In this episode of the Priority Lane podcast, host Nigel speaks with David Caruso, a serial entrepreneur who shares his journey from running a successful hire business in Sydney to establishing a thriving e-commerce operation in Thailand. They discuss the importance of prioritising relationships, the impact of COVID-19 on business, and the significance of having systems in place for success. David emphasises the philosophy of failing fast and cheap, the need for clear goals, and the importance of treating employees as family. The conversation also touches on the role of marketing in business success and the evolving nature of priorities over time.
Keywords
entrepreneurship, e-commerce, business systems, priorities, failure, marketing, leadership, motivation, success, personal growth
Takeaways
True success comes from what you choose to ignore.
Burnout can lead to significant life changes.
E-commerce can thrive during global crises like COVID-19.
Systems are crucial for managing a successful business.
Failing fast and cheap is a valuable business strategy.
Priorities change over time and should be regularly assessed.
Reinvention is essential for personal and professional growth.
Treating employees like family fosters a positive work environment.
Controlling money is key to financial freedom.
Effective marketing is more important than being the best at your craft.
Sound bites
"Fail fast, fail cheap."
"Reinvention is key to success."
"You treat staff like family."
Chapters
00:00 Welcome to the Priority Lane
01:53 David Caruso's Entrepreneurial Journey
05:08 The Impact of COVID-19 on E-commerce
06:30 The Importance of Systems in Business
07:58 Fail Fast, Fail Cheap: A Business Philosophy
12:01 Identifying and Following Through on Priorities
18:08 Learning from Historical Figures: Alfred Nobel
21:54 Reinventing Business and Life
24:35 The Impact of Prioritizing Relationships
30:42 Treating People as a Priority in Business
39:13 Philosophy on Money and Business
56:43 The Key to Business Success: Marketing
Nigel:
Welcome to the Priority Lane. The podcast show where we explore the power of doing less but doing it better. In a world overflowing with noise, notifications, and never-ending to-do lists, true success comes from what you choose to ignore. Each episode, I sit down with leaders, creators, and top-performing professionals to uncover how they filter out the noise, focus on what matters, and design lives built on clarity, not chaos. Even the bizarre or unusual achievements in history remind us just how far focus, discipline, and a bit of human curiosity can take us. If you're ready to step out of reaction mode and into your priority lane, you're in the right place. Now, our guest for this episode is David Caruso.
David Caruso:
Great Nigel, thanks for that great introduction mate, selling ice to the Eskimos. Serial entrepreneur mate, that's very flattering. Flattery will get you everywhere. Thank you very much for that.
Nigel:
So for a bit of context for our listeners, do you want to give us a bit of background on how you ended up in Thailand and your current business?
David Caruso:
Yes, I'll give you the short story. Like you said, I'm a bit of a serial entrepreneur. Had a business in Sydney for about 20 years. There was a hire business, started it from scratch. Around about 2010, I sold out of that business. If I'm honest with myself, I kind of got burnt out a little bit. I was around about 40 at the time. So sold out. And we actually retired. We physically, we mentally retired and we came to Thailand. My wife, my wife of 22 years now is from Thailand, is Thai. So we kind of built this forever home on the beach in a beachside suburb called Hat Chow Samran in Petribre in Thailand. And then after about a year of doing nothing of retirement, and mind you, Nigel, I'll never retire again. One retirement's enough in life. But after a year, I kind of got a little bit bored and I was looking for things to do. So I didn't want a big business again. I was kind of burnt out from a big business. And so I started motivational speaking, doing a bit of motivational speaking. And we would fly to Australia, New Zealand, England and kind of do the motivational speaking. So did that for about seven to eight years. You know, it might sound great that you're traveling all the time and international travel, but you kind of get a bit tired of traveling as well. So around about 2018, 2019, I went to this conference in Chiang Mai, which is a city up at North Thailand. And there were all these young kids, these young whippersnappers that are doing business up there. From this conference, I got the, all these guys were doing e-commerce and a lot of digital marketing online stuff. So I kind of got the feeling that, you know, if these guys can do it and make a good living, you know, me with my business acumen for lack of a better word, should do better, should do just as good, hopefully better. So I came home from the conference and said to my wife, we're not traveling next year, 2019. We're going to do e-commerce. And we started with one website and now we're up to 700 websites selling internationally. We have a distribution point here in Thailand and that business rapidly grew into a multi, multi, multi-million, multi-million dollar business. Mind you, COVID helped because when the world shut down that everybody was buying online. That kind of catapulted as well. So the timing was a little bit, a little bit right for us.
