The Fifth Quarter Show

Jason Fladlien has helped generate more than $250 million in webinar sales. It took him 19 years to distill his approach to persuasion into three words: remove, improve, approve. Start by removing what stops people from acting. Before he became a marketer, he was a rapper at seven and a monk at 20. He started learning business to get his music off the ground. The business became his purpose.

In this episode, we get into:

- "Remove, improve, approve" and why removing a limitation can matter more than adding another capability
- Why a money objection can really be a fear of losing status
- When the third-best strategy is the right one to teach first
- Staying on a webinar after the slides ended, with 54 people still asking questions
- The confidence trap: needing experience to feel confident, but waiting for confidence before getting experience
- The "law of utility" and why even procrastination can serve you
- Panic attacks at ten, his mother's imprisonment, and the prayer and meditation that helped him at 20
- Why actively searching for your purpose already puts you in purpose
- $9.8 million in affiliate sales in eight days, and why he wants his clients to beat his record
- How success with email and product launches kept him attached to an old playbook
- Publishing 540 pieces of content a day without monetizing them, despite still disliking social media
- "Play less games but play them better" and the team behind content that looks effortless
- Why making his writing five percent better is a useful job for AI
- Using AI to develop less experienced copywriters and fix repeated mistakes
- Why his AI clone project became a creative challenge, not just an editing job
- "I've turned down more money than I've made" and the standard he applies before selling a product

Jason gets raw about growing up in a chaotic home, the habits that made him successful but later held him back, and learning to be a beginner again. We go deep on understanding people without judging them, building an advantage for your customers, and finding work you can believe in beyond the money.

Move with clarity. Build with soul.

Matt Smith is the founder of Snooze Mattress & Wellness, a sleep shop franchise he started in Pueblo, Colorado in 2019 and has since taken across the United States and into Ireland.

He spent 26 years in the mattress industry and close to 20 in franchising. But the hardest part was not selling beds. It was learning that scaling Snooze meant entering the people business.

At 19, Matt was stabbed an inch from his spine. His grandmother came to the hospital, stood in the doorway, shook her head and left without saying a word. He calls it the best thing that ever happened to him.

Years later, he missed his two-year-old son’s first soccer goal and left the company he loved within three months. Today, he leaves the office at five while still three months behind.

Because business will never stop. Your family will not wait.

In this episode, we get into:

- Why the mattress industry has barely changed since the 1980s
- Being stabbed at 19 and the silent moment that changed his life
- The mother who gave away her money, then turned a power cut into ghost stories
- Why Matt believes positivity is a muscle
- The daily routine behind his energy: ice baths, meditation, breathing and reflection
- Losing more franchises than they gained during Snooze’s first year
- “You showed that you suck at this,” and why he kept going
- Leaving the mattress business for the people business without realizing it
- The three non-negotiables: good human, grit and coachable
- Why caring too much can become an operating liability
- Using 30, 60 and 90-day data to remove emotion from difficult decisions
- Why the person who helps build a $10 million company may not be right for the next stage
- “I don’t need another Matt Smith in the room,” and why he hires for his weaknesses
- Why opening 50 stores himself would require $60 million
- What prospective franchise owners should examine before investing
- Why billionaires are not necessarily happy
- Missing his son’s first goal and leaving his former company within three months
- “If you’re going to lose one, let the businesses go. You’ll build another one. But your family, you can’t build another one of those.”

Matt gets raw about growing up without his father, the divorce rate he witnessed while building his career, and feeling like he is failing at business and family at the same time.

We go deep on building systems when you are not a systems person, hiring people capable of reaching the next stage, running a franchise you would actually want to own, and protecting what matters when the work will never be finished.

Move with clarity. Build with soul.

Stefan Georgi has built multiple eight-figure companies across supplements, marketing and customer acquisition, including Copy Accelerator and Get Thin MD, which is bootstrapped and on track to do $50 million in three years. He has sold two companies. He started as a freelance copywriter and has since helped thousands of freelancers go independent. He has also sat across a conference table from nine California district attorneys with printouts of his own sales copy laid out in front of them, and had over $4 million frozen overnight by a merchant processor who told him he spent a million a month on lawyers and would smash him in court if he wanted to fight it. Half that money was not his. He owed it to vendors. His first child was born the same week. He chose not to fight, spun up new brands, and routed every dollar of profit to the vendors until all of them were paid back.

