S2E51 – Chandler Walker – Big wins, fast failures, and managing emotions

Key Timecodes

• (00:59) – Background history
• (03:41) – His business model
• (05:08) – Is this a membership-type model?
• (05:43) – When did he move to an online-focused model?
• (06:28) – What’s the revenue when selling the physical business?
• (07:22) – Deeper into his SAAS model
• (08:40) – The mobile software
• (11:34) – Is his team outsourced or employees?
• (12:35) – Understanding his educational platform
• (14:51) – Deeper into his philosophy
• (17:08) – Is he investing today in individual stocks or ETFs?
• (18:37) – Stocks he holds
• (21:22) – What percentage of his income he invests in the stock market?
• (22:19) – How did he manage his emotions in business and investing?
• (24:40) – Big win in his investment journey
• (25:59) – Big loss at his investment journey
• (28:37) – The model of his financial educational network
• (31:29) – The worst business or investment advice he ever received
• (32:58) – The best business or investment advice he ever received
• (38:34) – How long did he validate his ideas before starting a project?
• (35:55) – Guest contacts

Transcription

[00:00:03.390] – Intro

Payback Time is a podcast about building businesses wealth and financial freedom. We try to uncover the challenges our guests faced, the mistakes they made, and the steps they took to achieve their goals. The overall objective is to provide you with a roadmap that leads to your own success. Sean Tepper is your host. Are you ready? It’s payback time.  

[00:00:33.340] – Sean

How would you feel if you invested in Ethereum at $20 and watched it go to a thousand? Investments like this are not easily repeatable, but there are ways to see trends in the market that can allow you to earn consistent returns. In this episode, my next guest breaks down his passive income streams, how he generates consistent returns in the market, and how he manages emotions. Please welcome Chandler Walker. Chandler, welcome to the show.  

[00:01:01.020] – Chandler

Happy to be here. Thanks for bringing me on. Hopefully, we can give people some sunshine and gumdrops advice and get them going on the fast track to investing success.  

[00:01:08.620] – Sean

Right on. I’m excited to dive in. You’ve got a great background, multiple endeavors from an entrepreneurial standpoint, and then, of course, your investment background. So, first things first, let’s dive into your background, if you could tell us a little bit about your history.  

[00:01:22.990] – Chandler

Yeah, good question. So I kind of have a nontraditional background. I guess growing up, I had a mother who suffered from bipolar disorder. So I kind of got the atmosphere of the child of very high ups and very low downs because and I don’t know if anyone listening has lived with someone who suffers from that, but it’s quite challenging because as a kid, you kind of have to learn to either resent and hate that person or you have to learn to remain neutral in your conversations. And if you can learn to remain neutral, it opens up a whole new world for me, because I ended up in a position where I had a great relationship with my mother, and I learned how to remain neutral and how to remain calm and how to have good conversations with people and not get emotionally invested. And what that did, though, was it moved me into a realm to where I wanted to go to med school, because it took years for her to figure out what was going on and how to get help. Because back then, people said, well, just think happy thoughts, you’re dumb if you suffer from anything up here, all you have to do is just think happy.  

[00:02:19.780] – Chandler

And it was just so far off back then. And so in my twenties, she finally figured out medication can help, and talk therapy was really good for her, like cognitive behavior therapy. And that led me to a medical path. And in college, I studied biochemistry and molecular biology. Still have PTSD from organic chemistry and pharmacology and all that stuff. But I figured out on my career path, as I was precepting in the medical realm, what I figured out was all I was doing was sitting there talking to a human being and saying let me go find the medication you’re going to need. Looking at the book and then going back and giving them meds. And it’s not a shot at doctors. It’s the system. People want the quick fix. The system knows it can give the quick fix. Everything’s negotiated by pharmaceutical companies and hospitals. So you’re just hamstrung. And I had the good tidings I guess of having a father who is an entrepreneur. So he had a sighting window business and I just decided I was like, you know what, I could break off and I could open up a facility and have my own thing where I help people holistically in six areas.  

[00:03:19.320] – Chandler

And that was kind of the beginnings of my entrepreneurial journey. I broke off some young dumb kid just coming out of med school or whatever and bootstrapped $50,000 to build this thing up and scaled it. And there’s no manual to do this like in college it’s do this, this and this. Get ace in business. It’s like just fail. And then you kind of have to figure out how to fail forward. So that’s kind of how I got started.  

[00:03:40.930] – Sean

Got it. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about the business? Was this a medical practice of some sort or gym?  