Nigel:
Wow.
David Caruso:
So yeah, so now I'm sitting in Thailand, sitting in an office here, have a big warehouse just over on our land over there. And we sell to 32 plus countries, 700 plus websites on our way to a thousand websites. That's a short version for all the listeners.
Nigel:
That sounds incredible. Just on that timing, you said 2019 when you made the call, we're not going to travel next year. That was good timing. You didn't have any sort of input in what happened over the following 12 months with the virus.
David Caruso:
But I did it, but benefited from it. So as much as I hate to say that because I had a lot of friends in business, I still have a lot of friends in business and a lot of those businesses suffered during that time. So it was very hard for me to say, you know, we're going great. It's fantastic when friends were actually, you know, being adversely affected by it. I had to, yeah, had to be conscious of that.
Nigel:
Yeah, yeah. How, I mean, you're 700 on your way to 1000. How does that work? How was it structured?
David Caruso:
Systems, mate. Being a successful business person, whatever success means to you, I think systems play an important role. So lots and lots of systems. We don't have a big team. The team that we have just all follow the systems diligently. I'm pretty proud of our system so much so that I, you know, we sell right across the world. Most of our sites, or you know, 95% of our sites are in English. Sometimes we delve into a nationality site like a Danish site and Vietnamese site, and we might put it in Danish and Vietnamese. But most of our sites are in English and the people I've got building my sites are actually Thai people and those Thai people can't speak English. So we've got the systems down to a point where they can build a site and not even understand English. So just follow the system. So I'm pretty proud of that.
Nigel:
Okay. So, overall, the business ventures you've embarked on over your life, what would be, say, your strike rate in terms of ones that you would call a success or achieved what you had envisioned for them?
David Caruso:
Hmm, that's a good question that I've done a few businesses over time. I've always had this philosophy to, you know, when I'm starting out, have a few irons in the fire that like try a few different things. And then if something kind of flares up, you dedicate your time and effort to that. These days with the website, so we're actually each website, we're actually starting a new business kind of thing. We've got about 60 brands. So the philosophy from that, you know, irons in the fire, flaring up thing, the philosophy we use these days is fail fast, fail cheap, because we don't want to spend too much time on a project that's going to take, you know, a lot of time and effort and money where it's going to fail. So we don't, we're not afraid of failure. We'll talk about that a little bit later that I love to fail. But I want to fail fast enough, I want to fail cheap. But going back to your original question, probably had, actually I did get asked this the other day and I had to go back through my brain. So my first ever business, I had a couple of businesses with you, Nigel, if you remember, back in the day, a couple of side hustles. We were working full time, so we were doing some distribution stuff. From there, I had a party hire business that went well.
Nigel:
I do remember, yes, yes.
David Caruso:
That evolved into a greater hire business. I've done some, I had a theatre restaurant there at one stage in St Mary's, the Major Oak Theatre restaurant. I had a spray painting business that, but these were all kind of like side stuff off the main business, which was my hire business, which was 20 years. So I did try a few extra things.
Nigel:
Now, do I remember you, you didn't, I'm thinking back in the day, desktop publishing rings a bell as well.
David Caruso:
Thank you, mate. See, and I've even forgotten about that. That was a side hustle that I first started, that desktop publishing, mate. I think the younger people listening to this wouldn't even know what desktop publishing is. It's crazy. But that's back in 1988, 89. But once again, a lot of this stuff, I used to start as a side hustle. I was working full time when I was doing that desktop publishing thing and had it as a bit of a side hustle.
Nigel:
Okay.
