Hello, everybody. It's Sam from the Financial Samurai Podcast. And in this episode, I have a special guest with me, Harry Campbell from the RideShare guy. Say hello. Hey, Sam. How's it going? Thanks for having me on today. No worries. So we've known each other probably for almost 10 years from the personal finance space, but you were able to pivot to something new.

So do you mind telling the listeners what you're up to, what was your background, and how did you make that pivot? Yeah, for sure. So, you know, like you mentioned, I got my start working online in the personal finance space. I started a few blogs in the personal finance space, several of which still exist today.

That might be a fun challenge for any listeners. See, go out and see if they can find them. I'm not going to name them, but they do still exist and still bring in a little bit of revenue. But you know, I saw a lot of guys like you and Jim Wang from Bargaineering and some other early bloggers doing this blogging thing.

And like, seemed like you guys were doing well and making money. And I thought to myself, like, why can't I do this? And so, you know, if these guys can do it, why can't I do it? And I think I was a little late to the personal finance space, didn't really quite ever hit my niche, but I saw the potential.

And you know, all during this time, I guess you would say my former career, I was an aerospace engineer. So, you know, I was working for Boeing and United Technologies and companies like that. And I was doing a lot of this online work on the side. And so in 2014, I started driving for Uber and Lyft on the side just to try it out and check it out.

And I think like yourself, like you did at one point, trying your Uber driving. And pretty quickly realized, you know, it's not rocket science, but it was a little harder than it looks. So I started a blog, then a podcast, and a YouTube channel all called The Rideshare Guy and really just detailed my experience as a driver, how much money I was making and what it was like, you know, interviews with people or drivers or people at the companies.

And you know, that's sort of what, you know, we can get into the details, but I've basically grown that into my full time income and been doing that, you know, running that business full time, I guess, for about eight years. I quit my job pretty quickly into starting The Rideshare Guy and went all in working for myself and haven't looked back since.

Yeah. So how old were you when you quit your job to focus on your side hustle full time? How old was I? Well, I guess I was, I'm 36 now. And so I was, you know, about nine years, eight years ago. So I was about 28. So I didn't have any kids yet.

But you know, I was married and or just gotten married. And my wife and I, you know, we were starting to try for kids. So that was sort of that I had worked as an engineer for about seven years, I want to say. So you know, it was a job I enjoyed.

I liked it. It was like my lifelong passion to be sitting there in a cubicle crunching numbers and looking at you know, 50,000 row Excel spreadsheets. So you know, it was fine for the time. But I sort of always felt like it would be cool to find something bigger and better.

Now how did you get the confidence to quit your job? Because in my case, I worked for 13 years and I didn't quit my job. I negotiated severance because I had golden handcuffs, deferred compensation and stock. So what gave you the confidence to say, I'm out of my whatever?

How much were you making back then? Yeah, well, I think that might be a big difference. I might have been making a lot less than you were at the time. You know, I mean, I was a, you know, engineer with whatever, six, seven years experience. So you know, you start off pretty well.

I remember my first job out of school, I want to say I made around 60,000 bucks, you know, so going from college to basically a salary of 60,000. I was like, Whoa, this is an insane amount of money for me. That's actually why I started blogging about personal finance because I was like, Oh, wow, I have all this money.

I don't want to screw it up. And so probably at the time, I might have been close to 80 or 90, 90,000 as an engineer with some experience. And so I mean, you know, it was definitely a lot. But I mean, I think relative to, you know, YouTubers, people that are out there making money, I mean, I was making a couple thousand bucks a month off my personal finance blogs at the time, just selling kind of cheesy, you know, sponsored posts for casino sites and stuff like that really totally selling out.

Right. And so I'm like, Wow, if I've got, you know, this one site that, you know, is bringing in some income, like imagine the damage I could do with an actual business. And so, you know, when I left my job, my day job at Boeing to go full time on the ride share guy, I wasn't I was making some money, you know, maybe a thousand or two thousand bucks a month.

I wasn't at the same level, but the trajectory I was on, you know, I was doing, you know, the site was growing and I was making more and more. And I was also thinking to myself, OK, right now I'm spending 20 to 30 hours a week, you know, on top of my day job.

If I go 40, 50, 60 hours, you know, like 50, 60 hours a week on the ride share guy that should also grow it more and make more traffic. So, you know, I had money saved up. I didn't actually think it was that big of a leap, to be perfectly honest.

Literally the day I quit, my boss was like, all right, well, if you want a job when you come back, just let me know. So it wasn't like a huge risk for me in my mind. OK, well, let me ask you this then. So when you left, were you married then or not married?

Yeah, married. OK. And at that time, I know what your wife does. So was she in residency then or she? My wife was in the midst of medical school. And so she was racking up debt. And then she had four years of residency. And then, I mean, she literally only just started her actual, not her actual career, but started making real money in private practice about a year and a half ago.

So it sort of shows you like in the third phase of my career and she's just getting started. So it's quite a journey for her. I ask because I think achieving financial independence and building wealth is easier with a partner. I think it's one of the most important decisions we can all make having a good life partner.

And so let's say your wife wasn't going to be a doctor and make doctor money. Let's say she was a barista and who made $22 an hour. Would your calculus have changed in terms of leaving your job to do this entrepreneurial thing? I don't think so. I mean, to be honest, I think since the medical doctor journey is so long and winding, I wasn't even thinking about sort of her experience and sort of how much money she would make.

I mean, honestly, it didn't even really until literally a year ago when she started working. That was the first time I ever thought to myself, "Wow, she's making good money. She's starting OB/GYN here in LA." Because if anything, it's the opposite, right? I mean, you're literally racking up debt for so long and then you work as a resident.

I mean, she was literally working 70, 80 hours a week and making very little money. So it was like, you're still making some, but it wasn't like I was checking her bank account ever and she was not there a lot. So we had to hire more help and nannies and get family help.

So it's almost like, not to put it too negatively, but it's tough for sure financially and all that. But for me, if anything, I would say transitioning into my own business and working for myself made it way easier because with her kind of going for medical school, I mean, there was a point where she was taking a medical school interview or residency interview in Albany, New York.

I thought we were going to move to Albany. That was her med school. And then at the last second, she got in UC Irvine. So we got to stay in Southern California. And then residency, she had to apply all over again. And so it was kind of, for me, I was just sitting there working for myself.

Like I don't want to go to Albany, but I could easily do it and run my business from there if we have to. Right, right, right. Yeah, it's always fascinating to bring lifestyle entrepreneurs on the podcast because I think most people, they focus on going to school, going to college, joining tech, consulting, finance, or any industry that pays and trying to save and invest as aggressively as possible.

But to be frank, there are so many ways to make money now online. And so how do you view the importance of college and major and going into industry since you have two children yourself and you're an entrepreneur? Yeah, I mean, I think that since I've had a lot of success as an entrepreneur, it's probably no shock that I'm open to non-traditional paths, I guess you would say.

