My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

BIO: As an author, consultant, and international speaker, David C. Barnett has helped thousands of entrepreneurs avoid bad deals and close successful ones.

STORY: Seven years after his first appearance discussing tax-related business losses, David returns for his third visit to unpack the biggest myth in small business acquisitions: that a wave of retiring baby boomers is about to flood the market with cheap businesses for sale. The real numbers tell a very different story, and most of what actually kills a deal has nothing to do with supply and demand.

LEARNING: Value is never a fixed number; it depends entirely on who is asking and why.

As an author, consultant, and international speaker, David C. Barnett has helped thousands of entrepreneurs avoid bad deals and achieve successful business deals. His YouTube channel and podcast reach a global audience of small business buyers and sellers.

David joins the podcast for a third time to discuss his newly released book, Business and Asset Values, and the realities of buying and selling small and mid-sized businesses today.

There is a lot of buzz right now about a coming wave of business sales, driven by baby boomer owners hitting retirement age. David has heard the pitch many times, and he does not buy it. The theory goes that this surplus of retiring owners will flood the market and drive prices down. But supply and demand only work that way if the pool of buyers stays fixed, and in small business, it does not.

David uses his own 17-foot aluminum canoe to make the point: he already owns one, so no price will convince him to buy a second. Most consumer goods work that way. Small business acquisitions do not.

Successful buyers that already own profitable businesses have no limit to how many other new businesses they can also acquire. And so the competitive forces at play when a good private business comes up for sale are just as vigorous as they always have been. The businesses that struggle to sell were always going to struggle, tsunami or not. BizBuySell, one of the largest business-for-sale marketplaces, reports that roughly 70% of listed businesses never sell.

According to David, most listed businesses never sell due to dead capital. These businesses have equipment or assets that cost money but do not generate a return, which makes the business harder to finance and harder to sell. If a buyer would have to borrow money to pay fair value for those assets, and the resulting cash flow doesn't cover the debt service, the deal simply doesn't work, no matter how much the owner believes their business is worth.

David adds that public companies are often valued on their future because investors are buying an experienced leadership team along with a plan. Small businesses, on the other hand, are valued almost entirely on their past, because when the owner leaves, most of the knowledge and relationships that made the business work leave with them. Buyers want to see the history proven out, not projected forward, which is one reason small businesses trade at much lower multiples of cash flow than anything publicly traded.

Another factor that affects a business sale, David says, is seller's discretionary earnings (SDE), which is EBITDA plus the owner's salary. A healthy SDE margin usually falls between 10% and 20%. Above 40% is a red flag worth investigating, and below 5% requires looking for what is off, whether that is pricing, high costs, or high gross margins. Often what turns up is unrecorded sales or personal expenses run through the business to lower its tax bill. That kind of underreporting can make an otherwise sellable business unbankable, since no lender will finance a deal built on numbers the owner cannot legally document.

Financing also shapes a business's price. A business worth $800,000 with only $400,000 in tangible assets might get a loan for $300,000 in Canada or Europe, leaving the buyer to bridge the rest with their own equity and seller financing, often 30% to 40% of the deal. Easier access to credit pushes prices up. The same business in Ontario, Canada, and across the water in upstate New York will typically sell for around 25% more on the American side, simply because more buyers there can access the financing to pay for it.

David's advice for anyone in a conversation about "small business" is to stop and ask for a definition. The Harvard Business Review Guide to Buying a Small Business describes a small business as one with $10 million in revenue, a number that would strike most of David's own clients as anything but small.

He prefers to define businesses by EBITDA rather than revenue. He notes that, mostly, main street businesses run under $500,000 in EBITDA, and the lower middle market stretches up toward $1 to $1.25 million. Revenue alone can be misleading, since a business with high cost of goods sold could post $30 million in revenue while the owner takes home only a couple hundred thousand dollars with a dozen employees, a small, family-run operation in every practical sense.

David drew a distinction between two very different relationships people have with their businesses. Many main street business owners started out simply needing an income, built the business to the point where it supported their lifestyle, and then settled in, sometimes for 15 or 20 years, focused on sustaining what they built rather than growing it further.

An entrepreneur, by David's definition, never really stops adjusting the business, always trying to make it better, faster, leaner, and more profitable. A business that is not growing can still be a perfectly good source of income, but it is playing a different game entirely from one built to keep compounding in value.

David says reading his book Business and Asset Values: How Owners, Buyers, Sellers, Lenders, and Advisors Should Think About Small Business and Equipment Values will help business owners avoid bad value conversations. This is something that David has consistently seen throughout his career, where people will have different advisors give opinions on value, and they'll start arguing about the numbers when, in reality, they need to understand what someone's going to do with the asset. The book will help you think about your purpose, why you want something, what you're willing to do, and how far you're willing to go for it.

David's number one goal for the next 12 months is to get his second child through high school and out of the house, after his daughter left for university. Then he can start doing the things he loves without guilt.

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BIO: Pierre Rogers is a founder and author based in Irvine, California. After his first company collapsed, resulting in federal prison and $1.6M in personal debt, he rebuilt from less than zero—launching a new company.

STORY: Pierre hired his best friend as CFO, ignored repeated warnings from his own team, and watched that one decision spiral into a PPP fraud scandal, a federal indictment, and 18 months behind bars.

LEARNING: What you tolerate in the people you lead says more about your judgment than anything you say or do yourself.

Pierre Rogers is a founder and author based in Irvine, California. After his first company's collapse ended in federal prison and $1.6M of personal debt, he rebuilt from less than zero—launching a new company and writing Built by Failures, where he publishes weekly, unedited chapters of his own recovery alongside case studies of famous comebacks like Robert Downey Jr., Martha Stewart, and Tina Turner.

Pierre's worst investment wasn't a stock or a property; it was trusting his best friend as CFO. He founded Yahyn, a software startup designed to let small and mid-sized vineyards sell directly to consumers across the US, a niche complicated by strict alcohol distribution regulations. Pierre invested his capital and reputation into the company. Then he made the biggest mistake of his life; he hired his best friend as CFO, believing that they shared the same values and goals.

They didn't. The CFO routinely showed up late, missed meetings unprepared, used substances during work hours, and went unresponsive for days at a time. Pierre's team members approached him individually to flag the pattern, at real risk to themselves, since criticizing the founder's best friend could easily have cost them their jobs. Pierre dismissed the warnings because personal loyalty clouded his judgment.

This behavior escalated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when his friend overstated the number of employees to receive money from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). His CFO's fraudulent activity led to a federal investigation, the failure of his business, and Pierre's indictment. That fraud triggered a federal investigation, the company's collapse, and Pierre's own indictment. He takes full ownership: he hired the person, tolerated the behavior, and failed to supervise closely enough to catch it before it became a criminal case that sent him to federal prison for 18 months.

• What you tolerate in the people around you, especially in a leadership role, says more about your own judgment than anything you say.
• A bad hire in a leadership role can cost your company, your reputation, and more.
• If you reinforce negative cognitive biases, you'll see negative things in the world. Try to practice positive self-talk often.
• Make an active choice to focus on the positive things that matter to you, and the things that you can control. Say no to self-pity.
• Structure and daily habits—a five-minute nightly log tracking diet, exercise, and a simple self-score—can rebuild discipline and mental clarity even in the worst circumstances.

• Before you sign important things, slow down because once you put your name on it, it's done.
• When hiring people, try to find people whose values align with yours because misjudging a person's values, not just their skill, can cost you more than money.

Develop a simple daily habit of tracking your own signals-mood, focus, energy-to uncover patterns that influence your judgment and decisions over time. He says that the same structure works just as well for evaluating a business or a hire: track the small signals daily. Patterns that are invisible day to day become obvious in hindsight.

If you're bringing a friend or family member into a leadership role in your business, agree in advance on how you'll raise and handle performance issues, so the relationship doesn't override professional judgment later.