[00:03:48.070] – Chandler

Yeah, it was kind of like a gym and a holistic. I call it a holistic wellness center. And so what happened was I had like 4000 conversations with people one on one and I uncovered six key areas that I thought created optimal wellness and they were mental health, social health, sleep, nutrition, fitness and habits. And ultimately, eventually wealth came into play and they’re in order of importance though now I might move wealth up near the top because people struggle so much financially. Even thinking about it 30% of Americans who make two hundred K a year or more are still living paycheck to paycheck. So wealth tends to be one of the biggest problems. And so what we did was we developed and created a program that tackled all of those areas. I partnered with the doctor in clinical psychology to build out our mental health and social health and sleep curriculum. We had the good tidings of biochemistry in my background for the nutrition curriculum so we weren’t based on diets. Fitness for me wasn’t really about fitness. It was about learning to enjoy health and increasing bone density which is one of the single biggest parameters for longevity of life.  

[00:04:49.860] – Chandler

And ultimately from that we built out this system that was not only designed to help people in their entire lives and holistically but it was something that could actually scale and we could charge a higher end for it. So we didn’t have to compete with $99 a month gyms or $29 a month practices. And we had this thing that was just radically different.  

[00:05:08.800] – Sean

Got you. And was this like a membership business model. Do you pay a monthly fee?  

[00:05:14.130] – Chandler

Yeah. So basically what it looked like is up front, what we would charge was somewhere around like twelve to $2,500, which is pretty high for that kind of an environment. And then ongoing, we would move them into a monthly fee. Eventually that started off in the gym environment and then I figured out how to build an app and scale it from a technological standpoint. And then now and before COVID hit, I was able to sell the physical facility and actually move everything online. And we grew like 1800 percent. So that was a pretty interesting transition.  

[00:05:43.840] – Sean

Nice. And it sounds like we were talking about offline. You sold the brick and mortar, the physical store business with all the customers for about seven figures, is that correct?  

[00:05:54.810] – Chandler

Yeah, we were able to sell it for about a seven figure rate, and that set us up for success, to build the entire technological backing and really scale and grow the online platform on the online side of things. And looking back, being able to do that was an incredible gift because it was just before Kova just destroyed the world. And so for us, it was like we got out at the perfect time and we got into the online environment with the resources, with the applications, with the technology to just hit the ground running when people really needed it. Because mental health was at the alltime lows during the COVID pandemic when everyone was stuck at home.  

[00:06:28.350] – Sean

Yeah. Awesome. And there are a lot of entrepreneurs on this podcast, especially those that have a service business. I’m curious here, what kind of multiple against revenue did you sell this physical business for? Was it like one X, two X, three X somewhere in there?  

[00:06:44.440] – Chandler

Yeah, good question. So the minimum that I wanted to sell this business for was three X. So three times the revenue, plus the value of assets, we were able to sell it just under four. So it’s pretty good for a physical location like us, especially in that environment. Because when you’re operating a physical brick and mortar, you’re operating usually at 26% profit margin if you’re lucky, because you have to be efficient. It’s not a profitable entity for most people. Luckily, I was just dumb enough to keep changing and adjusting things, and I was just smart enough to keep nitpicking. And I eventually got it down to a point where we had good profitability, we had contracts, we had systems, and everything looked like we could have essentially been a franchise if we wanted to.  

[00:07:22.210] – Sean

Yeah, I was going to say you definitely structured your pricing model to create that higher multiple. I know people who have a straight up service business that there’s no reoccurring revenue. It’s like a project fee or like one z, two z’s. People come in and ask for this and then you serve them. They write you a check and then they’re on their way out the door. You never see them again. But your model is I love SAS businesses. I’m a total a tech entrepreneur and investor, so I love the reoccurring revenue model. And you definitely structured that well. So I think correct me if I’m wrong here, you didn’t structure your payment structure wisely like you did. It would probably be closer to a onex multiple.  

[00:08:02.460] – Chandler

Oh yeah. If that if it was like a one offer, if it was like, hey, come in and pay 129 a month for your membership, it never would have been just been another thing. But we have this upfront that basically covered all advertising and upfront costs because it was one to two K like I talked about. And then we had multiple that was monthly that kept people around. So you not only covered your front end costs, but you were able to actually consistently grow your book of business over time.  

[00:08:29.740] – Sean

Yeah, it’s great takeaway there for the listeners out there trying to figure out some way, shape or form you can structure your pricing model, be reoccurring even if you have a service business. So nice work there. Let’s keep going on the journey here. So now you’ve got the mobile this is a mobile app, right? Is it iOS and Android or is it just like web app?  

[00:08:49.050] – Chandler

It was iOS and Android had our little logo on it and everything on it. People would log in and it basically had all our videos and our entire curriculum uploaded in there. And it would drop out if they didn’t like, pay attention or log in or do something. It would ping us in the back end and we could reach out and say, hey, I noticed that you may have dropped off the face of the earth, though. Hey, I noticed your face is on the side of a mel cart and I hope everything’s okay so that we can be proactive and fun with it. And that was huge because I noticed in that point, there was like an inflection point when someone starts something new, even if they pay a high end, after week three, you have a pretty good opportunity to keep people for a long time, and then after month three, they’re going to stay forever if they stick around. And so our goal was to be able to track all of that inside our app on the back end so we could reach out and be proactive and increase those opportunities to continue retention and continue people moving forward.  