To do what I'm doing right now, no one has ever asked me what school I went to as part of the ride share. I'm doing like analyst calls with investors that are paying me crazy amounts of money and they're not like, "Harry, where'd you go to college?" They're like, "Oh, Harry, you've been covering the industry day in, day out, talked to tens of thousands of drivers for nine years, interviewed the CEO of Uber.

That's why they want to talk to me and pay me." So it's less about the pedigree and more about the body of work and the experience. So I kind of always joke that if my kids don't want to go to college, I wouldn't think that's the biggest deal in the world.

But I think that's because I'm in a unique kind of work environment running my own business. I'm pretty sure if you ask my wife, she would probably say the exact opposite. And so we'll have to address that down the road. But I think college is a great, fun experience and I would recommend it to my kids.

More for that and the relationships. I love visiting with my friends from college. I went to UC San Diego, so I didn't go to school. I did play volleyball at UC San Diego, but we didn't have the strong football, basketball, like Cal. So I don't meet up with my buddies every year for football.

But I have friends that do and it seems really awesome. As far as the actual schooling though and the knowledge that's gained there, I'm quite skeptical on that part. So if my kids want to go take a gap year or travel the world or even start a business and not go to college, I'd probably be pretty supportive of that.

I think as long as they're not like dicking around and just drinking and partying for five years. If they want to be an artist and that's what they're passionate about and I can help facilitate some of that, I probably wouldn't pay for everything, but enough to have them a comfortable living and they can pursue something they're really passionate about and get similar levels of achievement that I do through business, then I would be all for that.

It is interesting because how old are your kids now? Three and five. So I have two boys, three and five years old. Right. So in what is that, 13 and 15 years from now. 13 and 15 years, yeah. I mean, your wife is probably going to be making more money.

Yeah. I'm assuming hopefully you'll be making more money. Your net worth will grow even greater if you compound that at 7% rate of return, your net worth will more than double. And I just wonder how your children, our children, they'll be like, "Well, mom and dad seem to be doing really well.

Do we have to do anything?" How do you think about that? I feel like you've done some good podcasts and blog posts where you've thought about that a lot more. I know it's an issue, but I feel like I'm almost like I'll address it when the time comes. Right.

So I have three and five and my older son kind of jokes like, "Dad, you never work or you never do anything." Right. Because I don't go to an office and I'm not on call like my wife and I'm kind of always there to pick him up or take him to doctor appointments or whatever it might be.

And right now it's kind of funny when he's five, right? Because he's not, it doesn't really affect his like how he works at school or how hardworking or lazy he is. But definitely when he gets to maybe middle school or high school, I think that is when it will have an impact and I'll kind of have to address it at that point.

I feel like to me, I don't know. I haven't thought a ton about it. I'm not sure the best way, but it's definitely like something I know I'll have to address. Yeah. You know, so with your wife's hours, because you sound like you have pretty flexible hours and you work less than 30 hours a week, I'm assuming.

I would say that I work probably 20 to 30 hours a week. You know, like when I say work though, like very hard focused work. I mean, some of it is, I mean, like even this podcast is probably less like on the work side and more for fun or pleasure, but you know, it sort of revolves around the things I do for business.

I was just up in SF last week and, you know, kind of for a client of mine, but, you know, met with friends, met with other people. And so I try to honestly combine, you know, like in my typical week, I would say I work 20 to 30 hours a week, but you know, like I try to find trips, for example, where, you know, like I go to SF, I meet for business reasons, I meet friends, I take meetings, you know, I kind of do a mix of, you know, a few different things.

So that's sort of my typical week though might be 20 to 30 hours of actual work. I mean, I try to, you know, be very focused and I'm sure everyone says that, but I feel like I, it may be a little atypical. Like I only check my email once a day.

I don't have notifications on my phone. I don't take phone calls, you know, stuff like that. I don't do many meetings, you know, I'm all async email, you know, stuff like that. So I, you know, I think everyone says like, Oh, I'm really efficient when they work, but I try to be pretty damn efficient.

You know, usually I drop my kids off around 9am, I'm home by 930, work, you know, 930 to five ish, but obviously I'm only doing 20 to 30 hours a week. So, you know, I might go to the gym once or twice a week, play golf once a week, take them, you know, friends, lunch, happy hour, you know, so there's always things that kind of break up the day.

So that's sort of my typical week. You know, I spent a lot of time with moms because I'm, I would consider myself a stay at home dad. How does your wife feel about you with flexible hours and her in the office? And I'm assuming she works more than 40 hours a week.

Is she okay with that? I mean, I think she, you know, compared to her residency, she's probably very happy. And I feel like she's around all the time now compared to residency because you legitimately do work 70 to 80 hours a week, if not more. And you know, on call and all that.

And so now, I mean, she's at a private practice where they do shared, you know, because babies, she's OBGYNs, the babies come all times of the day and night. So that makes it a little tougher. So she does a shared call. So she's basically on call to deliver babies once every six weekends.

And then during the week, she might have to go out once a week, for example, like late night to deliver one of her own patients. And she probably works about 40 to 50 hours a week. So it's like a normal, probably hard job, but for her, you know, easier than what she used to be.

And she's making more money. So yeah, and she's making more money. So it is definitely nice. You know, it's been a long while to get here. But now I think we're in a pretty good spot. But to answer your question directly, I mean, yeah, I think, you know, it is tough for her, you know, like, I don't want to put words in her mouth, but I definitely get the feeling that her or someone in her position, you know, she's probably not gonna listen to this podcast.

So no words there, but you know, her or someone out, you know, someone of her friends is gonna listen and send it to her probably. But you know, her or someone in her position, right? Like, you know, tomorrow, I'm playing golf with two co founders of a company that I just invested in.

And you know what I mean? It's like, you know, some of the work that I do, like, quote, unquote, work, you know, is pretty loosely defined work, you know, I'm kind of always out and about and have more flexibility. But I also think that, like, you know, from her perspective, I'm sure she's a little bit jealous at times.

And, you know, I try not to rub it in her face, like, hey, I went out and played golf today. You know, if she asked me, of course, I would tell her. But you know, I try not to rub it in her or other people's faces. But also, I think it's always like, like certain types of people, this works well for and others, it doesn't.

I have friends who work really hard and always have a lot of things going on. And, you know, I always try to convince them to do some of the stuff that I'm doing or, you know, work in similar ways as I or take on projects or, you know, when they're done with one startup, you know, to go into VC or something chill, you know, go be a product manager at Google.

And it's like, I just know, though, deep down, like some people just love the grind. And you know, even though they always say that they may not say, they may say that they don't like I think it really is kind of like your, your, you know, certain people have different personalities.

And so I don't know that, like, the way she works would work well for me and vice versa. Right. Let's talk a little bit more about the ride share guy. Sure. It's been going on for a while. And you know, you were early in recognizing the ride share movement, and then it went into food delivery and all that.

And then micro mobility. I remember you were talking about bird and all those guys. Like, what's next? Now what's what's the focus of your site and you know, your genre? And what should investors be looking at? Yeah, well, I mean, I guess what I would say is I have, you know, spent nine years I mean, as the name of the site might, you know, impute ride share, you know, we cover Uber and Lyft.

And that's sort of what we're best known for. And, you know, I think that we built a lot of credibility as experts in Uber and Lyft, you know, especially from the driver's perspective. And honestly, like, I don't know, to me, it's kind of enough. Like, I kind of really lean into that.

Okay. And I don't want people to think of me as like, an expert in scooters or an expert in last mile delivery and ride share. Like, I want to be literally like the top point 1% when people think about Uber, Lyft and the driver perspective. Okay. Right. And that's kind of to me, I think that market is big enough, you know, to be honest, I mean, millions of drivers out there.

And, you know, there's plenty of opportunity, there's plenty of things we can do better within the business to dominate that category, you know, those search topics, those revenue streams. And then, you know, there are other opportunities that I think have sort of kind of fallen into my lap. Like you mentioned in 2018 and 19, scooters were huge.

I started charging scooters here for Bird in Santa Monica, just for fun. I grew up in Santa Monica, you know, then in 2018 and 19, scooters was our most popular content. We are doing, you know, scooter reviews on YouTube and charging scooters and that kind of obviously faded. But the past three years has been a lot of last mile delivery stuff.

So Uber Eats, DoorDash, Instacart, Amazon Flex, Walmart Spark, you know, the big ones kind of being DoorDash and Uber Eats and Instacart, kind of the big three in the delivery space. And so probably a majority of our traffic and revenue now comes from delivery services. But I definitely don't pretend to be, you know, like the number one expert in all things delivery.

I know a lot and I know enough to be dangerous. You know, I can talk about it on an investor call or, you know, I definitely know more than the average person. But I don't, you know, try to market myself in the same way because I just feel like it might be spreading myself out a little too thin.

Now, so for listeners who are not entrepreneurs, they're just day job workers. So they see, okay, the ride share guy, he's an entrepreneur, he makes money. But how do you make money and well, how would you break down the revenue as a percentage of different line items? Sure. So probably the number one way that we make money would be off of affiliates.

So that would be Legion, so signing up new drivers for Uber, Uber Eats, Instacart, DoorDash are probably the top four. And then we have other affiliates, for example, you know, GetUpside is a cash back gas app. So that's a pretty good fit for Uber and Lyft drivers. There's other, you know, financial apps, banking apps.

So that's affiliate is probably one category. And kind of, I would say not the easiest, but you know, as you know, with your business, like if you find the right affiliate, you can make a lot of money and not have to do a lot of work, I guess you would say.

And then there's also direct advertising. So this would be, you know, we send out four emails every single week, you know, with new blog posts. Yeah, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday. So that includes an email about the blog post. So I mean, we're kind of revamping things, but the gist is we've always traditionally for nine years, we've sent out at least four emails a week.

And that would be, you know, either one really good blog post or a few blog posts we've done over the past couple of days, because I have a number of contributors on the YouTube channel and blog. And so we've got multiple contributors. And you know, at the top and bottom of each newsletter, we sell an ad spot.

So like right now we're advertising a company called Wallet. And it's like a financial, you know, app or a banking account or something like that. And it's cool one for gig workers. So we're advertising that and you know, that is right above the fold gets clicked a lot. And you know, we do sponsored posts, sponsored videos, sponsored podcasts, you know, basically anything where someone's paying us more directly and hoping for results versus affiliate is where they pay you solely.

You sign up one driver, we'll give you a hundred dollars. Right. So those are kind of the big two. And then, I mean, I also do consulting the past, you know, I think again, right. Because since we've established ourselves as such experts in Uber and Lyft and you know, quoted in the media, interviewing executives and all that were pretty visible and easy to find.

So, you know, I have done a lot for some reason this month, I've done a lot of GLG expert network type calls. Gerson Lehman? The Gerson Lehman group? Yeah, the GLGs and the Alpha Insights. And I mean, I kind of charge kind of crazy amounts for these guys because they're a bit of a, you know, hassle to work with.

Like you can book them one hour. Do you go directly with GLG and then they take a percentage of your hourly rate? Are you like a GLG person? Like how does that work? So basically, on my site, I kind of call this revenue source for us consulting. And basically on my site, you can book a one hour call with me for 750 bucks.

And basically just over time, I started at 50, 100, 250, 500, 750 and just have gone up over time. And I mean, it's a lot but I also think it's reasonable if you've ever paid a lawyer, you know, like a decent lawyer costs 500 an hour. So I feel like a ride share industry expert can easily charge more than that.

And then I have a profile on all of the networks like GLG and Alpha Insights. GLG and Alpha Insights and there might be one more probably the big three that I get calls from. And so I've got a profile on there. And I actually do a double rate. So I do 1500 an hour on GLG because there's a lot of well, there's two things.

There's a lot of hassle in booking, you know, they call you, they always want to call you and like talk for five minutes. They're like, "Are you a good fit for this project on ride share?" I'm like, "Yeah, I wrote the book on ride share. I've interviewed Uber CEO three times.

I've been covering the industry for 10 years. Like, yeah, I'm a good fit for this. I can look at my LinkedIn or do anything." You know, so it's like a little BS you have to deal with them. And then I also tell them I have a one hour minimum and a 48 hour cancellation policy.

I always make them agree to that over email or text up front. And then, you know, so I've sort of gotten good at doing these calls. And, you know, I really only do Uber, Lyft, you know, expert driver type calls basically. And you know, so I charge them. And the other, I actually used to charge 750, but I bumped it up to 1500 when I think I saw this report about GLG that said their profit margin was like 70% on these expert network calls.

And I was like, "Oh, shoot, I better jump better off my plate." So, yeah. Wait, so, but how does it work exactly? If you charge 1500, how much does GLG get out of the 1500? I don't know. I know that their average, most of the people on their network are more in the $200 to $300.

Like literally, I think they're slighter. You can only set a 500 or 750. I always have to email them and say, "Hey, no, I'm going above your, you know, sort of asking rate." But, I mean, it kind of crystallized for me. Like I remember I did a call one time with some capital group, you know, and I looked them up and they had $4 billion invested in Uber.

I'm like, "They'll probably pay a couple thousand bucks for some expert on drivers, right?" And so, you know, probably not everyone. Yeah, you know, not everyone can charge, you know, that much. But I think you'd be surprised. And, you know, I've been doing these over time. And I also don't rely on this income.

So, you know, if it comes, great. If not, no worries. But, yeah, nothing easier than taking like a call at home, you know, for $200 for one hour. Well, so this is a lesson for listeners because if you can become an authority in a subject matter, you can be an expert in a subject matter, and you, the longer you exist and the longer you cover and the more you know, the more you can charge.

People are looking for insights, whether it's competitors or investors. So it's something to think about, you know, when you're doing your day job, okay, you're an expert at whatever you're doing. But can that scale and can you earn other income as a consultant? And can you brand yourself online?

These are things to think about that I've encouraged Financial Samurai listeners to think about and do for a long time. Because 10 years later, if you have 10 years on your belt, I would say you're an expert, right? I mean, honestly, a lot of the knowledge I feel like I have these days is not because I'm some genius.

