# Billionare Adrian Portelli Reveals Why He Moved to Dubai, His ATO Battle & Business Empire

An episode of [Straight Talk with Mark Bouris](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1572546872), 26 Oct 2026, 1 h 16 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/1c4759f0-81fc-4f35-85d1-b305004fc1e8/4faf8d2e-5abc-4e45-9484-b4ef0054062c/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=573776d2-4dbd-4f2f-a825-b305004fc1ef

Before the luxury cars, multimillion-dollar properties and headline-making giveaways, Adrian Portelli was broke and determined to succeed. Growing up in Melbourne's western suburbs, Adrian refused to take a conventional job, spent years building businesses and sacrificed almost everything in pursuit of success. Now one of Australia's most recognisable entrepreneurs, Adrian sits down with Mark Bouris to tell the story behind his rise. He breaks down the LMCT Plus business model, explains how he turned giveaways into a powerful marketing strategy, and opens up about his disputes with regulators, his move to Dubai and his next major business ventures. Executive Producer: Samuel Morgan Head of Production: Jonah Mclachlan Join my exclusive Mentored community: https://mentored.com.au Subscribe to the Mentored newsletter here: https://the-mentored-platform-pty-ltd.myklpages.com/l/WWJGc5 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Adrian Portelli.
[0:01] Speaker 2: G'day.
[0:02] Speaker 1: Welcome to Straight Talk, mate.
[0:03] Speaker 2: It's been a long time coming.
[0:04] Speaker 1: You betcha. We're at LMCT +. I'm going to talk
[0:07] Speaker 1: to you a little bit later about what the hell
[0:09] Speaker 1: that means because it doesn't mean anything to me. I'm
[0:10] Speaker 1: trying to work out, does it stand for something? Is
[0:13] Speaker 1: it some sort of protein word or something like that?
[0:16] Speaker 1: But you'll explain that to me in a moment. You're
[0:18] Speaker 1: just back from Dubai and I want to talk to
[0:20] Speaker 1: you about that. But mate, I'm a businessman. You're a businessman.
[0:24] Speaker 1: You've done extraordinarily well. You've made a lot of money.
[0:27] Speaker 1: You continue to make a lot of money. And I
[0:28] Speaker 1: know you're used to being interviewed or you've done some
[0:30] Speaker 1: interviews with journalists, but I'm going to talk to you
[0:32] Speaker 1: as a businessman. And so some of these questions might
[0:36] Speaker 1: look like they're ignorant in that I don't actually understand
[0:38] Speaker 1: your business model and how it works. And I'm going
[0:43] Speaker 1: to probably go on a few spots you might feel
[0:45] Speaker 1: a bit uncomfortable with. You may not. You okay with that?
[0:48] Speaker 2: Go for it.
[0:48] Speaker 1: Because if you want to leave, we'll leave now.
[0:49] Speaker 2: Dig deep, mate. Dig deep. Okay, mate. Go for it.
[0:52] Speaker 1: So, well, last time I read is that you were
[0:54] Speaker 1: moved to Dubai. Yes. Bet you're back here. Yeah. So
[0:59] Speaker 1: what do you mean when you say you've moved to Dubai?
[1:02] Speaker 1: Do you mean you moved permanently? You're never going to
[1:04] Speaker 1: come back to Australia again? How does that work?
[1:06] Speaker 2: No, we never said that we were moving permanently. I
[1:10] Speaker 2: never once said that. It's impossible for me to do that. Unfortunately,
[1:15] Speaker 2: the media run off with a certain narrative that I've
[1:18] Speaker 2: fled the country. But that's not the case at all.
[1:21] Speaker 2: We've been planning this move for the last three, four years,
[1:24] Speaker 2: me and my family. this isn't just a, something that's
[1:27] Speaker 2: happened overnight. If it was, you know, the, uh, the
[1:29] Speaker 2: ATO will come knocking. Um, everything's been, you know, logged
[1:33] Speaker 2: and we've got minutes to everything and, and, um, you know,
[1:35] Speaker 2: I've got businesses overseas and setups overseas and, and, um,
[1:41] Speaker 2: we originally started in Singapore. We, family wasn't too comfortable there.
