Canada was announcing they were going to come up with the world's strictest spam law and they did. So, I always kind of felt protected because I was in Canada and the CAN-SPAM Act was American and the odds of like them cross-bordering coming after me for some bulk email that was probably spam was highly unlikely, yeah. Which was correct. And um when Canada came up with their law and I lived in that country, I was like, "I got to find something else to do." Plus it was already getting really hard to like maintain the email side of things. Everything had gone up in cost. IPs had gone up. It had gotten harder to inbox. You just burned more, you know, IPs to send mail. So, the cost of that you're just buying more. Everything costs more. So, to make let's say $100,000, all of a sudden I'm spending 75, 80, right? My profit margins were shrinking. I could see the writing was on the wall. The writing was on the wall for me for me anyhow, right? I wasn't uh The other gentleman who taught me this business was quite savvy as a coder. He was a computer nerd at heart, you know, under it all. He had that going for him. I wasn't that guy. And I didn't know who to get to fix this problem. So, but at that time was the rise of uh Facebook affiliate marketing using the Facebook business platform on the back end of everybody's profile. Most people don't know that they even have, probably still to this day. And again, people I worked with in email who had networks. I'd heard people were making like a million, two million dollars a month doing Facebook ads. So, I was like, at this point, like after you go through that transition of like doing commercial sales at or doing sales at a uh you know, furniture, electronic store to all of a sudden having your eyes opened up to this whole new world of online marketing and meeting a guy who's making half a million dollars a month, right? Of all of a sudden someone tells you, "Oh, I'm making a million dollars doing Facebook." It's like, "Okay, they're making a million dollars doing Facebook, right?" So, without any real confirmation or seeing anybody's account that said a million dollars, right? Like after a month of work, I just believed it and started chasing that. And lucky for me, it was true. And so, I got into Facebook affiliate marketing, built a whole team around that, and did it right this time, got a business partner who is more savvy with lawyers and reading contracts. So, I brought him into the mix, and we built a very successful Facebook advertising company for a few months. And at the height of that, I saw an opportunity to go full-time and take Daily Driven Exotics into a bigger company. And I eventually just made a deal with him that said, "Hey, you're running this. Run this company. Keep it going. All I ask is, you know, you keep this going. I don't even care if it grows anymore." You know, we were doing a couple hundred to, you know, quarter million to 300,000 dollars a month consistently with Facebook. We had a bunch of employees. We had a tech guy. We had ad ad copy people. We had guys that were setting the ads up. And then we had my business partner who could run it all. I gave him all my contacts cuz he knew nothing when he came into the industry. I just brought him in. I was like, "Look, I screwed up. I owed the government." Oh, by the way, I never told you that story. I made 38,000 dollar a month tax installments for 17 months in a row. Wow. Yeah. That was rough. I lived very frugally for a year and a half. Took every penny I made, paid it back. They didn't notice you didn't file? Like, how did that work? They didn't notice. Could you I'd never I'd never filed. It was my first corporation. Could you get away with just never filing at that point? Like uh My integrity wasn't My integrity wasn't ever on that level. My parents raised me better than that. No, it's No, it's It's wild to me that the the government wouldn't be like the one year you don't file just like knocking on the door. But it was a brand new company. So, it it had never filed. So, it was like they didn't even really know I existed. Got it. Okay. And then it's all all of a sudden when I was like, "Hey, hey, I'm over here. I think I owe you some money." They were like, "Yeah, you owe us $500,000." And they And they want the money like now cuz they don't know you haven't been saving. So, they're like, "Yeah, just write us a check." I'm like, "I have no money." And the lady's like, "That's a problem." And I was like, "Okay. Well, I'm sure we can overcome this. Like, I'm still a capable person who still works. Like, what do I got to do?" And she's like, "Well, how big of a check could you write us?" And I'm like, "Nothing because I have $50,000 in my bank account. And if you take that, I will virtually be guaranteed to not be able to make any more money other than getting a real basic job. Um so, it's in your benefit to let me keep that money, reinvest it in this business I have going that's proven, which it wasn't, but I told her that. And I will sort this out and I will do tax installments. So, what's the longest you'll let me do this for?" And she was like, She was like uh a a nine months. I was like, "Oh, I'm going to need more than nine months." Cuz I was already doing the math. She's like She was like What did she say? 16 months. I was like, "Okay, 16 months. 500 grand divided by 16 months is your is your monthly payment." I had no idea how I was going to do that. But yeah, I grinded it out with email for a year and a half. And then was at the same time starting to get into Facebook. And somehow just made it by the skin of my teeth. Paid the government back, started on a fresh slate, started the Facebook business, got my friend who is the smarter, brighter, more organized guy to be like that side of my business. I was like, "Hire an accountant." It's the first thing I said to him. "Get an accountant. Get us a bookkeeper." So, from day one, every expense, everything, we have a P&L. We know what we're doing, right? Cuz I'd learned from my mistakes. So, I wanted to do it better this time. And then went into Facebook. Like I said, got it going. Was successful with it. Then I left that business to go build Daily Driven Exotics cuz I saw it as an opportunity to start a second business and get another stream of income, right? Well, I learned another