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How a Broke YouTuber Invented $4 Billion Business After Being Rejected 40 Times…

In 2012, Jack Conte and his wife, Nataly Dawn, were known as the indie band called Pomplamoose. They were bringing in roughly $400,000 per year in revenue from tour dates, merch, and on ads viewed by their 1.5M followers on their YouTube channel.

 

But then a mental breakdown a few years ago changed all of that…

After spending three months producing an elaborate music video for their song “Pedals, (it’s pretty impressive for a self-production). But the production came at the heavy cost of maxing out all of Jack and Nataly’s credit cards.

The Conte’s sunk their life savings into making the video popular on YouTube. So far the video has 2.3M views, but the confused couple received almost nothing for their efforts from YouTube…

They spent $10,000 and three months to make just the 1 video go viral on YouTube. He soon realized that, even though he receives an average of one million viewers on his YouTube videos, he’d only make $160 in ad revenue. Kind of a shitty reward for the time and effort they were putting in.

Jack knew there had to be a better way…

So he came up with an idea for creators to get compensated directly from their fans and cut out the middle man.

That’s how he came up with the idea of launching Patreon. He sent a sketch of his idea to his former college roommate, an engineer, who started coding for it that night. They launched soon after, with Jack being Patreon’s first official creator. Within two weeks, he was making six figures…

 

Wait, What is Patreon?

Basically it’s a membership platform that helps creators to get paid. Creators perform an artistic service and return, their fans and supporters (aka patrons) use Patreon to support them by means of payments. This way, creators can spend more time creating content instead of looking for funding.

There’s a few business models that content creators can use on this crowdfunding/membership platform.

 

Patreon’s Business Model Enables Creators to Charge For:

  • Community (monthly memberships)
  • Educational subscriptions
  • Gated premium content
  • Pay-what-you-can donations

 

Jack founded Patreon in 2013, today they have 3 million monthly active patrons generating $100M+ per month on the platform.

At one point for example, author and psychologist Jordan Peterson, was said to be making over $70k per month on the platform just in donations alone.

Patreon currently takes between 5% and 12% of creator earnings (plus a payment processing fee). The pandemic helped increase revenue with over 30,000 creators flocking to the site within the first few weeks of the pandemic. Videos and podcasts are the biggest categories on the site.

Along with all their success, the company is facing an intense amount of competition coming from Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, Only Fans, Substack, and Clubhouse (is that thing still alive?).  It seems every platform these days is doing their best to lure creators by allowing everyone to make money versus just the big creatives.

But for now, Patreon has proven their business model helping participants in the creator economy to get paid more. The result of the couple’s efforts so far has resulted in an estimated $8 million in cash.

The companies’ market valuation is currently hovering at $4billion. Which is a pretty awesome accomplishment that a broken husband fed up YouTube created a rival platform that turned him into a millionaire.

#boss…

 

 

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

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Advice Branding Entrepreneurship Growth Marketing

“7 Effective Marketing Strategies for 2022” – Adam Erhart

Did you know that only 9% of b2b companies rate their digital promotional efforts as highly effective? So chances are that’s you (and me, and everyone else too for that matter)…

So than what do we do when our marketing isn’t working? When no one is clicking our stuff, liking our posts? Just crickets…

According to marketing expert Adam Erhart, 90% of businesses ARE NOT posting near enough content (what he calls the minimum effective dose to trigger the algorithms) for anyone to notice.

Don’t you skip this part, it’s way more important than you think.

Erhart explains that most businesses dabble in too many things and totally fail to find their sweet spot online.

Here’s why….

 

In a recent video, Adam Erhart breaks down where most businesses fail online and covers 7 effective strategies to finally take your online presence by storm in 2022 (or skim the full summary below for the highlights).

 

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Adam Erhart’s 7 Effective Marketing Strategies for 2022

 

#1 Most Businesses Don’t Post the Minimum Effective Dose:

When competing online, you’re not simply competing against your competitors, or even simply inside your industry for that matter. Instead, you’re competing with Youtubers, Twitter, CNN, Fox, Disney, Pandora, and millions of other sources of content distractions all fighting for the same attention.