Pierre recommends his own project, Built By Failures, where he publishes weekly, unfiltered chapters of his recovery.

Pierre's number one goal for the next 12 months is to build a stronger, better-equipped sales team for his new company, so it can scale its reach into more enterprise accounts.

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BIO: Tony Martignetti is the author of the upcoming book, Planned Giving Accelerated. He's been helping small- and mid-size US nonprofits launch Planned Giving fundraising programs since 1997. Tony is a lawyer, but he doesn't write or talk like one. He weaves in his background in stand-up comedy and improv to make Planned Giving easy, accessible, and affordable.

STORY: Tony returns with a different kind of investment story: how he spent eight months writing Planned Giving Accelerated, a book designed to help small and mid-sized nonprofits launch a legacy giving program in as little as one week.

LEARNING: The best fundraising asset most small nonprofits already have is their most loyal, longest-tenured donors, and putting it to work costs nothing but a conversation.

Tony Martignetti is the author of the upcoming book, Planned Giving Accelerated. He's been helping small- and mid-size US nonprofits launch Planned Giving fundraising programs since 1997. Tony is a lawyer, but he doesn't write or talk like one. He weaves in his background in stand-up comedy and improv to make Planned Giving easy, accessible, and affordable.

Tony joins the podcast for the second time. In his first appearance, Ep820: A Flattering Binder and $13,500 Down the Drain, he shared how a $13,500 bet on a flashy Manhattan PR agency taught him to check his ego. This time he returns with the opposite kind of story: a low-cost, three-step system that has helped nonprofits raise nine figures without spending a dollar on PR.

Planned giving fundraising is the practice of securing long-term gifts made through a donor's estate or retirement plan, rather than a check written today. Tony's new book focuses specifically on the simplest and most common form: a bequest, meaning a gift left through a nonprofit inside a supporter's will.

For a nonprofit, these gifts function like seeds planted years or even decades before they mature. Since most bequest donors are in their 60s or 70s when they name a charity in their will, the gift itself may not arrive for another 20 to 30 years. That time horizon is exactly why Tony sees planned giving as the foundation of real organizational sustainability—feeding an endowment a nonprofit can grow indefinitely, rather than a one-time cash infusion that gets spent immediately.

Tony points out that most nonprofits miss donor opportunities because they don't ask. They already have everything they need to start a legacy giving program and simply never ask. Tony's three-step framework, which he calls the Martignetti Three-Step, One-Week Planned Giving Launch, laid out in the first three chapters of his book, is designed to get an organization from zero to a live planned giving program within a week:

• Step one: Identify your top prospects by analyzing donors who have shown consistent giving over at least 10 years, regardless of gift size, to ensure targeted outreach.
• Step two: Start with the simplest planned gift there is, a bequest written into a will, rather than a more complex vehicle.
• Step three: Cultivate and solicit those prospects directly by initiating a personalized, values-based conversation about legacy, making the donor comfortable and engaged.

Tony's point is that a nonprofit does not need a press release, a webpage, or a campaign to say it has launched planned giving. It needs one honest, genuine conversation with the right donor. Have that conversation, and the program is live.

Furthermore, he explains, the size of the gift matters less than its consistency. When a donor has given $5 each year for 20 years, it shows a strong emotional connection to the cause and makes them a better prospect for planned giving than a single large donation made one year ago.

A common excuse Tony often receives is that conversations about planned giving make people feel uncomfortable or even morbid, because bequests are paid out only after a donor dies. However, according to Tony, this is not a conversation about death but about leaving a long-term impact that a donor has already been experiencing.

Planned giving, Tony believes, is different from immediate, urgent appeals based on scarce funds and the need to pay employees' salaries soon. When the conversation starts by mentioning how important it is to keep the nonprofit from running out of money, that is an unsustainable way to fundraise. A nonprofit with enough stability to plan decades in advance is better placed to have a successful planned giving conversation.

Tony cites research from Russell James, a professor at Texas Tech University who has spent decades studying the psychology and economics of bequest giving using quantitative methods rather than anecdotes. One striking finding Tony references is that, on average, about 75% of people who add a nonprofit to their will increase their annual giving to that same organization afterward.

This seems to be an emotional factor, not a financial one at all. Once a donor decides to include a cause in their will alongside family members such as spouses, kids, or grandchildren, they feel an even stronger bond with that cause, and that bond shows up in daily donations as well. This finding clearly counters the fears many fundraisers have about planned giving and the idea that donors might consider their bequest their final donation and give nothing else annually.

First, create your own donor database and filter for longevity rather than monetary contribution, because donors who have been contributing for 15 to 20 years can qualify for planned giving.

When you approach that donor, frame the conversation around the future and sustainability of the work they already support, rather than your organization's current financial needs.

If you're a nonprofit under five years old or without individual donors yet, focus first on building that base.

Tony's number one goal for the next 12 months is to get Planned Giving Accelerated into the hands of 2,000 small and mid-sized nonprofits within a year of launch, with the hope that even half of them implement the three-step framework and successfully launch a planned giving program.

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BIO: Dustin Heiner is a real estate investor who quit his job at 37 with financial freedom and passive income from his real estate investing. Through his coaching, podcast, and YouTube channel, he has helped thousands of people invest in real estate.

STORY: In late 2019, Dustin was one signature away from leasing a gym that had nothing to do with real estate, then COVID-19 shut every gym in America and closed the deal for him instead. That near miss led him to a strategy that now runs quietly underneath everything he does: reselling his sawdust.

LEARNING: You do not need a new business to build a new income stream. Look first at what your current one is already producing, and throwing away.

Dustin Heiner is a real estate investor who quit his job at 37 with financial freedom and passive income from his real estate investing. Through his coaching, podcast, and YouTube channel, he has helped thousands of people invest in real estate.

He is also the founder of the Real Estate Wealth Builders Conference, where he brings thousands of real estate investors together to connect and grow their investing businesses.

Dustin joins the podcast for the second time to unpack a business mistake he almost made in 2019, and the powerful lesson it taught him about turning overlooked assets into new revenue streams.

He first appeared on episode 144: His Life Went From Loss to Success When He Mastered Passive Income.

When Dustin last appeared on the show, real estate had just freed him from his day job. Years later, the numbers have grown considerably. He now owns more than 30 single-family rental homes and is assembling a further portfolio of nine to twelve properties. Some individual properties bring in around $3,000 a month in passive cash flow.

But Dustin focuses not on the money he makes, but on the mindset behind his investing approach. He does not own a portfolio of properties and hope the market carries them higher, the way you might watch a stock. He runs a business built on real estate, and every property in it earns its place as inventory, not a bet on appreciation.

Dustin's core business has always been real estate. But in 2019, while his rental portfolio was thriving, he took his eye off the ball and chased a passion project: opening a gym. Dustin spent months trying to buy a property to set up the gym, but he couldn't find one worth the price, so he decided to lease space instead.

This business model was completely outside his real estate expertise. He was about to sign the lease when COVID-19 hit, and gyms across the US were declared non-essential and shut down.

If Dustin had signed the lease, he would have been obligated to pay rent for a closed-down business with no income. This would be his worst deal, even though he didn't make it in reality. What Dustin really lost was the time and attention he should have put into investments already making him money.

The lesson Dustin took from this experience is a concept he calls reselling your sawdust, a more practical way to earn passive income. To explain this concept, he describes a sawmill. Its main product is lumber, but it also produces sawdust, a byproduct that usually costs money to burn or haul away.

Instead of treating that sawdust as waste, some sawmills package and sell it as bedding for gerbil cages, compressed fire-starting logs, or filler in other products. The "waste" becomes a second profit center with almost no extra effort, because it was already being produced.

Dustin argues the same opportunity exists inside almost every business. His sawmill is real estate. Everything else—his knowledge, audience, systems, and industry relationships—is sawdust. Instead of chasing an unrelated venture like a gym, he found more value repackaging what his core business was already generating for free.