David Caruso:
But so anybody listening out there, I kind of coach younger guys now and I coach my daughter and what have you. My daughter's a very successful business person in her own right. To make a wage to work for somebody, make a wage, you kind of make a living. To have your own business, you make a fortune. So I always encourage people to have their own business and do their own business. And even if you are working for somebody, even if you're in a situation that you are working for somebody, start something on the side, start something as a side hustle. Work, don't, you know, I live on the philosophy that you've got to work hard, but I don't want to work hard for somebody else. I want to work hard for me. So if you are in a job at the moment, do what you have to do enough to maintain that job, but do the hard work, work harder on that side hustle. Evolve away from that job. Hopefully that makes sense.
Nigel:
Yep, yep, you never know where it's going to lead.
David Caruso:
100%, 100% that, but you know, the work ethic of working hard is important, especially when you're running your own business, you know.
Nigel:
Now, David, as you may know, each episode we delve into a quirky historical fact that of the month that we're in which happens to be December. Today we're going to talk about the Nobel Peace Prize which is awarded December 10th each year in Oslo. Have you heard the story of Alfred Nobel, the man behind the prize?
David Caruso:
I, Swedish guy, is he? And I, I, I have heard the story, but my, my, memory, my memory is very, very soft at the moment, but keep going.
Nigel:
Yep.
Nigel:
Correct, there you go.
Nigel:
Yeah, no, well, look, I was in the same boat. I've heard snippets over the years and I thought, well, this is a good opportunity to dive in into it a bit further. So we will. OK, so the story starts with Alfred Nobel, born on October 21, 1883 in Stockholm. Alfred was a chemistry prodigy and Alfred's father, Immanuel, was an inventor entrepreneur. When Alfred was young, Emmanuel moved the family and business to Russia to supply the military with cutting edge equipment. Alfred dreamed of being a writer, but his dad steered him into science, sending him to study across Europe. And as part of this, he worked with the inventor of nitroglycerine, a substance so volatile and explosive it made handling it a deadly gamble. Anyway, back home, the family business boomed during the Crimean War, but when peace broke out, bankruptcy hit. Undeterred, Alfred and his father set out to make nitroglycerine safer, knowing a safer explosive would have huge commercial benefits across a number of industries. Now as part of this process, they established a factory back home in Stockholm. And after coming up with this safer explosive dynamite, they called it, and amassing a fortune, Nobel's life took a dramatic turn in 1888 when his brother, a mill, was killed in an accident in the factory. If that wasn't bad enough, a French newspaper mistakenly published an obituary for Alfred instead of a mill. And the headline? The Merchant of Death. A man who got rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before. Shocked and ashamed, Nobel decided to rewrite his legacy. Who left his fortune to fund annual prizes for those who bring the greatest benefit to humanity in science, literature and peace. And these are still awarded each year on December 10 in Oslo. So the Nobel Prize all began with a family business, a mistaken obituary and a man determined to be remembered for good, not destruction. Now, David, reinvention of yourself or business. Have you ever gone through this process? Maybe not to the extent of Alfred, but in other ways.
David Caruso:
That's a great question. And that's a great story. I didn't know that full story about Alfred Noble. That was amazing. Reinvention for us. Yes, it's funny you ask. I have gone through a reinvention. It happened around about, obviously I sold my business back in 2010 and I retired. When I wanted to do business again, I kind of got itchy feet. And I wanted to do business again. In the West, what we tend to do as business owners is that, maybe you can relate to this, Nigel, what we tend to do as business owners is we create a business and then we create our lifestyle around our business. The business becomes core to our being a little bit and our life gets built around that business. Business takes precedence. So I wanted to build a business again, but I wanted to flip it on its head. I didn't want business to be the core. My lifestyle. Wanted family, relationships. I wanted my lifestyle to be the core and I wanted the business to be built around my business per se. So, I think in the West, as business owners, we kind of spend decades building wealth so we can have freedom kind of thing. And I'm thinking, how about I design my life for freedom and then, you build that wealth around that first eight. That yeah, I've the first attempt at that we don't always, you know, as we talk about, we, you know, we try different things have different ions and fire. The first attempt at that was obviously motivational speaking, it was great. I would just fly into Australia, I do my presentations, I come back to Australia, and I kind of started building my business, my business was built around my lifestyle. But then we found e-commerce, you know, after that. And effectively now we've built our business. Our lifestyle comes first, family relationships, our health, what have you, comes first, and then the business is built around us. So we have a family business here, we have a compound here, I the business warehouse over here, I'm in an office at the moment. We live on site, we, you know, like I said, family, health and...