It's just because I've been doing it for 10 years, right? Like there have literally been like cycles of people that came through all of these companies, you know, the first four or five years came and went, the early employees, and then the next site, like we're in like the third cycle of employees.

So a lot of companies are like doing, you know, products that they tested before that they just didn't know about. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, I remember Uber tested this product like six years ago. You know what I mean? It's just like, I'm almost just like, I don't even have that great of a memory.

It's just like, Oh, you know, I covered this six years ago, let me go back and look up the article or the video we did. And you know that I would honestly say that like in some of these people probably aren't hiring me for that. But in probably, you know, 30 to 50% of the calls or consulting calls that I do a lot of time, it's stuff like that people are asking me, or, you know, I'm connecting with people who have interviewed in the past or whatever it might be.

So I do think that compounding knowledge is, you know, pretty valuable. And also to like going back to the type of personality, like, I'm the type of person like I don't really want to do like 500 bucks an hour is great. That's a lot of money, right? But like, I don't really want to do like 10 $500 an hour calls, I'd rather do, you know, two or three $1,000 an hour, you know, like, I'd rather make less money and do way less work if that makes sense.

So whenever I can kind of find that type of opportunity, where maybe I'm, you know, being paid less overall, but I'm working a lot less, like, that's kind of the thing that I enjoy. Because also, at the end of the day, too, if I do 10 consulting calls with investors, you know, the third, basically the third one on, I'm gonna be talking about all the same stuff, right?

Like one or two calls is pretty interesting and pretty fun. And, you know, actually, like, sometimes these are pretty valuable, they'll be asking me questions or topics that I haven't thought of yet. And so it sort of makes me think or go do research after the fact. But you know, I guess like I have a classic entrepreneur mind, I don't like doing the same stuff over and over, you know.

I'm not like you, I can't crank out three blog posts a week for 13 years or however long you've done it. But it's not the same topic every time. That's true. So you're focused on the same topic or very similar topics. I try to increase the breadth. Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad, but that's life.

So in terms of, given, you said Lyft is one of your main clients, what would you assign probability that Lyft will be around over the next 24 months? And who do you think would acquire them? Well, actually, Lyft isn't one of our clients. I don't think we make any money off of Lyft right now.

Oh, really? We don't have any sort of driver referrals or affiliate. They probably should. So if anyone's listening from Lyft, they should probably get that signed up. Because in all of our Lyft articles, we tell people that, you know, at the bottom, the call to action is like, "Make sure you're signed up for Uber," right?

Because we make money off of that. And yeah, so we cover them. I mean, so I guess, what was your question? Are we going to be around in 24 months? What do you think the probability is they'll be around in the next 24 months? I think they'll still be around.

I mean, they've obviously, their stock price has been absolutely hammered. They've laid off thousands of people. And there's a lot of sort of doom, I don't know, doomsday or doom fearing, whatever the word is, you know, around the company. And you know, when I went to see us, that was probably in January, that was probably the number one question people asked me like, "Oh, is Lyft going to be out of business soon?" But if you actually look at the underlying numbers, like they're basically at 95% of the ride volume that they were at right before COVID, right?

Where all these companies have been trying to recover to pre-COVID numbers. And so, I mean, they're still doing millions of rides every single day. You can still go out and get a Lyft in any major city. You know, maybe it's not, you know, five minutes, maybe it takes seven, eight minutes, right?

And there's always still, there's just so much variability in the gig economy and the ride share industry that there are so many times, you know, the other day I needed a ride to the airport and I looked on Uber and it was 100 bucks. On Lyft, it was 50.

Boom. Called Lyft, took a Lyft to the airport. It was a good ride. It was a good ride as a customer. As a driver, you probably want that Uber ride, right? Because you make more. But as a customer, you know, even at the exact same ride, at the exact same time, to the exact same starting and end point, there was a 2X price difference.

Like, that's nuts. Well, that's why we need Lyft to survive. But it doesn't look like they're going to survive over the next 24 months. I don't know. I mean, I don't know if their profitability looks pretty good. If you look at their income statement and cash flow statement. And it's...

Honestly, I feel like that's sort of beyond my... That's probably more of a question for the analysts, you know, or the sort of people that actually like, I barely know how to read a P&L. So I think to me, it's just more around like, wow, I think about it like the actual brand and the volume of rides and sort of the driver perception.

Like right now, like drivers could care less. Like drivers have no idea. You know, I mean, maybe they know that stock price is in the tank. But if you ask them, like, what's their actual experience like now compared to a year ago, for example, on Lyft, like, no one's saying like, oh, my God, this company's in shambles.

They're like, maybe I get a few less rides. It's about the same. You know what I mean? Like, I think there is for that individual driver, there's definitely quite a large disconnect with, you know, some of the sort of higher level or more macro things like stock price or, you know, balance sheet.

Obviously if Lyft goes bankrupt, and there's no more rides for them, that would be a big effect. But a lot of times, the things that affect the front lines are actually pretty different than, you know, what's talked about in regards to Lyft stock price and, you know, internal this and that on CNBC.

Yeah. Uber hasn't seemed to have returned a lot to shareholders since it went public. And so do you think the CEO deserves his mega pay as a result? I don't know how much he's getting paid. I think he has some package where he makes 200 million if they hit a certain stock price.

I don't think they're there. But I want to say he makes, you know, I'm sure he makes 5, 10 million bucks a year at least if not more. And I'm sure he's doing quite well financially. You know, I mean, I've interviewed him a few times. Personally, I like him.

I think he's very sharp. I was always really impressed with, you know, he's got a lot of different things going on. And I was always impressed with how well he knew the driver experience. Even once all the cameras were off at this in-person event, you know, he was taking driver questions and pulling up his product managers who had probably never even talked to him before.

He was like, "I'm not going to do this issue." You know, so I think like genuinely I like him and I think he is a great person. I think it's also hard to argue with the performance of the stock price. It's done pretty poorly, you know, compared to relatively to tech and, you know, since their IPO and, you know, especially too before this latest market crash or whatever you would call it.

Like, I mean, their stock price was doing terrible, you know, basically compared to tech, which had been booming. And so, yeah, I mean, I think if you're judging him based on stock price alone, he hasn't done very well. Yeah. I mean, it is always interesting, you know, I know a couple of CEOs myself.

It seems like it's more of a job about image, about being an ambassador, being able to speak eloquently and deliver the message. And I do wonder how many of us can do that. I feel like many of us can do that job if we are an expert in the field and we can just be a normal people person and manage people.

We too can make a hundred million a year and just do this and that. Oh, really? I don't think so. I think what I described as his skillset, I think is actually pretty unique. Like I think the ability to sort of tell that, right. Like I think like what you said is the perfect example, right.

Like there are certain companies where, you know, it's sort of about, you know, I mean, obviously the underlying metrics and the numbers always matter. But like if you really trust the CEO and the vision and the investments that they're making and, you know, they sort of, you know, I mean, all of life is being a good salesperson, right.

