How Ecommerce Founders Get Rich: Exits, Dividends, Debt & Salary

**Sean Frank** (0:00)
Welcome to the Operators Podcast. What's up, everybody? We're here with the best, the only operators that you know and love. We have Matt, Mike, Curtis. Curtis, how are you, brother?

**Curtis Mastko** (0:10)
The world treats me well, sir.

**Sean Frank** (0:12)
Better than you deserve, I'm sure. What's up, Mike? How are you doing?

**Mike Beckham** (0:15)
I'm great. Here in Oklahoma, it's 125 degrees. I'm happy to be inside and on the Operators Podcast.

**Sean Frank** (0:23)
Yeah, that's why you got into e-commerce. You didn't have to go out there and dig ditches. But okay, Matt, how are you, brother?

**Matt Bertulli** (0:30)
Not 125 degrees. It is like 100 here though. So I'm with Mike. It's hot as hell. Happy to be inside.

**Sean Frank** (0:37)
I mean, I'm sure Central Mexico is also cooking, right, Curtis?

**Curtis Mastko** (0:41)
No, no, no. We're on the high plains. It's like we about 83, 85 today.

**Sean Frank** (0:46)
All right. So we're all moving.

**Curtis Mastko** (0:47)
That's why people live here, man.

**Sean Frank** (0:49)
We're all moving to Mexico. Guys, today's episode, it's a banger. It is a viral episode that everyone always asks for. It's how to actually get rich in e-commerce. So we're going to go through five amazing ways to make money in this stupid industry that we all choose to live in.
Some of them are obvious. We're going to talk about getting paychecks, but some of them are a little more crazy and outlandish, maybe credit card point hacks, something like that. So we're going to go through the top five.
It's pretty ironic that you listen to a podcast because that's one of the bonus ways we're going to talk about at the end is, there's a reason why everybody in e-commerce has a podcast, because it's a lot better than taking money out of your business. But you guys ready to get started? Let's do it.
Okay. So I'm going to have the first way. And this way is exiting the game. It is you sell your asset. It is the hardest way in the list, right? It's the biggest payday you're going to see. Groon's just sold for a billion dollars. That means they got a billion dollars in cash or stock at a publicly traded company for the asset that they created, the ownership, the stock and the thing that they built. Now, it's a huge payday. It is what they were pushing for. They raised money to get it done. But the difference is they don't own it anymore. They are not in e-commerce anymore. Chad still has a job, right? He might have rolled over some equity. But you sell the asset, you leave the industry, and you get cash in return. So out of everybody here, Matt is the only person I think who's done it. Matt, so tell us about selling your business.

**Matt Bertulli** (2:22)
You get a lot of money all at once, and then at some point in the near future, you wake up and realize that all the cash flow is gone. So there is this weird thing where you're like, man, I got a lot of zeros in my bank account, but I feel really weird because I have no more cash flow.

**Mike Beckham** (2:36)
You're on a burn. It's kind of like you're a C-Rose company that you're used to like, hey, I'm kind of living sustainably because there's cash flow coming in, and it's awesome to have a huge sum, but then it changes from trying to have a lot in the bank to trying not to have too high a burn rate.

**Matt Bertulli** (2:52)
It's actually really calm. You hear this from a lot of guys that have exited, even guys that, like people that exit for a lot of money, right, like hundreds of millions, they'll still turn around and be like, I don't know, I don't feel safe. Like I just don't have money coming in every month. That's like you've a hundred million dollars in your bank.

**Mike Beckham** (3:07)
You know what that sounds like, Matt? That sounds like a good problem to have.

**Matt Bertulli** (3:11)
It's a great problem to have, yes. I will say though, I think Sean, you got to hit on like in consumer, this is a really hard thing to do, right?
That there's not a lot of exits. Right now, there's just not a lot of exits. And the market is not great for most categories.

**Sean Frank** (3:29)
We went through a heater of a, I mean, the 2010 was a great decade for consumer. And then obviously it peaks post COVID 2021, like everyone and their mother was selling everything for hundreds of millions of dollars.