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Alex Mehr. He\\u2019s the founder of Zoosk, which filed to go public in 2014. His current venture is MentorBox, a unique and new self-help concept. Before that, he was an aerospace scientist at NASA.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \\u2013 How to Win Friends and Influence People
• What CEO do you follow? \\u2013 Jeff Bezos
• Favorite online tool? \\u2014 Trello
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?\\u2014 I try at least 8
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \\u2013 \\u201cTo take more risks\\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:10 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Alex to the show
• 01:43 \\u2013 Zoosk announced to go public for $200M
  • 02:24 \\u2013 Zoosk decided to stay independent, so they didn\\u2019t pursue going public
  • 02:44 \\u2013 When you go public, you make projections about the growth rate and what you want to do financially
  • 03:05 \\u2013 The expectations from the public market for tech companies who go public are different than those who do not
  • 03:14 \\u2013 Alex and the team didn\\u2019t want the company to push hard for a quarter by quarter growth
• 03::50 \\u2013 Zoosk was launched in 2007
• 04:00 \\u2013 Alex and his co-founder split everything 50/50
• 04:21 \\u2013 Alex and his co-founder have worked for 8 years and they never had a problem
  • 04:40 \\u2013 Alex and Shayan have different domain expertise and they respect each other\\u2019s\\u2019 domain expertise
• 05:30 \\u2013 Zoosk has grown rapidly until 2014
  • 05:36 \\u2013 \\u201cBut the company was not profitable\\u201d
  • 06:40 \\u2013 Alex still has his equity and is part of the board
• 07:36 \\u2013 Zoosk is growing again
• 07:53 \\u2013 MentorBox is a self-education self-improvement education box
• 08:07 \\u2013 Alex has always been a book reader his whole life
  • 08:33 \\u2013 Alex would gift his friends books all the time
  • 08:43 \\u2013 10% of the population\\u2019s primary method of learning is reading
  • 08:50 \\u2013 There are 4 methods of learning: auditory, visual, reading, and kinesthetic
• 09:20 \\u2013 The idea of MentorBox is a subscription for business books that Alex thinks everybody should read per month
  • 09:38 \\u2013 MentorBox makes the information concise so that you can study the main concepts in 10 minutes
  • 09:46 \\u2013 MentorBox delivers in 4 formats
• 10:28 \\u2013 Tai Lopez is Alex\\u2019s co-founder
  • 10:41 \\u2013 7 years ago, Tai and Alex met at an online gaming conference
  • 11:05 \\u2013 It turned out that Tai reads 1 book a day
  • 11:40 \\u2013 Tai and Alex have a 50/50 deal with MentorBox
• 12:03 \\u2013 Alex had a landing page to test MentorBox
  • 12:19 \\u2013 They had a video that explained the product
  • 12:27 \\u2013 Tai has a large social media following so he tested his ad on his social media
  • 13:05 \\u2013 In the first test, they were able to sell $80K worth of product
• 13:22 \\u2013 MentorBox is priced at $89 a month
• 13:50 \\u2013 MentorBox\\u2019s retention
• 14:14 \\u2013 MentorBox\\u2019s space is education subscription
• 14:40 \\u2013 Average retention in the space
• 15:12 \\u2013 Tai and Alex knew that MentorBox would be a sustainable business
• 15:38 \\u2013 LTV and CAC are both high
• 16:18 \\u2013 MentorBox also relies on word-of-mouth marketing
• 16:37 \\u2013 The cost per box drops depending on the volume
• 17:26 \\u2013 MentorBox buys from distributors and publishers directly
  • 17:48 \\u2013 MentorBox is looking at getting directly from the author
  • 18:18 \\u2013 The number of books MentorBox has bought from Ryan Holiday
• 19:15 \\u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

1. The public market\\u2019s expectations for companies that go public are very different and can put on additional pressures that, otherwise, wouldn\\u2019t exist.
2. Do what you love AND share what you love doing to other people.
3. Be a risk-taker \\u2013 you\\u2019ll learn more that way.

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Resources Mentioned:

• The Top Inbox \\u2013 The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• Organifi \\u2013 The juice was Nathan\\u2019s life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
• Klipfolio \\u2013 Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Acuity Scheduling \\u2013 Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator\\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible\\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
• Freshbooks \\u2013 Nathan doesn\\u2019t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives