0:01

I never told no one that my

0:03

whole life I've been holding back . Every

0:06

time I load my gun up so I can shoot

0:08

for the star , I hear a voice like

0:10

who do you ?

0:11

think you are all right . Everybody . Another

0:13

day , another dollar . Another one of my favorite

0:15

episodes of my favorite podcast what

0:18

if it did work ? Got

0:20

with me . A founder , a

0:23

ceo of filter by

0:25

david hecox , can't wait

0:27

to hear this story . From wall street to

0:29

air quality innovator , he

0:31

walked away from a seven-figure finance

0:33

career to rebuild his family's

0:36

dying business . With zero experience in

0:38

manufacturing , took a bold

0:40

leap of faith and built filter by a 250

0:43

million industry , a

0:46

disruptor , revolutionizing indoor

0:48

air quality . What started as a small factory

0:51

, one of my favorite states in Alabama

0:53

, is now a nationwide leader

0:56

, producing millions of high-quality air

0:58

filters and expanding into HVAC

1:00

services , air purification

1:02

and automotive filtration

1:05

all while creating

1:07

nearly 1,000 US jobs . While

1:09

others are exporting

1:11

jobs , he's creating jobs

1:13

1,000 US jobs and serving over

1:15

7 million customers

1:18

. Success wasn't

1:20

easy . Burned down factories , near

1:22

fatal accidents and relentless

1:24

setbacks Tested his grit at every

1:27

turn . Now David is pulling back the

1:29

curtain on what it really takes

1:31

to scale a business . You

1:34

know what . This is what I love no investors , no

1:36

shortcuts , just raw determination

1:38

. And you know what man ? You

1:40

are the real deal . You're not like these gurus

1:42

, all these big time gurus

1:45

that are like hey , pay me $10,000

1:47

. I'm going to show you

1:49

how to scale , and

1:51

then you know what happens after you pay for the $10,000?

1:54

.

1:56

I don't know , I've never , I've never paid $10,000

1:59

to be shown how to scale , so maybe you should

2:01

enlighten me , oh okay , Well , okay .

2:02

Well , david , congratulations . You

2:04

went to my three day seminar

2:07

on how to . I mean , I I

2:09

wrote a book on how to scale , but I I

2:11

didn't do a 250 zero

2:13

to 250 million . But you go

2:15

to it . It's like a three or four day seminar and they're

2:18

like david , you've learned a lot . We've

2:21

. We've gone to pretty much basic

2:23

shit that you could have gotten for free

2:25

off of anywhere . But you know where

2:27

the real answer lies . We

2:29

have this . It's not for everybody , but

2:32

it's for people like you that want to scale

2:34

this business . You can go from zero

2:36

to hero , but for only the low

2:38

, low price . The seven-day

2:41

seminar $40,000

2:43

. The seven

2:46

day seminar $40,000 . And

2:48

you're going to laugh . People do it . And

2:50

you know what happens at the $40,000 seminar . You get a certificate and

2:53

you go out there and you're like , wow

2:55

, did I learn anything ? No

2:57

, but I can put it on my social media

2:59

that I

3:02

have a selfie with my guru . So

3:05

congratulations , man . I love

3:07

when you're . When your publicist

3:09

mentioned to me it

3:13

was a no brainer man from $0

3:16

to $250 million business .

3:17

Now that we're

3:20

going to do two or two over 280

3:22

million this year . Dude

3:25

, you have to .

3:26

You have to fit , you have to fix that number , man

3:28

. $280 sounds better than $250 .

3:31

We actually you know I'm crazy . I

3:34

did no social media until October of

3:36

last year and I went from

3:38

being a ghost to now I'm talking about

3:40

it , and we did all of our planning publicly

3:43

on YouTube . We published

3:45

it , david Filtered by , on YouTube and

3:47

we actually walked you through our whole planning process

3:50

. I got all my team on camera

3:53

committing to their target for next year

3:55

and we're targeting , as a company , $280

3:58

million in 2025 . And we're

4:00

on track so far , but we will see

4:02

how the year ends and we'll share

4:04

it publicly . That's part of the beauty

4:06

of what we're doing .

4:07

But , david , in your

4:10

defense , I think Alabama just

4:12

got dialed up . Man , I'm

4:19

going to ask you along , okay , I'll

4:24

say War eagle , war eagle to you

4:26

. Um you know , because I hey

4:28

, I've been to both campuses and it's

4:30

a no-brainer man , um , not

4:33

because you're on , but auburn's a very beautiful

4:35

campus , a very beautiful town , been

4:37

at tuscaloosa , been the dreamland

4:40

, which is like rfu

4:42

, yeah , yeah , yeah . You can

4:44

tell I'm the real deal when I say I've been the dreamland

4:47

, and then you know if you went to lsu .

4:49

You're the . You're the real deal . Where do you live now ?

4:52

oh , it's south florida , miami .

4:53

I went there yeah I'm

4:56

in west palm , so we could have done it in person

4:58

. Oh , dude . Yeah man my my office

5:00

is in boca so yeah , literally

5:02

that's funny but

5:05

the your , your family business

5:07

, though , isn't this ?

5:09

it's still in alabama , correct ?

5:12

yeah , so , um , you know the . The

5:14

long story short of it is I grew up in a family

5:16

business that was largely the textile

5:18

um industry . Um , you know , my

5:20

my grandfather came back from world war

5:22

ii and was looking for

5:25

what to do with his life , and his dad worked

5:27

in a textile mill in

5:29

Sylacauga , alabama , called Avondale Mills

5:31

, and he was the purchasing manager there

5:34

. So my grandfather decided he was going to start

5:36

selling supplies to the textile industry

5:38

and so , anyways

5:41

, I kind of grew up seeing that family

5:43

business as I was growing up

5:45

and then I saw it get decimated in the 90s

5:47

by NAFTA . Basically

5:50

, all the textiles got taken out of the Southeast

5:52

and I decided

5:54

to get as far away from Alabama

5:57

as possible and actually

5:59

moved to New York where

6:01

I went to work for Goldman Sachs and

6:03

ran the emerging market options

6:05

trading business there . Then , in

6:08

2012 , my

6:10

family was going through the sale of the family business

6:12

and at that time they had basically pivoted to

6:14

the wood products industry where they were selling supplies

6:17

to sawmills in the Southeast . And

6:20

my grandfather was still alive , didn't want to

6:22

see it sold and I said to

6:25

this private equity firm and I said well , I'll

6:28

quit my job and go buy this thing and see

6:30

what I can do with it . And

6:32

basically I bought this dying

6:35

industrial supply business where the average

6:37

salesperson was in their 60s

6:40

. We were relying off

6:42

of legacy relationships . It was not

6:44

. I saw the writing on the wall it's not going

6:46

to stand the test of time and I

6:48

thought , well , I'm gonna have to do something with this . And

6:51

I looked around for a product that I

6:53

could manufacture in alabama competitively

6:55

and not have to compete with imports and

6:58

sell direct to the end user and

7:01

therefore hopefully have a competitive advantage and ultimately

7:03

set everyone pleaded air filter because

7:05

they have a lot of dynamics that they're very bulky

7:08

to keep you um , makes it

7:10

not cost competitive to import from asia

7:12

, for instance . Um , and

7:14

there's so many different sizes and there's lots of variation

7:16

and um , you know , there are other

7:18

kind of factors that made it interesting

7:20

and um . So that's how I

7:23

started my journey of

7:25

building FilterBuy . You

7:27

know and learn how to manufacture the product

7:29

and you know we've been scaling it ever

7:31

since .

