The Deal Junky Podcast

Scott Clary sold a SaaS company during COVID and spent the next seven years building something he never planned to. The podcast was supposed to be a stepping stone. It became the business.

Most entrepreneurs are chasing a version of success that was handed to them by social media, by their parents, by what they thought entrepreneurship was supposed to look like.

Scott’s argument is simple: the business that works is rarely the one you planned, and the faster you stop fighting that, the better.

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00:00 Introduction

02:06 Shifting from corporate to startup during COVID

04:42 Building a media company wasn't initially intentional

11:10 Lessons learned from experiencing failure in entrepreneurship

16:43 The transition from losing a business to starting a successful podcast

22:18 Importance of persistence when reaching out to influential people

27:00 Turning the podcast into a viable media business

30:06 The challenges of staying focused on successful ventures

39:18 Defining personal freedom and success in life

46:00 Rethinking entrepreneurship and its various forms

50:02 How to architect the business that complements your lifestyle

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Website: https://www.scottdclary.com/

Alex Fedotoff was working in a factory in Ukraine when he decided he didn't want that life. He got into freelancing, stumbled into ecom through a client, and scaled his first store to $4M in eighteen months. He's now spent a decade in the space, running multiple brands and a community of over 300 ecom entrepreneurs, some of whom are now doing $100-150M a year.

His most confronting idea: ecom is not a product business. It's a marketing business. The product is almost irrelevant if you don't understand who you're selling to, how to position it differently for different avatars, and how to keep innovating your creative. Spending months perfecting a product before the market has confirmed it wants one is where most ecom founders waste their time.

00:00 Introduction
02:08 Early days of Shopify and low competition
08:26 Importance of lifetime value and subscriptions
11:04 Starting an e-commerce business from scratch
16:42 E-commerce as a marketing business
23:17 Challenges and opportunities in the evolving e-commerce landscape
28:13 Exploring offline retail opportunities for online brands
32:38 Structuring multi-jurisdictional e-commerce businesses
37:46 Potential of roll-ups and synergies in beauty space
41:09 Challenges of selling e-commerce businesses
45:23 Finding the next steps for current e-commerce businesses

Join Harbour Club now: https://www.harbourclubevents.com/join-us/

Join the Free 21-Day Email Course: https://www.harbourclubevents.com/deal-junky/

→ Follow Jeremy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyharbour/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harbour.jeremy/
Website: https://www.jeremyharbour.com/

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TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dealjunkyjeremyharbour

→ Follow Alex
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexfedotofff/?hl=en
E-commerce Scaling Secrets: https://www.ecommercescalingsecrets.com/
Website: https://www.alexfedotoff.com/

Seif El Hakim spent twelve years at Samsung, promoted every year in a company where promotions normally take three, and ended up as CMO of one of the world's largest regions. Then he walked away and spent eighteen months figuring out how to do everything himself.

This episode covers that transition, the ego management required when you go from corporate giant to unknown founder, why he thinks four or five years in corporate is enough and twelve is too long, and the one rule he's built everything around since: always make a decision, because ninety percent of them are reversible and the marketplace decides faster than your head does.

00:00 Introduction
04:24 Seif's rise at Samsung and his personal turning point
07:50 Transition from corporate life to entrepreneurship
11:08 Seif's podcast origin and overcoming initial challenges
18:10 The business model of scouting and nurturing football talent
27:15 Discussing passion's role in building successful ventures
30:05 Transition struggles from corporate to entrepreneurship
36:56 Saif's plans for expanding businesses globally
43:08 Saif's book journey: Documenting lessons and insights
48:39 Consistency and clarity as keys to successful marketing

Join Harbour Club now: https://www.harbourclubevents.com/join-us/

Join the Free 21-Day Email Course: https://www.harbourclubevents.com/deal-junky/

→ Follow Jeremy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyharbour/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harbour.jeremy/
Website: https://www.jeremyharbour.com/

→ Follow Deal Junky
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TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dealjunkyjeremyharbour

→ Follow Seif
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/seifelhakim?originalSubdomain=ae
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seifelhakim/?hl=en
Website: https://seifelhakim.com/

Dr Julie Ducharme didn't know enough to be scared, so she just started.

College president at 29, professional volleyball player before that, and now running five companies simultaneously, including a global women's network that accidentally grew from a hundred people in a San Diego conference room to events across Ireland, Dubai, Australia, Hawaii and Zimbabwe, with a 5,000-woman stadium event on the way.

The thing underneath all of it: brand travels further than any single business. Companies come and go, the people who tied their identity to one of them are starting over every time something closes. When the deals dry up in one place, the brand opens a door somewhere else.