So like Adam mentioned, as simple as it sounds, 90% of b2b businesses simply aren’t creating enough content on one single platform to stand out from anything else. A couple posts a week isn’t going to cut it.

Not even close…

Most companies “try social” or will spend $100 on ads and won’t see any sales and thus conclude…”the platform doesn’t work.” Spoiler alert, it doesn’t work that way.

If you’re not standing out, it’s almost always the case that you haven’t created enough content or a minimum effective dose to stand out on a particular app (let alone all of them). This is where 90% simply fail.

 

#2 The Marketing Rule of 7

Okay, so then how much content and how many touch points does it take to stay in front of someone long enough to get them to buy?

Fair question…That’s where Adam’s “rule of 7” comes into place.

The rule of seven works roughly like this; if your product is inexpensive, say $1-$20. You will likely have to get someone to see your message 7 times before they will open their wallet to grab their credit card. Higher ticket item? Plan on 14 or 21 touch points.

The higher the ticket price the more times you will likely need to be in front of your prospect. Just like a sales person doesn’t close someone usually on the first call, it’s even harder for a marketing message to close a sale to cold traffic post.

The average digital touchpoint to close a sale online is typically between 17-29 touch points!

That’s why volume is so important and again why 90% of companies are not producing enough.

But it’s admittedly a bit more complicated than just social posts, you will most likely need to create a subscription to create what Adam calls the “Mere Exposure Effect”.

 

Here’s what that means…

 

#3 The Mere Exposure Effect Explained…

The mere exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon where people develop a preference for things that are more familiar to them than others. Repeated exposure increases familiarity.

In short, it’s the familiarity effect. The more often people are exposed to your brand the more they will trust you and willing to buy from you (or recommend you to others).

  1. Post enough to reach a minimum effective dose.
  2. Keep increasing the volume until you see results.
  3. Implement the rule of seven until you discover how many touch points it takes to generate a lead.

The most effective way to get to the rule of seven is by getting your customer to join your communication list (email, newsletter, podcast, youtube).

Then finally continue to nurture them to create the Mere Exposure Effect.

 

#4 Go Deep on a Subject, Not Broad

Rule #4 is short and sweet. There’s billions of people on the planet, you can’t and don’t want to serve them all.

In fact, the broader your content, the easier it is to fail.

Instead, focus on making better connections with fewer people. The easiest way to do that is to find people that see the world the same way as you and who have the same goals.

Find them by sharing your beliefs and values in your content. Share your story of how you overcame the gist hurtle your customer is experiencing (as it relates to your product or service).

Sharing is caring…

 

#5 Develop Your ICA (Ideal Customer Avatar) 

Get clear on the demographics, geographics, and psychographics beliefs, values lifestyles that make them who they are. What are their fears and frustrations, goals and aspirations?

The easiest way to develop your core message is to write down the top 5 things your customer wants to achieve and the 3 things that are stopping them from achieving their goals. Choose the top obstacle to focus your story around.

That’s where you will identify your brand story. Adam refers to this as knowing your customer’s miracles and miseries…

 

#6 Know Your Customer’s Miracles and Miseries

Dean Graziosi always says; “customers don’t buy from you when they understand what you sell, they buy when they feel understood.”

The miracles are all the things the customer wants and desires. Their miseries are all the things stopping them from getting what they want (as it relates to your product or service).

Knowing what’s stopping your avatar from getting what they want will allow you to position your service as the bridge that can help them overcome the misery gap to achieve what they want and see you as the hero.

This is where conversions take place.

 

#7 Sell the Benefits – Not the Features

When it comes to marketing, it’s not about the features, it’s about how those features will get the customer what they want. The real value is in the benefit.

People don’t buy based on logic, but rather emotions. That’s why promoting features doesn’t work, it doesn’t engage people at an emotional level. But connecting the feature to the outcome will overcome that.

Follow these 7 steps to take your marketing to the next level in 2022.

 

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For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

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Capital Entrepreneurship Growth Investing Mergers & Acquisition Wealth

“Competition is for Losers” Peter Theil’s Billionaire Monopoly Strategy

“If you’re starting a company, you always want to aim for a monopoly and avoid competition. Hence, competition is for Losers.” – Peter Thiel

 

Who the Hell Are You Calling a Loser?