[00:09:39.960] – Sean

Got it. And you still have this business today, is that correct?  

[00:09:42.640] – Chandler

Yes, I still have the online component. It runs sort of itself right now. The goal, and the thing is to essentially scale. We run ads, we have a sales team, we have the entire system basically set up. My significant other, she actually runs the operations and everything for it. So nice.  

[00:09:59.290] – Sean

It goes well and is that a SAS business membership at this point, it’s.  

[00:10:04.800] – Chandler

Kind of a quasi SAS service business because what we started to do was I didn’t want us to get positioned in just the app space. Because in Health, the app space is like a $19 a month thing. And then you have to get venture capital funds, and then you have to scale it, then you have to lose control. And so for me, it was, okay, how can we do the opposite? So for people to join our health based application, it’s three $200 upfront for, like, the highest in process, or it’s 2500. And then they move into the app and the application that has the curriculum and everything established. We have a team of VAS who build out 100%, like, custom meal plans and stuff for them on the back end. And then we have coaches who get assigned. So everybody has a coach that they can message. They get a message at the end of the day that’s like, hey, how to go one through ten? And then the coach will actually respond. So we have the app and the application and the content that gets delivered by itself. And then we have the human application that makes retention stick and people successful.  

[00:10:56.620] – Sean

Got it. So I’m seeing some form of a marketplace app which, to the listeners out there, I classify a marketplace as you’ve got two audiences coming together on one platform. Sounds like you got consumers and then the people providing the service, right?  

[00:11:11.070] – Chandler

Yeah, exactly. And instead of having, like, independent contractors or random people, we hire to coach everybody, we hire internally. We teach them. We call it our coaching development program. So they go through our training, our processes. So everything’s, like, standardized. Everybody gets the same amount of service. We don’t have people providing all sorts of different stuff all over the place. So then I can provide a clean solution to a high level success rate.  

[00:11:34.530] – Sean

Got it. Okay, so these are not external, like, independent contractors. These are actually employees of the business.  

[00:11:39.930] – Chandler

Yeah, exactly. So then that was a big thing for me because I see a lot of these applications that are like, they hire a bunch of independent contractors to coach their own way. And I don’t think that’s a fast track to good retention because you can’t control it. Whatever you can’t control in the supply chain is exactly what will break and exactly what will haunt you for the rest of your life. And so, for me, the more I can control the supply chain, the more that I can create a profitable revenue stream and more importantly, increase client success rate. Because for me, in SAS, sometimes the client success rate can be lacking if you don’t have that. And so for us, it needs to be, like, 97% or higher each month.  

[00:12:14.350] – Sean

Got you. Well done. I like how you structure that model, too. Let’s keep going here on the journey. You also have a financial education app or platform in some way, shape or form. Tell us about this model.  

[00:12:28.210] – Chandler

Yeah, that’s a good question. So I fought this kicking and screaming for a long time because I did my thing. I did well with it. I didn’t want to be the guy, like giving stock picks and stuff. And I didn’t want to be someone who influenced people to make a decision to where they could essentially lose. But at some point, I had so many people reaching out, I couldn’t handle the messages and the volume of just people asking me questions. And so that’s kind of how our coaching and our programs were born from it. And then the name I kind of found for it was like, everybody wants to be a bull. Everybody wants to win in the bull market. Everybody wants to pick like the thing that’s going to be 100 times winner. So I call my thing the Bear Market Society. I’m going to teach you how to win in the bear so you don’t have to do anything in the bull. Because really, most people get wrecked in the bull market. They just want to follow the charts and they just get crushed. And this comes down to my back, to my first investment kind of decision.  

[00:13:18.790] – Chandler

When I first opened my gym, Ethereum, it’s a cryptocurrency, was new. It was like $15 a coin. And I looked at my partner and I was like, well, there’s two things we want to hit right now. Snapchat was kind of getting hit back then. It was like $20 or something. It’s like $7 now. But we jumped into Snapchat. We put like four grand into Snapchat and we put like four grand into Ethereum. So Snapchat at its peak, we were able to sell it like, I think like $74, which was good because now it was $7. But Ethereum went up to like at this peak of the bull market was $4,000. So I watched that little investment turn into a multiple sixfigure thing. And I think my mindset coming into that was, OK, this is new. I like to be an early adopter in technology. I can understand how this can create a massive marketplace and has usability and use case where people will come in and probably use it. Plus if we lose the money, it’s fine too. So that’s kind of how that first thing came up. And then people started asking me like, well, how did you know to invest in it?  

[00:14:16.320] – Chandler

How did you know it was going to be successful? And in reality, at that point, I didn’t.  

[00:14:20.370] – Sean

Right.  