In this episode, we get into:

- Holy Land Health hit a million dollars in year one while losing money the whole time, and the developer relationship that ate six months and $100,000 without a working prototype
- Build versus buy, and why he still starts out of the box and customises later even with vibe coding available
- Expansion and contraction: dream the billion dollar version, then work backwards to step one and get comfortable with an uncertain future
- The roulette model for direct to consumer, and why infinite money can make almost any product work but the opportunity cost will still kill you
- Leaving Coachella to break up a fight between two team members, then going quiet on Slack and learning his team reached the same call 80 percent of the time
- One conversation at his first mastermind turned into an affiliate relationship worth many millions
- Nine district attorneys, a Ziploc bag of supplements, and a refund campaign that drew about $7,000 in actual requests
- Green Relief at $300,000 a day, a frozen $4 million, and "have a blast, but I'll smash you"
- Why he believes there are no real crises in business, and why he expects to end up a billionaire without missing little league

Stefan gets raw about the breakup he still cannot explain, telling a woman he had no time for a relationship when she lived in another city and asked nothing of him. He is honest about drinking more than he should have, about being depressed while the business was not working, and about the fact that he has not yet built the company that outlasts him. We go deep on why nothing fazes him, how to let go of a business without abdicating it, what nine district attorneys actually want, and why he believes the only real answer to being wronged for millions is to go and make more.

Move with clarity. Build with soul.

Timestamps:

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:01:54 A million dollars in year one, and losing money the whole time
• 00:02:49 The developer who said the CRM was trash
• 00:06:22 Build versus buy, and the rule he uses now
• 00:11:12 Expansion and contraction, then back to step one
• 00:15:07 The roulette model for direct to consumer
• 00:19:38 Leaving Coachella to break up a fight in a hallway
• 00:21:13 One mastermind conversation, many millions in affiliate revenue
• 00:31:37 Nine attorneys, one lawyer, and a Ziploc bag of supplements
• 00:35:46 "Have a blast, but I'll smash you"
• 00:42:06 There are no crises in business
• 00:50:52 Billionaire without missing little league

Steve Harward is the founder and CEO of Prime Corporate Services, a company he built to over nine figures in annual revenue. No paid advertising. No aggressive sales tactics. No cold outreach. Just relationships. In 13 years, he's gone from a barely-made-it-through-high-school kid from a trailer park to running a business that fields 400–600 one-on-one sales appointments a day — built on a philosophy he calls "Win by Giving." He started the company with his mom and two brothers. They're still there. He got up at 5 AM in Utah to be here.

In this episode, we get into:

"Win by Giving" — the philosophy behind a nine-figure company built entirely on relationships, and where it actually came from (hint: it's a trailer park in Utah and a single mom)

What Win by Giving looks like on a Tuesday morning inside Prime — and why it's not abstract, it's operational

"Heart spark moments" — the listening technique behind every major partnership Steve has ever built

Why most people stay transactional — and the "dark rabbit hole" that keeps them there

The dark season: divorce, two little boys aged two and three, a mattress on the floor, mornings he didn't get out of bed

The strategic decision that saved him: renting an apartment with a bedroom window that looked directly into Prime's parking lot

"I ran my support email for seven years — all the way up to $27 million in annual revenue. It would ding at 2 AM and I'd respond within seconds."

Starting a family business with his mom and two brothers — including the UFC fights that broke out in the office

The mastermind unlock: a $40,000 investment, a room called War Room, goggles off — walked in with 7 partnerships, left with 14

"I'm working harder today than I've ever worked in the history of this business" — what momentum looks like at nine figures

His go-kart interview test: "I got two go-karts in the parking lot. Want to race?"

"I lost 6,000 contacts overnight" — and the unexpected beauty he found in it

Building trust at scale: his "love bomber," anniversary meetings that make employees cry, and why fake is the one word that will never be used in a sentence about him

Nolan at Legoland: a nine-year-old tracks down a kid in a wheelchair to give him his stuffed animal — and what Steve says when Bilal asks about legacy

The Randy story: chartering a helicopter, flying to Sugar City, Idaho, filming a dying man's last words as a gift — and the picture he still looks at on his phone

Steve gets raw about the divorce that nearly took him under, the "dark rabbit hole" of transactional business thinking, and why he believes the people who've made his dreams come true create an obligation — not a comfort. We go deep on what it costs to give at scale, how to listen so well you know what matters to someone before they've told you, and what a nine-figure relationship business actually looks like from the inside.

Move with clarity. Build with soul.