valuable lesson. What was that? That just because someone standing next to you as a business partner is running one aspect of the business, they might not necessarily be good at running the aspect you're running. So, being the creative person in that relationship, the person who really oversaw like the ad copy, the ad designs, right? The visuals, the titles and thumbnails type of thing. He wasn't good at that. And or having the foresight to know when to pivot or change a campaign that's starting to go downhill in time before you burn a bunch of money. Cuz Facebook will take your money if an ad's not working. Like, you got to remember at the height of our Facebook stuff To make 250, 300,000 dollars a month on Facebook, you're spending 250, 300,000 dollars a month. You're spending 500 or you're spending 5 to 10,000 dollars a day. Right? Cuz you're hoping the the campaign once you figure out the sales funnel is going to convert at 100%. That's kind of the number we'd always aim for. So, to make 300 grand, you'd have to spend 300 grand, which is a big commitment. That's another mindset shift that you have to, you know, overcome to be able to get to that place to do that. This is one of these parts of the, you know, the game. So, anyhow, when I left to build Daily Driven Exotics, in one year, my my business partner didn't change the product, the campaign we were running, which went down. And he just kept trying to make it work. And eventually just sank that company. Yikes. And the worst part was the agreement I made with him when I left was all I want is to be paid my $10,000 a month salary. Okay? Whatever else we we make, just keep it in the company, right? I will go build Daily Driven Exotics. And in exchange for me not being here and you maintaining this and pay me my salary even though I was part owner because I'm not putting in the work anymore into this company, right? But still getting paid the salary, I will give you basically a percentage of Daily Driven Exotics. So, at the end of that relationship, when he sank the company and really couldn't uphold the agreement we'd made, well, then I wasn't willing to uphold the agreement I made. So, that was a big fight because he was in a place where the company we'd built together was now gone. He didn't have a career anymore. And all the energy I put into DD, right? By myself, was starting to be was starting to pay off. But now I wasn't willing to give him any of that. So, we had a falling out there. And I was just like, "Well, that just is what it is. Like, I don't get You sank the company. I don't get $10,000 a month anymore. Like, how am I supposed to live? Now I got to figure out how to live. Now I have to figure out right now before it's even matured, DDE, like the YouTube business. It wasn't even at a place where I wanted to even take any money out of it. But now I had to. I had to live off of that business. And I was back to making $10,000 a month. Like, the company as a whole. So, I was making like just enough to pay rent and feed my family again. And drive a Lamborghini. Was it Was that the car that you were driving in the very beginning? Was that the the Gallardo? So, the Gallardo I sold when I had the tax debt. Got it. I used that money to to fund me buying IPs and servers to get through paying that debt off for a year and a half. So, I sold that car cuz I I screwed up and owed tax debt. And then what was the car you started DDE with? So, well, I started DD with that with that Gallardo. And then there was this period of like I didn't do DDE full-time. It was just kind of like me trying to figure it out in the background, but I was pretty distracted by the government, taxes, trying to start another business. So, it wasn't until I was successful in Facebook that I was like, "Oh, now I can shift my attention and go back to the YouTube thing." Which I always knew was like the passion project that could be, you know, living my dream, doing my hobby all wrapped up in a company business structure. And so, after uh that, when I went to go get back into uh DDE, I got a Ferrari uh Scuderia F430 or a 430 Scuderia. So, I drove that. Started goofing around with that. Then I got a 458. I had those two at the same time for a bit. And then um the 458 I started vlogging with. Mhm. So, that was really the car that started the vlogging portion of uh the channel. The thing that was like the consistent video concept that you could do over and over and over and over and over to build a YouTube channel. Cuz that's what it takes, consistent content. So, that's what kind of started that there. Even though the Gallardo originally was what started the channel, there was like this lull of a few years. nervous about putting on so many miles on the car, wear and tear? Yeah, I was scared. I was scared. I knew all the downfalls, but that was the risk. That's another thing to being successful. Like, what's your risk tolerance? But, how did you have such a high risk tolerance? Cuz that seems like way higher than most people would feel comfortable doing. I don't know, man. Cuz you probably I don't have I actually don't have the answer to that. Yeah. I don't have the answer to that. Yeah, I think I think I was just like I've been put in so many I I shouldn't say I'd never been put in anything. I put myself in so many bad situations that I found my way out of that I was like, oh yeah, if I total this car and it's worth $135,000, which I I bought outright. I didn't know anything about leasing or the tax benefits of leasing a car, which may be different down here in the US, but in Canada, huge benefits. People are always like, "Did he doesn't own their cars?" If you understood the business structure, you you wouldn't want to own our cars, either. But, um yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I just uh it started slowly and again, through some luck of not completely destroying that car and pulling off some cool videos on YouTube 10 years ago of driving a Lamborghini in the forest in the dirt, which wowed a lot of people to the tune of 3 4 million people watch that video. And I made a second video that was inspired by Ken Block's original Gymkhana practice in his Subaru. So, I went out with my Gallardo and got a little dry log sort uh logging mill parking lot, set up a little obstacle course, and hired a couple