Nigel:
Okay, so how, yeah, okay, well that sounds amazing. So how has that change impacted you and your family? What would be the biggest impact would you say? It sounds like there's plenty of impact there.
David Caruso:
Yeah, what's the biggest impact? I suppose if I can talk openly, suppose, you know, when I had my business as the center of my world, you become a little bit tightly strung a little bit that if I can think back, you know, I'm totally different person today than I was say 20 years ago, 30 years ago when business was my be all and end all kind of thing. I don't know if it's comfort with age or if it's because business is not that big a priority. Like I said, the priorities change over time and business for me is probably fourth, fifth kind of thing in terms of my priority list. So you do come at a little bit calmer. You don't react to things that happen in business. Whereas before I would be very reactive in business because that was my be all and end all.
Nigel:
Yep.
David Caruso:
Yeah, so I'm a much calmer person, perhaps a bit more reflective. You've got time. And once again, this is nice about setting. And I, be honest, I haven't really talked to that app to talk to anybody about priority setting and things. So this is kind of a little bit reflective, you know, contemplation for me as well. So.
Nigel:
You're exactly right with what you're saying. I mean, I remember in my previous life, I was a business coach. And that was one of the things I worked with with small business clients is that, hey, this is your business. It only exists because you deem it so. Now, how do you want it to behave? And people understand that and they got it. But very few people implemented like you have done. What were the challenges of doing this or were there any challenges?
David Caruso:
For me, we're always trying to be better. I'm always on a learning curve. So for me to sit here and say I know everything and what have you, I'm always learning. But it's building, I talked about building systems. I think the key to our success is obviously building systems and I really encourage that for everybody listening who wants to build a business. So we kind of... I'm not answering your question directly. I'm kind of going on a different course here, but I apologize for doing so. But for us, I kind of have a simple four-layered kind of principle in terms of building businesses. The first is, business, because I'm still a small business owner. I still class myself. Anybody under about six to seven million dollars at turnover is classed as an SME, small to medium enterprise. SMB, if you're American and international.
Nigel:
Okay.
David Caruso:
Small to medium business. I think once you get to 10 million above, you start to get into a big business corporate thinking. And I've always been a small business guy. I've had to struggle a little bit actually because in my businesses, I always capped out at about five, six million turnover, to be honest with you. I never got to that, I've hired CEOs, COOs and different C-suite kind of executives for my businesses as I've grown. I've always tended to cap out at five to $6 million a year. And I thought that was a negative at one stage, but now I've just learned to accept it. I'm not a corporate guy. Can't speak corporate. I'm not a big business guy. I'm a small, enterprise. I'm very, well, I like to think I'm pretty good at that. And I say to my daughter that I'll coach you up to the five to 6 million and then you get a different coach, you know, to go six to 10. But anyway, building a business, we build systems. You as a business owner, when you first started, build just lots of systems. And then you start hiring your team because your team runs your systems. And then you hire management because your management runs your team. And then you, this is the four layers, you run your management. But you as a small business owner runs your management. But then also you go back to your systems and you're continually improving your systems because then you got that flow. But I like what you said, Nigel, in terms of you know, your business exists because of you. There's a reason these big businesses pay these CEOs of these corporations hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars a year, is because their influence filters down their business. And you know, us as small business owners, our influence, like times that by a million, times that by thousands, because our influence filters down our business. If we're feeling flat, our business will be flat. If we're not learning or progressing, our business is not going to be learning. Progressing. That's why it's important that you as a, they say you are the most important person in the business as a customer. Kind of F that. The most important person in a small business is the owner. And the owner's got to be continually growing, evolving, becoming a better business person. But also, just on life, I just want to kind of put an added into that. Become a very good business person. Be very good at business, but then you've got to transition from that as a business, as a successful business, and become a very good investor. Because a wise man once said to me, my dad once said to me, he said, son, that your business, treat your business as a cashflow vehicle. You've got to be a smarter investor than you are a businessman. Mind you, you've got to be a good businessman to be profitable, but it's what you do with that money afterwards that makes the difference in life.