7:33

And FilterBuy . You went from

7:36

Goldman

7:38

Sachs . I

7:40

mean I was a financial advisor but nowhere

7:43

near going working in

7:45

the city and being

7:47

in fixed investments for Goldman

7:49

Sachs . Now I

7:51

understand now why . Because I

7:54

was like I maybe didn't

7:56

want nepotism , like why wouldn't you have

7:58

just stuck with the family business ? But

8:00

the family business was in textiles and

8:03

then it went to commodities

8:06

, helping out the sawdust mills and

8:08

whatnot , and it

8:10

was the good old boy network . It

8:12

was based on relationships . Once Joe

8:14

Bob died or once old man

8:16

Ridley died , from across

8:18

the way . There would have been

8:20

that contract is what you're saying .

8:22

Yeah , I mean , that's effectively what happened . I

8:24

bought it it was a company called Tally Machinery Supply

8:26

Company and it basically

8:29

, you know , died a slow death

8:31

and I could took about five or six years

8:33

as kind of a traditional kind of cigar

8:36

, but if you follow the Warren Buffett philosophy

8:38

, but you know , basically lasted

8:40

five or six years until I had to shut down

8:42

that that business more or less

8:44

. But I had started filter

8:47

by it kind of used the infrastructure

8:49

to , to build it

8:51

on on top of it , which is how we survived

8:53

.

8:56

But what , ultimately ? What

8:58

got you back home to

9:01

take that risk , because a lot of people

9:03

would have been in comfort ? Man , you were . You

9:06

were in the city , you were in the nyc

9:08

. You had a high paying job . You

9:10

were established there . What

9:12

was it ? You were concerned about the family

9:15

legacy . You just didn't want it .

9:16

You wanted the yeah

9:19

well , it was a combination of two things

9:21

and for , for the record , I lived in New York City until

9:23

2021 when we , when

9:25

I was a COVID , transplant to South Florida , so

9:28

is my wife and everything

9:30

is . It was in New York and we didn't

9:32

and she didn't want to leave , to go to move to Alabama

9:35

. So I built all this while

9:37

, while , like , living in New York , although I traveled

9:39

every week , um

9:51

, but it was really two things , um , the you know , I was 29 years old and I , um , you

9:53

know , I had a good career to that point , had seen a lot with the financial crisis , and

9:55

you know a lot , lots of other things , um , but I

9:58

kind of looked around and I was like , well , what does

10:00

what does this look like 10 years from now ? And

10:03

I ? Um

10:05

realized I was effectively a bookie

10:07

for hedge funds . That was basically my job

10:09

, like , if you wanted , if a hedge fund wanted action

10:11

, then they would call it , they , they called me

10:14

, and

10:16

that was basically my , instead of my , client

10:18

base . And

10:20

you know , I thought that

10:22

, and I think that this has largely happened , but a lot

10:24

of that's going to get automated , which has been happening

10:27

, happened slower than I expected , but I thought , um

10:29

, I didn't see that job existing

10:31

10 years , 10 years out , um

10:33

, and also just didn't get any fulfillment from it

10:36

. I mean , it's like , um , to me

10:38

, when you're in business or doing anything in life , don't have

10:40

to be in business . You have to say like , okay

10:42

, well , what is the purpose or what value

10:45

am I bringing in

10:47

this activity that I'm taking

10:49

Right , and I could not articulate

10:52

what value I was bringing to

10:54

society from my role

10:56

as a bookie for hedge funds , even

10:58

if it was highly paid . And on top of that , you

11:01

know , I didn't really see how that business

11:03

was going to evolve . And if you look at it like

11:05

you know , the finance world in general

11:08

has been shrinking as a

11:10

percentage of GDP over the

11:12

last decade and

11:14

generally you don't want to be in industries

11:16

or in businesses that are contracting because the

11:19

opportunities that of the people that were there

11:21

in the 90s are not , have not been

11:23

there for the , for those people that have

11:25

been there from 2010 to 2020

11:28

and beyond . Um , so I kind of saw the

11:30

writing on the wall with that wanted

11:32

to find something with more purpose . And then my

11:34

family was going through the sale of the family business and

11:36

my grandfather , who I was really close to

11:38

, was in his early 90s . Um , he

11:40

did not want to see it sold and so I said

11:42

um , you know , know , later on

11:44

in my life am I going to regret , you

11:47

know , quitting at 29 and going

11:49

and taking some risk and figuring it outweighed

11:51

the risk of taking that action

11:54

. So

12:09

that was really the genesis of it

12:11

.

12:12

Well , you have always had that . What if you

12:15

would have had such a regret ? Because

12:18

, believe it or not , you could have gone

12:20

back . Let's

12:23

say things would have gone sideways . You

12:27

could have gone back to the industry , you could have back to finances there's

12:29

a dime , a dozen still .

12:30

you can always go find a job I can't , no matter

12:32

what you know and I just remembered the name of your podcast

12:35

, which I , which I left what , what if it ? What if it

12:37

worked right ? I mean , and um , and

12:40

to me like

12:42

the biggest driver in life and I think everybody

12:44

needs to really think about this is

12:46

on your deathbed , what are you going to regret

12:48

? And

12:51

if you talk to anybody , well , that's been

12:53

the situation . It's like the things

12:55

that you didn't do , that

12:59

you didn't get the chance to do , or that you didn't do because

13:01

you were too scared , those

13:03

are the things that you remember . It's never the

13:05

things that you did that didn't work . It's

13:07

the things that you wanted to do , that

13:09

you did not take that action against . And

13:12

so when I think about any decision I'm making

13:14

and how I want to live my life , I want to

13:16

minimize those regrets of things

13:18

that I didn't do , that

13:21

I wanted to do at the end , and I've

13:23

kind of lived my life that way and this , you

13:26

know , the taking the journey of

13:28

becoming an entrepreneur was a

13:30

big step for that , towards that .

13:33

Well , think about it . You saved your

13:35

family's company . Ultimately

13:39

, you know , in the grand scheme of things

13:41

, years from now can

13:44

in your deathbed

13:46

60 , 70 , 80 , 90 years , whenever

13:48

that day , you , you'd

13:51

be like man . I did

13:53

that . Not only that man , but just

13:55

a simple fact . There's more

13:57

to it . When you're helping people , you were

13:59

, you're completely in service . You created

14:02

jobs . You've helped

14:04

out over a thousand families .