Jeremy Newsome is the founder of RealLife Trading, one of the largest trading education platforms in the world, teaching hundreds of thousands of people how to trade safely. At age seven, he watched Forrest Gump, sold blackberries door to door, saved $1,300, convinced his dad to match it, and bought Apple stock. That investment would be worth $40 million today. He turned $400K into $1.2M trading silver by age 20 — then lost it all on his 21st birthday. He's completed three Ironmans, co-hosts the Broke to Awoke podcast, and sits on the board of Aerial Recovery, the world's largest anti-human trafficking organization, which has saved over 8,500 children.

In this episode, we get into:

- How a seven-year-old watched Forrest Gump and saw a roadmap to financial freedom — "we don't have to worry about money no more"
- The blackberry hustle: shirtless, no shoes, Georgia summer, $1,300 in Ziploc bags sold door to door
- His dad's investing lesson that still holds: "If revenue is increasing, the stock price will go higher over time"
- The $40 million mistake — selling Apple in 2000 and never reinvesting
- Turning $400K of other people's money into $1.2M trading silver at age 20
- Buying silver at the highest price in human history with leveraged money — and losing $1.2M on his 21st birthday
- "I didn't want to lose my dad's approval" — the spiritual root of why he held instead of cutting losses at $500K
- "Financial freedom is second grade math repeated consistently" — 300 people x $167/month = $50K/month
- Why triple partnerships never work — the math of two ganging up on one
- "Don't give equity away" — the most expensive lesson entrepreneurs keep repeating
- Paying $1,000/hour for a business coach when he was broke — and why it changed everything
- "Money cannot buy a finish line" — why physical discipline is the key to trading discipline
- 14,200 jump ropes in 14 hours straight — the migraine, the puke, and why he'd do it again
- "The brokenness of any country is in direct proportion to the brokenness of its men"
- Aerial Recovery: repurposing special forces veterans to save children from sex trafficking across 16 countries
- 8,500+ children saved — the largest anti-human trafficking organization in the world
- "There's no one else saving kids with their trading profits" — why he's playing a different game

Jeremy gets raw about the father wound that caused his biggest financial loss, the business partner divorces that ripped out his heart, and why he believes most men are broken and settling. We go deep on the spirituality of money, why your happiness is a non-negotiable business strategy, and how he went from a kid who didn't want to worry about money to a man who uses trading profits to save children from trafficking.

Move with clarity. Build with soul.

Lame Kinikini is the founder and CEO of Elk Ridge Investments, an alternative investment firm managing over $75 million across real estate, short-term rentals, creative finance, and asset-backed lending. He's closed more than 200 creative finance deals, built Elk Ridge into an eight-figure company in under five years, and now mentors over 100 students through his Fearless Investors community. But he didn't start with money — he started knocking doors.

In this episode, we get into:

- From $40K summers to six-figure seasons — how door-to-door sales at Vivint built the mental fortitude behind everything
- "Tell me I can't" — the Michael Jordan quote on his wall and the mindset that let him close his first creative deal with zero experience
- 50 properties in 5 months — the hockey stick that started with one bad deal he still holds today
- Why his first creative finance deal lost him money — and why he calls it tuition, not failure
- The 2023 crash: 48% supply influx, rates through the roof, burning cash month to month — and the pivot that saved everything
- Creative finance as the cheat code — how a blended 4% rate across his portfolio made him profitable when everyone else was drowning
- $1.4 million in quantifiable losses — and the unquantifiable cost of depression, firing people, and sleepless nights
- "I've never been a depressed person" — the Thanksgiving he woke up and regretted it, and why he'll never dismiss mental health again
- The wrong partner who almost derailed everything — and the right one who helped them pass last year's numbers by midsummer
- "The cheapest you'll ever get great talent is today" — why tripling payroll doubled revenue
- His dad's line: "When you don't give when you have nothing, you'll never give when you have everything"
- Date nights as competitive advantage — why Tuesday and Thursday with his wife is his most dangerous business habit
- "Money increases your capacity to serve" — the spiritual operating system behind the portfolio
- Why enough stopped being about material things and became about legacy that never runs out

Lame gets raw about hitting rock bottom in 2023, the depression he never thought he'd experience, and the business partner betrayal that almost broke him. We go deep on creative finance mechanics, why your spouse is your greatest business asset, and the moment he realized wealth was never about the portfolio — it was about how many people he could serve.

Follow Lame: @lame.kinikini

Move with clarity. Build with soul.