In a famous Y Combinator master class, Peter Theil founder of Paypal and Palantir, presented his famous business strategy that requires founders to position their growth for a monopoly of the industry.

‘Competition is for losers’ is one of his mantras. ‘Monopoly is the condition of every successful business’ is another. It is the ultimate test of entrepreneurship to build something that is one of a kind, sufficiently different from what already exists to render the idea of competition redundant.

In this article, we’ll cover how Peter approaches new markets and how to create a monopoly. But first, here’s a brief background on Thiel and why you should even care what he has to say in the first place…

 

Who the Hell is Peter Thiel?

You could say he knows a thing or two about the tech space. Peter Andreas Thiel is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur and venture capitalist. A co-founder of PayPal, CIA-based Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund.

He was also the first outside investor in some of the biggest unicorns in silicon valley including Facebook, Stripe and Space X.

His companies and investments have earned him a net worth of $5 billion. He also gives a small number of entrepreneurs $100k over two years to skip college and build their own companies.

You can watch his talk at Y Combinator. Or read the summary below…

 

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So How Do You Enter a Crowded Market? Don’t…

As Peter explains, especially to tech founders, companies need to be very careful about what markets they enter and especially how they differentiate themselves as not better, but something entirely different when approaching markets of high competition.

Similar to the Blue Ocean Strategy, Theil explains that if you’re entering into a  crowded market it’s very difficult (and often expensive) to gain the attention needed to build effective brand awareness. Especially if you offer similar product or service…

Success in saturated markets requires a lot of money to advertise, dramatically lowering your margins and ability to win. This has also been dubbed, the start-up graveyard.

 

Evaluate the Cost Trap of Entering Saturated Markets

The only way to enter saturated markets with established larger brands (with way more money than you) is to make a product or service completely better and different than everyone else on the market.

But doing so is way easier said than done. That’s where the case for chasing emerging market trends pays off. Emerging companies (especially tech), should forget fitting into existing markets and instead pursue entirely new and emerging  potential markets. Even if it’s risky.

Here’s why…

When entering markets with less or no competition, you have a greater chance of success and it’s far easier and more cost effective to acquire the attention you need to scale. Simply because you’re one of a few players in the space.

Even if you launch in an emerging market with an average or similar product at the beginning, you will have more time and opportunity to develop and perfect your average product and service while you’re building your audience and future customer base.

In fact, if you think about it, that’s exactly how most successful tech companies have been able to scale so fast as early stage market players. They rode the wave of the trend and captured all the early attention establishing their future industry dominance.

 

Conclusion:

Facebook wasn’t the first social network site, Google wasn’t the first search engine, Microsoft wasn’t the first OS company or Apple wasn’t the first computer company. But they were early in the market, they caught the trend and they executed better than everyone else. And when market reached its full potential they became big brands or monopolies.

That’s what Peter Thiel meant by “competition is for losers”…

 

 

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For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

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Capital Case Studies Entrepreneurship Growth Investing Mergers & Acquisition Technology Wealth

WATCH: High School Dropout Turns $500 Website into $35 Million Fortune Using This Platform…

Meet the Former MMA fighter, high school dropout, and single father who had absolutely zero business background bought a business for $500 on an online business flipping site. 9 years later, his business is doing $35 million a year.

His advice to you? “Don’t start a business, buy one.”

Here’s how you can do it too…

 

But first, here’s a quick background on Ramon Van Meer

Today Ramon Van Meer is the CEO and founder of Alpha Paw, a website for pet owners that offers products for every dog breed-specific health issue. Ramon bought the business for $300k and has built it to $35M in revenue within three years.

 

Where’d he get the money to buy it? Through a series of website flips that started with a small content blog about financial credit, a site he bout on Flippa for $500. He promoted it and built a small following and sold it. He did that again about 3-4 more sites.

You can watch Ramon’s incredible exit story below or listen to it in the Quiet Light podcast, but want I wanted to show you, is the site Ramon and thousands of others go to buy and sell websites. Flippa.com.