14:24

Yeah , I mean that actually need and they

14:27

want it at a fair price , and we're able to

14:29

employ a lot of people with good

14:31

jobs , you know , in service

14:34

of that , in pursuit of that , and

14:36

to me that's a meaningful life . I absolutely

14:38

love that and , you

14:40

know , all the business activity that I do

14:43

as I continue to grow is

14:45

centered around that . Like the reason why I don't

14:47

retire or sell my company to

14:49

a private equity firm which I will never do , or

14:53

taking that kind of route is because

14:55

I get so much value

14:57

in the , in

14:59

the creating of the opportunities

15:02

and the world around me creating

15:06

of the opportunities and the world around me and I'm fueled by that and that's what

15:09

excites me . You know about the next stage of my journey , which I hope to be much

15:11

bigger .

15:12

Well , also , man , I mean

15:14

the United States has become a service

15:17

industry when

15:19

it comes to creating things

15:22

we outsource . We outsource

15:24

for cheaper labor , man

15:26

, and just to say , hey , made

15:28

in the USA . All

15:31

these air filters are

15:33

made here , made at home , man

15:35

, and you've helped 7

15:37

million people buy American products

15:40

.

15:41

Yeah , I think we're up to over 9 million

15:43

actually . Now I need to update that number . But

15:57

yeah , it's interesting , like now a number of our competitors , some of the

15:59

big , really the big brand that you would see in box stores , you know , are

16:01

this tariff talk , how , how that ultimately shakes

16:03

out . I , I have no no idea

16:05

and I don't know what's good and what's bad and

16:07

all of that . But , um , you know , when you're

16:09

manufacturing here , you don't have to worry about those

16:11

types of things , which is kind of nice well

16:14

so so it's also nice

16:16

.

16:16

Yeah , the the market's taken it in

16:18

the chin past few days because

16:20

of terrorists , but man talk

16:23

about helping out , leveling the

16:25

playing field for you yeah

16:28

, I mean I I don't know

16:30

if I'm pro or against them as a country

16:32

, if I'm honest , I just don't know .

16:34

I I I think it's such a complicated

16:37

subject that anybody that is , like

16:39

you know , pontificating on like , oh

16:41

this is the best thing in the world or this is going to crush

16:43

everything , I don't think any , I don't think anybody

16:46

knows is the reality , um

16:48

, and so I think I just think it's a very complicated

16:50

subject for a lot of reasons and

16:52

um , so I don't really know where I land on

16:54

it , but but but one thing I will say is

16:57

that I do think that we have made

16:59

, as a country , made a huge strategic mistake

17:01

by outsourcing

17:04

all of our labor

17:06

and all of the you know production

17:09

of our goods to other people , Because when

17:11

you do that , you basically give other

17:13

people power over you , Because ultimately

17:16

, we're in a position where you

17:18

know a lot of these industries . I know semiconductors

17:20

are a big one , but I mean there's lots

17:23

of , lots of things that you know . If , all of a sudden

17:25

, we't buy them somewhere else , um

17:27

, as a country , we would be in trouble because

17:29

, um , we , we just kind of lost

17:32

all of that um , all

17:34

of that um mental ability

17:37

, all that um , intellectual capacity

17:39

to be able to , to , to do these

17:41

things , and I think that's really tough

17:43

and I do hope that more

17:45

and more people decide to

17:47

insure more

17:50

and more products . I mean , we're actually doing it in other products

17:52

now I haven't talked about it much , although you said some on

17:54

the intro but , like auto cabin filters for cars

17:56

and air purifier filters , for instance

17:59

, are largely made in Asia now

18:01

and we started this

18:03

about a year and a half ago the kind of investment

18:06

process , because it takes time , unfortunately

18:08

, which is why short-term tariffs

18:10

are kind of tough , I think , because

18:12

it does take . There is an investment cycle . It takes

18:14

time , but we were already working on it and

18:17

I think more companies should

18:19

be figuring out ways to manufacture

18:22

in the US because it's definitely possible . I

18:25

think that we oftentimes you

18:27

hear a lot of excuses why people don't do it

18:29

, and most of

18:31

those excuses , I think , are pretty flawed . I

18:33

think it ultimately comes down to laziness more

18:35

than anything and lack of willingness

18:38

to invest . But the laziness

18:40

is actually the biggest factor in my

18:42

opinion , because it's

18:44

more work to manufacture versus just cut

18:47

a PO to some overseas factory

18:49

. It'd be much easier , like for us in the air

18:51

purifier filter market or the carbon cabin

18:53

filter market for cars say , oh , we're

18:55

just going to cut a PO and have

18:57

some other factory do all the other stuff . Um

19:00

, that would be easier , but it's just

19:02

not a business model . That's to me , and

19:04

you know that's . That's why we we make all

19:07

of our own products here .

19:09

Well it , yes , bottom line

19:11

. It can make you more money , but there

19:13

there's something to it

19:15

. Being an entrepreneur

19:17

and giving jobs and

19:19

just creating all that compared

19:22

to yeah , believe

19:24

it or not just creating

19:26

a purchase order or calling your purchasing

19:29

guy overseas

19:32

, that

19:35

would be really just moving what

19:37

you're doing with

19:39

Goldman Sachs . Same

19:42

thing , same thing , man , just

19:45

different avenue , but pretty much

19:47

the same thing . And then , ultimately

19:49

, you know , would

19:51

you be helping out other people ? Would you be helping

19:53

out the community ? Would you be helping out people

19:57

in your state ?

19:57

No , and would you be building a

19:59

sustainable , competitive business

20:01

right ? I mean , it's like you know

20:04

, I did it in an industry where I know I

20:06

can , you know , always

20:08

be competitive and you

20:11

know I picked my products in

20:13

ways that I knew that I was not going to be have

20:15

to worry about the overseas labor

20:18

undercutting me . And I

20:20

think that the reality is that

20:22

that people don't understand is , if you actually looked

20:24

at the product

20:27

cost of a lot of the things that are made

20:29

sorry , the labor costs that are as

20:31

part of the cost of a lot of the products that are

20:33

made the labor cost is actually very small

20:36

. It's like that's the excuse

20:38

that's given to say , hey , I'm going

20:40

to outsource this for cheaper labor , I'm going to outsource this for cheaper

20:42

labor . But there

20:44

are a lot of products where I think you actually can

20:46

make them cheaper here in the US

20:48

if you put in the investment and put in the work

20:50

. But people

20:53

just end up taking the easy

20:55

way out . But I think if you're willing to put

20:57

in the work , you can be rewarded for it , and

20:59

I think that I'm an example of that .

21:02

Now David , how long did it take you to

21:05

go from zero to the $280

21:08

million corporation ?