Dustin's business now includes several ventures that all trace back to the same real estate sawmill:

1. Education: The Master Passive Income podcast and YouTube channel, which grew out of simply teaching people what he already knew about running rental properties like a business.
2. Community: The Inner Circle, an in-person mastermind hosted in Nashville, plus an annual Mastermind in Paradise cruise to the Bahamas that doubles as a tax-deductible retreat.
3. Software: From his internal systems and processes, Dustin built Income Builder, which systematizes the exact process he uses to vet, buy, and manage his own properties, so his coaching clients don't have to guess.
4. Sponsorship revenue: Dustin now has more than 2.3 million podcast downloads and roughly 500,000 followers across social media, including about 300,000 on Instagram alone. This is an audience sponsors pay to reach.
5. Done-for-you investing: The Portfolio Builder Program, a $100,000 white-glove service for people who have money but not time, that delivers 20 cash-flowing properties in 12 months.

Each of these started as a side effect of running his real estate business, not as a planned product line. That's the point: sawdust is rarely obvious until you go looking for it.

Dustin draws a sharp line between investing and speculating. Buying a stock and hoping the price rises is a bet on value appreciation you don't control. In his opinion, buying a rental property, unlike a stock, is like starting a business with recurring monthly revenue, real expenses, and inventory (the properties themselves).

Dustin says he doesn't invest in real estate for appreciation but for monthly cash flow. This means treating each property like inventory that has to earn its place in the business regardless of what happens to its resale value.

Dustin works with several experts (property managers, contractors, and leasing agents) who help him buy property. Before he buys a property, he gets these experts to sign off first. He calls his property manager and describes what he is considering before he owns it, not after. If the manager says the numbers will not work, he walks away and loses nothing but a little time. Buy first and ask questions later, and a bad answer turns an asset into a liability that is already yours.

This upfront vetting is also what lets him spend roughly 30 minutes a month managing more than 30 properties and interests in nearly 1,000 apartment units. Rather than aiming to minimize hours worked, Dustin's goal is to build systems thorough enough that the business runs itself, making the income truly passive.

If you're wondering how to find your sawdust, Dustin's challenge to you is simple: identify what your business (or even your job or hobby) is already producing that you're not capturing. He suggests starting with a basic question: what do you do in your free time, for fun or for work, that other people would pay for or want help with?

For example, if you are a content strategist, consultant, or organizer, the research you compiled for one client, the frameworks you developed for one campaign, or the community you built for one cause could become a standalone product, course, or service if you package it well.

• A strength isn't a competitive advantage until you convert it into cash flow.
• Reselling your sawdust will more likely earn you more than starting something new.

• Audit your own sawdust. List the skills, systems, content, data, or relationships your current work already produces, then ask who would pay for access to them.

Dustin's number one goal for the next 12 months is to scale Income Builder.io, the software that systematizes his real estate coaching, from roughly 100 users to 5,000.

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Founder values must be translated into systems: His grandfather's attention to every patient had to become a measurable standard the rest of the hospital could follow.

What clinics can't afford, Wattanapat built: Small clinics can't afford the specialists or the equipment for serious cases. Wattanapat built that capability instead, adding specialists like neurosurgeons and cardiologists.

Local healthcare providers can be partners rather than competitors: Community clinics handle the basic cases and send Wattanapat the ones that need emergency, inpatient, or specialist care. It's not competition; help flows both ways.

Growth requires selective investment: The hospital doesn't try to offer every procedure; it invests where there's real patient need and refers rare cases elsewhere. Even the offices are bare; every baht goes to equipment instead.

People are the real growth constraint: Keeping the right people is what limits growth. On Samui, specialists come from elsewhere and tend to leave. On the mainland, the problem is finding department heads who are managers, not just clinicians.

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LEADER DNA

Chane Laosonthorn had not planned to work in healthcare. He studied management, marketing and accounting in Australia before building experience in finance and human resources. Chane was preparing to accept a promotion in Perth when his grandmother told him that the family hospital was struggling. His grandfather, the hospital's founder, had suffered a health setback, and the family faced a choice between selling, running, or diversifying the business

Chane chose to return to Thailand with no clinical background and limited knowledge of hospital operations. The decision was personal before it was strategic: protecting his grandfather's legacy and testing himself against a genuinely hard problem.

Chane's outsider perspective became an advantage. Rather than approaching the hospital solely as a medical institution, Chane examined its systems, people, finances, and organizational structure. He preserved the founder's commitment to patient satisfaction and quality care while replacing dependence on individual personalities with measurable standards, specialist capacity, and professional management.

His leadership philosophy is to calculate the risks carefully, decide whether the opportunity is worth pursuing, and, once the decision is made, commit to delivering it.

What Chane shared

Founder values must be translated into systems

Values cannot depend entirely on the personality of a founder. Wattanapat translated Dr Wittaya's attention to patients into operating procedures, performance indicators and measurable service standards.

Clinical depth creates a stronger business model

The hospital expanded its specialist and sub-specialist capabilities while investing in biomedical equipment that smaller clinics could not economically provide. This allowed Wattanapat to handle more complex cases and build a strong referral network.

Local healthcare providers can be partners rather than competitors

Community clinics treat basic conditions and refer patients who need emergency, inpatient, or specialist care. Wattanapat supports these clinics instead of trying to replace them, creating a healthcare network that benefits every provider.

Growth requires selective investment

The hospital does not attempt to offer every possible procedure. It invests where there is sufficient patient volume, clinical need, and revenue potential, while referring rare or highly specialized cases to appropriate partners. Also, by design, the management offices at WPH are plain. Every baht saved on non-essentials goes toward biomedical equipment and specialist capacity, the things that actually differentiate patient care.

People, not capital, are the real growth constraint.

Capital and market demand are important, but hospitals cannot grow safely without qualified clinicians, department heads and managers. With hospital financing secured through its stock listing, WPH's bottleneck is finding and retaining the right department heads and specialists, particularly on islands like Samui where staff often relocate away eventually.

Welcome to Business DNA, a chance for us to delve into the essential make-up of business leaders and their organizations. Our focus is not on the short term but instead on understanding the driving forces behind business. Our guest today is Chane Laosonthorn, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Director of Wattanapat Hospital.

Chane: I am currently Deputy CEO and CFO of Wattanapat Hospital. I have worked with the organization for about 11 years. Before returning to Thailand, I studied and worked in Perth, Australia. I did my bachelor's and master's there, then worked for about six years. I studied management and marketing, then a master's in accounting, honestly more out of practicality than passion. I looked at what credentials Australia wanted at the time, which was accounting, and that's what I pursued. I started as an accountant, and when a payroll officer left with no notice, I stepped in and got it right the first time. That opened the door to HR, and eventually another company recruited me into a more senior HR role.

Why did you leave Perth to come back to Thailand?

Chane: I had no intention of ever leaving Perth. One day, my manager came into my office and told me she had very good news. I knew she was about to offer me a promotion. Before she could continue, I went to the bathroom and called my grandmother. She had been telling me that the hospital in Trang was experiencing serious problems and that I needed to return. I asked whether the situation was genuinely that serious. When she confirmed that it was, I returned to my manager and declined the promotion. The decision happened very quickly. I knew nothing about the hospital business, and I had never studied medicine. My grandfather and I were very close. He got sick and could no longer be the doctor he once was, and I wanted to come back and protect his reputation. It was also, I think, a rare kind of opportunity to take something from bad to good. Not many people get that chance.

Tell us about your grandfather and how the hospital started.

Chane: My grandparents founded the hospital. My grandfather was a brilliant student who got top marks in the country in math, science, and physics. He went to study in Bangkok before returning to his home province to start a small clinic, just two rooms. He became so well known that an intersection in Trang is named after him, Dr. Wittaya Intersection. At his peak, around 1,700 patients wanted to see him personally, which obviously wasn't possible, so he referred people to other specialists. That referral instinct became the foundation of how the business runs today.

What shaped his philosophy, and how did it carry through as the business grew?