Nigel:
Hmm.
David Caruso:
So for us, my business relatively successful throughout the things, but it's what I've done with the money to do that. Some might say it's lucky that real estate and what have you, but it's what you do with the money. Treat your business as a cashflow vehicle. Sorry, hog the conversation again, I apologize.
Nigel:
Yep, No, not at all. That's why you're here. That's why you're here. Now people, as you know, people are a big part of any business and should always be treated as a priority. So how do you do this in your business? How do you treat your people as a priority?
David Caruso:
Hmm. Okay. I'll be totally honest here and respect that human resources, HR, big weakness in terms of me as a business person. We can't be good at everything. And I've kind of recognized that over, I've been in business for 35 years, so I've kind of recognized where my weaknesses are. If I haven't discovered my weaknesses by now, I may as give up if that makes sense. But human resources. Human resources is a big weakness for me and mostly because I expect a lot from my staff. I expect a lot from people working for me. So, you know, we probably have a staff of about 20 people now. We mostly operate, well, we are in Thailand. So the Western style of management in Thailand doesn't work that time because we're as Western as we're a bit abrasive that we're bit too straightforward. So I'm lucky that, you know, my wife kind of manages the business on a day-to-day operations and I can just give instructions to go from my wife. But in the olden days when I had businesses in Australia, I would have this core people around me that was important. I still expect a lot from them. But in terms of, you know, what we can do today, what we do in our business today to recognize and staff. You've heard it all before and people have said it before, you treat staff like family and we do that here. They're like family. Little things that we do here, once a month massages for the staff. We have a massage person come in. I used to do that in Australia as well. Every Friday for the staff here, we have a lunch day. We have a chef at home actually that I don't want to brag too much. We have a chef at home and that she goes over to the warehouse and she cooks for the staff, whatever they want to cook for the Friday. Little things like, you know, I have a hairdresser that comes and cuts my hair here and any guys in the warehouse who wants their haircut, that's all part of the thing.
Nigel:
Wow, okay.
Nigel:
Okay, so how did the, for example, the staff lunches, the Friday, getting the chef in, how did that come about?
David Caruso:
We just always want to do little bits and pieces extra for your staff. It's once again to bring that family kind of value feeling into the organization. So it's nice because all the staff get to sit together at this one big table, like the management, the warehouse guys, the cleaners, whatever, they all sit together and it kind of it builds camaraderie. You used that word earlier on. Feels camaraderie little bit.
Nigel:
Okay. So is there variation in what's cooked? Is there a menu or do people get their choice saying, I want this or?
David Caruso:
Yeah, no. Sorry, so as a group they decide what's to be cooked and usually it's a really Thai kind of homemade delicacy kind of thing, a lot of stuff I can't eat. Luckily the chef will make me something on the side kind of thing. So they'll decide and the chef will prepare the ingredients for the upcoming days and have it ready for the Friday kind of thing. So yeah, it's quite nice.
Nigel:
That's it. Yeah.
David Caruso:
Actually, we even have in the, and this is old school, so I remember this back in Cumberland, you and I used to work at Cumberland newspapers, which was part of News Corp, Rupert Murdoch thing. And if you remember back in the day that we had a social club, there was a social club in the organization. So we give money once a month to the social club, that's how like we, I just give the money and they can save it.
Nigel:
Yes, yes, yes.
Nigel:
Right.
David Caruso:
Do whatever, they can bank it and spend it all at things and they usually do kind of group things. They'll stay, they'll go away one night or something like that as a group. So I kind of like that because it's, once again, camaraderie within the team.
