Alex Hormozi: I Lost Everything Twice… Then Made $26M In 18 Months | Alex Hormozi Interview

**Alex Hormozi** (0:01)
I made $100,000 in cash in 21 days. The first question she asked is, is this legal? Then I wake up one morning and all the cash the bank account is gone, and I was like, what the fuck? I just got all my money stolen. And I was like, I wouldn't stay with me if I were you. I am a sinking ship right now.

**Sam Parr** (0:19)
So from that brink of failure to, what was it at the end of the year?

**Alex Hormozi** (0:23)
So I spent 48 hours, took a ton of Adderall, and wrote the best sales letter of my life, and then the full next calendar year, we did $26 million and $16 million in EBITDA.

**Shaan Puri** (0:34)
Dude, that's insane.

**Sam Parr** (0:36)
So why do a SaaS deal or why do the Skool deal?

**Alex Hormozi** (0:39)
In my opinion, it was the best deal I've ever done.

**Shaan Puri** (0:41)
How much cash did you put up up front?

**Alex Hormozi** (0:43)
I think almost up.

**Sam Parr** (0:44)
What's a company you would want to go buy right now? Sam, I don't know if you've heard this about the story with your wife, Layla and being on the brink of failure.

**Alex Hormozi** (1:02)
Yeah, waiting in the swamp of failure.

**Sam Parr** (1:05)
Yeah. Could you take us back there? What was going on?

**Alex Hormozi** (1:07)
Yeah. So Layla and I had, so we started dating in April of 16 I immediately was like, I've got this idea for this thing called Gym Launch. I want to go fly out to gyms and do turnarounds because I can fill my gyms up faster than I can build up.

**Sam Parr** (1:19)
By the way, context is, at the time you owned a couple of gyms.

**Alex Hormozi** (1:21)
Yeah, I had five gyms when I met her.

**Sam Parr** (1:23)
The bank balance looked like what at the time?

**Alex Hormozi** (1:26)
I was making like 20 grand a month. I know that. So I don't remember what my savings were, but I was making like 20 grand a month in cash flow. You're like, wait, five gyms? It's like, yeah, some of them were good, some of them were. Two corporate locations are a little smaller anyways. But I was like 25, 26
So like I was hood rich as far as I'm concerned. I could buy whatever I wanted, I could live where I wanted, I could go out to eat, whatever. So I started the turnaround business and I made $100,000 in cash in 21 days. I was like, holy shit. I was like, this is awesome. So I came back and she picked me up from the airport and I had this big stack of contracts. I was like, hey, we can go on that date because I hadn't taken on a date in three weeks and we'd seen each other every day. So it'd been like 21 days of hanging out and not one date. So she said, you promised you'd take me on a date after you did this launch. I was like, okay. I was like, help me process these. So you process the contracts and 45 minutes she saw was 100 grand. She was like, holy shit. The first question she asked is, is this legal? I was like, yeah, it's legal. She was like, all right, I'm in. So she decided to join me. So we went out to the next launch together, a few more launches. Then one of the launch guys that I did, that I did really well, the one that came back with 100 grand for was like, hey, let's partner. Instead of you just doing these gyms and walking away, let's just open new gyms. I'm a really good operator. I'll just open them behind you and run it. Then if you open up one or two gyms a month, you own 24 gyms instead of just doing the service. Me being me, I was like, of course, money on the table. Why would I not do that? The fact that he had been indicted for fraud, it was a misunderstanding, whatever. He was like, hey, you should sign all the leases for these new locations because I had a little run-in, like no big deal, you should do it. So I personally guarantee the lease and I put all the capital up because I'm 25 and don't know what I'm doing.
And so, of course, we know how this story goes. I launched it, I crushed the launch to 376 new members, which for like a CrossFit slash micro gym is massive to open up with. Then I wake up one morning and all the cash in the bank account is gone, and I was like, what the fuck? And I hit him up and I was like, dude, what's going on? He's like, oh, that was my half. And I was like, what do you mean your half? I was like, you just took all the money out. He's like, well, I know you've been skimming. And I was like, what? I was like, I'm here. What? I'm here every now. So I came to him with all the bank accounts, like every transaction highlighted. And I was like, hey, let's go through this. Like, I just want to make sure we're good. And he threw it off the table. He's like, I don't need to see that shit. And I was like, oh, you. OK, God, I now understand what happened. Like, OK, so I just got all my money stolen.