Chane: Two stories stand out to me because at the time they made no financial sense. He would travel abroad and rack up 300 to 500 baht in phone calls just to check on patients, for a doctor's fee of only 50 to 100 baht. From a financial perspective, the calls made no sense. From his perspective, caring for the patient was more important. And once, he sold a large piece of land, worth hundreds of millions today, to buy the province's first ultrasound machine. The machine was so outdated by the time I returned that its screen was smaller than an iPhone's. I asked him if it was worth it. He said absolutely, because before that machine, Trang had no access to ultrasound at all, and people were dying without it. That's when I understood his DNA. As he aged and the systems around him weakened, we had to translate that same instinct (intense, individual attention to every patient) into strategy, KPIs, and measurable results the whole organization could deliver, not just one person. That is how a founder's philosophy becomes scalable. Patients should receive attention from the moment they enter the hospital.

How does a private hospital generate revenue?

Chane: A hospital's main revenue begins with outpatients. An outpatient visits the hospital, receives a consultation, undergoes diagnostic tests, and may be given medication to take at home. Patients with more serious conditions may be admitted to an inpatient ward. The most serious cases may require intensive care or surgery. Healthcare differs from many service businesses because the customer does not decide the level of service. In a hotel, a guest chooses whether to book a standard room or a villa. In a hospital, the doctor determines whether the patient requires outpatient care, admission, intensive care, or an operation. Referrals are another important revenue source. Approximately 30 percent of our revenue comes from referred patients. These patients may initially visit a primary or secondary care provider that cannot manage the complexity of their condition. They are then transferred to Wattanapat for a higher level of care.

How do you manage a hospital network spread across multiple provinces, rather than one large facility?

Chen: I'm grateful, honestly, that we spread out rather than building one massive hospital. In the countryside, no single province has enough population to sustain that. We're spread from the Andaman Sea to the Gulf of Thailand, which diversifies our risk. A lot of the credit for our success goes to my core team, maybe 20% of our people, who move into each new location to handle hiring, systems implementation, and setup, then stay in an oversight role once it's running before moving to build the next one. Once the local hospital can operate effectively, the corporate team steps back and prepares for the next project. This approach allows specialized knowledge to travel between sites. Each new hospital benefits from lessons learned during earlier openings.

How do you decide which clinical services to invest in?

Chane: We cannot invest in every possible specialty, so we focus on services that combine strong demand with high clinical importance. Tourism-related accidents helped us identify the capabilities we needed to strengthen. We invested in emergency services, neurosurgery, neurological medicine, cardiology, cardiac intervention, and orthopedics. Our orthopedic capability covers areas such as hands, knees, hips, backs, and spinal injuries. However, some highly specialized procedures do not have enough patient volume to justify employing a permanent specialist or purchasing expensive equipment. A pediatric heart surgeon is one example. The number of cases in a provincial market may be too small to support that capability sustainably. In those situations, we refer patients to trusted tertiary hospitals, usually in Bangkok.

How do you balance financial discipline with patient care?

Chane: My grandfather focused almost entirely on providing the best possible treatment. My role includes preserving that commitment while ensuring the hospital remains financially sustainable. When the business performs well, there is temptation to invest in many new ideas. When economic conditions become difficult, the CFO must review spending and reduce unnecessary budgets. However, I will never compromise on patient safety. When an investment is necessary to prevent harm, that budget remains protected. Financial pressure does not justify postponing essential safety measures. You can also see this principle in how we design hospitals. For new facilities, safety standards are considered from the floor-planning stage. Patient movement, emergency access, clinical separation and traffic flow are built into the design. When patients arrive, trained staff assess the severity of their condition and determine whether they should proceed to the outpatient department or go directly to emergency care. Patient safety is therefore embedded in the building, the staffing model and the operating process.

What was one of your toughest moments coming into this role?

Chane: Imagine a 30-year-old company that isn't performing well, with its own entrenched management, and then a young, inexperienced outsider, not even a doctor, arrives to change how things are done. I spent a full year trying to work with the existing team before I concluded it wouldn't work unless we changed almost everyone. That was an incredibly difficult proposal to bring to the board and the founders, essentially telling them: let go of nearly everyone, including people who'd been there 40 years, or I go back to Perth. There was no guarantee I was right. But the board didn't have a better option at the time, and they backed the decision. At the time, nobody expected the organization to build a multi-hospital network or list on the stock market. The immediate objective was simply to make the original hospital profitable again.

Why did you list the company on the stock market, and what was that journey like?

Chane: It's actually a funny story. When I came back, our annual profit was around 1 million baht. It grew to 17 million within a few years, and at the time that felt enormous to me. I went to Bangkok to talk to a financial advisor about listing, and they told me our province was too unknown, our profit too small, barely clearing the minimum threshold, and offered us a loan instead of an IPO. That knocked my confidence. But a second advisor saw it differently; a small southern company with none of its region's private hospitals listed, but strong growth, and wanted to work with us. The whole IPO process took only seven months, much faster than the three to four years some companies struggle through, partly because we'd already engaged a Big Four auditor early on for transparency among our five family shareholders, so our accounting was clean going in.

Why go through the trouble of listing at all?

Chen: Two big reasons. First, hiring. As a family business, we had a reputation problem with specialists and doctors who worried decisions were made on a whim. Listing forced governance, internal audit, and corporate governance standards that built trust. Second, it's a public commitment. When I make a promise to investors, I take that seriously, and that discipline, plus the credibility it gives us with doctors we're recruiting, has been worth the added compliance burden.

What advice would you give a young entrepreneur considering listing on the stock market?

Chen: The work is ultimately done by people. Find the right people, then build an environment that makes them want to stay. When you gather genuinely smart, capable people, they will have conflict with each other; that's natural. Part of leadership is helping them work past it toward something shared. You'll never know for certain someone's as good as their résumé suggests until you've actually worked with them, so you keep monitoring and adjusting even after they're hired.

What's the biggest constraint on your growth right now?

Chane: It varies by site. In Samui, being an island, most specialists and staff come from elsewhere, so turnover is higher than at our mainland hospitals. Retention in Samui is a constant effort. In Trang and our other locations, the harder challenge is finding strong department heads. Clinical excellence and management skill are different things, and medical training doesn't teach people management. So we need people who are excellent clinically first, but attitude and leadership capability are what ultimately determine whether they succeed as managers.

What keeps you focused and motivated day to day?

Chen: I genuinely like what I do, and it's not only about revenue and profit. I care about our staff's wellbeing. In Trang, we're one of the biggest and highest-paying employers in the area. Because we're not an enormous company, I still know a lot of our people personally, and I feel like we're helping each other build something better for the community too.

If you had to reduce your philosophy to one sentence, what would it be?

Chen: If we decide something is genuinely worth doing, and we've weighed the risk honestly, then we owe it to ourselves to see it through.

BIO: Laurie Barkman is a Certified Exit Planner, M&A Advisor, and founder of The Business Transition Sherpa®.

STORY: Laurie explains why it's important to start planning your exit plan five to seven years before and what you need to do during that period.

LEARNING: Don't wait until you're exiting to plan your exit.

Laurie Barkman is a Certified Exit Planner, M&A Advisor, and founder of The Business Transition Sherpa®. As the former CEO who led a $100 million company through acquisition, she helps business owners build valuable, sellable companies and exit on their terms.

Laurie is the Amazon best-selling author of The Business Transition Handbook: How to Avoid Succession Pitfalls and Create Valuable Exit Options and hosts the award-winning podcast Succession Stories, rated in the top 2.5% of podcasts globally.

Get a complimentary business assessment. See how an acquirer would evaluate your business, enabling you to focus today on what will be important down the road. Learn what changes could double the value of your business.

Three years ago, Laurie joined Andrew on Ep727: Quit Often Quit Fast to share her own worst investment ever. This time, she's back with something arguably more valuable: a masterclass on the single most common mistake business owners make: waiting too long to plan their exit.