Like, you know, come on to my podcast. Here's why you should do it. Here's my audience, right. Or here, come advertise with us, right. Like, you know, come marry me. Like everything is sort of, you know, in essence, a form of sales in life, I believe. And so I think when it comes to being a CEO, I don't actually think that's a skill that many or most people have.

Like I think Dara has done a great job despite the stock performance, you know, like I don't think the stock has done that well. I think someone else would have been fired long ago. Like I'm surprised that people aren't, you know, banging on the door like, hey, the stock price is doing terrible, for example, right.

You know, there's a few critics, but I think for the most part, and, you know, also talking to him, you know, sort of one on one, I did get that sense like, I mean, he's got, you know, they've got all these different divisions and this and that. And like, I would say like he wasn't an expert on every little detail of drivers, but you could tell he was the type of person who could process a lot of information, remember a lot, considering that that's like a small part of his job.

Right. I think the other, there's been a few people that I've met, you know, not celebrities, but, you know, like a few big names, like, I don't know a ton of important people, but another person that I met, we had a former LA mayor, Eric Garcetti, come and speak at a conference we put on in LA called CurbAvore.

And I used to be a big fan of his. I thought he was really eloquent. I thought during the pandemic and COVID, he totally botched the whole situation. We don't need to get into all that, but just at a personal level, like I really, my feelings about him, like really dropped off a cliff.

And then he came and spoke at our conference. I'm like, okay, I like this guy again. He was kind of like a little mini celebrity and everyone kind of mobbed him afterwards. And, you know, he obviously talked about transportation and mobility and, you know, dining, because this was sort of a conference around delivery and restaurant and retail.

And I was thinking to myself, like for all the issues that this guy has going on, homeless, budget, you know, this, that, like he's got a million things. Like he was an amazing speaker. He was dropping stories and he was talking like with actual knowledge about, you know, like programs the city had done.

And I'm like, you know, maybe he did a little prep work before this, but like, this is very, you know, speaking at CurbAvore conference, no shade to myself, is very low on his priority list, right? And I was really impressed actually with the actual speech that he gave. And it just kind of crystallized.

Like I don't think many people, like if I was in his position, like I wouldn't have been able to give anything, you know, close to that. And you know, not only did it sound good, like the actual substance of the content and what he was talking about made sense too.

And so I feel like there's been very few people in my life, you know, they're sort of in high, you know, I haven't met a lot, but you know, the few people in my life that I've met of like high, you know, stature or positions or CEOs or whatever, you know, Dara and Mayor Garcetti sort of stand out to me.

I think what you're also telling me is that if more people can connect with other people in person and hear their story, I think there would be more harmony and understanding in this world. I think a lot of people, they'll see what they see on TV, the internet, whatever, and they'll just make judgment.

But as soon as you start meeting someone, talking to them face to face, listening to their story and their background, I think it's inevitable that there will be some kind of more positive connection. I think also that working in the office creates that and working outside of the office at home, if you're like a junior person who's not established and all that, I think it's much better to go into the office.

What do you think? Yeah. No, I think that, yeah, I don't know. I think it would be hard to argue with that. I think that's pretty obvious and that, you know, like obviously meeting, you know, it's a lot harder to talk crap, you know, in person than it is like the things that people say online, you know, very few people would say that to your face.

I remember we actually had this commenter on the Ride Share Guy blog and he used to always be talking crap in the comments, but you could sort of tell he knew what he was talking about. Like he was like very negative and, you know, kind of a dick, but you know, he had like some really good insights and strategies, but you know, the way he would say it was like, you know, like very, very rude.

And I actually like, I, a couple of times I was like, let's grab lunch, let's meet up. And I eventually met up and I basically tamed him and he's actually one of our top contributors now. Shout out to Sergio. He's the dick in the comments. He's actually literally like now our top contributor has a really popular weekly live show.

Does all of our, most of our media, you know, appearances and stuff like that. Oh yeah, yeah. He probably too much to be honest, but yeah, I think he will. And you know, I think that like he, and you know, even him, he's like probably more, I think of him as like the old grizzled, you know, veteran driver persona.

Like he's been around, he's, you know, definitely more skeptical or negative than, you know, someone like why fresh dough out off the streets. But still like, I always, I always kind of joke with him. Like I think back when he used to comment on our blog, like, wow, who would have ever thought that he would end up, you know, being one of our top contributors, like based off of those early comments.

And you know, I think it definitely shows that, you know, you know, I think people are more real in person and yeah, you can obviously connect better. And I think, you know, just sort of like being more human, I guess you would say in person than online. Like online is, I don't know.

That's why I don't, I'm not on social media. I don't, you know, I'm on Twitter, you know, but like other than that, I'm not, you know, posting on Instagram. I'm not a big social media person. I mean, we have all the business profiles set up because I want to make money, but you know, not for my personal enjoyment.

Twitter is probably the only outlet that I actually enjoy, you know, stories and things people are sharing and stuff. Well, kudos to you for reaching out to your belligerent commenter or slash hater and then making lemonade out of it. I mean, the funny thing is like for those listening, you know, as a financial samurai generates probably around a million page views a month.

So you know, even a 1% haters, that's a lot of hate for a lot of people. It's a lot of haters. 0.1%. So just be careful because if you want to create something, be careful what you wish for because as you grow, you're going to get more hate, even though you're not writing something that or saying something that's spiteful, but people will have their say in the world, whether you like it or not.

Well, and also too, I mean, I think the most interesting content is usually somewhat opinionated or controversial, right? And you know, some people are going to agree, some people are going to disagree. And you know, I think for me, I kind of like the spot that I'm at in the, you know, the gig, like my sort of overall viewpoint is the gig economy is here to stay.

There's millions of people driving for Uber and delivering food. That's not going to change regardless of what I say. So my sort of overarching theme has always been like, I want to help them do it better. I want to help them make more money. I'm happy, you know, we have the occasional article or sometimes more than the occasional article like, oh, this sucks about driving.

Cause you know, like any job, there's like a lot of things. Like I could do an article, like a hundred things that suck about Uber driving. But as long, you know, like I think it's hard to argue with the fact that there's millions of people doing it. Obviously the positives outweigh the negatives.

Right. And at the end of the day, like drivers care most about making money and having a good experience. So how can we help that while still giving them an outlet to complain or, you know, to highlight the things that can be improved or whatever it might be. And so I think that's kind of the lens that I've always had.

And you know, I kind of, I wouldn't say I get hate from all sides, but like we definitely have, you know, Uber or Lyft or whoever will hit me up once in a while, like, oh, why'd you say this about us? Or Harry, you're wrong. We don't agree with that.

They're pretty good. Like honestly, they don't bug me much. And then, you know, we get the drivers who are like, oh, Harry, you're such a sellout. You're a shill. You're just trying, you know, you just want to sign people up for Uber, you know, and this and that. And so it's like, to me, as long as I'm getting a little bit of hate from all sides, that's how I think I know I'm doing a good job.

And you know, and also to balancing that with like my overarching, like it would be a bad business to start a blog and a YouTube channel about how much driving for Uber sucks. You get a partner come in and they're like, hey, we've got, you know, this great app for drivers and you're like, okay, one video, go quit driving for Uber.