 

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Want to Buy or Sell a Website? Meet Flippa.com

Flippa.com is an auction site where you can buy and sell internet businesses. Don’t know how to code or build a membership site or dropping shipping store? No problem, just buy one.

 

What Can You Buy and Sell on Flippa?

Flippa lets you can buy and sell websites, drop shipping stores, domains, and even mobile apps. The portal is aimed to assist website owners in selling their websites as well as assisting others in purchasing established websites, domains drop shipping sites, and mobile apps.

Sites can range from just created with zero revenue to multi-million in reoccurring sales…

If you’re interested in learning more about how to use Flippa and the pros and cons of the platform, check out this full report and guide from Niches Pursuits.

 

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

Categories
Biography and History Branding Capital Case Studies Entrepreneurship Growth Industries Investing Management Mergers & Acquisition

Dumpster Diver Created the $1Billion Patagonia Cult With His Last Fifty Cents…

The Billion dollar Patagonia brand was started by a bullied teenager living off fifty cents a day learning how to be, a falconer…

And the original source material for the products he made, came from the dumpsters he was diving in.

 

The Bizarre Beginning of the Patagonia Brand

From it’s very beginning, the brand never really cared about being cool or even making money. Instead, it focused on making gear for the sport they loved while being environmentally responsible. Today they’ve become a status symbol for the biggest and richest companies in the world.

Here’s the story of how the Patagonia company was born…

 

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Patagonia’s Roots in Black Smithery, Falconry, and Rock-Climbing…

Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard was born in 1938 in Lisbon , Maine and raised in a French-Canadian community that spoke little English.

His father, a hard working blue collar man, moved the family to Burbank CA when Yvon was only 8 years old.  An experience that turned out to be a pretty shitty one for little Yvon.

Shitty because Yvon was bullied at school for not being able to speak English. He was also the smallest kid in his class which didn’t help his position. Not knowing what to do, Yvon would just simply run away. He spent most of his time alone in the wilderness. Hunting and fishing by himself.

Then one day, Yvon discovered, of all things, falconry…

 

 

He joined a local falconry club where he made friends and learned how to train hawks and falcons. For the first time, Yvon belonged to something.

One of the members, Don Prentice, was a mountain climber who trained the club how to rappel down cliffs to in order to access falcon nest located high up on mountain rock ledges.

 

So What’s the Blacksmith Connection?

The club became obsessed with the sport. Traveling all over the country rappelling down America’s tallest cliffs. They did it for the most part, without any gear…

Eventually the group turned their attention from rappelling to climbing. Were they’re lack of equipment became problematic (opposed to repelling down, climbing up requires a lot more than a rope).

With only 200 mountain climbers in those days and no store to provide their climbing gear, the group was forced to make their own in the early days of the sport. One of those items were pitons (the stakes mountain climbers hammer into the rock face to clip onto for, “safety”).

 

 

 

“Hey Mountain Climbers, Clean Up Your Shit!”

The problem with the original pitons was they were permanent. Climbers would just  leave the stakes poking out of the side of the mountain for others to use later on…It became an eyesore and Yvon wasn’t having it.

Yvon taught himself how to be a blacksmith (in a chicken coop in his parents backyard) where he invented the first sets of removable pitons, changing the sport forever. They even turned out to be stronger and more reliable than the permanent European pitons they originally used.

He didn’t even charge his friends for them in the beginning. He would just hand them to other climbers to help clean up the mountain side. They were an instant success.

 

 

From Climbing Gear to Clothing Icon…

Pategonia eventually got into the clothing business after Yvon took a climbing trip to Scotland where he bought a Rugby shirt because the material looked tough enough to climb a mountain in (and it looked cool). Plus he thought the collar would help keep the climbing ropes away from his neck.

Climbing in his Rugby shirt back in the states, Yvonn stuck out like a sore thumb in his flamboyant colored shirt. In a good way. Other climbers asked where they could get a “fancy colorful climbing shirt”.