00:00 Introduction
01:09 Julie's transition from sports to business
10:53 Taking the leap from job security to entrepreneurship
19:05 Growth of Julie's women's network
28:52 Challenges women face in entrepreneurship
36:33 Entrepreneurship as a viable pathway
42:17 Educating women for financial empowerment
46:42 The importance of branding in business
51:28 Practical tips for building a personal brand
57:38 Juggling multiple businesses effectively
1:00:19 Delegating responsibilities within a company
1:05:13 The entrepreneurial influence on children

Join Harbour Club now: https://www.harbourclubevents.com/join-us/

Join the Free 21-Day Email Course: https://www.harbourclubevents.com/deal-junky/

→ Follow Jeremy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyharbour/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harbour.jeremy/
Website: https://www.jeremyharbour.com/

→ Follow Deal Junky
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TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dealjunkyjeremyharbour

→ Follow Julie
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjulieducharme/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julietaylorducharme/
Website: https://drjulieducharme.com/

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Chris Voss is a former FBI lead kidnapping negotiator, bestselling author of Never Split The Difference, and founder and CEO of The Black Swan Group; a negotiation, training, coaching, and consulting organisation that teaches people how to achieve better outcomes in high-stakes conversations.

Recognised globally as a leading authority on negotiation, Chris developed his approach through decades of experience in crisis negotiation. Today, he and The Black Swan Group apply those principles to business, sales, leadership, difficult conversations, and high-stakes communication through The Black Swan Method®️ and Tactical Empathy®️.

Never Split The Difference has introduced millions of readers around the world to Chris's negotiation methodology. Through The Black Swan Group, Chris and his team help people go beyond understanding the concepts in the book and develop negotiation as a practical, repeatable performance skill through training, coaching, practice, and live experiences.

The Black Swan Group offers in-person negotiation training, live and self-paced online negotiation training, coaching, keynote speaking, and advanced negotiation experiences for business owners, leaders, sales professionals, and other professionals who want to become more effective dealmakers.

Learn from Chris Voss and The Black Swan Group:

Negotiation training and resources: https://www.blackswanltd.com/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=thedealjunkypodcast

In-person and live training: https://www.blackswanltd.com/live-events?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=thedealjunkypodcast

Online negotiation training: https://www.blackswanltd.com/online-negotiation-classes?utm_source=youtube&utm=social&utm_campaign=thedealjunkypodcast

00:00 Introduction
04:53 Identifying key decision-makers in negotiations
10:14 Emotional dynamics in hostage versus business negotiations
18:04 Strategies to handle negotiation deadlocks
25:49 Overview of Black Swan's coaching and training services
32:55 Cultural variations in negotiation tactics
39:28 Chris Voss's experience as an entrepreneur within the FBI
41:33 The trajectory of Black Swan and future plans
48:28 The power of "no" in negotiation strategy

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Nir Eyal sold his first company to private equity, went to Stanford, and spent the next decade studying why people do what they do, writing three books that sold over a million copies and making early investments in Canva, Kahoot and Eventbrite off the back of his own framework.

The thing that underpins everything, the habits, the distraction, the motivation, is belief.

Beliefs sit in the middle, and they're malleable. Your labels become your limits, and the most dangerous words in the English language are whatever comes after "I am."

Beyond Belief: https://www.nirandfar.com/beyond-belief/

00:00 Introduction
02:04 Nir Eyal's journey to habit-forming product design
04:29 Key differences between "Hooked" and "Indistractable" books
10:00 Internal triggers driving distraction and behaviour
15:51 Study on persistence and beliefs' impact on performance
19:58 Building belief in yourself and others for motivation
22:14 Differentiating between beliefs, facts, and faith
26:16 Influence of "entrepreneurial alertness" on opportunity recognition
29:39 Shifting limiting beliefs and their impact on motivation
34:31 Inquiry-based stress reduction process explained
40:42 Developing a portfolio of perspectives on beliefs
48:33 Creating habit-forming apps and the importance of frequency
53:00 Role of investment phase in product improvement
56:01 Emotional inquiries to aid decisions and break bad habits
58:57 Redefining emotions as physiological reactions to foster growth

Join Harbour Club now: https://tinyurl.com/a5drp2eb

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Website: https://www.jeremyharbour.com/

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Website: https://www.nirandfar.com/

Timothy Armoo sold his first company at 17 from a council estate in Peckham, £110K for an online magazine he'd built in eleven months. By 27, he'd sold Fanbytes in the biggest deal the influencer marketing industry had ever seen.

The through-line across every deal: Timo never built to build. From day one, Fanbytes was designed for the consolidation wave he saw coming in influencer marketing, the same way it happened in radio, TV and PR. His job, as he tells it, was simple. Don't die.