21:11

So it took me eight

21:14

years , from 2012 to 2020

21:17

, to go from zero to $70

21:19

million , and

21:22

that was , I mean , obviously , $

21:24

million . It's not a small business , but that

21:26

was a real , that was a real slog

21:28

, um , as a real like fist

21:30

fight to to get there . Um

21:33

, and you know , I chose a business and when you're in manufacturing

21:35

, you really need scale

21:38

to be able to make money . Unfortunately

21:40

, and , um , I I kind of realized that

21:42

early on , so I was pushing , pushing , pushing for scale

21:44

, um , and so that

21:46

first 70 million was a real

21:48

fight . I mean , it took me probably

21:50

five years to get to

21:53

35 million and then

21:55

, you know , three years go from 35

21:57

to 70 . Then COVID

21:59

happened , and COVID

22:02

was a real decision point for us because

22:04

we were only in Alabama

22:06

at the time and I

22:09

realized , for various reasons , that I

22:11

needed to be geographically diversified

22:14

if I wanted to be competitive and do

22:16

what I was doing . And in May 2020

22:19

, I took the leap of faith and opened a

22:21

manufacturing facility in Ogden

22:23

, utah , in the middle of the , in the height of

22:25

the pandemic , and

22:28

you know , that really changed the trajectory

22:30

of our business and we were able to basically double

22:32

in a year to go from 70

22:35

to almost 150 million , you

22:38

know , in 2021 . And

22:40

then we were able to kind of keep

22:43

growing past that to get to 250

22:45

or so last year . But

22:47

COVID was a huge tailwind for us . But

22:50

the thing that I remind people

22:52

on that is

22:54

, you know , I use

22:58

COVID to , as I

23:00

could have just raised my prices

23:03

and kind of hunkered down

23:05

and made a lot of money during COVID

23:07

, which is what most businesses that

23:10

were in this situation did not take

23:12

any risk , not go out and build anything

23:14

new . But rather than doing that

23:16

, I saw the opportunity and

23:18

I basically went all in on

23:21

my business and all in on expanding

23:23

it to be able to harness

23:26

that kind of one-time demand

23:29

. And a lot of people told me I was crazy because

23:31

, like , who is out there opening a manufacturing

23:33

facility in May of 2020 ? I'm

23:36

probably one of the only people that

23:39

actually did that . But

23:42

that was the decision ultimately . That led

23:44

us to where we are today . I mean , it certainly

23:46

got us a five-year head start

23:48

versus where we would have been otherwise .

23:52

Now you talked

23:54

about scaling . Now

23:56

this is something

23:59

that you're rare man . Usually people

24:01

take on investors . Usually people

24:03

dilute their ownership , looking

24:06

for growth . You went the

24:08

other way and to this day , even

24:11

at the beginning , you haven't said you wanted to

24:14

find anybody , any money , to

24:16

help you fuel your growth . Why

24:18

is that ?

24:22

Well , I'm an independent person and I

24:24

I . I enjoy I would not

24:26

enjoy doing this if I had to answer um

24:29

to somebody else on every decision I made . I mean

24:31

that that would take the fun out of it for me and

24:33

I don't actually recommend that for most people . I don't

24:35

think that that's . That's not actually advice

24:37

, Um , it's just . It's

24:39

just what works for me , um , and

24:41

that's the honest truth . Like I wouldn't , I wouldn't

24:43

enjoy it if I was , if I was doing it for somebody else

24:45

, um , I think

24:48

that people really need

24:50

to understand their business and their

24:52

business model , um , before

24:56

they really think about

24:58

scaling . And , like you

25:00

know , I one

25:03

of the secrets to how I've been able to do

25:05

it is , you know

25:07

, I'm in a like most e-commerce

25:09

businesses are very inventory heavy , which

25:12

means that they're very cash heavy

25:14

. So if you're doing like the traditional import

25:16

from China type business model

25:19

for your products you've got 45

25:21

days on the water overseas Then you've

25:23

got to have enough in inventory that you don't

25:25

run out of stock . You got to have it through all

25:27

your distribution centers , all this kind of stuff , so you

25:29

end up and then as you grow , you

25:32

have to grow your inventory

25:34

. So you're constantly putting cash

25:36

into that business and that's

25:38

why a lot of these e-commerce entrepreneurs that

25:40

maybe follow your course for 40 grand or

25:42

whatever . They say oh , I'm going to go and make , make

25:44

money as doing this e-commerce thing

25:46

and it looks good on paper , Um

25:49

, but then when you have to pay for your inventory

25:51

and you have to pay the tax man , you , you

25:53

realize that you don't have any cash . Um

25:55

, and that happens to so many of these

25:57

businesses . Um

25:59

, and you know , I

26:02

, my , my model is such

26:04

that , um , you know , we make all of our own

26:06

products . We keep in our whole

26:08

system . We keep less

26:10

than two weeks of finished goods inventory

26:12

because we're able to , but we

26:14

keep a lot of raw material because we're able to convert

26:16

that very quickly to

26:19

finished goods inventory that's sellable

26:21

. So we basically never run out and

26:25

we have a model that's very cash efficient

26:28

and that is

26:30

how I've been able to scale an e-commerce

26:32

business as big as I

26:34

have without outside capital , whereas

26:37

most traditional e-commerce businesses

26:39

that follow the traditional model , that are inventory

26:41

heavy , have overseas manufacturers and this kind

26:43

of stuff , are just cash

26:46

sucks and a lot of people enter

26:48

into these businesses and are surprised

26:50

by that . But early on I had that kind

26:53

of recognition and

26:55

it's why I took the path that I did .

26:58

Well , also taking the path that you

27:00

did , you

27:02

don't have to answer to anybody , man , everybody

27:06

has to usually answer to someone . Me

27:09

, I own franchises . I

27:12

had these illusions

27:14

, or maybe illusions that I worked for myself

27:17

. No , I had to answer to

27:19

a corporate , no different than if I was working

27:22

back at Edward Jones

27:24

, being a financial advisor or any

27:26

other job in corporate America . And

27:29

ultimately , yeah , I

27:31

would have to praise you for that , in

27:34

the sense that you created

27:36

your own course . You didn't

27:38

have to answer to anybody People , always

27:41

. I also believe that people

27:43

love hearing the word investors and

27:45

bringing on capital . They

27:47

think it's sexy .

27:48

they they don't understand that there's a price

27:50

to pay that like what you , you

27:53

have to answer and to me it sounds

27:55

miserable because it's like like , hey , if

27:57

you want to go out , maybe you make a mistake or or

27:59

maybe you have a big decision , like the covid decision

28:01

, right ? Um , like everybody

28:04

around me was telling me you

28:07

oh , you should calm down , you should see what's going to

28:09

happen with all this . Let it play out . You don't

28:11

want to take too much risk , like everybody

28:13

. You know everybody well-meaning

28:16

says that kind of stuff , but

28:18

I knew in my heart what the right

28:20

decision was and I went for it . And

28:23

if you had investors and they're

28:25

telling you that- then you're really in

28:28

a position . You don't have a choice but to listen to

28:30

them because it's their money , right

28:32

, and it keeps you from being able to actually

28:34

make those decisions as an entrepreneur

28:37

and you

28:39

know , I'd rather be smaller

28:41

and control my own destiny than

28:43

you know , go bigger

28:45

and have to answer to somebody else . I mean , that's just how I

28:47

look at it amen

28:50

to that man .

28:51

But also when you spoke about

28:53

covid corona , whatever we want to call it , the

28:56

chinese flu , like what our president

28:58

would call it , dude you . You

29:00

didn't use emotions . A

29:03

lot of people had that knee jerk you

29:06

went business

29:08

should never be , decisions should never

29:11

be based on emotions , and you did

29:13

that . Most people the

29:16

ones that contracted were

29:18

just folded up was a lot of

29:20

emotional , a lot of irrational

29:23

, a lot of hysteria . You don't remember

29:25

back then ? I mean , I

29:35

remember I was knee deep in being an entrepreneur . This is the new world

29:37

. It'll never be back to what it ever was . Remember that Everybody

29:39

was saying that .