of camera guys, and went and made my version of basically Gymkhana style driving a Lamborghini, which went viral again. So, I was like, "Oh, I'm onto something here." Like, driving supercars and doing borderline, you know, bad stuff to them is getting a lot of attention. I just had to figure out how to do it consistently. Cuz I couldn't keep hiring a camera crew for $3,000 a day and beating on a Lamborghini and $1,000 worth of rear, you know, 305 width tires or Gallardo tires or 295 tires, but they're so expensive Pirelli tires. I was like, "The overhead's too high." Like, the business math didn't make sense. So, I was like, "How can I lower the expense and create higher um volume of content?" That's where Casey Neistat changed my life, you know, watching him rip around New York City on a scooter. I was like, "Okay, cool. The metaphor is his scooter is my Lamborghini." If that makes sense. If you remember Casey Neistat, he would rip around New York City, you know, like vlogging. So, I just replaced his scooter with my Lambo and basically mimicked Casey Neistat in the beginning to the best of my ability. He was a professional uh storyteller. Incredible guy. Filmed so much of his past life, so he was very good at pulling in old video footage and telling a story. And he explained that later after doing like a year or two of daily vlogging, he made some how to how to vlog like Casey Neistat by Casey Neistat. He actually literally has a YouTube video and labeled that. And I watched it and he just broke it down and was like, "I would vlog my whole day and somewhere within my day, I would find one specific part of a story that I would tell a full story around." Which was like the three-act narrative he would always suggest. He would say there'd be an introduction, there would be conflict, and then resolution. So, that's how he built his vlog. So, I paid attention to all that and I would mimic it, but with a supercar. And it started to work. People would watch me just drive around in my car, do weird things to my car. How many groceries at Costco could you get into the frunk of a Ferrari? Just That was the early stages of dumb YouTuber videos I'd make. Back then though, I remember that anybody with a Lamborghini in the very beginning was doing well. Yeah, because no one saw that. I I remember Vehicle Virgins, Stradman, uh Rob Dom, Mhm. you, and then Alejandro. Yeah. You were all like the big car people in the beginning. And Alejandro, I think, changed it with when he got the uh Pagani. I think that was the Everything. The 918, the Carrera GT. one on YouTube with hypercars. And I remember in the beginning he was getting like a million views plus per video on taking delivery of a Pagani, driving the Pagani, doing this, like everything just did well. Yeah. And I liked your videos, too, admittedly, when you get pulled over. I mean, those are the ones where like the cop comes up and hassles you. And then you then you disagree with the cop or like the cop's wrong about maybe like the registration or something like that. I remember there's one where you're driving at I think across border or something like that and they said, "No, you can't drive this car in the US." And you said, "No, I can." And then going back and forth with the cop on video. Mhm. It's just interesting to watch. Yeah, I mean, again, I think it was you make a video, if you're paying attention if if you truly want to do any type of content creation, you're going to create a piece of content and you're going to put it out to the world, right, as the data set, and then if you really want to do this as a profession, you need to pay attention to what the world tells you, right? If the video gets crappy views, well, probably no one's probably interested in watching the said type of content. Um but, the flip side is it does really well, then your little spidey senses should go off and go, "Oh, I should make more content like this." So, when you're a fairly young YouTube channel and you're striving to have, you know, really more success, if something pops off, you're going to try to recreate that on some level. So, it just became aware to me that when I got pulled over, if I filmed it, no matter what the outcome was, the internet would want to watch it cuz it would they they those videos would do really well. Mhm. So, after a while, you just you just film all those interactions. And then you start to understand retention. So, you're like, "Well, instead of just sitting there and getting my ticket in 3 minutes." Like, the cop comes over and lectures you like they would all aggressively, and you shut your mouth and just, you know, yes or no, sir. Here's my license. Here's my registration. Take your ticket. Don't argue with them and get on with your day. Well, you could stretch the retention out by asking some clever questions like, "What did I do wrong?" "You were speeding." "Did you record that on a measuring device?" "Yes, I did." "What type of measuring device?" Blah, blah, blah. "Are you trained in said measuring device?" "Yes, I am." "Do you know how they manufacture said measuring device?" "No, I don't. Why would that matter?" And then they're human beings. So, you never know what you're going to get, but nine times out of 10, the type of human that is strong enough strong has a strong enough willpower and confidence level to be in that position, cuz it is a very challenging job. Um and I have honestly huge respect for the men and women who serve us as police officers or first responders or fire department or paramedics or the military. Um but, those personalities, nine times out of 10, uh are sometimes, you know, aggressive. You know what I mean? Like, if you challenge they're not used to being challenged. So, if you challenge them, you're going to get a great internet type of response. feed into it the fact that you're driving a very expensive car? Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz there are a lot I mean, I have a lot of friends that are police officers and they openly admit like, "Yeah, a lot of people will be jealous of you because I know for a fact a lot of the police officers who are police officers would rather be rich driving a Lamborghini and not being a police officer." Like, being a cop is not their dream job. And they're pissed off that this is what they're doing for work. But, this is what they're doing for work. And they have a badge and a gun and authority and they I don't want to say abuse it, but probably on some level that's a good word. Um yeah, they abuse it. And they'll tell you to shut your mouth or tell you not to think. Like, I've had cops literally yell on my window, "Don't think." And I'm like, "Hold on." That's your advice? Don't think? And then he'll reiterate, "Yeah, don't think." Like, I literally have a video of that. Huh. And I'm like, "That doesn't seem like" and I'll talk to the camera like, "That doesn't seem like good advice. Don't think. I think you should think, and then you get good at that." Like, you get good at storytelling what's going on and you remove the emotion or remove the emotion of like feeling attacked by the cop. And you just leverage it as in your head, you just tell yourself like, "Oh, this is this is good for my business, right?" Cuz it is. And you're already in the situation, you can't leave. Against the law. Like, uh naturally gets some really extreme reactions. I like the video, the one you did where you went into the one neighborhood and the guy broke your windshield. Oh, that's recent. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. Could you explain that? Tell Jack if Jack hasn't seen this one. I watched the whole video. I thought it was wild what happened. short version is our shop's in Huntington Beach, but we stay in Costa Mesa. So, every day that we're in town, we we're here for a few days a week and then we go home for 10 days. And then we come back to town to work. So, when we're in town, we stay at this hotel we've been staying at for years now. Then one of the managers was a fan of the channel and now we're friends. We've stayed there it's like our home away from home. So, we drive from Costa Mesa to Huntington Beach, same route every day. And there was construction at an intersection along my route and my GPS cuz I just run GPS everywhere. Like we're Canadian. People are like, "How do you not know how to get to your shop?" I probably do. But out of being a habitual human being, I just put in my shop's address every day. Because I've learned in California at any given moment an accident or something happening can drastically change the ETA of your arrival, right? Like at any given moment you know, the traffic could be like six lanes blocked for whatever reason. So, I just run GPS so I always know the quickest fastest route to get somewhere. And so, my GPS was taking me on a side street because there was construction, lo and behold, on the main road. And it took me down a couple of side streets and it got confused. It was like doing the spinny thing. I think everyone's had an experience where you're running GPS and it it gets you lost. It like starts spinning and it doesn't know where you are. I think that's got something to do with like the gyro-y whatever's inside the phone, anyhow. Takes me down this side street, I end up in a cul-de-sac, it tells me to turn around and it takes me directly back the same way I had just come. So, I went through I stopped, proceeded through a stop sign, got to another stop sign, proceeded to turn left going right back to where I was. And I go back onto this street and this guy literally jumps in front of my car and stops me and is just zero to 100, yelling at me, swearing, calling me names. And I'm like, "What is going on?" was my first thing. I'm like, "What did I do?" And I was like, "Well, this guy's just irate." So, like doesn't matter what I did. Like I've been in this situation a million times and with cops or whoever. So, it's just like "One second." I grab my camera, which is like a Sony FX3, like not a small camera. I grab my camera with a big mic on top and I turn it on, roll the window down, I go, "What's your problem?" And he just kept going off. He went off, his wife went off, his buddy uh who he who he he was a construction company worker guy whose house they were working on, that guy came over and started yelling at me. And he wants a video for the rest, but eventually he told one of his workers, he's like over here talking to me and another guy's talking to me and my car's right here and he's telling that guy back on the property that they're working on across the street, closer to my car. He's like, "Jump in this car and drive it away." Cuz my door was open and the door was still the car was still running. You said you got out of your car. I got out of my car. Cuz I I heard a thud. I thought one of them kicked my car. So, I'm like I'm I'm I'm 230, I'm 44, I've boxed and or have some fighting experience of 20 plus years. Like I'm confident again in carrying myself if somebody wants to treat me or my property disrespectfully, I will escalate things legally and appropriately. So, someone kicks my car, I will get out. Someone wants to kick me, I will kick back. And I'm a good kicker. So, anyhow, that's kind of where it was going, right? I was like not intimidated. And the moment I wasn't intimidated by three people until they all surrounded me. Then I was extremely intimidated by them. And then I was like, "Okay, this is probably a bad situation. I probably, you know, just need to get in my car and leave." And then before I could, like the guy was like, "Yeah, get in this car and take it away." And I don't know if the guy who hit the car just couldn't hear what his boss was saying or felt pressure that his boss was yelling at him telling him to do something. But instead of getting in my car and driving it away, which probably would have been a better option, for whatever reason he went in the truck, grabbed a sledgehammer, and smashed my windshield. Which is the most textbook like clickbait set up thing that so many supercar people have done that everybody thought it was fake at first. But it wasn't cuz the cops came and arrested said guy. What car was it? The SVJ. Is the SVJ The orange and black one that's here, yeah. What kind of hate to say it, but idiot would think that's a good idea when you're recording. But you weren't recording. You were recording. That that part Well, the issue was I was recording in the direction of the guy yelling at me who was yelling past me also to the guy behind me. So, my camera was like this and I was standing more like like this. So, out of my peripheral, I could