"I wish I knew this sooner." That phrase, Laurie says, is the number one thing she hears from business owners who've gone through a transition without proper planning. By the time they're ready to sell, it's already too late to improve the business, attract better buyers, or close the wealth gap they've been quietly ignoring.

If you haven't heard Episode 727, go back and listen to Laurie's personal story. In this episode, she brings that same honesty, this time pointed squarely at what you, as a business owner, need to be doing right now.

The most important insight Laurie delivers in this episode is deceptively simple: exit planning needs to start long before you're planning to exit.

If a prospective client tells her they're thinking about selling their business in one to three years, her response is direct: "You're already behind." A well-structured exit takes five to seven years to execute properly. That's not because the paperwork is complicated. It's because building a more attractive, more valuable, more transferable business takes time. And so does getting you personally ready for what comes after.

Laurie works with two very different kinds of readiness:

• Business readiness: Making the business more attractive, more operationally independent, and more valuable to a future buyer.
• Personal readiness: Preparing the owner emotionally and financially for the life that comes after the company. Too many founders kick this can down the road, only to find the finish line overwhelming when it finally arrives.

One of Laurie's most practical tools is what she calls the Exit Timeline Exercise. She sits with clients and literally maps out, year by year, what needs to happen (both in the business and in their personal lives) to set them up for a successful transition.

This isn't a generic checklist. It's built around the owner's specific situation: their age, their family's ages, their life stage, and what they actually want their next chapter to look like.

Laurie walks through two key calculations every business owner should understand:

This is the difference between what you need for retirement and what you currently have. Many business owners have most of their net worth tied up in their company, which means selling the business isn't just an exit; it's a financial planning event. The net proceeds (after taxes, transaction fees, and other costs) need to be factored into the nest egg calculation. As Laurie reminds us, it's the net number that counts, not the headline price.

Once you know your wealth gap, you can figure out what your business needs to be worth—and compare that to what it's actually worth today. The difference is the value gap. Closing that gap is the work of exit planning.

One of Laurie's most counterintuitive insights: when you're selling your business, stop thinking about your products and services. Start thinking about what problem your company solves for another company.

Buyers, particularly strategic buyers, are acquiring capabilities, not catalogs. They might want your customer list, your talent, your geographic footprint, your intellectual property, or your distribution network. A European acquirer once offered Andrew a revenue multiple (not EBITDA) because he didn't care about the coffee margins. He wanted the distribution infrastructure to pour his own volume through.

That's a strategic buyer making a strategic bet. Understanding who might want to buy you, and why, should shape how you build and present your business years before any transaction.

One of the most actionable practices Laurie recommends is a transferable assets audit. Go through every major asset in your business (contracts, customer relationships, intellectual property, talent, equipment) and rate each on a scale of 1 to 5 for how transferable it is to a new owner.

A score of 1 isn't a crisis. It's a to-do item—one you can now address if you start the process early enough.

A common example: contracts that aren't transferable. Many business owners have never thought about whether their agreements include a transferability clause. Without one, a sale can be significantly complicated. With a transferability clause added proactively at renewal, the problem simply goes away.

Another practical piece of advice comes from Andrew's observations of businesses in Thailand, echoed by Laurie's US experience: messy financial records are a serious exit liability.

Buyers expect the last three full years of clean financials, current year data, and a credible forecast. If your monthly books aren't closed, your expense categories are inconsistent across years, or your numbers are tied up with personal expenses, you've created friction in the due diligence process. This friction costs you time, trust, and money.

Laurie recommends moving toward reviewed financials as an early milestone. For many businesses, it's not a high incremental cost, and it signals credibility to buyers.

• Don't wait to plan your exit until you're ready to exit. By that point, it's already too late to make meaningful improvements to the business. Start five to seven years out.
• Personal readiness matters as much as business readiness. Too many owners focus entirely on the company and are blindsided by the emotional and lifestyle changes that come with stepping back.
• Know your wealth gap and your value gap. These two numbers are the foundation of any honest exit plan.
• Buyers buy on their timeline, not yours. When someone comes calling, they're ready. You may not be. The goal of exit planning is to close that readiness gap before the call comes.
• Recurring revenue commands a premium, but know the difference between recurring and reoccurring. Contracted, predictable cash flows are what buyers pay top dollar for.
• Take an inventory of your transferable assets. Find the gaps now, while you still have time to close them.
• Clean, consistent financial records are non-negotiable. Start with reviewed financials and build from there.

• Profitability and growth are both required. Profitability without growth isn't particularly valuable, and growth without profitability doesn't justify the premium either. It's the combination that drives multiple expansion.
• The $25 million revenue threshold is a real inflection point in buyer perception. Businesses that cross it are seen as market-proven in a way that smaller companies, however promising, simply aren't.
• When a strategic buyer sets a revenue multiple, they may not be interested in your margins at all. They're buying your footprint. Understanding which type of buyer is most interested in your business helps you position it effectively.
• Always ask: a multiple of what? EBITDA, revenue, and seller discretionary earnings are not interchangeable, and misunderstanding that difference can lead to serious miscalculations of what your business is actually worth.

1. Do the exit timeline exercise today. Sit down with a piece of paper and map out, year by year, what your business and your personal life need to look like over the next five to seven years for your exit to go the way you want.
2. Know your numbers. Calculate your wealth gap (what you need versus what you have) and get a realistic estimate of your business's current value. Then close the gap deliberately.
3. Audit your transferable assets. Rate each major asset in the business on transferability from 1 to 5. Address the 1s and 2s now, while time is on your side.
4. Get your books in order. Commit to monthly close, consistent expense categorization, and review financials at tax time. Don't wait for a buyer's due diligence request to discover the mess.
5. If you're a financial advisor working with business owner clients, check out builtbydesign.info and consider joining the founding cohort.

Laurie also recommends checking out her free guide for financial advisors if you're looking for a more consistent way to have conversations about business growth and transition.

Laurie's number one goal for the next 12 months is to create a flywheel of partnerships and marketing efforts to grow her Built by Design toolkit.

[spp-transcript]

• LinkedIn
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• How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market
• My Worst Investment Ever
• 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
• Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points

• Valuation Master Class
• The Become a Better Investor Community
• How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market
• Finance Made Ridiculously Simple
• FVMR Investing: Quantamental Investing Across the World
• Become a Great Presenter and Increase Your Influence
• Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 Points
• Achieve Your Goals

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BIO: Tony Martignetti is the evangelist for Planned Giving fundraising for small- and mid-size nonprofits.

STORY: Two years into building his business, Tony convinced himself he could become the nation's thought leader on planned giving fundraising — not just for nonprofits, but for all Americans. He walked into a swanky Midtown Manhattan PR agency, got dazzled by a four-inch binder, and signed up at $6,750 per month. Two months and $13,500 later, his only return was a single bylined op-ed in a free subway newspaper.

LEARNING: Check your ego. Vet your big ideas with honest, trusted people before spending any money. Understand that PR, even when it works, rarely converts to actual revenue.

Tony Martignetti is the evangelist for Planned Giving fundraising for small- and mid-size nonprofits. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

Check out Tony's free How-to Guide on Planned Giving Fundraising.

Two years into running his consultancy, Tony had a big idea. He didn't just want to serve the nonprofit sector; he wanted to reach all Americans and make planned giving a concept that everyday citizens (not just charity insiders) would understand and act on.

To do that, Tony decided he needed PR, the kind that lands you on 60 Minutes and gets Charlie Rose calling.

He found his way to a prestigious agency in Midtown Manhattan, far from his own modest office in the Flatiron neighborhood. They had an 80-story skyscraper overhead to match. At the pitch meeting, they brought out what Tony describes as a four-inch-thick three-ring binder, every page in a plastic sleeve. Client on The Today Show. Client on Good Morning America. Client on 60 Minutes. Client with Charlie Rose.