29:40

I bought into it for a couple of days , you know , and I felt

29:42

sorry for myself and I thought , um

29:45

, I thought , wow , you know , I was walking

29:47

around new york city . It was a ghost town . I've never seen

29:49

anything like it . It was like it was the the

29:51

you know , craziest experience

29:53

of my life , and I'm sure a lot of people feel the same . But

29:55

I started , I started asking myself the question . I was like

29:58

, um , you know , like

30:01

, is it realistic that

30:03

we're just going to be shut down

30:05

forever , or realistic that we're going

30:07

to , like society

30:09

is just going to completely realign and all

30:12

of this and how , how we

30:14

do everything is just overnight , going to

30:16

completely change . And I just

30:18

said to myself , it just seems incredibly

30:21

unrealistic that , like

30:23

people are going to , we're going to one way or another

30:25

, we're going to gonna have to get through this , and

30:27

I want to be standing on the other side of it

30:29

and so I started I

30:31

started taking the actions and I was like um

30:34

, you know , it's ultimately

30:36

, when I bought my private plane , to be honest with

30:38

you , like I , I , um , this is out

30:40

of necessity , because I couldn't travel around

30:42

in the way I needed to , and I was like , well , I , well , I'm

30:44

going to , I'm going to go out here and and

30:47

make it happen . Um and

30:50

um , you know , I started

30:52

taking action and I think , having a strong

30:54

bias to action , um has

30:56

served me well and if you're an entrepreneur , um

30:59

, you have to be fueled by that .

31:01

Well , when it came to traveling the one thing on

31:03

Corona , I loved it because

31:06

I was lifetime gold or , at

31:08

the time , platinum , so they would always upgrade

31:10

me since the planes were empty . So

31:13

you know , you could all . You were always

31:16

drinking or eating something

31:18

so you didn't have to wear a mask in first class

31:20

. But you know , whenever you're in steerage

31:22

, whenever I didn't get

31:24

it upgraded , man , it was the only time

31:26

of my life I loved eating jelly beans

31:29

, one

31:31

at a time , because just

31:33

everything was just no

31:36

logic behind it , man . But you're right , when

31:38

I saw those videos of like the LA

31:41

, the Vegas Strip being like a

31:43

ghost town , and New

31:45

York city , and everybody's like this

31:47

is the new norm . And this is the new norm

31:49

? Yeah , for a split second I'm like I

31:51

hope these people aren't right , man . But

31:55

just to see , you know , overnight

31:57

we , we got our heads out

32:00

of our butts and realize you know everything

32:02

. You know a lot of illogical

32:05

decisions that everybody was

32:07

making , and it wasn't one party , it was literally

32:09

everybody was making . So

32:12

, man , was

32:14

there a time . I know there was a

32:16

time , but what was that time ? At

32:19

the very beginning , any startup that

32:22

you're like , man , did I make the

32:24

right decision ? What

32:29

am I doing here , new York ? Why did I leave ? What's going on

32:31

here and how did you pivot from

32:34

that ?

32:36

Yeah , I mean , it was a rough go of

32:38

it for me in the beginning and

32:41

you know I most people

32:43

would not have made it and you know

32:45

I , I most people would

32:47

not have made it , um

32:51

, but the real kind of turning point for me came about two and a half years in . Actually

32:53

, I've been , I've been at it for two and a half years and struggling , um , because manufacturing

32:56

air filters at scale

32:58

was way more difficult than

33:01

I realized when I got

33:03

into the process . I really was naive

33:06

and didn't know what I was doing . And

33:08

about two and a half years in , it was

33:10

May of 2015

33:13

. I

33:15

remember it like it was yesterday . But , like in Alabama

33:18

we talked about Alabama in May

33:21

it starts to get very humid . It's a very humid

33:23

time of year .

33:25

Everywhere in the shop . Yeah .

33:29

Anyways , the first part of the

33:32

manufacturing process for an air

33:34

filter is what they call the laminating process and basically

33:36

you use glue , you put it

33:38

on some wire that goes on the media that ultimately

33:41

gives the filter rigidity

33:44

. Anyways , I had bought

33:47

what's called a cold glue laminator

33:49

, so basically using like equivalent of elmer's

33:51

glue um , that then has to dry

33:53

before it gets on the other side of the roll , whatever

33:56

and um , we

33:58

that may . Basically , um

34:00

, two-thirds of our media was

34:03

useless , which is like that's like the core

34:05

raw material that goes into your pure filter

34:07

. Two-thirds of our media was

34:09

being wasted because it was

34:11

not drying and it was all

34:14

getting stuck together and we

34:16

couldn't make any product . And I was hemorrhaging money

34:18

and

34:20

I had like $150,000

34:23

left on my line of credit at

34:25

the time . I borrowed

34:27

money by that time to stay in business

34:30

and I

34:32

didn't know what I was going to do because I couldn't really make product

34:34

. We were wasting all this raw material

34:37

and by some act of God

34:39

, I found what's called a hot glue laminator

34:41

in Indiana , which

34:44

would dry way quicker because we

34:47

used hot glue rather than cold glue and

34:49

I rented a pinsky truck from

34:51

in anderson , alabama , on a thursday

34:53

afternoon . 20 foot pinsky truck , drove

34:55

it to indiana , got

34:57

trained on this new machine . On friday

35:00

morning um drove it back

35:02

to to alabama and on saturday

35:04

had us up laminating um

35:07

and it and it was working perfectly

35:09

and we were able to to kind of keep , keep going

35:11

through it all and and and

35:14

um . But that training you probably can't

35:16

see it , but I have a scar on my finger , almost cut off

35:18

my finger , training my guys that

35:21

saturday because I made a stupid mistake

35:23

, put my finger in where the wire with the wire , um

35:26

. But once I got that up and going

35:28

, that was like the turning point for the business . Like

35:30

if that , if they had not , if I could not have found that

35:32

hot glue eliminator , um and

35:34

gotten it in place , I

35:37

would have cried uncle , I would have , I would have been

35:39

out of business , I wouldn't have , wouldn't

35:41

have um , survived um . But

35:43

that was the moment where , um , you

35:45

know I did what it took and like that

35:49

was kind of like the turning point . And ever since then

35:51

, you know , we've been kind of on a positive

35:54

trajectory . But that was two and a half

35:56

years of fighting , like you

35:58

know , fighting to make stuff happen and you know that's

36:00

why , like when I've been going public about entrepreneurship

36:03

, I tell people you need at least's why , like when I've been going public

36:05

about entrepreneurship , I tell people you need at

36:07

least two years of runway in some

36:09

form if you're going to get into a new

36:11

business or entrepreneurship journey . But it's

36:13

always harder than you think it's going

36:15

to be , or then your guru tells you it's

36:17

always harder . And so if you

36:19

go in with like no extra

36:22

income or no nothing and

36:25

no one and no investors and all that

36:27

kind of stuff , then you're

36:29

in for a rude awakening more often than not . So you got

36:31

to go in prepared for that , and I get a lot

36:33

of hate when I talk about that . People are like

36:35

, oh , how can you do that ? But it's like that's

36:38

just honest advice and it's because

36:40

I didn't have enough runway when

36:42

I got into it and I was borrowing money to

36:45

be able to make it work and

36:47

that's painful . You don't want to be

36:49

in that position , and so it's just me trying

36:51

to let people know you know what

36:54

you're signing up for if you're going to go down that journey

36:57

.

