I Have $12M But I'm Broke Every Month

**Brandon Harris** (0:00)
The easiest way to be unhappy is to always have your eyes on a future target and not be present. I built this really cool company, and I should have had a lot of fun doing it, but I was always, hey, I need to have this exit, I need to have this thing.
And so as a result, no wins mattered, no excitement. I went years of just being stressed and chasing this thing, and then you have the thing, and then you're left with those same imposter syndrome questions, you're left with identity questions. Yes, you had your win, now what?

**Daniel Berk** (0:27)
My guest today built his fortune buying $15 posts on Facebook pages. $15 in, millions out. Subscribing to this show is an even better trade. It costs you nothing and you get an episode like this every single week. Okay, so Brandon Harris. The headline says he sold his sports media company Playmaker for $54 million.
In this episode, he tells me the real number that hit his account. He also tells me about being 18 when his dad went from half a million a year to driving limos, and suddenly becoming the college kid that was the one paying the family's rent. And he explains how he pays for his entire life today without selling a single share of stock. He also has a literal chip on his shoulder. I get to talk to founders just like Brandon inside of Hampton every day. It's a private network for high growth founders who are doing $25 million a year on average. If that's you, you need to check it out at joinhampton.com. Now let's get into the show. I'm Daniel Berk. Here's Brandon Harris on Moneywise. Brandon, thanks for joining us today on Moneywise. How are you doing today, man?

**Brandon Harris** (1:21)
I'm doing great, man. How are you?

**Daniel Berk** (1:23)
I am doing well. I'm excited to learn a bit about you today. Tell me what brings you to the show and who you are.

**Brandon Harris** (1:31)
I am Brandon. I was the founder of Playmaker, which had a headline says $54 million exit.
I'm happy to be radically transparent about the specifics of that. Then generally, I'm in the investing world, love numbers, learning a lot from you and the pod, and just excited to share my story, talk the numbers and learn a little bit from you.

**Daniel Berk** (1:57)
Awesome.
Before we get into the $54 million acquisition story, how was money like in your life and in your family when you grew up? Tell me about how that was as a child. Yeah.

**Brandon Harris** (2:10)
I grew up very privileged, to be honest with you. I was in private schools most of my life until I turned around 17, 18 My dad was in real estate during the crash of 08, and basically he owned 10 properties. They all were foreclosed on. Our house was foreclosed on. He went from making half a million a year and living it up to driving limos and just trying to make it work. And so it definitely, my relationship with money changed dramatically and my appreciation for it changed dramatically. And I had to, at 18 years old, start taking care of kind of my entire family a little bit. And so basically roller coaster.

**Daniel Berk** (2:51)
That must have been hard, taking care of your family at 18

**Brandon Harris** (2:54)
Yeah, yeah, with the loans, grants, everything I was getting in college went directly to them. I had, you know, part-time jobs. I was doing some online stuff to try to scrape together money. I was paying their rent, my college rent and all that stuff at the same time. But I think in a good way, it forced me to go and find ways to make money and, you know, be more responsible than probably most 18-year-olds have to be.

**Daniel Berk** (3:17)
And so you were really already an entrepreneur early on, it sounds like.

**Brandon Harris** (3:21)
Yeah, I was doing basketball training businesses. I was doing web design businesses for people. It used to be WordPress was the cool thing when I was 18 And so, you know, 5K here, 16-hour there, teaching kids how to play basketball. And eventually we built a gym off of that. We built a marketing agency off of that.
And kind of got started in the whole digital media and online marketing space from a very early age.

**Daniel Berk** (3:49)
And so walk me through the transition from 18, taking care of your family with grants, to eventually launching this business that, for all intents and purposes, was wildly successful.

**Brandon Harris** (3:58)