Codie A. Sanchez

Contrarian Thinking

Opportunity is found in the disconnect between narrative and the truth. 
CT is where hundreds of thousands of investors, entrepreneurs and contrarians come to learn about unconventional ways to diversify income, generate wealth and increase their profits. 

Join here → https://contrarianthinking.co

Founder - Investor - Writer

Unconventional Acquisitions

We buy, sell and invest in small businesses and teach others how to get into the ownership seat.

Co-Founder

Entourage Effect Capital

EEC Advisory Board Member

Board Member EEC Portfolio Company Arcview Capital

EEC is one of the first Growth Equity firms in the cannabis industry, we’ve invested $150 million in cannabis since 2014

Managing Director - Partner

First Trust

I head the Latin America & US Offshore Investment Business, providing investments and market strategy to enable some of the worlds leading pensions, institutions and advisors to reach their investment goals.  We've built a business from the ground up, to one of the fastest growing firms in LatAm.

Head of Latin America Investments

State Street

Worked in Latin America and the US with Fortune 500 Companies, pensions, sovereign wealth funds, central banks, endowments, and foundations to manage their investment portfolios. We navigated some treacherous regulations and industry changes to raise billions in previously uncovered markets.

Director Institutional Sales

Goldman Sachs

Investment Associate

Vanguard

ETF Consultant & Distribution Specialist

The Arizona Republic

In-depth Investigative Reporter Mexico

Investing millions in Main St businesses & teaching you how to own the rest | HoldCo, VC fund, Founder

On a mission to create financially free and free-thinking humans.

I founded a media company that teaches people to think critically and cashflow unconventionally with boring businesses called Contrarian Thinking.

Our newsletter has over 250,000 weekly readers, here: http://contrarianthinking.co/join.

Our Mastermind has taught 2,000+ members biz buying, biz growing, and doing deals. 

This is how I got here:

• Got my degree in PR & Journalism from ASU's Honors School (honored to be partying mostly); MBA from Georgetown University; Ph.D. from Fundacao Gestulio Vargas.

• Started as a journalist at the Mexico border. I witnessed horrors there that made me realize money = power to change the world. I wanted to speak the language of freedom ($$), so I went to finance.

• Joined Vanguard ETFs in 2008 (wild timing). Then: Goldman Sachs→ SSGA → LatAm investments for First Trust → MD/Partner at the largest cannabis private equity firms.

Then, candidly, I got tired of the rules and trappings of the traditional finance world. I went a little rogue, and not everyone always liked that.

Now, I value experience over degrees.
Betting on myself over making $$$ for other people.
Main Street over Wall Street.

My mission is less suits, more boots. Meaning: we the people holding the power… and the purse strings.

🔗Join 250,000+ others who get our free newsletter: http://contrarianthinking.co/join
🔗YouTube: @CodieSanchezCT
🔗Instagram: @codiesanchez
🔗Twitter: @Codie_Sanchez
🔗Learn how to buy a business & get support doing it: https://unconventionalacquisitions.com/ 
🔗Weekly Boring Business Brief: https://products.unconventionalacquisitions.com/newsletter

Founder

We help free minds and build bank accounts.

Story from my dad today. 
 
If you’re a business owner, it may hit you as deeply as it hit me... 
 
He said, you know you’ve met another builder or doer when they’ve felt that flinch at the second Friday of the month. 
 
My father has never bounced a check. 
 
But he remembers this… 
 
It was payday, his business was owed money, and they couldn’t bridge the gap between the two in time. 
 
He could just picture the guys’ faces. 
 
Those last two workers, who had done more than anyone else, stayed later than anyone else… 
 
And they were about to be punished for that by not getting paid. 
 
So he called up his banker, told him he needed a line of credit, and pulled out $100,000 give or take to make sure that every single one of their checks cleared. 
 
At the time, my dad had a business partner who was a different type of guy. 
 
He was the sort to make excuses, pay himself first, and not particularly care if everyone else’s checks cleared as long as he got his. 
 
That partner has since had many businesses fail - and many more employees go without a paycheck. 
 
And my dad has never in all these years had a business fail, or lost anyone a dime. 
 
He often attributes his business success to the fact that he would never let his hardest working guys go hungry... 
 
People will always be your biggest struggle and your greatest gift in business. Treat ‘em right.

↓ ↓ ↓

You’ll always recognize another builder.

But if you see yourself in this story a little TOO much, it might be time for cashflow tracking.