36:58

Well , everybody sees the finished product and

37:00

that's why I had to ask you that question . Everybody

37:07

sees the X , y and Z and you know , oh , david's so lucky . Or you know what an overnight

37:09

success . Everybody . No , you know , in

37:11

the world of social media or in the world

37:13

, nobody likes to hear man , it took

37:16

a lot of work and , like what you said

37:18

, and anything in success , it

37:20

takes a lot longer . And

37:22

and it takes , I

37:24

mean sometimes some soul , some

37:26

deep down soul searching , and you have to ask

37:28

yourself am I doing the right thing ?

37:31

yeah , more often than not like I think , every

37:33

entrepreneur has those

37:35

types of battle scars and those types of stories

37:38

and it makes you stronger when you get through

37:40

it . But , um , I think a

37:42

lot of people are really not made to

37:45

deal with that , and I think having self-awareness

37:47

around that is important . I was made for it . I

37:49

mean , I was made for it , I'm so lucky for that

37:51

, I'm so fortunate for that . So

37:53

that's where the luck comes in . But

37:55

I think a lot of people would be better off being

37:58

self-aware , saying hey , baby , it's not for me , I

38:00

need to go be a number two or number three for an

38:02

entrepreneur and I'm going to be way happier , and

38:04

that's a perfectly great path

38:06

for most people , of course .

38:08

Yeah , because you know , if everybody believes

38:11

that story , everybody can

38:13

be an entrepreneur . No , you , you have

38:15

to have the intestinal fortitude , you have to have the mental

38:18

fortitude and you have

38:20

to . There's going to be a lot of hours

38:22

. There's going to be many holidays , oh hours . There's going to be many holidays

38:25

, oh my gosh , that you have to work and

38:27

weekends , and you know , yeah

38:29

, there's light at the end of the tunnel , but

38:32

people don't , don't see that it's

38:34

like , oh my gosh , you worked on . I

38:37

remember , oh , it's your birthday and you're here

38:39

. Well , I'm not 10 . I

38:42

think mom was taking me to Chuck E

38:44

Cheese .

38:44

Yeah

38:47

, I mean , and people also have to learn

38:49

that it takes time and patience . I mean

38:52

it is hard , like I'm not I'm the least

38:54

patient person you'll meet but , like in the macro

38:56

, I'm very patient because I have the recognition

38:58

that you know big things take time

39:00

and people you know want that instant

39:02

gratification and you know two

39:04

years is not a long time . So when I say you need

39:06

two years of runway to stick out

39:09

, that's not a long time in the grand

39:11

scheme of things . You've got to be prepared for that .

39:14

Now David Filter Buy . Is

39:16

it 100% e-commerce or is there

39:19

stores , retail

39:22

stores located across the country for

39:24

your product ?

39:26

Yeah , so we started out 100% e-commerce

39:28

. So , like , filterbuycom and Amazon

39:30

were our two biggest sales channels . They still

39:33

are our two biggest sales channels today

39:35

, but we're now in

39:37

550 Walmarts across

39:39

the country and

39:41

adding some other retailers this year , and

39:44

one of our highest growth businesses is actually

39:47

our business-to-business segment . You

39:49

know where we sell to hospitals , hotels

39:51

, gyms , you know basically any

39:53

building that moves air needs air coasters

39:56

, and so we have

39:58

a team of about 30 outside salespeople

40:01

across the country in different

40:03

regions that basically call on those types

40:05

of business segments and so , yeah

40:08

, basically it's direct-to-consumer retail and

40:10

B2B . We also have an HVAC service

40:12

business here in Pompano that

40:15

would service you if you need to . I would suggest

40:17

for you $1 care plan , $1

40:20

a month . We're running a special . I think we'll

40:22

give you like $200 of value over the next

40:24

year for a dollar a month . Start

40:26

taking care of your HVAC system . But

40:29

that's kind of . My next project is to build a nationwide

40:31

HVAC service business on top of our

40:33

air filter business , and that's really where

40:35

I'm spending more and more of my time .

40:37

Well , you know , you can always plug that and promote it

40:40

because , yes

40:42

, it's global , the podcast , but

40:44

the number one downloads is

40:46

in South Florida .

40:50

Filtered by HVAC Solutions . We serve

40:52

Miami up to Port St Lucie and

40:56

that's really like you get . If you

40:58

do like we get great reviews

41:00

, you can go look at it . But

41:02

this is our guinea pig location

41:05

. We're really figuring out how to to

41:07

perfect this , this service , to

41:09

take it out nationwide . I actually intend to

41:11

um either partner or acquire

41:13

other hvac service businesses

41:15

to to scale this throughout the country . That's real

41:18

big reason I'm going so public I'm I'm

41:20

um looking for other um hv

41:22

entrepreneurs that believe

41:25

in this and want to partner to

41:27

take it nationwide . But

41:30

in South Florida right now you get

41:32

great service because we're figuring

41:34

it out , so we're over delivering on everything

41:37

that we do down here in South Florida

41:39

.

41:39

And you're speaking to the owner . I

41:42

mean directly Look at this , you , you're

41:44

hearing him , I'm speaking on , but you're

41:46

, you're listening on . I I mean

41:48

, what a reputable guy , dude . I , I would

41:50

, I'm , I'm for sure , I

41:52

would for sure use the service now

41:55

. But also

41:57

you can buy it on amazon or filter

41:59

filter . Yeah , if you just need air filters , then you

42:02

know anywhere in the us .

42:03

I mean , you know we definitely

42:05

have your size Most of the time . You get it next

42:07

day direct from one of our

42:09

manufacturing facilities . So you

42:11

know we're the largest in that game .

42:15

Yeah , and always use the right one , because for like the

42:17

past six months , I've been using the wrong size

42:19

, so you have like

42:21

the air gap .

42:21

Yeah , yeah . So

42:25

then the air is getting around it . It's not really filtering

42:27

it .

42:28

Yes , you

42:30

sounded like the AC guy and

42:32

I'm like , well , I thought that was the right size .

42:34

It's kind of my business .

42:38

I know I'm not the only one . I'm sure there's plenty

42:40

of people out there , man , that have that it

42:42

fits .

42:43

But a lot of times people do that because you go to a store

42:45

and they don't have your size . They only have a few major

42:47

sizes where you know we manufacture 300

42:50

different sizes and then , if we don't have

42:52

your exact size , you can order a custom and

42:54

we'll cut and cap it to exact dimensions

42:56

that you specify and still ship

42:58

it to you next day . So

43:00

that's what we do , that's why we have the business , Whereas

43:03

, like a Walmart , you know has

43:05

a lot of sizes , but then you have 20 sizes max

43:07

and we have over 300 .