see my car. So, when he hit it, I heard it immediately and I turned my head. So, when I turned my head, I saw him immediately, but then I was like a couple of seconds later I had to turn the camera. So, I got him like only three or four feet away from my car. With a sledgehammer, I think. The issue Yeah, no, for sure. The issue with a dash cam that I find is you know, wiring those into a car sometimes or having to have a whole cable hang down or whatever. Like I've just never done one. And I'm also a vlogger, so I'm always filming. So, I'm like, "Well, if I want to film something, I'll film it. If I don't want to film it, I won't film it." And and dash cam footage isn't something that I would ever I don't know, use. Maybe it's a bad excuse. I've just never really used one. Yeah. I always have a camera. In moments like that, I definitely I definitely regret it, you know, when something negative happens, it's like, "Oh, I should have had a dash cam." But the truth is like I try not to put that out there. Like again, my mindset is you know, no one's going to mess with my car. I've parked my car for all my supercars have been parked everywhere and anywhere in places most people wouldn't leave anything. And I've never had anything bad happen to it. Like these are these are the super like .01% of bad incidences. Like, you know, I've only had someone smash a windshield on my car twice. And the one before that was like six years ago. So, it's like it's not like I'm like Yeah. Twice seems like a lot. You only twice? Have you ever had a windshield smashed? Never. I have. Really? Yeah, we caught it on the the surveillance at our house back when I was a kid. When happened? There was just a It was night. It was like 3:00 a.m. and I had the room right next to the street and I heard some crash sound in the middle of the night and I didn't think anything of it, went back to sleep, woke up the next morning. Just got all ready, went to my car to go drive to cross country practice and on my way over to the car, I just see glass all over the ground and there was just a huge rock sitting in the the trunk of the car. Somebody they didn't even steal anything. They just went up, threw a rock through it, and then drove off. it targeted towards you or was it just like a random thing? It seemed like a random thing cuz I don't there we would have no reason to be targeted for something like that. Someone literally just like they pulled up, we saw on the surveillance camera like lights, you know, on the back of my car, their car was pulling up behind it. You couldn't see their car, it was just out of the shot. And then just a Yeah, man, you know, like I'll admit like when I was young, I did some dumb stuff. I broke stuff that there was no rhyme or reason. Did you ever do it in Southern California with a rock in the back of a GMC Envoy? No, in Ventura. In Ventura. I mean, when I was a kid back at home, you know. Yeah. But um What was your craziest experience? In life? Just driving the car. Oh, I was going to say in life, not paying my taxes and having a $500,000 bill. No. A car experience. Um Man, that's tough because there's really so many of them. Haven't There's been a few times I think you've been arrested, right? Ever? No? No. Okay. Maybe that was Houston. I think maybe that was Houston in the Bugatti. Houston got arrested on my camera. That was it. Okay, so I'm confusing the two. Yeah. That that that cop was psychotic. And that was Vegas, right? Houston Houston was not overly polite to the cop, but so, like freedom of speech, you can say whatever you want. There's no reason to arrest somebody. Like that officer was abusing his power for sure that day. in the by the strip, right? here on the strip. Yeah, and we were in traffic like just chilling, going slow. He was just trying to get over. And he pulled in front of the cop and the cop was just like losing it. Like perfect example of a guy who should not have a badge and a gun based on his perception of power and authority, like crazy. Yeah. Well, what's your craziest story? My craziest story? It's really tough, man. I mean, it would depend on what you would what your perception of crazy is. Like well, crazy could be you know, being harassed by Officer Penya Beverly Hills I remember quite a long period of time on and off him just pulling up and yelling stuff at us and driving off in his cruiser and then one day pulling me over finally. I was good friends with Gordon F Spot. Yeah, and I would go with him sometimes and just hang out on Rodeo as he would film these videos. And Officer Penya was like this running It was an inside joke with the car community. And it would be, "What is Officer Penya going to do today?" And he's always just targeting exotic cars without license plates or tints or exhausts. Would always give tickets. All the time. It was always the same officer, too. But I want to point out Yeah. that that is warranted. That is his job. So, if Officer Penya, as much as we'd want to say, is targeting Sure. if the thing he was pulling you over for is in fact in the motor vehicle act or code or whatever you call it down here, an illegal or unsafe thing to do and you're getting he's pulling you over cuz he's noticing it. That's his job. Right? Like Yeah, but here's the thing though. Beverly Hills though, every car has like illegal window tints and no license plate. Like that's half of the cars. So, he would overlook a lot of those and just pick like the really expensive ones. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, I just want to say in in his fairness or any officer who, and I said this to all our other friends in the car community, like don't be the boy that cries wolf. I don't want to have to explain that story, but if you don't know, look up the boy who cries wolf. Like you don't want to say you're being harassed by the police because you are you keep getting pulled over for no front plate. If you're supposed to have a front plate and you're not putting it on your car, expect to get pulled over, right? Whereas he would come up and say certain And so again, there's a side of him that definitely also was targeting people for sure. But he would come up and say the most random stuff to us sometimes cuz we do the same, hang out in Beverly Hills, hang out on Rodeo with a crew, and he would just pull up sometimes and just be like, "Yeah, you better watch out." And then drive off. And I was just like, "Excuse me?" Like it was funny to me because I could see how that would work on like a 19-year-old version of me, but like as a fully adult, grown, you know, got money in the bank, doing well, got attorneys, know the law, you know, not doing anything actually not doing anything wrong. You know, my car is from out of country. I'm a tourist. I'm visiting. Like I knew what I could and what I couldn't do. And eventually when he pulled me over and was like, "Yeah, like you have to have a California license to drive here. You can't drive on a Canadian license." I was like, "Oh, I [ __ ] got you." Like really? Really? And he took it all the way. And so I took it all the way. In that video, he gives me a ticket for not having a valid driver's license and threatens me to impound and tow my car if he sees me driving again. Yet he let me leave and drive away with allegedly no license, which by the way, if you don't know, Canada and the United States has a treaty. Canadians are allowed to drive in the United States on valid Canadian licenses. The The police down here can actually look up our licenses in the computer system. I even showed him my passport that night as well and everything. And he even lied. Like he just he would he he he was the def definition of a crooked cop cuz he pulled me over that he started that whole traffic stop with I ran a stop sign, which I did not. So, I was pretty upset but knew my rights. So, right after he had finished his ticket and we had left, I said to the audience, "Well, you want to see what happens when a cop legitimately writes you a bad ticket? Like you can go and file a police a police complaint. Let's go." So, I took the audience to the Beverly Hills Police Department and went and filed a full-on complaint against Officer Pena. And, you know, had a very professional, nice officer at the department walk me through and work through that process with me on camera. So, you can watch from start to end Got it. all of that. Anything happen to him or what? What was the outcome? I don't know what happened to him. They didn't say anything to me. Um Did they dismiss your ticket? Uh, the department did. They wrote me an apology letter. Like Beverly Hills letterhead, Beverly Hills Police, "Dear Mr. Fryer." Yeah, have it at my house. It's like It's like You framed it? I didn't frame it, but it's somewhere in a pile of paper. I didn't care that much. Sure. I already knew I was right. Yeah. But yeah, they dismissed the ticket and all that. Now, the best part of that whole story is, guess how many more times Officer Pena bugged me after that. Probably none, right? Yeah, zero. Not a front plate ticket ever. Not a exhaust ticket ever. And I saw him lots after that. He like And the the interesting part was after that, like not immediately after, but after like about a year, year and a half, and that video had gone from like 1 million, 2 million, 5 million, 10 million, 15 million, 20 million views, and now it's at like 24 somewhere around there. Um they had, cuz I had a friend in the police department who's who's now retired and left, who was a sergeant. They had like a meeting about that video and actually changed like certain policies, not just in the Beverly Hills Police Department, but in like California Highway Patrol and like police departments across the United States. They took my video and actually put parts of it and other cop videos I've done into like a national training program that allegedly some police officers take. Um like that's like an online course. Hm. Cuz one of the officers took his phone out and like took a screenshot of this thing and sent it to me. I'm not allowed to show anyone. So, I can talk about it cuz I never mentioned a name, so they'll never know, but interesting, right? And then after that, I virtually never, and Dave can attest to this, hey Dave, we like never had a problem with Beverly Hills Police. Like they just left us alone. We were safe after that. It was interesting like there was a weird period where like not intentionally, be like one day we were going down Rodeo and we had some friends on the opposite side and like you are not allowed to do U-turns on Rodeo Drive and for whatever dumb reason like I just decided to do one, not looking around my area, and there were two police officers staring right at me when I did a U-turn on Rodeo, and like they just didn't do anything. Like we never had an issue. No front plate tickets ever again. No, your exhaust is too loud ever again. I got one ticket eventually like three or four years later. The Yeah, interesting. Wow. have known it was going to be filmed and then 25 million views, you know? Yeah, I think, you know, like I think there was just a a bit more, you know, and police have this. They have the ability to decide like do I want to write a front plate ticket? Just risk versus reward. Yeah, it's like that's a pretty dumb ticket. It's 25 bucks. It's a fix-it ticket or it used to be. I think they changed the laws just recently. Anyhow, Yeah. they stopped writing the dumb stuff cuz they were just like, yeah, risk versus reward. Yeah. I don't want to end up on YouTube. Yeah. So, uh, last question for you. How is your business broken down now? Daily Driven Exotics? Yeah. So, YouTube is all I do for income. Well, I shouldn't say YouTube. It's very generalized when I say that. We're really a media company. So, I look at my business as I don't look at myself as I'm a YouTuber. I say that because it's what's familiar to the average person. Mhm. But really Daily Driven Exotics is a media company cuz my history that I explained to you guys on this podcast is marketing, right? It was you know, I did some marketing um with obviously email and then I did marketing with Facebook, like online marketing. I always wanted to stay in that realm and I saw YouTube as a form of marketing. I was just I was on the opposite end of it this time. Instead of being the guy that places the ads on the content, I'd create the content, let other people place ads on my content. That's what YouTube does. They sell ad space. So, I wanted to make a media company, started with YouTube, and then we saw as other social platforms opened up, we just took and recut our content to be appropriate