[00:14:20.860] – Chandler

But what that did was it pushed me to be able to recognize and understand that there are opportunities available in the market. You just have to learn how to educate yourself and you have to learn to move forward with about 75% of the information at hand. And you also have to recognize that you’re not always going to win. And additionally, you have to recognize that day traders are the ones who direct. And so the people for me who can hold long term and who can make smart decisions based on good companies, good products, good cryptocurrencies, are typically the ones who do win long term.  

[00:14:51.790] – Sean

I like the fact that you mentioned you didn’t know it was a good investment because there’s people out there, they’d probably lean into that and be like, yeah, I’m good at seeing the future. I just know trends. It’s my neck. It’s like, yeah, that’s a bad book.  

[00:15:04.810] – Chandler

I knew it.  

[00:15:05.580] – Sean

Yes, I’m the guru that everybody looks up to now.  

[00:15:09.120] – Chandler

Exactly.  

[00:15:09.730] – Sean

And in all reality, you hit something at the right time that’s very hard to do. But I like the philosophy you mentioned there is don’t look for the quick buck, don’t try to trade. Get in and get out. Tykr our audience. We’re very focused on wise, long term investments. Yes, you want to make some money in the short term, but you’re going to make a lot of money over the long term. And it sounds like your philosophy is very similar.  

[00:15:33.130] – Chandler

Yeah, for sure. And I’ve full disclosure, I’ve tried the day trading game number one. I don’t want that to be my career because you have to sit there and stare at a chart. 24.  

[00:15:40.950] – Sean

It’s a job.  

[00:15:41.820] – Chandler

Yeah, it sucks. And so I was like, what am I doing? I just want this a passive source of income. I want to be able to have assets that have value in stocks, real estate, crypto or whatever that I can use as a business owner to take loans out again, so I have zero income and stuff like that. I don’t want to have this thing where I’m like on my phone looking at trading view and like 27 leverage trading, which is fine if someone wants to do it, but I just like anybody who’s listening and thinking about that stuff. The people selling that to you are the people who really probably aren’t making any money, and then they’re going to sell it to you so you can get wrecked. And then it’s a perpetual cycle of failure. So for me, when I enter an investment decision, it’s not a decision of how can I make money in 30 days, I’m going to buy this thing, because I think this thing is going to be around in four years, five years, ten years, and it’s going to be the opportunity for me to build a retirement portfolio.  

[00:16:28.420] – Sean

Right now, you, as an entrepreneur, I like what you’re doing. You’re investing in yourself, your own businesses that you’re creating, but you’re also leveraging the power of compound interest. We’ve had other investors on the podcast. They kind of do the same. And then one of the more recent podcasts I was on, he actually sold. I kind of laughed at this, and I gave him a little heat. He’s very young, he’s mid 20s. He sold his portfolio to go all in on black. Essentially, I’m going all in on me to start my business. And I was like, I don’t know if that’s a wise decision, but in this case I like what you’ve done. You created some passive income streams with some of the businesses, but you’re also investing in the market. Can you share with us? What do you invest in today? Is it individual stocks or more ETFs?  

[00:17:14.320] – Chandler

Yes, I think for me I invested on individual stocks because I understand what I want and I understand how to look at companies. I’ll show up to calls and stuff like that and I really know where I need to look. Everybody listening, though. That’s not what I think that most people should be doing. I think if people are investing in ETFs or index funds, it ends up being the easiest, safest place to go in. But for me, it’s like I have a portfolio set up for real estate. We have a portfolio set up for crypto, we have a portfolio set up for stocks. And I shift that around so we’re in a bear market. So I’m moving from high growth tech stocks or I’ve moved from that stuff because I knew they were going to get destroyed because they’re overvalued. And when you enter into a recessionary period overvalued, stocks get wrecked. So you shift out and you shift into energy companies if you shift into things that are going to be more long term holdings and maybe even some hedge, that allows you to create like an inverse ETF. So for me it’s like things like Exxon, thermo Fisher Mastercard, stuff like that are good for me right now.  

[00:18:14.560] – Chandler

Whereas during the bull market, it was things like Facebook, anything that was a check in the corner, dump your money in there, you’re going to win, but you don’t want it in there forever. So that’s kind of what my philosophy looks like. And it’s the same with crypto. It’s like I know that Bitcoin and Ethereum are going to be around for a long time, so I’m going to build a base around that. I’m not going to go try to jump into like a hundred times, shit coins and stuff like that because that’s how you lose money.  

[00:18:37.200] – Sean

Yep, yep. Good call. Some of the stocks you mentioned, so Exxon Mastercard, that’s when you’re in today?  