Here’s a review of some of the original 1980s rugby shirts they launched with:

 

WATCH:

 

So Yvon licensed a series of durable and colorful rugby (I mean climbing) shirts. They sold like hot cakes…

But while the clothing brand famously went through many ups and downs over the years, Patagonia today is one of the most recognized clothing brands on the planet.

All thanks to a badass little kid who climbed his way up in life on his own terms.

Watch for the full story…

 

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For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

Categories
Biography and History Branding Capital Case Studies Entrepreneurship Growth News and Politics News and Politics

WATCH: Guy Gets Paid to Shoot at Birds All Day in Order to Save Them. Here’s Why….

Somewhere in remote Montana, right now, there’s a guy getting paid to shoot an assault rifle at any bird that lands on his pond. In order to save their lives…

He’s a hero. In order to understand why, you need to know about the Berkeley Copper Mine.

 

The Most Dangerous Water in North America?

The Berkeley Pit is a former copper mine in the western United States, located in Butte, Montana.

Today it’s full of water. Deadly water…

With water that is heavily acidic (2.5 pH level), about the acidity of Coca-Cola, lemon juice, or gastric acid. As a result, the pit is full of heavy metals and dangerous chemicals that leach from the rock, including copper, arsenic, cadmium, zinc, and sulfuric acid.

It’s a cocktail of death, especially for un-expecting waterfowl.

The levels of copper are high enough in the water table that Montana Resources has mined copper directly from the water itself!

 

But the Berkley Pit is a Graveyard for Waterfowl…

In 1995, a flock of migrating geese landed in the Berkeley Pit and died. A total of 342 carcasses were recovered.

After inspecting the corpses, scientists discovered their insides were lined with burns and festering sores from exposure to high concentrations of copper, cadmium, and arsenic.

The water burned them alive…

On November 28, 2016, several thousand snow geese died after a large flock landed in the pit’s water to avoid a snowstorm. Immediately after the event, officials made efforts to scare birds away and prevent more from landing in the area.

Now, in order to protect any waterfowl from dying a very painful death, this man gets paid to protect them. By shooting at them…

Don’t worry, he doesn’t hurt them, he only scares them away for their own protection. Crazy job…

 

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For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

Categories
Advice Capital Case Studies Entrepreneurship Growth Investing Personal Development Wealth

This Couple Makes $10k/month Growing Veggies in Their Basement. Here’s How…

There’s a growing multi-billion dollar industry that’s sprouting up from, of all places, homeowner’s basements. Here’s a peek inside the growing “Microgreen Industry” that one of your neighbors is probably cashing in on.

Here’s why…

The global microgreens market size was valued at $1.3 billion in 2019, and is now projected to reach $2.2 billion by 2028. Growing demand for microgreens, along with recent interruptions in global supply chains have created a local cash opportunity.

Especially amongst innovative homeowners looking to cash in on their un-utilized square footage.

 

What the Hell Are Microgreens?

Microgreens are young seedlings of edible vegetables and herbs. Unlike larger herbs and vegetables that take weeks or months to grow, microgreens can be harvested and eaten a week to 10 days after leaves have developed. Like baby carrots but for herbs…

These tiny plants only grow to a few inches and can come in 50 to 60 different varieties. Microgreens were originally limited to fancy dinner plates and boutique grocery stores due to their higher cost. But now they’re a multibillion dollar industry.

And did I mention, you can grow them in your basement? The set up cost is low​ and the growing cycle is super quick, meaning you can be harvesting and selling your first crop in just a couple of weeks.

Interested in this as a side hustle? Here’s an e-Book to get you started…

Microgreens can be grown in a small space and can sell for $50 per pound or more​, making them an ideal crop for small farms and “urban growers”. In an area as small as a shipping container, a garage, or basement you could generate thousands per month growing and selling them.

Here’s the full story on how one couple makes $120k/year selling microgreens from the basement of their urban home.

Check it out…

 

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For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

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Capital Case Studies Entrepreneurship Growth Mergers & Acquisition Wealth

WTF? Guy Makes $71k From a Vending Machine That Sells Ice…

There is an obnoxious amount of pontificate around the topic of passive income streams. Here’s an actual one that’s super underrated. Meet a guy making almost $100k/year with zero employees or customer interaction.