for that platform. So, really we're I consider us a media company, uh, marketing company, and we take our content, put on YouTube, we put on Facebook cuz both of those monetize. We put content on Instagram specifically in the form of Reels cuz cuz Reels monetize. Yeah. Um we recently just got a a Snap show, so we're kind of learning how Snapchat works and the algorithm works and what works with our content, how we need to cut it up to hold attention, retention, all that's how we look at it. We prioritize it as YouTube first, Facebook second, and then it's like Instagram, Snapchat, then things like, you know, like Twitter, TikTok, which aren't where we're not really monetizing, but be everywhere, why not? And then from that, there's the ad revenue we collect. Then we do sponsors, right? Where we verbally talk about someone's product or service in front of our audience and as a mid insertion of one of our videos. So, yeah, we get to do all sorts of fun stuff. But essentially it's like we're a marketing company. Make good content around exotic cars and the lifestyle, and um yeah, monetize it. Can you say how much the company's bringing in per year? Like in total? Yeah. Well, it fluctuates. It's based on obviously how well our ideas are working. And it's a it's a revolving door. Like what worked last year isn't working as well this year because it gets saturated really quick. And the thing that'll happen, as you know, is when you start doing something that works, it's only a matter of time before other people will copy it. Then that saturates the market with the concept or the idea. So, 10 years ago I could take a Gallardo and go drive it down a gravel road, millions of views. Well, I wouldn't If I went and did the same thing today, I'd probably get 100,000 views only because I have 3.3 million subscribers. But if you think about the odds of 3.3 million subscribers and only 100,000 people watching that, it's awful. Yeah. So, that just tells you the the market's not interested in that anymore. So, it always fluctuates. But I think our best year what What What did DDE do as gross revenue? Like 6 million? Uh, more than that, 8.2 I think at best year. 8.2 million. What year was that? Is it 2020? 2020? 2020. Yeah, 2020. It was insane that that year. Just companies were throwing money at YouTube because everyone is at home. And everyone was watching YouTube. Yeah. Yeah. And everybody still is. I like I think YouTube has a really long runway. Yeah. Um I don't see anybody coming up and knocking them off off of that pedestal anytime soon. Yeah. But um Yeah, it's it's a it's a lot of work. It's grueling hours. Um especially when you create the company and the structure around yourself as a primary host of the show along with your business partner. So like when Dave and I are the really the two key hosts and we're the guys that have to facilitate being in front of the camera. We carry the camera. I think that's another piece of the business that like a lot of people don't maybe fully consciously are aware of. When you watch YouTube, it's like some people have teams. We don't. Like we have a buddy who works with us who edits, who will hold the camera from time to time. But for the most part like same with James or our buddy Stradman. Like he's everything. He's the director, the producer, the camera guy, the sound guy, the actor, the editor, the marketing leg. Like it's if you're successful at doing YouTube videos, like kudos to you. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. But also the most rewarding if you can base it around something you truly love as a passion. Cuz it's like living my dream every day, which is I love business. I love building a business. I love cars. I'm doing all that while getting paid. And then when I go home, I'm satisfied from like a hobby aspect. So the business is distracting because there's always a business aspect when you're the owner that you can't take your thumb off and not pay attention to. But for the most part when I go home like I'm not distracted. I don't want to go out and drive cars and take time away from being with my family. I can just be with my family. I can just be home. Which is great. Cuz a lot of people don't have that. You go to work, right? You earn your living doing said thing that maybe you don't love. Then you go home and you have to juggle being with your wife, your kids, and trying to have some time for yourself and go do the thing you want to do to have fun. Well, I get to do the thing that I want to do to have fun in my business. So when I go home, that's eliminated. I don't have to I don't have a need to want to go out and do that. Yeah. It's kind of cool. It's awesome. I have a couple rapid fire questions. I'm going to ask the question quick. You want a quick answer just so we can chop it up nice for for TikTok and that kind of stuff. Okay, let's go. TikTok. Hot round. So what are all the cars you have now? All right. A list? Yeah. Lamborghini Aventador SVJ, Lamborghini Aventador S, Huracan LP580-2, which is two-wheel drive variant, which is supercharged and just got a race style body kit put on it. A 1999 Ferrari 550, uh which is gated, has a front engine V12 in it. It's actually the exact car they used in Bad Boys 2 that Will Smith and Martin Lawrence were like dodging boats on the Miami version of that movie. Wow. We have a Ferrari F12, which has another V12 in the front of it. And we did the world's first top mount twin turbo kit to that car cuz I was inspired by Ken Block's Hoonicorn. There is We have a Hummer H1 for the truck side of things. We have a cop car, a real cop car from Texas we bought from an auction. All the lights and everything work. Has a cage in the back. Um what am I missing for super cars? I have a McLaren 720S that I converted to my version of a GTR, which is based off of the original F1 GTR that won the Japanese GT Championship back in the late '90s. Which I've had some bad luck with some of these cars recently. Nothing I did. Mhm. I'll explain that in a sec. I have a very rare manual LP640 Murcielago, which is has that my favorite car. And we've had a whole bunch of other cars that have come and gone. Beautiful cars like had a Carrera GT at one time. Other Lambos, other Ferraris. How many Lamborghinis have you had in your entire life? Uh Gallardo, I've had a Huracan. Two