Jess Mah built a six-figure business in middle school, dropped out of high school at 15, and at 19 became one of the youngest women accepted into Y Combinator. On paper, she was a Silicon Valley prodigy — Forbes and Inc 30 Under 30, venture-backed, scaling fast. But in 2012, the bank balance was heading toward zero, the product wasn't working, and she fired her team just to survive. She rebuilt inDinero into a hundreds-of-employees company at a nine-figure valuation, stepped out of the CEO seat on her own terms, and now runs a venture studio building companies across AI, fintech, and bioelectrical therapies targeting cancer. She's also the youngest graduate of the Harvard President's Program.

In this episode, we get into:

- Forbes 30 Under 30 while burning cash — the gap between perception and reality in 2012
"- I was bottom quartile intelligence, but the most creative and hardest working" — leaning into what you're actually good at
- The Steve Blank advice that changed everything: people don't buy tools, they buy outcomes
- Firing friends — why she's done it dozens of times across multiple companies and how she structures it differently now
- "Even Fortune 50 CEOs tell me they should have fired that person a year earlier" — why no one outgrows this mistake
- Stepping out of the CEO seat during COVID — and why she didn't lose her identity doing it
- EMDR therapy as an entrepreneur's secret weapon — "You would be unstoppable"
- Building from desire vs. brute force — how her approach to starting companies has fundamentally changed
- The apprentice model: what she would have done if she couldn't start a company — work for Richard Branson for free
- Why short-term relationships are like day trading stocks — you don't get compounding returns
- Twice-a-week check-ins with every team member for the first 30 days — her highest-leverage use of time
- Playing the long game: the people who look wrong on paper but work with you for 25 years

Jess gets raw about the loneliness of being a kid programmer before coding was cool, the weight of public accolades when your company is dying, and the psychological game that separates builders who last from those who don't. We go deep on inner game — meditation, somatic therapy, EMDR — and why she believes 50% of entrepreneurship is working on yourself. She makes a compelling case that the founders who win aren't the smartest, they're the ones who build environments where everyone around them gets to create something awesome.

Follow Jess: @jessmahofficial

Move with clarity. Build with soul.

Brennan Pothetes is a fintech operator who built and sold Butter Insurance to Odeko, then got tapped to create something that's never been done before — the first AI native holding company. Infinity Constellation launched in May 2025 with $17 million, eight AI companies already post-revenue, and a thesis that the entire venture model is broken. He calls it Y Combinator meets Berkshire Hathaway.

In this episode, we get into:

- Why he believes too much capital has killed more companies than it's helped
- "Headcount kills" — the core pillar that makes his CEOs solve with technology before people
- One engineer built a marketplace system in 28 days that used to take 18 months and $20M
- Y Combinator meets Berkshire Hathaway — why he took pieces of both and rejected the rest
- Starting companies for $250K–$500K and getting to $1M ARR before deploying real capital
- The biggest company in the portfolio: $300K invested, almost $6M in contracted ARR
- 25% equity guaranteed at $1B EV — the incentive structure that aligns founders, investors, and LPs all the way down
- Why he doesn't do one-on-ones — and what Jensen at NVIDIA taught him about information flow
- The burnout story: 70+ cold calls a day for 8 months, couldn't get off the couch, and his wife asked "Do you want to be the CEO of an insurance company?"
- "If you're burnt out, you're not loving what you do" — the controversial take on founder burnout
- Speed is the ultimate moat — why he'd 100x his pace if he could
- The $2 trillion service economy reshuffling for the first time in 200 years
- Autonomous CEOs — the experiment he's already running
- Planning for IPO, not exit — why Constellation Software and Berkshire are the models

Brennan gets raw about selling a company he'd fallen out of love with, the identity shift from first-time founder to holdco CEO, and why the founders who win aren't the ones with the most capital — they're the ones who love the game. We go deep on incentive design, the trust curve of AI adoption, and why the tech moat every VC is chasing might not exist in 5 years.

Follow Brennan: @brennanpothetes

Move with clarity. Build with soul.