All this sucked Tony in, and he bought it all—hook, line, and sinker. They kept feeding his ego. He signed on at $6,750 per month.

After two months, Tony canceled the contract. His total return: one bylined op-ed in AM New York, a free newspaper distributed in New York City subway stations. The placement ran on Martin Luther King Day. A federal holiday when subway ridership was a fraction of normal on a Tuesday.

No leads from Good Morning America. No call from 60 Minutes. No magazine profiles. No newspaper reporters are following up. Nothing promising on the horizon. Just $13,500 lighter and one op-ed that almost nobody read.

The agency saw a solo entrepreneur with ideas far bigger than the media landscape could realistically support, and instead of managing Tony's expectations honestly, they kept stoking his enthusiasm to secure the fee. They should have talked him down to what's reasonable to expect. Instead, they completely mismanaged his expectations and kept feeding his ego to capture a fee.

The fundamental problem was that Tony's ambition—to educate ordinary Americans about the value of nonprofits, then about the value of supporting them long-term, then to direct them toward specific giving vehicles—was a multi-step awareness campaign that no single PR placement could accomplish. It was simply too much to ask of the media.

Years after the failed agency experiment, Tony had better PR results. He hired a skilled freelance publicist who secured quotes for him in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy, the leading trade publication in his sector. Reporters on the nonprofit beat came to know him and called him when they needed a source.

And yet: not one new client ever picked up the phone because they saw Tony's name in the Times. This taught him a lesson: PR is more about reputation and awareness than revenue.

• PR might get done right, and it still won't save you. It can build reputation and awareness over the years. It is not a customer acquisition channel.
• For early-stage founders, the honest question to ask before writing a large check is: Is this actually going to build the business, or is this about making me feel like I've arrived?
• Don't go check your idea with the people who are going to get a fee for capitalizing on your pie-in-the-sky idea. The people most likely to validate an idea are often the ones most financially motivated to tell you it's great. Lawyers, consultants, vendors, agencies—all have a stake in your enthusiasm. The honest input has to come from people with nothing to gain: trusted colleagues, mentors, or experienced friends who will tell you what they actually think.

• Ego investments are a universal founder trap. Almost every entrepreneur who has started a business has made at least one purchase driven more by identity and aspiration than by clear ROI thinking. Naming it "a vanity investment" is the first step to catching it before it costs you.
• PR almost never converts to customers. This is one of the most consistent findings across hundreds of My Worst Investment Ever PR can build credibility and awareness over time. But it is not a sales channel, and expecting it to deliver clients, especially early in a business, is a setup for disappointment.
• The stage of business matters for marketing strategy. Early-stage businesses need direct, efficient client acquisition, not brand awareness campaigns aimed at broad audiences. Align your marketing spend with where you actually are, not where you imagine yourself to be.
• The media landscape has to be ready for your idea. Tony's vision of educating all Americans about planned giving required multiple layers of awareness-building before a single TV segment could have any effect. Even flawless PR execution couldn't shortcut that process.

• Ask yourself: Is this a business investment or an ego investment? Before any significant marketing or PR spend, write down the specific customer acquisition outcome you expect. If you can't describe a clear path from the spend to a paying client, it's probably a vanity investment.
• Match your marketing strategy to your business stage. In the first two to three years, most professional service firms grow through direct outreach, referrals, and relationship-building rather than mass media. Invest accordingly.
• Understand what PR actually does. PR builds reputation and credibility over the long term. If that's your goal, it can be worth it. If your goal is revenue next quarter, look elsewhere.
• If you're going to do PR, set explicit expectations in writing. What placements will they pursue? In what timeframe? What counts as success? If the agency won't commit to specifics, that tells you something important.

Tony's number one goal for the next 12 months is to publish his first self-published book: Planned Giving Accelerated, due out in September. A companion course will follow the book's release.

[spp-transcript]

• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Podcast

• How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market
• My Worst Investment Ever
• 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
• Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points

• Valuation Master Class
• The Become a Better Investor Community
• How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market
• Finance Made Ridiculously Simple
• FVMR Investing: Quantamental Investing Across the World
• Become a Great Presenter and Increase Your Influence
• Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 Points
• Achieve Your Goals

• astotz.com
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Threads
• X
• YouTube
• My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

BIO: David Siegel is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has founded more than a dozen companies. He has written five books on technology and business, was once a candidate for the dean of Stanford Business School, and is now an AI thought leader leading an AI startup he hopes will pave the way for the agentic economy.

STORY: Nine months after David's last appearance on the podcast, the conversation has shifted from "what are LLMs?" to agents that act. 60-65% of NYSE trades are already fully machine-to-machine—a preview of where all commerce is headed.

LEARNING: You don't need to know exactly how AI works, but you need to get in the game.

David Siegel is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has founded more than a dozen companies. He has written five books on technology and business, was once a candidate for the dean of Stanford Business School, and is now an AI thought leader leading an AI startup he hopes will pave the way for the agentic economy.

David joins the podcast for the fourth time and discusses his latest progress in AI with Andrew.

Before diving into AI, David opened with an invitation that even Andrew found surprising: a free online water-fasting event starting on April 20, 2026, with a preliminary strategy session on April 12.

What is a water fast? David explains that it's not a diet or a weight-loss tool; it's a physiological reset. For three to six days, your body enters ketosis and "cleans house," activating suppressed systems and energizing you. David does this three to four times per year, emphasizing it's not a monthly practice but a strategic reset aligned with your health journey.

The coaching program makes fasting easier and more fun through group accountability, with no obligation, just information to help anyone at any point in their health journey. Learn about fasting, or just join a group of people doing the same thing at the same time. It's designed for people from the West Coast to Europe. Please register for the event and feel free to invite anyone: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Tk-zp9ZERomWb0643Sypmw.

David's core message centers on a profound shift: we're entering the agentic economy, where machine-to-machine communication replaces human-to-website interaction. He notes that in 20 years, you won't shop on Amazon. There won't be advertising or marketing for humans. All those "Cialdini mind tricks" of urgency, storytelling, and Russell Brunson funnels will vanish. Everything will be machine-to-machine, just like the stock market today, where 65% of NYSE trades open and close in less than one second.

Even driving will be prohibited because human reaction times cannot match the frequency of machine communication. We're in an awkward transitional period where humans and machines must coexist. Nobody likes it, but it's taking us toward a future where drudge work is automated.

David clarified a critical distinction that many miss: LLMs (Large Language Models) talk back, type responses, and generate images and videos—but don't do anything outside your interaction.

AI Agent, on the other hand, is an LLM connected to APIs that can actually take action: send emails, order meals, book travel, make purchases, and run ads. Think of it as a virtual remote assistant working 24/7 while you sleep.

OpenClaw (CLAW = agents, inspired by lobsters from a forward-thinking fiction book) is an open-source framework created by Peter Steinberger on GitHub. It connects LLMs (the thinking entities) to APIs (the conduits for doing).

This is revolutionary because it allows AI to take real-world actions. Previously, AI was confined to conversation. It can now execute tasks across systems. David strongly warns that OpenClaw is highly technical and requires API configuration. It's not designed for humans to use directly. It's for engineers building agent infrastructure.

David explains that agents introduce entirely new cybersecurity vulnerabilities that differ from traditional threats, such as social-engineering attacks against agents. For instance, impersonation via spoofed emails: "David wants a trip to Phoenix, book a flight," or multi-day, persistent attacks in which bots repeatedly try to extract secrets.

David's approach with Claw Studio is to use APIs rather than scraping. Wherever possible, he attaches LLMs to official APIs with guardrails. This is safer and more sustainable than screen scraping, which violates Terms of Service and risks a shutdown.

David's advice is clear: Don't do it yourself. That's suicide. With great power comes great responsibility. An agent can do almost anything, including deleting its own installation, wiping your disk clean, or draining your bank account. You want it to do almost nothing initially, then gradually widen the guardrails.