[00:18:43.170] – Chandler

Yeah, so I have those right now. I’d say right now my portfolio is probably like in terms of stocks, it’s like 29% cash still. So just kind of like slowly dipping my feet into this as we navigate this interesting market. But yeah, I’d say Exxon is one of the larger ones right now. What’s? It transgem group transcribe. However you say that, thermo Fisher Mastercard, Microsoft, I have a hedge. So the hedge is like an inverse ETF that allowed me to really ride well out of the market. Dumped. So those are kind of the big ones that I’m sitting on because I know like, Exxon is going to be around. I know energy stocks are going to do well in this market. Thermo Fisher has always been a really good one for me. Mastercard, Visa, they own the market, nobody can touch them. So I know that if I shift into these, they might not be the biggest winners, like instantly, but they’re going to be the ones that allow me to hedge in a down market and not have to pull everything out.  

[00:19:34.010] – Sean

Yeah, that’s a good call. Now what you’re doing is it’s very in line with what Tykr does, is we do focus on individual stocks. Of course. We look for stocks with really strong financials, so income statements, capital statement and balance sheet are really good. We are soon adding ETFs to the platform so you’ll be able to analyze or people will be able to analyze those. But, yeah, I like the strategy there. There are investors like myself, all tech. That’s my background. I’ve been in this industry for a long time and I love buying more when everything’s just beat down severely, get in at the bottom.  

[00:20:09.400] – Chandler

That’s my favorite. Especially like, you have the good portfolio, like what I just mentioned, and then I have some offshore stuff and some opportunities stuff. And when the market is getting destroyed and everybody like Warren Buffett says, when everybody’s running away scared, that’s when I kind of like to go all in because then I know I could lose it all. It’s fine, it’s not going to kill me. But I know long term it’s going to benefit me 100 fold. It’s going to build that generational wealth that I want, and I’m working on building up my businesses at the same time.  

[00:20:37.140] – Sean

Great. Let’s take a quick commercial break. Hey, this is Sean. I just want to say thanks a lot for checking out this podcast. I know there’s a lot of other podcasts you could be listening to, so thanks for checking out this one. Could you do me a quick favor if you haven’t done so already, could you leave us a five star rating on either Spotify, Apple, Podcasts, Google, or any other platform you use to listen to podcasts? What this will do is help us rank higher in the podcast search engines, you could say. So that would be much appreciated. Also, if there are any questions you want me to ask the guests for a specific topic you want me to address, please go to our Tykr Facebook group. You can leave a comment there and I’d love to hear what you have to say. All right, back to the show. Let’s jump in a few questions here that will help a lot of the newer investors. What percentage of your income do you invest in the stock market per month, would you say?  

[00:21:32.290] – Chandler

Yeah, usually when I look at my income, I’m probably investing somewhere around like 20% ish. I don’t go all in. I have a lot of cash flow on the side because I need it to make sure the business is OK if something happens, we want that stuff personally. And then I have my little girl that we put away and then have a portfolio for. So I did say somewhere around 20% ends up being a really good zone for me. I think some of the mindset people have is going to all in and then they don’t have anything to like. It’s like the Gary Vee strategy, go all in and then eat peanuts and cottage. I’m not in that zone. I still want to live well, but I put away enough to where we have a really solid portfolio. My family has a good portfolio, my daughter’s set up and everything’s in a.  

[00:22:16.660] – Sean

Good place, very safe. I like that. I’m going to circle back to your training. Growing up, working with your mom and helping her emotions were all over the board. And that’s an issue a lot of investors, especially new investors have, is managing their emotions, especially in times like this. How do you do that?  

[00:22:36.730] – Chandler

Yeah, so that’s one of the hardest things I think, for people is they see a market go red and they instantly want to panic and get out. So for me, what I’ve learned to do is, and especially when I was communicating with my mother, you start communicating, you can feel like your blood boil, you can feel your emotions building. And that’s when I start asking myself, does this matter? Is this going to harm me five years from now? What’s the outcome here? And then when I start thinking about that, I’m like, okay, if this thing goes red and I don’t get out, the money is already gone. It’s not like I’m going to be homeless on the street. I can still go get a slurpee if I want. So I’m like, it’s fine, just let it dump, who cares? For example, I see all these like Facebook, Snapchat, all these growth stocks, they’re dumping because we’re in a recessionary, period. It’s natural for companies to reduce marketing and growth stocks to get wrecked. So for me, it’s like if I’m in that, I’m not just going to panic and get out when I’m 60% down, I’m going to just ride it out.  

[00:23:31.800] – Chandler

If I’m in that point. And I think that’s the point where you have to ask yourself, what am I doing? Does this matter? In five years, will it recover? Probably. Unless you’re in like a shit coin in crypto, then you’re screwed. But with like Facebook or Snapchat, it’s probably going to recover and come back up.  

[00:23:46.980] – Sean

Yes. Right now, that’s a great reminder. And a few of our customers, they’ve been able to transition from that freak out mindset to remind themselves, and I like to say this is we’re not investing in the stock market and we’re not investing. In stocks, we’re investing in businesses.  