And the next one, by the way, if you're going to drive for Uber, use this product, you know, it just doesn't make sense. Right. And so I think those are kind of like the two things that I balance. And honestly too, I think is it's really challenging and kind of like that.

Those are sort of like the fun challenges that I like, like how do we balance keeping advertisers happy while still retaining enough or some of our credibility that, you know, the readers trust us. So I think like navigating and walking that fine line is kind of like, that's what I enjoy most about this type of business.

That is tough. You've always been very industrious since I've known you. And maybe it's because you're younger or just your personality. And I mean, for example, you reaching out to the guy and then the hater, and then he's now your top contributor and you pay him. That's impressive because I have no time for that.

I'm like overwhelmed with childcare and I feel like they're going to leave us and they're going to be adults sooner than we know it. How many employees and contractors do you manage and is there a limit for how many you want to manage? Because that takes work. I mean, managing people is tough.

Yeah. I mean, I think that there was a pretty big step function change when I hired basically my first full time person to kind of handle a lot of that. We had one QuickBooks self-employed, it was one of our top advertisers and they wanted weekly meetings and reports and check-ins and a lot of, in my opinion, boring stuff that wasn't adding much value to signing up users.

But obviously, they needed that to report or whatever. And I basically hired someone to handle that account and a few other advertisers. And I feel like I remember I was living in Long Beach at the time and I would go into a co-working space most days, didn't have kids yet.

And when I hired that guy, it would be like 2, 3 p.m. I'm like, "Oh, I'm done with my work for the day. I don't have much else to do today." It really took a lot off my plate. And I really like the sort of team size, like hiring one, two, three, maybe four people.

I really like that because hiring is insanely tough. But you can still, even like hiring a B player, you can still get a good ROI because it's so obvious if they're doing a good job or not. You hire someone to do ad sales for you, how much did they sell?

That's the easiest KPI. If they sold $10,000 last month and you got to keep seven of that and they kept three and you didn't do anything for that seven, then you're probably pretty happy. And so I think certain... When you start having to do performance reviews and that, that's where you're starting to actually running a business and that's where it gets really tough.

But do you do that? Well, I did that for a while and then I kind of got over it. And so now my team size, we've got a few... Well, it's a little different now, but I've sort of... Until, let's call it until last year, I usually had around four to five full-time people and then a number of contributors, contractors, small to medium, basically any tasks that I didn't want to do, I would try and hire someone.

And so maybe right now I might have 50 people working for me. The smallest might be thumbnails on YouTube, a few of them a week, five bucks, 10 bucks or whatever each, pretty small, all the way up to editor or COO or whatever it might be. And then I actually brought on a new business partner last year who I've told you a bit about, but MMG Media.

And basically they've sort of ended up taking over a lot of the roles and functions that I kind of didn't want to do or have hired people in the past to do. So it's sort of now, they're a business partner, so it depends how you qualify them as being on the team or not.

Right. Yeah. Industrious. I mean, I'm very impressed. One of the reasons why I left my day job was because managing people was tough. If you manage someone, you got to motivate them, be polite, and you have to tell them what to do to get better. And then everybody wants to get paid and promoted.

And so I said, "You know what? I'm going to keep Financial Samurai simple. Just my wife and me, and we're just going to... That's it. No, no, no, no, nobody else." Yeah. I definitely agree. I mean, managing people is kind of sucks and isn't that fun. I tried it and didn't have that much fun and then hired people to manage my people.

Right. So it's sort of like, I think kind of where I have seen a good balance is where if you hire, for example, a full-time virtual assistant or someone who can just provide, who's not very expensive, doesn't require managing or full-time salesperson, something where the ROI is super clear and you don't need to...

It's not like integral to your business. It's like you're the business, but they help you with a ton of different things, or you have two virtual assistants, so there's a little bit of redundancy. I think that's where I think it's kind of a good compromise. But even then, hiring virtual assistants, hiring people is tough.

It's tough to even find good people. Yeah. So speaking of business, in your mind, how much is enough in terms of your income and net worth? Do you have a target net worth you're shooting for? You're still in your 30s, so you still got a long way to go.

You got young kids. What is your ideal income range and your target net worth, or do you not have one? Yeah. I mean, I think probably from reading your articles, that's what's made me think most about net worth and the targets. I know you've got some good content on that.

I don't know if I have a specific target in mind, but I mean, I do have two kids and I do live in LA and I do like nice things. So I would say that it probably has to be a lot. I think that as far as income level, I think if you're in LA, a single dude or a single female making $200,000, $300,000 a year, I think you can live a pretty good life.

Once you start to have kids, I think you got to make more. I think there's sort of the active income, but then there's also investments. I've been pretty big into real estate. I have a condo in San Diego. I have a little house in Mississippi. I have the current house that I live in that's a nice three-bedroom, two-bed house in LA and a good neighborhood.

I think I told you, I think we're building a new five-bedroom house in a nice neighborhood with a good school district right in the middle of LA. And so we're going to rent out this current house. So I'll have three rental properties basically. So I've been invested in real estate.

I've got my business. I've been saving basically since I graduated school in 2009, but maxing out my retirement account. So I've got pretty good savings, pretty good investments. And so I feel like if you're making a few hundred thousand bucks income and then you've got real estate, you've got a spouse that's bringing in money, I don't know.

I feel like that's plenty for me right now. And then as far as net worth goals, I mean, I definitely like nice things, like nice vacations. Having a nanny, all of that stuff. And so that kind of adds up. And so I don't know if there's a specific number in mind, but I don't know.

10 million, 20 million, 10 million, 20 million. Like those all sound good to me. - 10 million is the number that a lot of voters voted for 10 million as the ideal number to retire on Financial Samurai. - Actually, the number one vote getter was 5 million and then followed by 10 million.

And so you can almost say that 5 million for non-coastal city, 10 million for coastal city. And that was a couple years ago too. - It obviously depends on the city you're living in and sort of the job. Like I actually really like what I'm doing. Like I literally only work on things that I want.

So if I'm making, let's say, if I was making $300,000 a year right now, I would never retire, for example. I just keep doing what I'm doing. I'll do different projects and do things every year, but I only work on things that I enjoy anyways. So I feel like there's that path.

And then when you get to 5 million, let's call it, if you're maybe a little aggressive, but let's say you're making 10% return on your 5 million, that's $500,000 a year. And especially when you start getting into real estate, like I'm a huge fan of real estate just because I think it's very interesting to me how you put, let's say you put 25% down payment.

You're now 4X leverage, right? 3% return, just inflation. That's 12% return a year on real estate alone. I mean, the LA real estate, I've owned property in LA state. I've owned real estate in LA for many years. And there were a couple of recent years where it was like 20% appreciation, 10%, right?

And so able to make kind of a lot of money in real estate. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. So it's interesting because you are in the mix right now where you're in the middle of the mix right now where you enjoy your job, which is great and you're making good money.

And I always try to challenge listeners and readers to kind of forecast their future, forecast their misery. So like at age 45, you know, or whatever, in 10 years from now for you, do you think you'll still want to be really doing this? Well, what is this? Whatever it is you're doing, your ride share, your consultant.