Selling ice out of vending machines…

 

Ice Vending Machines. Yes They’re a Thing Now…

You may have seen one of these giant ice vending machines selling ice for a low price of $2.50 or less.

Typically located on high traffic locations, perhaps next to a gas station, convenience store, or dollar store.

They’re freestanding and allow someone to drive up and snag 20 pound bags of ice at. Apparently people love them…

It’s an easier and more affordable way to get lots of ice for a party by the pool, a trip to the lake, a hunting or fishing trip, or some other special occasion. According to Road Less Traveled Finance, if you’re interested in getting into ice vending, you can expect to earn upwards of $3,664 per month in profit (and the margins are hella high).

Here’s how this guy makes $71k a year selling ice as a passive income stream with zero employees. His names Brad. Seems like a cool guy. No pun intended…

Watch the full video if you’re interested in a business that makes money while you sleep.

 

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For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

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Biography and History Branding Capital Case Studies Entrepreneurship Growth Investing Marketing News and Politics Operations Strategy Wealth

WATCH: From Air Mattress to $31 Billion Company. The Airbnb Story

Airbnb was the stupidest idea for a business. The idea was to rent an air mattress in someone else’s occupied apartment. A Literal air bed and breakfast. I mean, who would pay to sleep on the floor of the apartment of a complete stranger?

Turns out quite a few actually. While no longer air mattresses, today Airbnb has over 150 million hosts who’s properties accommodate more than a half a billion guests a year

You Won’t Believe How airbnb Got Started!

Today, Airbnb is one of the most successful short-term rental businesses in the world today. Since its formation in 2008, it has experienced massive growth, starting out with just a few friends renting extra space in their home to an international multibillion-dollar corporation.

Here is the insane inside story of how 3 guys turned that into a $31 billion company.

The story is crazier than the idea. Watch founder, Brian Chesky explain the crazy story of how 3 college kids created one of the world’s largest companies on the stupidest for a business to LinkedIn Founder, Reed Hastings, at a Y Combinator event.

Crazy…

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For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

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Advice Biography and History Branding Capital Case Studies Entrepreneurship Growth Investing Leadership News and Politics Personal Development Wealth

Mike Tyson’s Was Arrested 40 Times by 13. His Life Advice Will Leave You SPEECHLESS…

“All my life I’ve seen murders and robberies. I came from that world where everything was dog-eat-dog. If you had money or jewelry, if you couldn’t defend it or protect it, you’re going to loose it.”

– Mike Tyson

 

Mike Tyson was first arrested at 10 years old. 38 more times by age 13.

Needless to say, he grew up in a rough neighborhood in Brooklyn. If you couldn’t protect yourself, you got taken advantage of. Mike was in over 400 fights in his life.

He quite literally fought his way through life and still is to this day…

 

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How Mike Tyson Blew a $600 Million Fortune

By the age of twenty Tyson was one of the most famous figures on the planet. Namely for being the most talented boxers of all time. And for biting off Evander Holyfield’s ear off during one of the most televised matches in boxing history.

Here’s that throwback…

 

 

During his boxing career he amassed over $685 million and he accomplished to spending all of it. Every last penny…

He not only managed to blow through a half billion in cash, he then eventually owed over $50 million in debts, including another $13.4 million to the IRS.

 

So What Did Mike Tyson Spend $685 Million On Exactly?

  • Mike routinely traveled with an entourage so large it rivaled the size of a small country.
  • He owned Siberian tigers and spent hundreds of thousands/year to care for them.
  • He bought over $400k worth of pigeons too…it’s a long story
  • He had fleets of luxury vehicles, a posse of prostitutes, and a 21-bedroom mansion.

 

He was known to spend over $240k month for entertainment and another $100k/month for Jewelry and clothes.

During his lifetime, Tyson reached the peaks of fame and fortune most of us mere mortals will never know or experience. He climbed from the gutter to the height of success. But even at the top of the world by the age of 20, he still had a darkness inside of him…

Watch Mike explain his incredible life story and lessons of gratitude from his personal experiences literally fighting for his life.

 

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com