It's not like you went into this other career that everyone knows, and it was very popular. You started doing something that I think, even years later, is not popular. So maybe give a little context to what it is to buy these businesses, but what led you to start doing it?

The secret is, I think, that the really, really wealthy have always bought these businesses. I mean, richest guy in the world, owner of LVMH. How did he get there? Did he start those companies? No, he bought them. He bought a bunch of these companies, some of them basically out of bankruptcy, like Dior.

And he amassed a massive empire from the fact of buying, I mean, if we think about it, really bag companies, right? Clothing companies. They just have fancy labels on them that are highly overpriced. And so that's how the richest guy in the world made his money. The richest guy in India made his money through a conglomerate of businesses that he bought.

I mean, you look at a lot of the Fortune 500, and what you see, if you peel back the layers, and you get rid of all of the heirs of Walmart, let's say, and the heirs of some of the large historical industries like Rockefellers, etc, you find that most of these people actually got there, not always from starting companies, but from buying.

The second most common is from buying companies. And so in finance, private equity, we did that all day, right? Like, I think that, oh, they're not going to like that I say this, but I think people in private equity are brilliant in a way, but it's slightly predatory. We are so sneaky that we make entrepreneurs think that putting their blood, sweat, and tears into companies is like the fun game.

This is what it means to be an innovator. This is what it means to be a creator and to build huge businesses. And then right about at the point where they want to slit their wrists, private equity swoops in and we say, "Is it miserable running your company? Do you not want to do this anymore?

Are you ready for something else? What if we give you a great offer?" And what the entrepreneur doesn't realize is that 0 to 1 is the least profitable period of time in your business. The most profitable period of time is actually the next stage, and then the stage where you continue to cash flow for a really long time on it.

And so we sort of scoop up these businesses at a period of time where the entrepreneur is in pain often, and then we cash flow on them forever. And it's a gross generalization. That's not what all private equity firms do. But once I realized that, I was like, "Wait a second." So we don't have to be clever enough to come up with an idea.

I'm not clever enough to come up with some crazy new billion-dollar idea for a company. I don't know. But what I do know is how to look at what are expenses and what is income, aka P&L, and tell me if this business is making money or not. And do I think that this business could continue to exist inside of the next 3 to 10 years, at which point I'll have all of my money back plus 3 to 5x, let's say.

I can't go figure that out. And because that's not that difficult, why couldn't I do for myself what the big, huge guys do with LBOs, leveraged buyouts, and all of that, but at a tiny scale with laundromats and car washes and things that cost $50,000 or $100,000, and then scaling up to a million and a five and a 10?

It's the same game. It's just I'm playing it at a smaller level, at the mom and pop level, and what I call or what is called micro PE. And that mom and pop level, I think when anyone listening is thinking, "Oh, wow, Cody goes and buys businesses. She must be a billionaire." It sounds like something you could actually make part of your investment portfolio at a very early stage in your wealth building journey and grow from there.

Would you say it's for anyone or who is buying a small business for? Yeah, the only people it isn't for are the lazy and the completely risk averse. So if you want to do zero work, if you want to have zero risk, then don't buy businesses. It's just not going to work out for you.

And so if people are trying to sell you Airbnb arbitrage and you take no risk and you bring on these people and you make your millions, okay, fine, do that. But I think for people that are willing to put in some work, there's no better way to make a return on it than having equity ownership that cash flows over time.

And the problem is, if you look at the S&P 500 or where people typically invest, what is a good dividend paying stock? 3% to maybe 9%. I mean, gosh, if you could get a 12% paying dividend stock, you're probably thinking that it's going to have some downside, right? Because that's too much.

But in a small, boring business, you could have a return on your money of high double digits in a year. You could return all of your capital within a year. And so I think it is for "anybody" that's willing to put in some work. Now, the flip side to that is then people go, "Cody, sounds great, but I don't actually have millions." And I like to give examples like I bought a newsletter for $3,000 just for shits and giggles.

I wanted to put it into our media empire. I realized it didn't really fit. It wasn't going to grow the way that I wanted to. So I turned around and sold it, I think a week later for $8,000. And that for me at the stage that I was at was not meaningful.

But for young Cody, like the Cody whose parents had no money, who used to bounce her checking account every weekend, who kind of thought her first job making $37,000 a year was amazing. That was like, "I'm rich. I just made $5k in a week off of flipping somebody else's asset." That's fascinating.

And so if you can start at that level, you can start to understand the bigger levels, the $100,000 deals, the million dollar deals, and the $100 million deals, I think. Yeah. So one of the nice things... So yes, the return expectations of the stock market, maybe 5%, 7%, 8%.

But it's very easy to maintain a job and do that on the side because there's no work. Is the amount of work you need to go buy a boring business, a laundromat or something, enough that you don't need to quit your job? Can it be a side hustle? Or how full time is doing this type of investing?

I think it's very similar to rental properties, right? What sucks about getting rental properties? Well, first you have to understand the market. You got to understand what's a good buy, what's a bad buy. Then you've got to actually get a mortgage. You've got to figure out what that looks like.

Then you have to figure out how to get somebody to rent your property out. But after you have that first period of understanding, you either Airbnb it out with some consistency or you get a property manager that manages it, right? And I think it's really similar to businesses. Depending on the size and scale and type, you can have a business that's less active.

I try to not say passive because I think that's a fallacy overall, but that's less active. And those businesses are, I think, all around. I use the example of car washes and laundromats and vending machines. Less because they're incredibly passive, but more because I call them the gateway drug businesses.

So basically, you can get your little skin in the game. You can get your little first hit of being in business and being the owner. And then as you do that, you're like, "Oh, wait, this game is kind of fun. Maybe I'll do another one. I'm more capable than I thought." And I just think the world looks a lot better if we have more humans with skin in the game.

And I think you can absolutely do it while you're still working.