[1:45] Speaker 2: So big, you know, uh, culture change over there. So
[1:49] Speaker 2: then we were looking in Italy. So we wanted to
[1:50] Speaker 2: move to Italy. Um, So we went over to Italy
[1:54] Speaker 2: a couple of years ago, put a few offers in
[1:57] Speaker 2: some homes over there. And, you know, then we saw,
[2:01] Speaker 2: you know, a few reports of kidnappings and all these
[2:05] Speaker 2: other things. And, you know, Italy is a big culture
[2:08] Speaker 2: change as well. You know, they don't speak English in
[2:10] Speaker 2: a lot of places. Getting there is a lot more
[2:13] Speaker 2: difficult from Australia. You know, you're commuting 20, 24 hours.
[2:18] Speaker 2: Schooling will be difficult.
[2:20] Speaker 1: So....
[2:22] Speaker 2: You know, it was a last-minute thing, Dubai. We traveled
[2:26] Speaker 2: there a lot, but we would never look to ever
[2:28] Speaker 2: live there. We didn't like it, me and my partner
[2:31] Speaker 2: and the family. And it was a last-minute thing. I said,
[2:33] Speaker 2: you know what? It just makes sense. You know, it's
[2:35] Speaker 2: the central hub of the world. You know, we head up,
[2:38] Speaker 2: we get to Europe, head down, get to Australia, and
[2:40] Speaker 2: we're inked in that sense. One flight, anywhere we want
[2:43] Speaker 2: to go. It's safe. It's an upcoming city. And we thought,
[2:50] Speaker 2: you know what? Let's just give it a shot. And
[2:52] Speaker 2: I can safely say it was probably one of the
[2:54] Speaker 2: best decisions I've ever made in my life.
[2:56] Speaker 1: What we could get seduced into thinking is that you
[2:58] Speaker 1: have gone there because it's a low tax rate environment
[3:02] Speaker 1: and a lot of taxed on residents around the world
[3:06] Speaker 1: live there, particularly Europeans and English people. How much does
[3:10] Speaker 1: tax weigh in the decision making or is it more
[3:13] Speaker 1: about lifestyle? Look.
[3:15] Speaker 2: I think that's the biggest misconception that, that, you know,
[3:17] Speaker 2: we're fled there to avoid paying taxes. My businesses are
[3:20] Speaker 2: based here.
[3:21] Speaker 1: So, so you can't, you can't.
[3:22] Speaker 2: Avoid, can't avoid tax, right? Minimize it in certain aspects,
[3:28] Speaker 2: but I can minimize it here as well.
[3:29] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[3:29] Speaker 2: I buy a jet, I fly around in the jet
[3:31] Speaker 2: and I minimize my taxes. It's no different to, you know,
[3:34] Speaker 2: I've got, I've just feel like I've got more control
[3:36] Speaker 2: over my business being overseas than here. And to be honest, um,
[3:43] Speaker 2: Having that control, obviously, moving forward, you know, it's every
[3:46] Speaker 2: man for themselves. Unfortunately, the government, they'll take, take, take.
[3:50] Speaker 2: But when you're in need, there's no one there to help.
[3:54] Speaker 2: So I wanted the best for my family. I still
[3:59] Speaker 2: love Australia. I still call Australia home. But, you know,
[4:02] Speaker 2: I've got a second home as well, and that's Dubai.
[4:05] Speaker 2: And I feel like I can give my family a
[4:07] Speaker 2: lifestyle they deserve outside of Australia. And we can have
[4:12] Speaker 2: the best of both worlds. We can come here for
[4:14] Speaker 2: our family, friends, and my businesses that are here. And
[4:17] Speaker 2: then we can go to Dubai and it's a completely
[4:18] Speaker 2: different life. Nobody knows who I am there.
[4:21] Speaker 1: Is that a good thing?