[00:24:02.430] – Chandler

Exactly.  

[00:24:02.980] – Sean

You can put your mindset there and understand the business. You’re investing in the multiple revenue streams it has. Like, for example, Microsoft, the stock I invest in, are all the customers going to collectively one day say, hey, we’re not going to be customers of Microsoft?  

[00:24:16.710] – Chandler

Yeah. Microsoft sucks. We’re out.  

[00:24:18.820] – Sean

We’re all out at the same time. That’s not going to happen.  

[00:24:21.690] – Chandler

It’s never going to make it.  

[00:24:23.530] – Sean

I’m done using Outlook PowerPoint. I’m throwing away my Xbox. Right.  

[00:24:29.040] – Chandler

No, it makes no sense. It’s like, is Exxon going to fail? Is everybody just going to not use gas anymore? No, we’re probably going to be okay. Is Visa going to go down? No, they own the market. There’s no one who can compete.  

[00:24:39.610] – Sean

Right. You mentioned a really big investment in Win, which was Ethereum, and thanks for sharing that. Do you have another big Win you’d like to share as well? Maybe. Well, you’ve got a few. Actually. Your first business you sold that was big, you had Ethereum. Is there another?  

[00:24:56.740] – Chandler

Yeah, I mean, Snapchat was a big one. I got into that when it was like $20 and we got out of that when it was like close to 80. So that was really good. Now it’s a seven. I will go back into that. It’s not going anywhere. Same thing is like Facebook and stuff like that. We got in that pretty early. The other one on the crypto side of things, I got in Litecoin when it was $15 a coin. Then at the peak, I think I was able to get out somewhere around 300 a coin. So we had a bunch of good decisions that manifested and presented themselves just because I was able to say, okay, Ethereum went well, litecoin is just like bitcoin, let’s try it. And then, okay, well, Snapchat went well, or now let’s look at Facebook or hey, Twitter’s at $3, let’s get in this. Twitter goes up to 40 or 50 or whatever it was. Okay, cool. And so now I’m leaning toward, okay, now it’s like, all right, there’s not going to be big, huge wins in a bear market. But I know, and I figured out that if I could get into energies type stocks that I was going to do well.  

[00:25:55.780] – Chandler

And that’s kind of what propelled us in the bear market so far.  

[00:25:58.870] – Sean

Right on. Let’s flip that equation. Is there any kind of losses or big lessons learned you’d like to share?  

[00:26:05.230] – Chandler

Yeah, I mean, I can tell you I played around in the beginning with like I was like, okay, I can do leverage trading, I can do day trading and stuff like that. And I got wrecked in the beginning because it’s not as easy as looking at a chart and hoping and praying something works. That was a part of mastering my emotions, too. So I figured out like, okay, leverage training is a good way to lose all your money or I figure, okay, call and options are they work if, you know, kind of if you have a macro outlook you can play with. But most of the time people lose everything doing that. Just go onto like a wall street bets reddit and you’ll see everything like lost porn. So those are the big losses. And then outside of stocks I did play and I was like, okay this shit going. Coin game looks cool in crypto easy way. I got rug pulled and lost money in that environment. So that’s another one that doesn’t work very well. So that’s why now I’m adamant about link. If you want to play in that game, that’s okay.  

[00:26:56.760] – Chandler

It’s basically just gambling. But just know you’re going to lose it all and have the percentage of your portfolio that you are putting into things that are going to last and are going to work because that’s what’s going to compound long term and that’s what’s going to win. You lose $100 today, it takes a lot of time to rebuild that portfolio back up versus just putting everything into a long term style of growth portfolio and then putting a little bit of money into just dumb stuff you want to play with.  

[00:27:22.780] – Sean

I like what you did there. Let alba you kind of dabble with a few things. You had your downside, you don’t put all your money in and just test things. But now it sounds like you become a lot more experienced. Your investment fees has become much more laser focused. You know what you want to get into, you know what requires the least amount of time and energy and mental thought process so you can maximize the time with your family, which I appreciate. So that’s great. You got strategy unlock.  

[00:27:49.180] – Chandler

Yeah, and I think that’s super important because people ask me, I have a little group where it’s just a free group where we talk and chat and have fun. There’s probably three or 400 people in there but people are like, what’s your pick this month or can you just tell us what to do? And I’m like, well if I tell you what to do you lose the ability to think in the market and then you’re dependent on me and say I get hit by a bus, what are you going to do? You’re screwed. So one of my goals is that you have to learn how to think. And if you don’t know how to think you have no business being in the market.  

[00:28:17.130] – Sean

Right, the old parable, and teach a man to fish, right, feed him for a day or fish for a man. Feed him for a day and teach a man to fish. Feed him life essentially. What you’re talking about there. I want to touch on your current this financial business model real quick and then we’ll transition to the rapid fire around. So is this financial model, is this like a free blog or site or is this a membership site? What is it exactly?  