This one spreadsheet has saved my a** countless times to meet payroll comfortably every month. Get it here free → https://lnkd.in/evm_mKf4

graphical user interface, text, application

Quitting 1 job, to take on 21 jobs...

7 tips to manage time as an entrepreneur:

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Get more frameworks for entrepreneur life here → https://lnkd.in/eGmtANrR

7 tips to manage your time:

Quitting 1 job, to take on 21 jobs.

7 tips to manage time as an entrepreneur:

↓ ↓ ↓

My favorite way to be an entrepreneur without feeling like I've taken on 21 jobs?

1. Buy a business that cashflows.
2. Use the cashflow to hire an operator.

Going over the details of this process live on Wednesday.

Sign up here to join - it's free but limited capacity, so grab your spot now → https://lnkd.in/e7WMcdTM

Founder Contrarian Thinking + Private Equity Investor + Main Street Holding Company

I can usually tell if a startup will win or lose by one thing... 
 
Do they ship product fast? 
 
Meaning, do they create, iterate, and put new stuff out in the world often and quickly? 
 
The only statistic you should care about is time-to-action.  
 
Improving your urgency redefines your ability to get sh*t done. 
 
Feel free to repost & follow if this resonates with where you're at right now.

32 people bought businesses. 
150 people w/ combined net worth of $1B+. 
 
They all came together at our Contrarian Community annual event to do 1 thing: 
 
Build back Main Street. 
 
We are creating owners for the next generation. I don’t think anything I’ve done in my whole career makes me more proud. 
 
Not raising and investing billions. Not buying and selling companies. 
 
It’s this movement. 
 
Most people want to be told what to do, not be owners, drift through life. Not this crew. 
 
The few the proud the owners. 
 
You will build our future.

How to balance what you love with what makes $...

The "Self-Interview":

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For more frameworks to free yourself → https://lnkd.in/eGmtANrR

Waking up at 5:45am solves 99.9% of daily issues. 
 
12 other unreasonably simple habits to change your life: 
 
1. Grab your to-do list. Do the thing you want to do least, first. 
 
2. Stop all 60 min meetings, make them 45 minutes. Tighter meetings, more time. 
 
3. No social media, email, or text when you wake up. Write something, read something, or create something before you get sucked in. 
 
4. Do the $1,000/hr Test. Group work in 3 buckets based on return: $10, $100, $1,000. Offload one low ROI task per day. 
 
5. Change one meeting a week to a walking call. Watch how excited the other meeting member becomes. 
 
6. Add a How vs Won't check-in. When you say, "that WON'T work." Instead ask, "How could that work?" 
 
7. Be the dumbest one in your friend group, then move on when you’re not. As they say, if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. 
 
8. Take a picture of your net worth. What gets measured gets managed. Check finances daily. 
 
9. Always the stairs, never the elevator. Pick the hard option. See how much stronger you are than you think. 
 
10. Never write to-dos in stone. You're 10x more productive if you reprioritize daily. 
 
11. Meditate. 10 minutes a day. For a twofer - do it in the sauna. Sometimes hacking culture gets it right. 
 
12. Get intimidated. Everything you want is on the other side of fear. Do something every day that scares you a little bit. 
 
Life is the small things repeated daily. 
 
Change one daily habit, and beautiful things start to happen... 
 
So pick one.

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If you need more high-leverage habits, frameworks, and general kicks in the *ss... you might like my newsletter → https://lnkd.in/g3smakQm

Be the type of person who reaches out to others... when you don't need something.

Ever heard of Chubbies Shorts?
• ~$118M revenue
• Sold to Solo Brands in 2021

The fun part?

They’ve grown mostly through memes...

Here's their story:

Four pals – Kyle, Rainer, Preston, Tom.

They loved the retro short shorts of the '80s and '90s but found modern-day men’s shorts too long and drab. They envisioned bringing back the golden era of short shorts & wanted to build a biz that embodied weekends and chilling out.

So, they got to brainstorming.

Their strength? A LACK of structure and formality.

I've never seen such a successful company with so much... chill.

They had an awesome time and just winged it - which led to some super quirky & unconventional designs.

With their small first batch of shorts, they hit a Fourth of July party at Lake Tahoe. They were greeted with immediate love & sold out of all the product they brought.

So, they headed back to the Bay Area, made a few hundred pairs, and launched the Chubbies website in September 2011.

How do you create buzz for such an unconventional brand?

They started by emailing college fraternity presidents. Another huge hit - they sold out in a matter of days.

Word-of-mouth growth was crazy. Their grassroots community, dubbed the "Chubster Nation," started to grow organically.