Well, it is what it is. Yeah, no. That's a good question. I think that they're one of the things I guess what I, Oh, the easy answer is that I will probably be doing something different, but I think the ride share guy, like honestly, I think I got so lucky starting the ride share guy in 2014 when Uber and Lyft were, you know, just getting started and just exploded.

Like I think Uber was literally a once in a lifetime type company opportunity and I never worked at the company, but you know, I'm there, I was there covering it and involved and you know, new people and, you know, obviously like became like an expert for drivers. And I think because of that, like, I don't think I'll ever be able to start another ride share guy type business on my own.

And so really what I do for the ride share guys, I just leverage it into things I want to work on. Like I mentioned my conference, like I'd never, I'd always done digital, never done in person. And so for the past two years we put on a big event, you know, had 750 registered people all come out in LA and, you know, put on this like awesome, fun event.

Make a ton of money, made some money, but you know, I did it more because it was like a great experience, bring people together, good food, good speakers, good parties, like all the stuff I hate about conferences, just do the opposite at mine. We do it in an outdoor parking lot in downtown LA and luckily this year we had good weather somehow even though it rained all year and we somehow landed one day of good weather for the event since it's all outdoors.

And you know, I've been doing a lot of angel investing over the past three, four years. I know you're invested in some VC funds and things like that. And you know, so obviously like working with all these tech companies, I was like, wow, all these people making money off of Uber, it'd be cool for me to, you know, invest in the next Uber.

So I've been, you know, I've invested over $600,000 of my own money into startups and funds over the past three, four years. So kind of a lot. Yeah. It was about double what I wanted to initialize. I was like, Oh, I'll do about three, 300 K maybe 10% of my net worth or five, five to 10% of my net worth was the goal.

And then ended up like, before I knew it, I was like, Oh crap, I'm at five, 600 K. And before it was like five, 600 K before I realized like, this is a really expensive but fun hobby. And luckily I kind of went into, uh, yeah, I mean it could pay out, but it's just tough because you know, you don't see any returns for seven to 10 years and it's hard to get into good deals with less than, you know, five, if you're only doing five to $10,000 per investment that adds up pretty quickly and it's harder to get into deals, you know?

So now I actually lucked into a little mini fund. So I have one LP that's, I have a $500,000 mini fund. So I'm basically investing their money now and now doing $25,000 angel checks. So sort of get to keep doing all the fun stuff about angels, angel and get 20% carry if it ever makes money and invest in other people's money.

So I do 10%, I have like kind of a, they call it a 10% general partner commit, right? So I'm going to invest 50, they do 500 and you know, I've already written three checks, three 25 K checks from the fund. - That's what I love about your story is you're always doing stuff.

- That's what I'm saying. Like that is sort of born out of the ride share guy. I mean, literally, so my one LP is Bloomberg Beta up in San Francisco and they invested in a startup that I was working with, a founder in SF and I ended up, you know, meeting their managing partner, Roy, because of this investment, he had heard about me through my work with the ride share guy.

And then, you know, I sort of talked to him about my angel investing and basically the TLDR was I love angel investing, don't make enough money to keep doing it. And he was like, oh, we've got this cool program where we can help you, you know, kind of jump start your first fund.

And I was like, oh, that sounds great. And, you know, obviously it took a while, but we got it all set up. And, you know, so I think it's sort of like has allowed me to sort of satiate that interest in investing. So as you might imagine, you know, I invest in mobility and logistics and, you know, stuff that I'm interested in around, you know, kind of like ride share adjacent, you know, like right now I'm really into last mile deliveries for companies in that space, maybe a little food tech, stuff like that.

Who manages that fund? Like the administration of these funds? So that fund, it's funny, I kind of glossed over it, but it took, you know, at first we're like, oh, we, you know, we have this fund or this program where we can help you start a mini fund. And then when I had to figure it all out, basically the way that I actually structure it is that I do, I have a side letter with them where they've committed 500K capital for all of my venture investments going forward.

And there's a few categories that we can't do the sort of typical alcohol, marijuana ones and I have to do 10% into each investment. And so it's, you know, I guess a side letter legally binding agreement. And then for each deal, like I just invested in a cool e-bike company in New York city.

And for that deal, I basically put 25K in from Bloomberg, 2.5K of my own money. And then I syndicate it on a sidecar, which is kind of an angel list competitor that has lower fees. And so my 27.5K has 4.5K in fees. So the actual amount that the company receives is 23,000.

And then, you know, if I can, you know, convince Sam, Hey, do you want to kick a couple thousand bucks into this investment? You know, I might do that. And so, but you know, that's not ideally that does happen, but you know, so it is either my money and then maybe someone else's.

But what's really nice about that is that there's no, you know, updates that I need to send them. So I have all of the fun parts about investing and none of the hassle of running a fund or managing a backend or anything like that. Right, right. So as an industrious guy, who's very entrepreneurial, what would you do if you were running Financial Samurai?

Hmm. Well, you know, I've, I've always joked with you that if I ever have a little free time, maybe I'll come and convince you to bring me on as a business partner. But I would say, I mean, I think like you seem like the type of person that really enjoys the grind.

Like you always talk about how you get up early to write blog posts before this and your kids and that. Like I think kind of like lean into the parts that you enjoy. You know, if it's writing, keep writing. I don't think you need to necessarily hire people to grow.

I don't think you need to hire people to cover topics if you're not that passionate or don't care about it. So I would really, I like my impression is that you enjoy the writing aspect. So if that's the part that you like, I would lean into that. And I think that also, because that also kind of makes your site stand out with a million page views a month there.

I can't think of another site where the owner of a million page view a month site actually still writes most of the blog posts, if not all of the blog posts. So I think that's kind of what I would lean into is what you enjoy. Maybe the one area where I think you could do a lot more is leveraging across different platforms, right?

So if you're doing one really big blog post a week, I mean, I think you sort of already do this. You might do a podcast on it. I would also do video. I would hire a short form editor. I've got a great guy. I just tested 10 different video editors.

I could just send you to him. He's only 40 to 90 bucks a clip. And then he'll post, he'll watch your one hour interview and pull the however many you want, three to eight 60 second clips. You post those to TikTok, Instagram, Reels, and YouTube shorts where there's really great, we only have one or 2000 followers on Instagram, Reels, and TikTok shorts.

But some of these videos will easily, most of our videos reach 2000 people and sometimes more. I mean, they're quick views on Instagram, right? People just scrolling through, but that's sort of, to me, I think leveraging, not doing more content, but maybe even less content, but leveraging it across different mediums might be the one area.

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't call it marketing. I would say you've built up a big presence so you don't have to market like other people might. They're just getting started. You've built up a big presence and credibility and following. So I think you can leverage it across other, like, you know, the people that are watching videos on TikTok about personal finance probably aren't reading, you know, a 1500 word article on your website.

But the concepts and the principles can apply. They just need to be translated. Right, right. Yeah, my philosophy has been, I like to write, so I'll just write. It's efficient, it's easy, it's cathartic, it helps me think about things. And then I like to get feedback from different people around the world.