1. Done-for-you setup like Red Hat for Linux
2. Dedicated Chief of Staff agent with its own phone number
3. Onboarding period of 1-2 weeks, where you download your life into the agent:
4. Birthday, family members' emails, and daily routines
5. It can research you online to build context.
6. Separate setups for personal and business
7. Forever memory, unlike standard LLM context windows that forget:
8. Every Zoom call transcript gets piped in word-for-word.
9. Searchable memory: "Who was I talking to about Tahoe skiing in November?"
10. Agent retrieves exact conversations and can follow up.
11. Reverse prompting—the paradigm shift:
12. Instead of you telling the agent what to do, it tells you.
13. Morning briefing: what happened overnight, what's coming up, what's changed
14. Manages your calendar, project management, and priorities
15. Breaks long-term goals into daily deliverables
16. You're no longer the to-do list keeper.
17. Security architecture:
18. Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting, not local machines
19. Two-account system: one for operations, one for immutable backups
20. All logs are piped to a one-way backup account.
21. "Go back six hours" restore button, in case things go wrong.
22. Humans in the loop for critical actions (e.g., agent queues payments, human approves)

To conclude, David talked about the biggest investment mistake everyone is making right now: not appreciating the exponential nature of what we're in and what is coming. He noted that the next 12 months will be unlike any 12 months in business history. He stated that we're entering a recursive self-improvement phase, in which software will write the next generation of itself. The singularity isn't theoretical; it's happening now.

David's advice is to stop thinking six months ahead. The pace is too fast. Instead:

1. Take baby steps to position yourself.
2. Prepare to accelerate like never before
3. Invest in agent infrastructure now, while it "doesn't suck too bad", it will only get dramatically better.

1. The transition period is awkward but temporary. Humans and machines must coexist for now, but we're heading toward a world where machines handle most drudge work, freeing humans for higher-level thinking.
2. API-based agents are safer than screen-scraping. While scraping demonstrates what's possible, it violates Terms of Service and is unsustainable. API integration with guardrails is the professional approach.
3. Forever memory changes everything. The ability to search through your entire life's conversations and have the agent permanently remember context transforms productivity and decision-making.
4. Reverse prompting is a paradigm shift. Moving from taskmaster to collaborator—where the agent manages you toward your goals—fundamentally changes how work gets done.
5. Exponential growth demands immediate action. Waiting to understand everything before starting means missing the wave. Begin with small, safe use cases and expand as capabilities mature.

1. Start with simple use cases and expand gradually. Don't plan everything up front. Do your calendar, manage birthdays, and track expenses. Each month will reveal new possibilities.
2. Separate personal from business. Maintain firewall segregation between your personal Chief of Staff and business Chief of Staff. Each business unit can be compartmentalized under the business agent.
3. Think exponential, not linear. Most people underestimate the velocity of change ahead. Position yourself now to ride the wave rather than chase it later.
4. Humans in the loop for critical decisions. Agents can research, recommend, and prepare, but major financial commitments should require human approval via text or voice confirmation.

Claw Studio is David's primary focus. Listeners can explore resources at:

1. com: White-glove OpenClaw installation and configuration
2. io: Byron and other agent demonstrations

David is producing video updates and executive briefings for companies, and a new PDF guide on getting started with OpenClaw is available on the website. To continue with his commitment to holistic performance, David is launching a longevity coaching program in April.

[spp-transcript]

1. LinkedIn
2. X
3. YouTube
4. Website

1. How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market
2. My Worst Investment Ever
3. 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
4. Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points

1. Valuation Master Class
2. The Become a Better Investor Community
3. How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market
4. Finance Made Ridiculously Simple
5. FVMR Investing: Quantamental Investing Across the World
6. Become a Great Presenter and Increase Your Influence
7. Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 Points
8. Achieve Your Goals

1. astotz.com
2. LinkedIn
3. Facebook
4. Instagram
5. Threads
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8. My Worst Investment Ever Podcast

BIO: Athena Brownson is a Denver realtor, investor, developer, and former professional skier whose resilience through chronic illness fuels her refined, strategic, and client-focused approach to real estate.

STORY: Athena lost $130,000 in her first development project when a builder she considered a friend vanished with the upfront funds. Her trust and incomplete due diligence led to a total loss, teaching her that personal relationships can create dangerous blind spots in business.

LEARNING: Due diligence is non-negotiable. Trust is a liability.

Athena Brownson is a Denver realtor, investor, developer, and former professional skier whose resilience through chronic illness fuels her refined, strategic, and client-focused approach to real estate.

Athena Brownson entered her first development project with confidence and a seemingly dream team. With a 45-year veteran developer—her father—by her side, she felt prepared. She had saved diligently, owned the land, and chose a builder she’d known for three years, a dear friend’s business partner.

After multiple interviews where her father asked all the right questions, they felt secure. They signed a contract and paid $130,000 upfront for site clearing, asbestos abatement, and foundation work.

Initial excitement turned to unease as progress was glacial. A blue fence went up, and some abatement started, but then communication stopped. Phone lines went dead. Subcontractors began calling Athena directly, asking why they hadn’t been paid.

The devastating truth emerged: the builder had vanished with the funds. Athena later discovered she was one of eight victims of the same scam. Despite her real estate expertise and her father’s decades of experience, they had been outmaneuvered by a trusted contact.

1. Due diligence is non-negotiable: Trust is not a replacement for verification. Athena’s key takeaway was the need for exhaustive due diligence: calling not just a few references, but a comprehensive list of past and current clients to hear the unfiltered story of their experiences.
2. Friendship clouds judgment: A personal connection created a dangerous blind spot. It made her and her experienced team less likely to probe aggressively or assume the worst, a bias scammers often exploit.
3. Assume the worst, hope for the best: The mindset must shift from “I trust you until you prove me wrong” to “Show me consistent, verifiable proof that you are trustworthy.” In business, healthy skepticism is a necessary form of self-defense.
4. Measure twice, cut once: This adage applies to money and contracts. Double and triple-check every detail, every claim, and every line item before funds change hands.

1. Money is life energy: Andrew referenced the classic book Your Money or Your Life, emphasizing that money represents hours of your life traded for it. Guarding it fiercely is an act of self-preservation.
2. Trust is a liability: Stories like Athena’s and others show that misplaced trust is a common thread in catastrophic losses. Systems and verification must replace blind faith.
3. Seek counsel, not confirmation: When making big decisions, actively seek advisors who will challenge you and point out blind spots, not just those who will validate your excitement.

Athena advises investors to do these three things when vetting any partner:

1. Demand a list of 10 past and current clients/vendors and call them all. Don’t settle for 2-3 curated references. Ask specific questions about communication, budgeting, and problem-solving.
2. Before major investments, formally run the deal by a small group of mentors or experienced peers whose explicit role is to find flaws and ask the tough questions you might be avoiding.
3. Impose a mandatory 48-72 hour “cooling-off” period between agreeing to a deal and signing or funding. Use that time to conduct the extra due diligence that your initial excitement may have skipped.

Athena’s number one recommendation is to invest in mentorship and continuous education. Whether through formal coaching, podcasts, masterclasses, or peer groups, constantly feed your knowledge.

She advocates for finding a community that provides both accountability and the ability to see your own blind spots, which are invisible to you alone. For her, this approach, ingrained from her athletic career, is pivotal for professional growth and risk mitigation.

Athena’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to deepen her impact by building a powerful, trusted referral network. She aims to serve more clients in building long-term wealth through strategic real estate and to expand her team. A core part of this mission is to pay forward the mentorship she received by guiding younger agents, helping them avoid the costly pitfalls she endured.

[spp-transcript]

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1. How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market
2. My Worst Investment Ever
3. 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
4. Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points

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2. The Become a Better Investor Community
3. How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market
4. Finance Made Ridiculously Simple
5. FVMR Investing: Quantamental Investing Across the World
6. Become a Great Presenter and Increase Your Influence
7. Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 Points
8. Achieve Your Goals

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BIO: Jon is the Founder and CEO of FranBridge Consulting, a 2-time Inc. 5000 company, and a leading franchise consultant.