[00:28:44.440] – Chandler

Yeah. So the model for the financial stuff is basically I have a pretty big following on Facebook of people who followed me for this kind of stuff. My YouTube channel, every week I do a market analysis. So we look at the crypto market, we look at stocks, we look at just the macro. So how’s the US. Dollar doing? We look at how our stock is doing. We look at the crypto and analyze kind of where I think it’s going. And I kind of give people the idea of here’s where it could go, here’s also where it could go. And here’s kind of where I kind of position my it’s 70% this way or set 30% this way. Not it’s going to go up. We’re going to moon. So that way people can watch my thing and make their own thesis out of it. So that’s become a big base. And then I have a private group, it’s a free group on the Signals Messenger app where people are just ready to go in there and communicate. I don’t allow anybody to chill in there. Signals a little harder because you can’t delete people’s comments because it’s decentralized.  

[00:29:36.550] – Chandler

But if people come in there and they’re like, I just think you have 30 seconds to delete that before you’re out of the group. So that way it’s a safe place. I try to be the nice guy, but in there it’s like no tolerance because you’ll get people in there shilling and just giving people crap. And so I try to protect it and make sure my communities have integrity.  

[00:29:55.650] – Sean

So no finance bros. No finance bros.  

[00:29:58.260] – Chandler

We call that ratboy finance. Yes.  

[00:30:02.810] – Sean

It’S a fun one for and you’ve probably done this, but if you ever Google finance bro starter kit. The hilarity to ensue thereafter.  

[00:30:11.230] – Chandler

Check it out.  

[00:30:11.770] – Sean

Really? Like BMW Keys favorite movie is Wolf of Wall Street. You’ve got your boat shoes in your bag. It’s so funny.  

[00:30:20.890] – Chandler

It’s amazing. I’m going to have to check that out.  

[00:30:23.520] – Sean

That’s a good time. All right. Well, let’s transition to the rapid fire round. This is the part of the episode where we get to find out who Chandler really is. If you can, try to answer each question in about 15 seconds or less. You ready? Ready.  

[00:30:36.910] – Chandler

Let’s do this.  

[00:30:37.810] – Sean

All right. What is your favorite podcast?  

[00:30:40.180] – Chandler

There’s one called Masters of Scale. I think it’s by the founder of LinkedIn.  

[00:30:44.740] – Sean

Really? Hoffman.  

[00:30:46.170] – Chandler

Yeah. Read Hoffman.  

[00:30:47.310] – Sean

One of my favorites. Nice call. What is a recent book you read and one recommends?  

[00:30:52.450] – Chandler

One of my favorites that I always come back to is The Road Less Stupid by Keith J. Cunningham. Really good. Like short excerpts about business and life and thinking.  

[00:31:02.160] – Sean

Nice. What is your favorite movie?  

[00:31:06.040] – Chandler

That’s a good one. It has to be Training Day. I can watch that over and over and over again every day of the.  

[00:31:11.100] – Sean

Week that for years. When that first came out, I think it was 2001, I was like, this is game changer. It was very so good. Yeah.  

[00:31:18.160] – Chandler

Legit. I wish they would come out with part two, but they never will.  

[00:31:21.250] – Sean

Yes. I don’t know if it worked. Denzel is so good. But the writing, it was just those you were just immersed in it. It was brilliant. All right, let’s jump into some business related questions. What is the worst business or investment advice you’ve ever received?  

[00:31:36.520] – Chandler

I think the worst, and this might sound strange, but the worst I ever received was you have to make quick decisions and you have to sort of invest in yourself, I believe, and invest in yourself. But there’s so many business coaches out there who are like, you just have to make winners, make quick decisions. Winners are the people who are going to put all their money into this stuff. Next thing you know, you’re 50K deep into business coaches and zero revenue. So I think you have to protect yourself out there. I know in the beginning I probably spent fifty K and made like $4 off business coaches. So you have to be careful. And all of my success is basically just I’m too dumb to stop trying. And I just keep doing things and keep tweaking things and keep moving forward and maybe I learn a little bit from those things. But for the most part, if I just save the money and put it into what I’m actually doing, don’t pay the business coach. Just put that into your Facebook ads. You can learn ads yourself off ten grand. And so I think that’s super important.  

[00:32:26.290] – Sean

Great advice. Thanks for calling that out. I think business coaches have a time and a place, but in most cases I’m like, no, go invest in your business or invest in the stock market.  

[00:32:39.430] – Chandler

Yes. And instead of hiring a stock coach, some of them are great. It’s good to have a coach at some point. But instead of paying ten grand for a stock coach, just go play with the market. Put ten grand in the market, learn how to play, learn. You’re going to lose the same amount of money like you paid for the business coach is gone forever. You put it in the stock market, at least you have a 50% chance of something happening.  