But, they're famous for one main thing:

Instagram memes.

While most premium clothing brands have aesthetic feeds with models... Chubbies’ essentially looks like a meme page.

It's led to a following of nearly 600k on IG.

Organic content, word-of-mouth growth, and strong community took sales from:
• $2.4 million in 2012
• to $44.1 million in 2020

And they've done it all with only a $4M venture funding round.

The crescendo?

In September 2021, Solo Stove acquired Chubbies for $129million.

It formed the core of a new outdoor brand portfolio called Solo Brands, which allowed serious economies of scale. It's propelled Chubbies into a new growth phase.

I love Chubbies' story for a few reasons:

1. They've remained loyal to their niche.

Despite it seeming small, it's a testament to how passionate customers can fuel new markets.

2. The team's personality has formed the majority of Chubbies' brand equity.

Their fun-loving attitude, from their designs to their marketing, is what sets them apart.

Passionate founders can take their biz far... even if they'd rather be at the lake than the office.

Thanks for the read. Be sure to follow me Codie A. Sanchez if you enjoyed this, and repost so others can read it too.

Life hack: Get in rooms where your dreams are others' realities.

↓ ↓ ↓

Underrated and wildly important step on the path to wealth. Walk with the people who are doing what you want to do, who are making the kind of money you want to make.

Read more about the no-BS path to generational wealth here → https://lnkd.in/ePUqkjHf

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The most underrated secret to success. 
 
You say you will do a thing... 
 
Then you actually do the thing. 
 
90% do not do this.

Last time I introduced myself here, there were ~120k fewer of you following me, so... 
 
Hey. 
 
I'm Codie. 
 
Here's a little bit of my story... 
 
I’m a reformed journalist, turned reformed Wall Streeter to now I run a few small businesses, invest in a bunch more, and teach people how to buy the rest. 
 
I built a media company (called Contrarian Thinking, if it's not already plastered everywhere on my profile😉). We have a holding company, VC fund, business-buying community, and a combined social following of something crazy like 5million. 
 
Before finance, I used to be a conflict journalist covering human trafficking and drug smuggling... 
 
That experience taught me a lot. Two lessons altered my path the most: 
1. Money = power. 
2. Like it or not, money is how the world gets changed. 
 
I didn't know ANYTHING about finance, but I learned. Climbed the rings. 
 
I worked at Vanguard, Goldman, State Street... 
 
Then I built an investment biz in Latin America at First Trust. Got a shot because no one else could or wanted to go to Col, Chile, Brazil, MX. I was beyond nervous to fail. My Spanish was meh, BUT it’s amazing what you can do when you have no other options. Later, I was a partner at a $200M cannabis fund. 
 
Eventually, I realized.... 
 
Wait a second, M&A for Wall Street and PE is really damn transferable to Main Street. 
 
So I started acquiring small, sweaty, profitable, boring businesses (until those made me more $ than my finance gigs 🤯), and I started building Contrarian Thinking to teach others how to do it too. 
 
Thanks for reading. 
 
If you're interested by business-buying, financial freedom, or *gasp* critical thinking, you should keep up with me. 
 
2 ways you can do that: 
 
1. Follow right here on LinkedIn (and/or any other social platform that suits you). 
2. Sign up for my newsletter. My best stuff usually ends up here first → https://lnkd.in/eGmtANrR

I just heard about this biz... 
• Today: worth over $42billion 
• To start: a $75,000 JUNKYARD 
 
It became the titan it is today through big bets, unique incentives, and acquisitions. 
 
Here’s the story of Copart: 
 
Willis Johnson had a background as an auto dismantler. 
 
At 34, after ten years in the auto salvage business, Johnson bought his first junkyard for $75,000. 
 
At the time, salvage vehicles were mainly auctioned to licensed dealers. Johnson did something different... 
 
He wanted to create a platform that would allow ANYONE to bid on & purchase these vehicles. 
 
So, Copart was born. 
 
The company started small, with just 1 location and a handful of employees. But word of mouth about their unique business model spread... 
 
Previously, salvagers got a fixed fee from sellers to sell a car. Copart took a percentage (~15%) per vehicle instead. 
 
This meant they had a vested interest in maximizing resale value – they'd even clean & repair vehicles to get better prices. 
 
In the following 11 years, they: 
• Opened 11 additional locations 
• Eventually launching nationwide 
 
This fueled an astonishing average annual growth of 100%+ in the 90s. 
 
But the real turning point came in 1995: As the internet crept into relevance, Copart made a big bet... They launched an online auction platform. 
 