STORY: Jon believes franchising remains one of the most effective ways to build durable income, especially when investors focus on operational discipline and unit economics. He shares his top franchise categories for 2026.

LEARNING: Look for businesses with repeat customers, operational discipline, proven unit economics, and leadership teams that have already made their mistakes.

Jon Ostenson is the Founder and CEO of FranBridge Consulting, a 2-time Inc. 5000 company, and he is a top 1% franchise consultant. Jon is also the author of the bestselling book, Non-Food Franchising. Jon draws on his experience as a former Inc. 500 Franchise President and Multi-Brand Franchisee in helping his clients select their franchise investments.

For many aspiring business owners, the biggest financial losses don't come from bad intentions. They come from underestimating complexity, overestimating scalability, or betting everything on an unproven idea. Jon Ostenson knows this lesson intimately.

As the founder and CEO of FranBridge Consulting and franchise consultant, Jon has spent years helping entrepreneurs shortcut costly mistakes by investing in proven, non-food franchise models.

In Episode 815: I Built a Million-Dollar Business That Never Made a Profit, he openly shared how he once built a million-dollar business that never made a profit. That experience now informs how he evaluates opportunities with discipline, structure, and risk control.

Looking ahead to 2026, Jon believes franchising remains one of the most effective ways to build a durable income stream, especially when investors focus on operational discipline and unit economics. Below are his top franchise categories for 2026, and more importantly, why they help investors avoid the common traps that sink new businesses.

One of the most common investment errors is assuming passion alone will overcome operational complexity. Many entrepreneurs love an idea but underestimate the systems, staffing, pricing discipline, and capital required to make it profitable.

Franchising addresses this risk by offering something rare: a business model with historical data. Instead of guessing whether pricing works or whether customers will pay, franchisees can examine real-world performance, talk to existing owners, and follow systems that have already survived market cycles, helping investors feel confident in demand-driven, structured opportunities.

Jon emphasizes that franchising is not about eliminating risk. It's about trading unbounded risk for structured risk, supported by systems, training, and benchmarks.

Cost-mitigation franchises help small and medium-sized businesses reduce expenses by analyzing vendor contracts, utility bills, shipping costs, and other fees. Clients pay nothing up front and instead share a percentage of the savings.

What makes this model compelling is its simplicity. There's no inventory, no employees required, and no large infrastructure investment. Franchisees focus on business-to-business sales while the franchisor provides analytical support and benchmarking tools.

From an investment standpoint, this avoids two common mistakes: high fixed costs and overstaffing before revenue stabilizes.

Shipping costs remain a pain point for businesses, and freight brokerage franchises sit neatly between companies and major carriers like UPS, FedEx, and DHL.

Rather than competing on price alone, franchisees act as trusted advisors, simplifying logistics and negotiating better rates using collective buying power. Technology and systems are already in place, preventing the trial-and-error phase that sinks many startups.

This model rewards consultative selling skills while insulating owners from volatile commodity pricing.

Digital billboard franchises install advertising screens in high-traffic locations such as medical offices, oil change centers, and waiting rooms. The screens are free for host businesses, while advertisers pay for exposure.

The appeal here lies in predictable recurring revenue and minimal staffing. Franchisees sell local advertising while the franchisor handles content delivery, technology, and procurement.

It's a classic example of monetizing attention without carrying inventory or managing complex operations.

With thousands of Americans turning 65 every day, senior-focused services remain one of the strongest secular growth trends. One franchise Jon highlights provides on-site stretching and fitness programs inside senior living communities.

Revenue is recurring, demand is non-discretionary, and the business directly improves quality of life. For investors, this reduces reliance on consumer whims and economic cycles.

Another senior-focused opportunity involves installing wheelchair ramps, stair lifts, and bathroom modifications to help seniors stay in their homes longer.

Jon favors this franchise because the leadership team brings decades of industry experience, and market demand is structural rather than trendy. These services align closely with healthcare, reverse mortgages, and long-term aging trends.

For investors, it's a reminder that boring, needs-based businesses often outperform exciting ideas.

Pilates franchises continue to stand out as one of the strongest performers in the wellness space heading into 2026. Unlike trend-driven fitness concepts, Pilates benefits from longevity, broad demographic appeal, and a reputation for low-impact, high-value results. Clients range from young professionals to older adults focused on mobility, posture, and injury prevention.

What makes this model attractive from an investment perspective is its membership-based recurring revenue and disciplined unit economics. Franchise systems have refined pricing, instructor certification, class capacity, and studio layout to maximise margins while maintaining quality. Jon highlights that these brands succeed not because fitness is exciting, but because their business models are structured, repeatable, and proven across multiple markets.

For investors looking to avoid the mistake of underestimating operating complexity, Pilates franchises offer a clear framework for scaling without reinventing the wheel.

Recovery-focused wellness franchises are another category Jon believes will accelerate into 2026. These studios offer services such as cold plunges, infrared saunas, cryotherapy, compression therapy, and contrast bathing, all designed to support recovery, performance, and long-term health.

Unlike traditional spas, these franchises position themselves as ongoing wellness memberships rather than one-off luxury visits. Customers come weekly, sometimes multiple times per week, creating predictable cash flow and strong client retention. Demand is driven by athletes, busy professionals, and aging consumers who prioritise longevity and preventative health.

From an investment standpoint, these franchises succeed when operators follow disciplined rollout plans, resist overbuilding too quickly, and rely on franchisor-tested marketing and pricing strategies. Jon notes that many independent wellness studios fail not because the demand isn't there, but because owners misjudge costs, staffing, or market readiness, mistakes that strong franchise systems are designed to prevent.

Music lesson franchises create centralized spaces where instructors teach children and adults under a standardized curriculum. Parents are willing to invest in their children regardless of economic conditions, making this category resilient.

The franchise advantage lies in marketing systems, scheduling technology, and curriculum design. Owners focus on community engagement rather than building everything from scratch.

In many US states, formal driver education is required for teens to obtain a driver's license. Yet the market remains fragmented and unsophisticated.

Franchised teen driving schools offer standardized training, vetted instructors, and strong brand trust. For parents, safety matters. For investors, regulation-backed demand provides stability.

Jon closes his list with two property services franchises that stand out due to operational innovation. One refinishes hardwood floors in a single day without sanding. The other reimagines junk hauling by charging by weight rather than volume, dramatically improving margins.

These businesses benefit from strong cash flow, fragmented competition, and clear differentiation. They also attract private equity interest, which supports higher exit multiples down the road.

Across all ten opportunities, Jon's philosophy is consistent:

1. Don't chase novelty.
2. Don't underestimate complexity.
3. Don't assume growth equals profit.

Instead, look for businesses with repeat customers, operational discipline, proven unit economics, and leadership teams that have already made their mistakes.

Franchising doesn't guarantee success, but it dramatically improves the odds by replacing guesswork with structure.

If there's one lesson Jon Ostenson's journey reinforces, it's this: the most expensive investment mistakes usually come from building alone. Learning from others' failures, using proven systems, and choosing businesses with real demand can mean the difference between surviving and thriving in 2026 and beyond.

[spp-transcript]

1. LinkedIn
2. X
3. Facebook
4. YouTube
5. Book
6. Website

1. How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market
2. My Worst Investment Ever
3. 9 Valuation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
4. Transform Your Business with Dr.Deming’s 14 Points

1. Valuation Master Class
2. The Become a Better Investor Community
3. How to Start Building Your Wealth Investing in the Stock Market
4. Finance Made Ridiculously Simple
5. FVMR Investing: Quantamental Investing Across the World
6. Become a Great Presenter and Increase Your Influence
7. Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 Points
8. Achieve Your Goals

1. astotz.com
2. LinkedIn
3. Facebook
4. Instagram
5. Threads
6. X
7. YouTube
8. My Worst Investment Ever Podcast