What he's doing now is the opposite of what made him famous. Forget building audiences for brands. He's buying them, hyper-niche media businesses where people are irrationally passionate, because that's where the margins are and that's where the next wave of consolidation is heading.

What's Stopping You?: https://tinyurl.com/bdruzb9u

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00:00 Introduction
04:17 Building Fanbytes with the intention to exit
08:25 Realisation of entrepreneurship as a way out
16:39 Securing an interview with Richard Branson
22:27 Insights from Timothy's book "What's Stopping You?"
35:32 Using content marketing for business growth
39:14 The role of authenticity in personal branding
46:25 Strategies for managing large sums in business
53:43 Importance of timing in exiting businesses
01:03:35 When is the best time to exit a business?
01:08:29 Challenges of raising entrepreneurial children

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Website: https://www.jeremyharbour.com/

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothyarmoo/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timarmoo/?hl=en
Website: https://timothyarmoo.com/

​Callum Laing, good friend and long-time business partner, arrived in Bangkok at 29, knowing nobody, stood outside his first networking event for ten minutes and went home. That failure forced him to figure out how networks actually work, and led to a framework now behind 100+ public acquisitions.He's ruthless about three things: connections only matter if you're the one running the room, not attending it. Authority comes before opportunity, a board seat opens doors no pitch deck ever will. And equity is the only thing that creates real wealth, even if you didn't found the company.Join Harbour Club now : https://bit.ly/4xzLfrCJoin the Free 21-Day Email Course : https://bit.ly/3QxvlgG00:00 Introduction01:10 Callum Laing and expat experiences06:19 Building a network from scratch in Bangkok09:21 Developing the CARES framework for success13:01 Importance of clear branding and authority18:02 Progressive partnerships and leveraging opportunities22:14 Building authority through board membership27:23 Creating value as a board member32:06 Equity for connections and business growth37:28 Guild community and relationship-driven capital raising39:02 Service-oriented approach in entrepreneurship41:08 Recommended resources and Callum's books43:52 Closing thoughts on joint ventures and inside access→ Follow JeremyLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyharbour/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harbour.jeremy/Website: https://www.jeremyharbour.com/→ Follow Deal JunkyInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dealjunkyjeremyharbour/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dealjunkyjeremyharbour→ Follow CallumLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/callumlaing/Website: https://callumlaing.com/

John Mullins sold pasta from a borrowed kitchen before opening a single store, then built a TED Talk watched by 4.5M people on why entrepreneurs win by breaking the rules big companies live by.

He's ruthless about three things: solve one narrow, painful problem, not a broad market. Get customers to fund you before investors. Borrow the assets you need instead of buying them.

The biggest mistake founders make: copying what successful companies do after they've already won, not what actually got them there.

Join Harbour Club now : https://bit.ly/4xzLfrC

Join the Free 21-Day Email Course : https://bit.ly/3QxvlgG

00:00 Introduction04:03 How Dragon’s Den shifted the UK's view on entrepreneurship 13:12 The origins of the seven domains framework 18:44 The tech behind AI isn’t the biggest business opportunity 25:01 Break the Rules and the real value of “yes we can” 30:09 The timeless fundamentals of a good business 36:43 Building credibility without capital through smart experimentation 41:01 Starting with a narrow niche leads to breakout growth 49:23 Borrowing assets beats building from scratch early on 54:35 Why most “Uber of X” startups completely miss the point 57:46 Applying entrepreneurial thinking to acquisition deals

→ Follow JeremyLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyharbour/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harbour.jeremy/Website: https://www.jeremyharbour.com/

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→ Follow John Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnwmullinslbs/LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/john-mullins-43a416Website: https://www.london.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty-profiles/m/mullins-j

Ben Kelly's pivot came from JP Morgan's private wealth desk. Every $30M+ client got there the same way: built a business and sold it.

He ran his first acquisition as a side hustle, taking a gym CRM from $12K to $100K MRR while still employed and matching his JP Morgan salary without quitting. His fourth deal taught him due diligence the hard way: $800K in accounts receivable with no deposits attached. He closed it down and hasn't cut corners since. His current accounting firm rollup buys at 2.5x EBITDA and exits at 10-12x.

You don't get paid until the end. That's the whole strategy.

00:00 Introduction
03:00 Transition from military to acquisition entrepreneurship
06:45 Experience at JP Morgan and private wealth management
12:15 First deal experience using networking and LinkedIn
19:30 Evolution to current strategies in business acquisitions
28:00 Challenges and strategies in the current economic climate
36:00 Navigating acquisition entrepreneurship's learning curve
43:40 Due diligence and creating an internal team
50:20 Balancing family life and entrepreneurship
55:10 Final thoughts on family as a foundation for success

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Website: https://www.jeremyharbour.com/

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benkellyone/
Website: https://www.benkelly.co/