Huracans, three Huracans. Three Gallardos. Three Gallarda Three Gallardos. That's right. We had mine. That's right. Oh, more. We had my original Gallardo. Original. We had my I bought my daughter a Lamborghini Gallardo for her 19th birthday. Yeah. I my gated Your gated Gallardo. And then I had the Squadra Corsa. And you had the Squadra Corsa, which is the ultimate Gallardo. So there's four four there. Okay, then and then go to Huracan. The original Huracan. Right? Is it more than that? No. No, four because we had We had my original Huracan. Yeah. We had the twin turbo from Florida. Yeah. We had the Aperta where we cut the windshield off of it. Yeah. I mean it came like that. It's factory like that from Lamborghini. And then we have the current one we have. Yeah, okay. So four. And then we had the Urus. An Urus? Had a I had the the Murcielago. I had a Murcielago. You had a Murcielago. We have two Aventadors. We had and and we had a Murcielago Diablo SV. Ah, Diablo. So how many is that total? Do you I'm not I guess we could do it all counting. I think it's like 15. We'll put it on the screen right here. Why did you decide to Why did you decide to buy your daughter a Lamborghini when she was 19? You got to go You got to go. You bought your daughter a Lamborghini for her 19th birthday? I did. And it was really a combination of two things. One, the benefits of being a YouTuber. That was obviously going to work well for a a viral type video concept. And she was deserving of it. She's a really good kid. All three of my daughters are amazing. My two oldest daughters are very responsible. Um they didn't drop out of school like I did. They graduated. They're just good kids. They One of them had moved out, which is my oldest. And she was doing well and she was coming to do some stuff with Dad. Kind of like I did. I went and worked with my family in the business that they had. Mhm. My daughter came and worked with Dave and I. Both of my two older daughters at previous previous times have worked with us. And so I just thought like well, she's working with us like like let's just get her car to drive. Just a car to drive. last long though because insurance very quickly sent us a letter after they'd watched our videos cuz they watch all of our stuff closely and said you cannot have a 19-year-old girl driving a Lamborghini. We do not insure for that. Really? Wouldn't everything have a price They almost No, they almost wouldn't insure us because Dave was 37 and not 40. What? Not joking. Wow. That's how strict some of the behind the scenes of running this company are. And again, it's different for everybody based on where you live and how you set up your structure of your corporation and all this stuff. Like how do you need to play the game to best accomplish the goal, which is make money, but obviously keep as much of it as possible, right? Mhm. So yeah, playing the tax game and all that stuff. Yeah. So what's the collective value of all your cars? At the peak uh was 4.7 million. And that's when I still had the Carrera GT in the collection and that alone was worth 1.2. Why'd you sell it? Beautiful car, not good for YouTube. End of story. Fair. If it doesn't make money for the company, I don't need it. Sure. I would love it for me personally, trust me. But I don't have an ego like that in this game. It's it's uh run an efficient company to put food continually obviously we're past the food stage. Let's get past that. To create the lifestyle that my family deserves. My wife, who's a stay-at-home mom, my three kids, and myself for working really hard, you know. And my business partner and the other people who work with Daily Driven Exotics and their families. All the people that our company supports. You know, I owe it to them to make the right choice. Not the other one. What's the most expensive problem that's happened with one of your exotic cars? Uh easy. People crashing our cars. So my very rare gated LP640 manual Murcielago was unfortunately crashed on a test drive by the service shop manager right after 3 months of servicing and completely rebuilding my transmission, putting new synchros in it. Which is still not fixed. Because how many of those cars are still in existence? Uh there are only like somewhere in the neighborhood of like there are only like 23 in North America. Yeah, they're really rare. Less than 100 in the world. Yeah. And how'd they make it right? Um well, they are the company we work with with our financial side of the cars. So I mean they've pretty much for the most part trusted us with any lease payment size, any car we've wanted. They pretty much haven't said no to it. They're great guys. Yeah. How did it get crashed? Just honestly like leaving the shop. They were test driving the car while it was still winter. Oh, okay. The roads were dry. However, like I said when we've had snow, they put a lot of sand on the ground. And so when the snow melts and goes away, even though it's dry, there's like this sand all over the road. And it kind of comes in it flows and ends up in patches because of people driving on the road. And so they just left the shop and were really focused on like, oh, let's make sure the gearbox is working good and maybe not so focused on like what's the surface, you know, and all that. Yeah. And just Murcielagos have a really tall first gear, got on it, lots of power. My car was converted to rear-wheel drive, wasn't all-wheel drive. Back end kicked out, sent them sideways. And just luck of the draw, hit the one pole on the whole street. Tore the whole car apart and spun it around. was the fix? It's half a million dollars. Yeah. And not fixed. Trying to source parts. Two years I'm told to try to rebuild this car. That's the biggest problem. Yeah. Cool. Appreciate it, man. Thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. I I That was a whirlwind. I can't remember what we spoke about. a lot a lot. Yeah. So, have fun editing that. Thank you. With that said, you guys thank you so much for tuning in. Really means a lot if you guys wouldn't mind hitting the subscribe button. Maybe the notification bell, too, cuz every Sunday we release amazing episodes here on the Ice Coffee Hour. And you can get a free stock. Thank you, guys, so much. way up to $1,000 with our sponsor public.com with the code Graham. Cool. Love that.