[00:32:57.280] – Sean

Right. Well, let’s flip that equation. What is the best business or investment advice you ever received?  

[00:33:03.720] – Chandler

Yes. The best for me was fail forward. It’s recognized that you are going to fail every step of the way. You are going to second guess yourself. You are going to experience selfdoubt. People are going to call you stupid and tell you what you’re doing doesn’t make sense. But you kind of got to put it all aside and you got to put 1ft in front of the other, make it from one point to the next. If you don’t do well. And if it doesn’t go well, look at why it happened. Analyze it, create a hypothesis for the next time. Adjust, modify, do things different. That’s ultimately how you create, like, a systematic path to success.  

[00:33:33.340] – Sean

I love that advice, and I do follow the same thing as I’m always making decisions with some velocity, not completely slow, but if I’m failing, there’s a quick reaction to learn and pivot fail forward.  

[00:33:50.740] – Chandler

Exactly. And I think from biochemistry, that’s really where that came from for me, because in biochem, it was create a hypothesis, test hypothesis. Didn’t work. Completely failed. Redo it. Do it again, do it again, and you never have all the information at hand. And so I still remember replicating DNA. It takes forever, like hours. You’ll sit there for 8 hours waiting for the thing to work. And some of my students with me would be like, should we ask the teacher? Do you think we can move forward? What should we do? And I’m like, screw it. Just do it. Who cares if we fail, we have to sit here tomorrow and do it again. But we’re going to learn and we’re going to adjust, and we’re going to become better scientists. And that’s kind of what helped me a lot this whole game.  

[00:34:28.600] – Sean

That is great perspective. That’s awesome. All right, last question. Here is the time machine question. If you could go back in time to give your younger self advice, what age would you visit and what would you say?  

[00:34:39.660] – Chandler

I’d probably go back to when I was a kid. I’d say when I was like 1518. I had my grandfather in my life who was like, one of the most caring people you’d ever meet. He was the guy who would give everybody at the time of day, he was the guy who would always be helping people. Everybody in our city knew exactly who he was. He could do whatever he wanted. Even the police wouldn’t stop him if he wanted to do something. And so I think back then I would go back and really have conversations and really listen, because I was so young back then. You just don’t pay attention when you’re that young. And so I would really take the time to sit down and have conversations with him every week. Like, why do you give people so much time? Why do you give people so much attention? Why are you so caring? And how did you build so much respect with everybody who knows you? Because I think that’s carried a lot for me, because now I look back, and sometimes when I’m conflicted with a customer, a client, or something that’s not going well, I look back and I think, OK, well, what would he do?  

[00:35:35.010] – Chandler

How would he take care of someone? Because every time he made a decision, somehow it worked well for everybody. And it was a good mentorship opportunity for me. But I think I would have played into it more and taken it more seriously back then, had I known what I know now.  

[00:35:51.390] – Sean

Right. Sounds like a very inspirational figure. That’s awesome. All right, well, why don’t you tell us where we can reach you?  

[00:35:59.890] – Chandler

Yeah, the best place to find me is probably Instagram. So go to instagram. Comchandlers that’s Chandler like from friends. C-H-A-N-D-L-E-R underscore S-A-F which SAF is my first business, stone Age fuel. And you can follow me on there or go to my YouTube channel, youtube.com. Chandler Walker SAF. Chandler from friends. Walker, like the Texas Ranger SAF. I put out a bunch of videos and stuff like that for free. And if you want to get into my messenger group where I talked about the safe place where everyone talks and has fun, just DM me on Instagram, the word stocks, and I’ll get you in there.  

[00:36:37.020] – Sean

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time, Chandler. I appreciate it. Perfect.  

[00:36:40.300] – Chandler

Yes. Good chatting with you. Good being on board. Hopefully we gave people some great advice and they can walk away and learn how to think in the market.  

[00:36:46.360] – Sean

You certainly did. I’m definitely thinking you’re going to have to come back on again. Probably Q one, q two. 2023 were in for.  

[00:36:53.280] – Chandler

Yeah, let’s do it. Bring the great market society back.  

[00:36:56.110] – Sean

Right on. All right, buddy, we’ll see you.  

[00:36:58.920] – Chandler

All right, see you.  

[00:37:04.990] – Sean

Hey, I just want to say thanks for checking out this podcast. I know your time is valuable and there’s a lot of other podcasts out there you could be listening to. So thanks for taking the time to listen to my guest story. If you did enjoy this podcast episode, could you head over to itunes and leave a five star review? That would be much appreciated. Thank you. And last but not least on this podcast, some episodes we do talk about stocks. And please keep in mind, this podcast is for entertainment purposes only. So if you did hear any buy or sell recommendations, please don’t make those decisions based solely on what you hear. Alright, thanks a lot.  

[00:37:41.140] – Chandler

See ya.