Nigel:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so would you say the things like the chef coming in, their haircuts, the social club, that these type of initiatives work better than just straight out monetary recognition?
David Caruso:
That's a good point. That's a very good point. I would say yes. I just kind of try to delve back monetary. I'm going to butcher this a little bit. I've been studying business all my, I still study business today. I'm still learning on business. And I once did read, maybe you can kind of enlighten this a little bit further that I did. Once read that's almost belonging and is more important than just getting that monetary ridge. Mind you, need to be fairly compensated and we pay our guys above award of course, but yeah, being part of something is probably more important. Have you ever read that in a business scenario?
Nigel:
Being part of the family as such.
Nigel:
Yeah, yeah, sort of where, in a way, definitely that belonging and obviously with salespeople, it's recognition over monetary reward. It's also the fact that straight out money is essentially, you're a commodity as such, as opposed to being part of the family and being valued and showing your value on a
David Caruso:
Belonging is more important.
Nigel:
On a human level as opposed to just, there you go, thanks for turning up for five days, here's your money.
David Caruso:
But I like what you just said there too, is recognition. So we're always positive reinforcement, positive recognition that, as much as I'm bad with human resources, and I'll still admit that I am, but I'll often send my customer service stuff, like you've done a really great job, thank you. Sending gratitude, sending thanks and gratitude quite often to the staff. And sometimes even just through Renoo, who's my wife who is the CEO of the business as well, for sending my gratitude towards through her to make sure that they, you know, they know that we're watching some sometimes people go do their business and they think, yeah, they think they're not being not watched, watched is the wrong word, that they're not they're being taken advantage of or they're not being appreciated. So making sure they understand that they are appreciated.
Nigel:
So basic human decency.
David Caruso:
Yeah, being a nice guy, know, that's 100%. But, you know, I always say, you know, I'm a nice guy. Well, I try to be a nice guy, but I often say, you know, don't mix niceness for softness that we are still hard and have expectations. So I can be the nice guy, but, you know, we can also be a little bit hard.
Nigel:
Yeah.
Nigel:
Yeah.
David Caruso:
If expectations, targets, whatever the case, or if something doesn't, you know, it's not done right.
Nigel:
Well, I mean exactly, I mean as a director of the business, you have a responsibility to act in the best interest of the business. If staff are exploiting the business, that needs to be stopped.
David Caruso:
100%.
David Caruso:
100%. 100%. So yeah.
Nigel:
Now just on that monetary side of things, do you think there's a shift in the way most people think about or treat money? Do you have a philosophy on that?
David Caruso:
I have a philosophy on money. I can't project that philosophy, my philosophy on others, on how they think. But you know, my philosophy on money is basically to learn and it kind of goes back to that investing thing that I kind of talked about, be a good business person, but be a better investor. And I suppose this can, this philosophy can apply to if you just work as well, like if you're working for wages. But learn to control money that otherwise be controlled by money. It's one of my own quotes actually and I've kind of had that in the back of my mind, learn to control money or be controlled by money. So what we mean by that, there's no amount of money that you can offer me for me to do anything. Actually, I teach this to my daughter that we don't do business for money. It's funny, I know it's just.
Nigel:
And
Nigel:
Right.
David Caruso:
It's a bit strange statement, but I say we don't work hard and we don't do business for money. We're just lucky that what we do and enjoy, there's a consequence of money. So I'm very lucky that we kind of treat business these days as a hobby and I'm lucky that the consequence of doing business is money. And I go back to now.
Nigel:
Thank
Nigel:
You
David Caruso:
That we're treating business as a hobby, I'd rather be doing business than sitting in the garden for hours on end. I was only saying to my wife, but I, cause we'll go away somewhere and we'll come back and we'll come back in the office and we'll say, man, it's great to be back in the office. It's great to be sitting here in of the computers. Because I'd rather be sitting here in front of the computers and like I said, doing two hours of gardening, reading a book by the pool. I couldn't think of anything more boring.