Now anyone could bid on cars remotely. Their reach skyrocketed. 
 
This, combined with acquisitions (their biggest growth lever), propelled the biz. Sales jumped from: 
• $6M in 1992 
• To $126M by 1997 
 
They began international expansion, in the UK first & now ~200 locations globally. 
 
They've become a mammoth of a biz: 
• Worth ~$40B 
• Revenue of ~$1B 
• Sell 265k+ vehicles per year 
 
I love this biz for several reasons: 
 
1. The 'rollup' model 
 
This is the process of Copart slowly buying more and more locations to become a formidable force. 
 
This can't be replicated in all industries (predominantly brick-and-mortar). 
 
But when it works, it compounds FAST. 
 
2. Innovative biz model 
 
Can you think of any current industry where a small incentives tweak would result in better outcomes for all parties involved? 
 
Copart's % fee change was genius because it meant when Copart succeeded, so did buyers & sellers. 
 
3. Big bets 
 
Embracing early tech can be risky. 
 
The companies that get it right go on to rule the world.

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Thanks for reading. If you like business breakdowns like this, my newsletter has even deeper dives. You can get it here → https://lnkd.in/eGmtANrR

The richest people in the world have ONE thing in common... 
 
↓ ↓ ↓ 
 
PE firms will happily buy up small businesses. 
 
What would happen if YOU did the same? 
 
What if you became an owner and kept Main Street local? 
 
What if you got to keep the profits instead of it going away to some rich suit on Wall Street? 
 
I think you're crazy to not listen to this opportunity. 
 
Dip your toes in by getting insights from our private community of business-buyers in this 5min weekly newsletter → https://lnkd.in/gZgZ3XMk

Remember "The Great Resignation" of 2020-2022?

Ever wonder where people ended up?

Turns out, a large percentage of women became entrepreneurs.

In 2019, only 29% of new business owners were women, but by 2020, 47% were women. And that number's stayed pretty consistent the last few years.

Love to see around half of all new business owners as women, given... about half the population is women. Seems fair to me.

But I was curious why the sudden spark?

A few reasons found by Gusto:

1. Started with Mass Layoffs

In 2020: 32% of women said they started their biz due to being laid off. People started seeing business ownership as a more stable financial option than employment.

2. The Kids

By 2021: 28% of women with school-age kids said they started their business in response to increased childcare responsibilities. Stay-at-home mom + badass business owner at the same time.

3. Flexibility

In 2022: 64% of women said they became entrepreneurs for more flexibility. Want more freedom? Build it.

You can't be it if you can't see it. Love this trend.

Any ladies start a biz this year? Brag in the comments 👇 I wanna hear why you started and how it’s going!

Full report on this data here → 
https://lnkd.in/ev3e7Vhr
And thanks to Gusto for pulling it all together → https://lnkd.in/edEszSZ5
#ad #sponsored

Entrepreneurship is incredibly hard: 
 
• Failure rate: 90% 
• Avg salary: $46k 
 
Instead, go buy a profitable competitor or vendor: 
 
• Cashflow day 1 
• Systems already in place 
• Scales 10x faster than client acquisition 
 
Acquisitions are overlooked as both a way to become an owner and a way to grow your current biz.

↓ ↓ ↓

Why are they so overlooked?

Because buying businesses is complex & confusing... and no one teaches you how to do it.

Dip your toes in by getting insights from our private community of business-buyers in this 5min weekly newsletter → https://lnkd.in/gZgZ3XMk

If it was easy... Everyone would do it.

7 ways to push yourself out of your comfort zone:

↓ ↓ ↓

Wealth is made outside your comfort zone.

Here are 29 creative ideas for new income streams you can start today → https://lnkd.in/e2_CYkW8

7 ways to push yourself out of your comfort zone

This is cool. Turns out women and men run different types of business.

And...

Women create more biz's that serve local communities (think education, non-profits).

In fact this year, 1/3 of women-owned businesses were in Community Services, compared to 19% of male-owned businesses. So if we want more of these businesses... we should back more women owners.

We build communities, by building up women-owned businesses.

Also cool: women are ~1/3 more likely than men to offer a hybrid work schedule.

We build flexibility, by building up women-owned businesses.

I got these stats from Gusto, really interesting data→ https://lnkd.in/ev3e7Vhr

Check out what Gusto's about here → https://lnkd.in/edEszSZ5

We rise by lifting each other up. Building is the way.

Numbers over narrative, every time.

#ad #sponsored

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