43:18

In reality .

43:19

There are so many sizes in use in people's homes . Yeah , but we'd

43:21

prefer to buy it off of your website , Filterbuycom .

43:33

And it shows direct to you .

43:34

Yeah , man the Wall family you know , they and I all Arkansas University you know

43:36

the Razorbacks .

43:36

They don't need any money . They're doing okay , just a little . They're

43:38

okay . The family's doing okay . I believe they

43:40

can survive off . You know , losing

43:42

market share to you , no-transcript

43:49

.

43:50

Well , you know , filterbuy

43:53

is on a mission to build the world's leading indoor air quality

43:55

company . I mean , that's our stated mission and

43:58

you know , I think that a

44:00

big aspect of that is going to be the service that

44:02

we just talked about . You know , the HVAC

44:05

service business is , you know , depending

44:07

on how you look at it , a $30 to

44:09

$50 billion a year industry . There

44:12

is no nationwide HVAC service business . There

44:14

is a very fragment , fragmented um

44:17

industry . There's been a lot of private equity involvement

44:19

in it . That , um , you know , I think

44:21

it's had some negative effects on it . And

44:24

um , you know , to build the world's

44:26

leading indoor air quality company . Um

44:28

, you know , I think that a big portion of

44:30

that is figuring out the service part , part

44:32

of the business , and that's why that's where we're

44:34

kind of investing . And so , um , you know

44:37

, we're going to continue to grow , um

44:39

, you know , market share in our direct to consumer

44:41

business and , and , um

44:43

, probably more meaningfully so , in our business

44:45

to business segment that we talked about before . Um

44:48

, but then the HVAC service business

44:50

, I think it's going to be our biggest growth engine and

44:53

you know , I'm on , you know

44:55

, track to build it into a

44:57

billion dollar or so business in the next . You

44:59

know , seven to 10 years , if I had to guess , and then

45:02

we'll see where we go from there .

45:05

Now are you available for one-on-ones

45:07

or small groups ? Because , man , you

45:10

actually do know how to scale

45:12

. Scale unlike most

45:14

people speak and teach

45:16

on theories on how to scale yeah

45:18

, that's something I've done , any of , I mean , and

45:21

I've , I've .

45:21

I promise you , like I don't have a course to sell

45:23

you and I'm not , I'm never going down

45:25

that I know you don't , but I'm just

45:27

saying that . That that's not my that's

45:30

. Could you see yourself doing that ? What

45:33

I'm really interested in is

45:35

answer is yes , I enjoy teaching

45:37

and I would encourage you

45:39

or anybody to go to my YouTube channel

45:41

. I'm just David Filterby on YouTube and

45:43

my team and I are spending a lot of energy

45:46

into that . We just launched in October but

45:50

we're going to really pivot to more and more teaching

45:52

and I also actually

45:55

I think we just launched the website officially today but Filter

45:58

by Ventures , which is filterbyventurescom

46:00

is like

46:02

that's my holding company that

46:04

are in businesses

46:06

that I understand that

46:15

I maybe can impact and help to use , you know

46:17

, my both distribution

46:19

and knowledge to really amplify

46:22

and do it , you know , as partners and

46:24

so like that is really where I

46:27

hope to spend more of my time and

46:29

mentor people through that . And

46:32

you know , in ways that if

46:34

you're in the HVAC service business or if you're in the logistics

46:37

business that I understand well , or like more remediation

46:39

businesses , you know I'm very

46:42

interested in investing and

46:44

, you know , buying pieces

46:47

of these businesses and partnering with

46:49

other entrepreneurs to

46:51

really grow them

46:53

in a meaningful way , and that's really

46:55

where I want to spend more and more of my time

46:57

and I think that that will entail

46:59

more teaching and this kind of

47:01

stuff that I want to do . I want to do it through that vehicle

47:04

, if that makes sense .

47:05

Well , not only that vehicle , but just you speaking

47:07

about your YouTube channel . I

47:09

think I would get more value out

47:12

of that than spending

47:15

going into debt like $100,000

47:18

, $200,000 .

47:19

Yeah , 100% . And that's where my goal , like

47:21

really the last few months , we've been

47:23

about kind of establishing

47:26

who I am . So you can go and see like I've talked about

47:28

all this stuff in the story . You can see me

47:30

going around to all our manufacturing facilities and

47:32

we've documented a lot of that stuff to kind

47:34

of introduce who I am and hopefully

47:36

give some credibility . But

47:39

what you're going to see over the coming months is we're

47:41

really moving into teaching mode , where I want

47:43

to do I really want to teach around each

47:46

of these things like cash flow management . We kind of talked about

47:48

it before . I've kind of been working on a video

47:50

about that because I think it's such

47:52

an important subject that

47:54

is very misunderstood . I

47:57

just filmed a video on negotiation that

47:59

I think is very important . But

48:01

I'm going to do more and more of that . Like

48:11

every week I'm going to 11 am

48:13

, I go live on YouTube

48:15

and do a Q&A and

48:18

I answer questions for an hour and

48:21

basically no question is off limits If

48:24

you have a business question . We're

48:26

actually changing the format a little bit . Tomorrow I

48:28

think we're gonna do productivity

48:31

as a theme tomorrow . Then every week we're gonna to

48:33

pick a different theme . But

48:35

it's something that I actually enjoy

48:37

and I encourage people to

48:39

log on at 11 am on Eastern

48:41

on Fridays and ask questions . And

48:44

you know I've answered questions all types of business

48:46

questions and

48:48

try to use my experience to frame

48:50

it . So you know

48:52

I enjoy the teaching aspect of it .

48:55

Well , david , the best part about that is

48:57

I mean , man

48:59

, talk about a tool . This is like

49:02

YouTube , social media . These

49:04

are all tools . People don't see it as that

49:06

because you know , they're watching YouTube

49:08

videos of like squirrels water

49:11

skiing or two guys hitting each other

49:14

in the nuts , or watching TikTok

49:16

videos of women dancing

49:18

, and I mean you

49:20

could literally talk

49:23

about rocket fuel . How

49:25

to become a better CEO

49:27

, how to be an entrepreneur , how to

49:29

be a leader than the boss

49:32

by watching free content

49:34

, your content .

49:38

Well , that's what I hope comes

49:41

of it all . You know , I mean , it's definitely hard

49:43

to break out in , you know , 2025

49:46

. It's definitely a more crowded space than

49:48

it used to be , and so you have a lot

49:51

of people that are competing for attention and

49:53

it's hard to know who's

49:55

the charlatan and who's the real deal . I think , and

49:58

, you know , I hope to

50:01

be an example of perhaps

50:03

a different way of thinking than your traditional

50:05

social media guru . I mean , like

50:07

that , that's really how I think about what

50:10

I'm doing . Um , you know , I've

50:12

consumed a lot of this content out of curiosity

50:14

and I see so many um , you

50:17

know so much . I don't want to say bad advice

50:19

, but misleading advice . I think out there , um

50:22

, and you know I really kind

50:24

of um want to be

50:26

the antidote to that and

50:28

and um . So I think , if this works

50:30

, if this works well , that that , that the

50:32

the

50:35

epitaph on it , more or less , but we'll see .