Nigel:
You
David Caruso:
I want to get in there and things. Now I'm not doing it for money. It's really a hobby, but I'm lucky that the consequence is money. So I've kind of taught my daughter that, that, that, you know, work out in business. We're not, we're not doing it for the money. We're doing, you know, well, the consequences money. And, and when we're doing business, we just kind of try to improve a little bit. So my daughter, you know, we are today, if you do 10 today, try to do 11 tomorrow, try to do 12 the next day, try to do 13. And that's that improvement, continual improvement. Once again, the consequences money, but we're not doing that improvement for the money, if that makes sense. It's for that continual improvement.
Nigel:
Yeah and I think when you think about it, it's sort of whether it's full circle or whatever you want to call it, but as we said earlier, the business only exists because you deem it so. So you wouldn't start a business with something that you hate doing, that'll just be silly. So yeah, by starting up your own business and doing it, you should like what you're doing, otherwise you shouldn't pick that as a business.
David Caruso:
Hmm.
David Caruso:
100 % and they say you don't work. What's that famous saying? You don't work a day in your life if you're doing something you enjoy or something. I'm just butchered it somewhere along the lines. But mind you, Nigel, I like what you said. I agree what you said. I've heard speakers go to the full extent in terms of do what you're passionate. Work in a business that you're, I do something that you're passionate about. I don't.
Nigel:
Yes. Yes.
David Caruso:
I don't agree to that extreme. Do something that's profitable that you might be passionate. Actually, my daughter, my daughter's passionate. She's an artist. She was doing passion. She was very passionate about being an artist. We're kind of and then she was doing concentration being an artist. This is six, seven years ago. There's not much money in art. Unfortunately, there wasn't much money in what she was doing as well. And then we started this business. She's a music. She has a music school that employs about 200 people.
Nigel:
Good night.
David Caruso:
That got X amount of, I think, 500, 600 students across Australia. So she's, I'm proud, Dad, I'm boasting about my daughter, but very proud. So we kind of, you know, we talked about, at the time, this was about five, six years ago, I said, darling, how about we get the music things, make some money and what have you, and things, then later you can do what you're passionate about. That if this thing is self-supporting and what have you,
Nigel:
Wow.
David Caruso:
Then go and do what you're passionate about with artists. I know it's delaying gratification.
Nigel:
So it's a stepping stone to the passionate.
David Caruso:
Yeah, yeah. So going back to my original point, don't do what you're passionate about. Do something in business that's making, you know, that's profitable. But yes, you've got to enjoy it as well. I can tell you e-commerce, that's what we're doing now, is the easiest business we've ever done. That's and I talk about, because Renu was in my business in Australia as well. Renu was in my business for about 10 years. She lived in Australia for 10 years. And she was part of my business. That part of our business I should say and she can tell you, mate, this is the easiest business that we've ever done in our life. So do something that's easy, do something that's profitable. Because even the business that I had for the hire business, I did that for close to 20 years, the profits were tight, the margins are tight, everything's tight. So you're highly strung that you need things to be working. So as I was talking about being reactive earlier on, if you know, if there was an F up, it's costing me money. I and I'm reactive and I'm annoyed and cranky, because I know that that the margins are thin that that things that doing something that's easy and profitable takes the stress off. If that makes sense. Just one point on that one more I'm hogging conversation. One more point do when when you're starting a business, you got to be very profitable to start because as you grow your business,
Nigel:
Yeah.
Nigel:
Yeah.
Nigel:
Let's go.
David Caruso:
Profit margins decrease. People start a business and they have tight margins when they start. If you have a business and you want to grow that business and it's tight margins when it starts, it's going to be no margins when you grow because you get management in, you get people working for you. Overheads, thank you, 100%. Things get tighter. So start with a big, start doing something that's got big profits.
Nigel:
You get your overheads, everything can, yep, yep.
David Caruso:
Because as you grow, those profits will narrow per se. Anyway, that's just a bit of tip.
Nigel:
Yeah, I was just thinking when you were talking about that saying don't concentrate necessarily concentrate on something that you're passionate about and that's so true. I don't think we would have started our first business together. I don't think we were very passionate about that business but it was profitable.
David Caruso:
100%. 100%. It was a great business to do.