Farooq Abbasi is the founder and sole GP of Preface Ventures — a seed fund with 28% net IRR, placing him in the top 5% of all venture investors tracked by Cambridge Associates. He's deployed $90M into 100+ companies now worth more than $10B, with exits to Palo Alto Networks, Cisco, and Rocket Companies. His edge: backing immigrant and outsider technical founders at day zero — sometimes nothing more than a whiteboard and a thesis. In this episode, we get into: - Why Farooq invests before product, revenue, or traction — and what he actually looks for - The founder profile that outperforms: exited, immigrant, going bigger the second time - Why 20 concentrated positions beat diversification for seed-stage funds - The 3 questions he asks before writing a check — and what they reveal about a founder's soul - Funding R&D risk vs. go-to-market risk — why most VCs have it backwards - How to pitch a VC: pre-qualify, be radically honest, build your career reputation early - DX exits to Atlassian for $1B on just $3M raised - The Truebill story: a 45-second pitch in Vienna, two checks, and a $1.3B exit (53x return) - Backing a Black founder the room dismissed — who came back years later as his first LP - Being politely persistent with institutional capital for a decade - What he believes about venture now that he didn't believe when he started Farooq gets raw about the psychology of solo GP decision-making — the immigrant mindset that hits every time money leaves the account, the weight of friends' liquidity on your shoulders, and why failure still teaches. We talk conviction without guardrails, doing fewer things better, and why the founders who get backed again aren't the ones who won — they're the ones who operated right. Follow Farooq on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abbasifarooq/ Move with clarity. Build with soul.

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:01:54 Investing at day zero — founder market fit and the dirty little secret
• 00:03:42 The Preface founder profile: exited, immigrant, going bigger
• 00:06:48 Concentrated 20-position fund vs. diversification
• 00:09:35 What actually creates a top 5% edge
• 00:12:14 LP base — 40 C-level execs from Delta, Spotify, PagerDuty
• 00:13:47 DX exits to Atlassian for on raised
• 00:17:40 Exits to Palo Alto Networks — pattern or luck?
• 00:20:31 The 3 questions Farooq asks before investing
• 00:23:07 Why radical transparency is rare — and why it matters
• 00:23:47 Funding R&D risk: why most VCs have it backwards
• 00:29:30 How to pitch a VC: pre-qualify, be honest, protect your reputation
• 00:32:10 Running solo: speed, weight, and the psychology of the solo GP
• 00:33:07 The moment that terrified him — immigrant mindset when money leaves the account
• 00:36:26 One out of 10 fails — how he thinks about loss
• 00:39:11 The Black founder the room dismissed — who came back as his first LP
• 00:41:20 First LP: a Pakistani Spotify co-founder
• 00:43:35 Truebill: 45 seconds in Vienna- Chapters
  • 00:00:00 Intro
  • 00:01:54 Investing at day zero — founder market fit and the dirty little secret
  • 00:03:42 The Preface founder profile: exited, immigrant, going bigger
  • 00:06:48 Concentrated 20-position fund vs. diversification
  • 00:09:35 What actually creates a top 5% edge
  • 00:12:14 LP base — 40 C-level execs from Delta, Spotify, PagerDuty
  • 00:13:47 DX exits to Atlassian for $1B on $3M raised
  • 00:17:40 Exits to Palo Alto Networks — pattern or luck?
  • 00:20:31 The 3 questions Farooq asks before investing
  • 00:23:07 Why radical transparency is rare — and why it matters
  • 00:23:47 Funding R&D risk: why most VCs have it backwards
  • 00:29:30 How to pitch a VC: pre-qualify, be honest, protect your reputation
  • 00:32:10 Running solo: speed, weight, and the psychology of the solo GP
  • 00:33:07 The moment that terrified him — immigrant mindset when money leaves the account
  • 00:36:26 One out of 10 fails — how he thinks about loss
  • 00:39:11 The Black founder the room dismissed — who came back as his first LP
  • 00:41:20 First LP: a Pakistani Spotify co-founder
  • 00:43:35 Truebill: 45 seconds in Vienna- $1.3B exit (53x)
  • 00:50:05 Why passed-on founders become the best bets
  • 00:53:11 Convincing institutional capital as a solo GP
  • 00:55:37 Politely persistent for a decade — what that actually looks like
  • 00:58:06 The quarterly newsletter that closed a decade-later LP
  • 01:01:08 What he believes about VC now vs. when he started
  • 01:04:29 Final words
  .3B exit (53x)
• 00:50:05 Why passed-on founders become the best bets
• 00:53:11 Convincing institutional capital as a solo GP
• 00:55:37 Politely persistent for a decade — what that actually looks like
• 00:58:06 The quarterly newsletter that closed a decade-later LP
• 01:01:08 What he believes about VC now vs. when he started
• 01:04:29 Final words