50:37

Well , the charlatans are easy to spot

50:39

, man , and the gurus , because

50:41

the number one thing people should ask

50:44

is do

50:46

you really own a business ? Do you know how to operate

50:49

? Like I would go , I

50:51

would look at your content . Like

50:56

I would go , I would look at your content , you know how to scale . A lot of times , though , people just want

50:58

, they want information , but they get the wrong

51:00

information . It's like if we wanted

51:02

to fly , we're

51:04

, you have a plane , so we're like , we're going

51:06

to vegas . We

51:09

don't get somebody with experience . We , we get somebody

51:11

that , yeah , you know , I've had 20,000

51:14

hours in a flight simulator , never

51:16

really flown , never

51:19

owned a plane , but , man , I'm

51:21

really good at it . Is that the person you

51:23

want flying your plane ?

51:25

No , no , I think that's a good analogy and

51:27

you're right , I mean . That's why I think that

51:29

the competitive advantage I have in the

51:31

social space and time will tell is

51:33

that I built a business to $250

51:36

million a year with zero social media presence

51:38

. You couldn't have Googled me six months ago

51:40

and found anything . I

51:42

literally was not on Instagram , not on Facebook

51:45

, nothing , not a picture

51:47

on the internet . And

51:49

I'm not doing this now because I need

51:52

the channel

51:54

to make money , but

51:57

I'm doing it because I have a much bigger purpose

51:59

now for why I'm doing it .

52:01

No , definitely , definitely , man , and

52:03

thank you because

52:05

you are in service , because a lot

52:07

of people could have just packed

52:10

it up and said , hey , you know what ? I

52:12

don't need to be teaching people , I don't need to be doing

52:14

any of this . I made it , man

52:16

, nobody helped me , but you want

52:19

to show , you want to teach other

52:21

people how to fish , which

52:23

is valuable , man . You're

52:25

changing people's lives , you're

52:28

changing their legacies .

52:30

I want people to go out and find a meaningful

52:32

purpose and really

52:34

a meaningful vision that they can devote else's

52:37

dream . And you do that through

52:55

envy , right ? Because you envy , like , oh

52:58

, what other people have . And really

53:00

I think people would be better

53:02

suited to figuring out what their own dream

53:04

is and chasing that relentlessly . And

53:06

I think that that's something that I have done very

53:09

well and I'm very fortunate for , and

53:11

that is the gift that I would like to give to

53:13

anyone . And I think that

53:15

helping people to figure that out for themselves

53:18

is , you know , something

53:20

that's worth me devoting my

53:22

time to .

53:25

Amen , david . Here's

53:27

probably the final question

53:29

, but I know you'll have an amazing answer

53:31

. What would you tell that entrepreneur

53:34

? He's got that three mile stare

53:36

. It's been into business six

53:38

, seven , eight months , doesn't see he's

53:42

bleeding out or he might be , if

53:44

he's lucky , breaking even and

53:46

he just feels like I

53:49

don't know what to do . I

53:51

don't know if this is me , I don't

53:53

know if I'm on the right path . What

53:55

words of wisdom would you give that person ?

53:58

Yeah , it really comes back to what I was just saying and

54:00

I repeat this often , but it's just so

54:02

true to me is people consistently

54:05

overestimate what they can do in a year and

54:07

underestimate what they can do in a decade . And

54:11

you know , six months is not

54:13

a long time . But the thing that you have to have

54:15

before you get into anything and if you're six

54:17

months and you're struggling and you don't have this yet you

54:20

got to do some soul searching and figure it out is

54:22

what are you really working towards on

54:24

that 10-year horizon , like , what is your

54:26

vision for your life on a 10-year horizon

54:29

? And then that becomes

54:31

a forcing mechanism for , like , if you're on the right

54:33

path or not , because every decision you make is

54:35

consistent with that longer term vision

54:38

. But you have to have that longer term vision combined

54:40

with patience , because it takes time

54:42

and six months is just not a long time

54:44

. So , you know , reminding yourself

54:47

that you can , that you are probably

54:49

overestimating what you can do in a year , but

54:51

underestimate what you can do in a decade and

54:53

just have the faith in that

54:56

. But you have to combine

54:58

that with a consistent long-term vision . You can't be changing

55:00

from one thing to another every six

55:02

months , because that's a path to failure and

55:04

that's why I encourage young people to

55:07

really get that experience and that clarity before

55:10

they embark on something , because once

55:12

you have a clarity of vision that you're

55:14

going to , that's worth it to

55:16

you . Like , when you get into that six month lull that

55:18

you just described , because you

55:20

had that clarity , you're going to stick with it

55:23

, because you have a

55:25

larger purpose that you're working towards

55:27

.

55:28

Thank you , David Heacock

55:31

, founder and CEO of Filter

55:33

Buy . Buy his products filterbuycom

55:36

. Where else can we find

55:38

you ?

55:48

David's Filter Buy everywhere , and I would actually

55:50

I'd love for you

55:52

know , share it with your friends and show up to my Q and

55:54

a ? Um every Friday

55:57

at 11 AM . Um , really on

55:59

all the platforms but YouTube or Instagram . Um

56:01

, but that , that , that would that

56:03

. That's really what I'm looking for people to do to

56:05

expand my reach .

56:07

And central 10 AM . Central we

56:10

know , personal and business

56:12

development , that central time , the Louisiana

56:15

, the Alabama , oh okay , I'll

56:17

start doing that .

56:19

11 Eastern , 10 am Central .

56:21

Well , no , I'm just saying they need it , man . They're

56:24

the first ones that I mean . I

56:26

love our region , but they're like

56:28

more , they're like so

56:30

, what's War

56:33

Eagle going to do ? What's auburn gonna do ? What's

56:36

lsu football gonna do ? What

56:38

are you gonna do with your life , man ? Let's

56:40

focus on that first . You

56:42

know they always have the . They always

56:45

have it the opposite way around , man . But

56:47

hey , I love it . Thank

56:49

you , david , for the opportunity

56:52

. Man , you , I

56:54

can speak to you on and on , but I

56:56

know you're a busy man and we live in a tick tock

56:58

society where you know and

57:01

ours like pushing it . But thank you for the

57:03

time , thank you for the opportunity . I

57:06

won't be on tomorrow , but I'll definitely

57:08

be on future . 11

57:11

am . Q&a is because I just want

57:13

to hear your answers , man , because I know you've

57:15

got plenty .

57:17

Yeah , and we leave them up on YouTube so you can go back and

57:19

you can go and watch hours of

57:21

them if you like . Thank you

57:23

, I appreciate it .

57:24

To me that's a real MBA man . That's

57:28

rocket fuel for your company , way more

57:31

than going to pay

57:33

a guru or trying to get an MBA . Thank you for your company way more than you know going

57:35

to pay a guru or trying to get an mba . Thank you for your time , brother .

57:37

Have an amazing night thank you , you

57:39

too I

57:54

was trapped inside that prison all for a

57:56

long time . To make it happen

57:58

. You gotta take action . Just

58:01

imagine what if it did work

58:03

.