And if one day I can no longer write or I have no interest in writing anymore, I'll just hire freelancers who embody the philosophy that I have, embrace the philosophy, and will write in a way that I deem to be appropriate for my audience. So when I burn out, I can always hire someone.

So I figure I might as well just keep on going until I burn out and then do that. And that's sort of where I like your model. I think you've got enough of a following that you can kind of just do what you like and do what you're good at.

And you could probably make, you know, 25 to 50% more if you hired writers and started adding more SEO or reviews of this service or that. But I feel like you can also just write three blog posts a week and have such a big following and do really well that people find you.

Maybe you've got one or two or three big affiliates or revenue sources. And maybe you could double that, but how much work would it be to onboard? What if the company goes bankrupt? Just like always, maybe not one, but always have two to three good partners or affiliates or whatever it might be.

And I feel like you could probably do pretty good damage that way and kind of like in a high ROI fashion. Yeah. I've just gotten to the point at my age and the more you make or the more you have, the less interesting it is, at least for me, to make more money.

And for the podcast, I don't have any sponsors or whatever. I'm just doing it for fun and I want my kids to hear what their dad has said during the pandemic and stuff. So I'm always curious as to how much is enough. And maybe it doesn't really matter so long as you're doing what you enjoy doing.

Everything kind of feels like gravy. Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned you do the podcast for fun because I don't do anything for fun. I always think that there's like, this is fun, but I'm thinking there's always some other ... I think of it as like ... I think there's like three things that I care about, right?

Like business return or business opportunity, helping people and then working on something interesting, challenging or fun. Those are kind of like the three categories that I look to in any project. And I would never do anything just for one of those three. Like if someone that I absolutely hated wanted to talk about something, the most boring topic ever, I mean, for a thousand bucks, I probably wouldn't do that for an hour.

I mean, obviously, I'll get a million dollars for an hour. Like, sure, I'll do that. There's probably some point that I would do it. But in general, within reason, I wouldn't do that. I always look for things like ... I mentioned my angel investing. So I started a podcast called Wannabe Angels and we've recorded actually close to 20 or 30 episodes right now.

It's a weekly podcast with my co-host, Colin, and we interview up and coming angel investors or experienced or just investors in general. And the reason why I started that podcast were one, I'm obviously really interested in angel investing. I find it fun, exciting, challenging. It's kind of addicting. I love working with early stage startups because they're so creative and so optimistic and so hardworking.

And you don't really have to do all that, but you get like a taste of that as an investor. So yeah, it's really addicting in that sense. Like intellectually, I find it really stimulating. And then number two, I think there is a good business opportunity. I mean, I told Colin, like, let's do this every week for a year and let's see if we ...

I won't expect to make any money, but if we, after a year, maybe there's more people that want to join my syndicate, maybe we can get a sponsor or two. I mean, this is big money. Like anytime there's large transactions happening and you can interject yourself as a middleman into those large transactions, you have the opportunity to make a lot of money.

Real estate agent being the perfect example, get two to 2.5% on a $5 million property for someone who finds it on Redfin. Okay, great deal. Right? And then the third thing is I think helping people. I'm not helping ... this isn't like I'm getting people that are sleeping on the streets into houses.

I'm not like, "Hey, you're an angel. You've got to be making good money already. These are workers who are already doing pretty well." And so it's not like I'm revolutionizing their lives. I'm not that jaded, but I do think that there are a lot of people out there that want to learn about this, that are struggling or whatever, or interested.

And so I think it's always cool to help people learn a new skill, learn a new topic. And it might be more impactful if you're teaching someone coding that's going to get them off the streets, but that's not really my area of expertise, or at least with this specific opportunity.

But I think that that kind of helping people. So I think my new podcast, for example, hits all three maybe, I don't know about evenly, but maybe a little bit more in the first two categories than the third. But I built up Ride Share Guy for the past nine years.

I think that's more so in the third category, helping Uber and Lyft drivers and gig workers who are making 15 to 25 bucks an hour. I think that's a cool subset of people to help and provide support and work with. Okay, that's good. Sounds like you've got a lot on your plate.

You still have, it sounds like max enthusiasm, max energy to keep on grinding and to keep on doing what you love to do, which is great. And I think that's awesome. And cherish that feeling because I don't know if it'll last forever. Like, I felt like I had that in my 30s.

And then at 40, I was like, "Eh." You know what, that might be the one piece of good advice you've given me recently is maybe to think about, right, that the feeling I have right now, it may not last. And sometimes maybe you can kind of pretend or tell yourself that, "Oh, you still enjoy this or that." But I do think it sometimes takes someone like you or a friend or someone who knows you really well to sort of reflect and say, "Hey, is this something you really enjoy?" And that's why, to me, I always think about what are my most important goals.

My most important goals is not like someone sends me an email and I reply back to them within five minutes. Like, I don't care about that. Like, it's more about driving value, revenue to the business. And so it's like that's how I think about really any project or anyone that I'm working with or anyone that I'm helping.

Like, what's the most important goal? Everything else in the middle is just noise. Like, how do we help you achieve your kind of ultimate goal? And so I think definitely, you know, that's kind of what's fun about an entrepreneur. It's good and bad, right? Like, I don't get paid to hop on phone calls or, you know, to like let people pick my brain or to go to conferences, right?

I don't get paid directly, I guess you would say. So for me, I kind of have to figure out what's a good use of my time based off what I care about business-wise, personally. I mean, I spend a lot of time with my kids, you know, family. I mean, even me time, I like to golf, you know, work out, get a massage once a week, right?

Like, I like all these different, you know, sort of things. So it's like, how do I prioritize and balance all these things within the context of, you know, like, what do I actually care about? Because even, you know, with business, right, like I still want to work on things that I actually, I mean, I like working, right?

Like when I go on a week vacation and I don't work for a week and I come back on Monday, I usually feel pretty juiced and pretty amped, ready to get back to it. But I also completely disconnect for a week and, you know, I think you might have gotten my way message before.

I tell people to, if it's urgent, to text or call me. You know, if you don't have my phone number, it's probably for a reason, so. All right, Harry. Well, it's been great speaking with you for the past hour. Where can listeners check you out if you want to repeat the information?

All right. Well, if they are interested in the rideshare industry, maybe they want to book one of those consultant calls with me. Let's see if we can get something out of this podcast. They can find me at therideshareguy.com or really any box on the internet. If you type anything related to Uber or Lyft drivers, I've got a new podcast that I just launched called Wannabe Angels.

It's pretty cool. We interview, like I mentioned, angel investors or really any kind of up and coming investors, especially in the venture world. And then I also have my Rideshare Guy podcast, which covers a lot of industry topics. So no shortage of content. I'm active on Twitter, too. So those are the best ways to find me.

But the business and the team is all over the internet. So not too hard to find. All right, buddy. Well, next time you come up, give me more than a 24-hour heads up and we'll try to figure out some good food and drinks. make any guarantees. All right, take care.

Thanks for listening.