[4:23] Speaker 2: I absolutely love it. I'm like an introvert. I was
[4:26] Speaker 2: never wanting to be in the public eye. But most importantly,
[4:32] Speaker 2: I'm a businessman. And I understood that putting my face
[4:35] Speaker 2: to my brands built trust, built an audience, and it's
[4:38] Speaker 2: got me to where I am today. So it's a
[4:39] Speaker 2: small sacrifice to pay. But at the same time, if
[4:42] Speaker 2: I've got the opportunity to relocate my family in Dubai
[4:45] Speaker 2: and we can live a life where we're in peace,
[4:48] Speaker 2: we're not scared of something happening, you know, to our
[4:51] Speaker 2: children or the family or, you know, over here in Melbourne,
[4:55] Speaker 2: we've got security is insane. Like I've got bulletproof doors
[4:59] Speaker 2: that we lock to go to sleep. My bedroom doors
[5:01] Speaker 2: are bulletproof doors. No. Yeah.
[5:04] Speaker 1: Isn't that bad, Victoria?
[5:05] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[5:07] Speaker 1: Or are you just taking extra, extra precautions?
[5:09] Speaker 2: Well, I think everyone can see what's happening. The last
[5:12] Speaker 2: thing you want is to wake up with people inside
[5:16] Speaker 2: your house and your family's at risk. So to be
[5:21] Speaker 2: able to go to Dubai and just be able to
[5:24] Speaker 2: sleep peacefully is, for me, that's a win.
[5:27] Speaker 1: Have you been concerned about the Middle East conflict?
[5:29] Speaker 2: So we actually got there in January.
[5:32] Speaker 1: Wow.
[5:32] Speaker 2: We got there in January, and my... crew from back
[5:38] Speaker 2: home with the jet. They reached out and they said,
[5:41] Speaker 2: we've got them word that it's going to heat up
[5:43] Speaker 2: in the Middle East. We can come over there and
[5:45] Speaker 2: grab your family and get you out of there. And
[5:48] Speaker 2: I sat down with the family and my partner and
[5:50] Speaker 2: I said, look, we can leave or we can stay here.
[5:55] Speaker 2: This country's given us a home to live. They've accepted us. And,
[6:01] Speaker 2: you know, when it gets hard, we just pack up
[6:04] Speaker 2: and leave. I said, I think we We buckle down
[6:06] Speaker 2: and support the country and we stay put. And my family,
[6:10] Speaker 2: we're all happy. We're like, all right, let's do it.
[6:12] Speaker 1: There hasn't been any danger or any moments you thought, well,
[6:15] Speaker 1: what's going on? No.
[6:17] Speaker 2: Look, they had it under control. There was, you know,
[6:19] Speaker 2: the interceptions and, you know, we'd be on meetings and
[6:24] Speaker 2: you'd feel, you know, the house shake. But there were interceptions.
[6:28] Speaker 2: They had it under control. We felt safe. There was
[6:31] Speaker 2: never a point in time where we're like, okay, we
[6:33] Speaker 2: made the wrong decision.
[6:34] Speaker 1: So you mentioned earlier on, Adrian, that one of your businesses,
[6:40] Speaker 1: at least, is here in Australia. I mean, it makes
[6:42] Speaker 1: money here in Australia. I've never really understood what your
[6:46] Speaker 1: business model is, from a businessman to a businessman. So
[6:49] Speaker 1: what is your business model? And explain where we are
[6:53] Speaker 1: right now, LMCT +. I mean, what does that mean
[6:56] Speaker 1: and what is LMCT? That's your head brand. So maybe
[7:00] Speaker 1: explain the brand. What's this under the brand? But what
[7:03] Speaker 1: is the business model? I don't know. I mean, I
[7:06] Speaker 1: know you make money and you give stuff away. That's
[7:08] Speaker 1: all I know.
[7:08] Speaker 2: That's where people get confused because our promotions are so loud.
[7:12] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[7:13] Speaker 2: People assume that that's the core of the business.
[7:15] Speaker 1: No, I don't. I think there's something more to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[7:17] Speaker 2: There definitely is. And I think people are missing. Well,
[7:19] Speaker 2: people that aren't business minded and you would understand this,
[7:22] Speaker 2: but a lot of people just see it from what
[7:25] Speaker 2: they see online. But there's a big machine in the
[7:28] Speaker 2: background that's putting this all together.
[7:30] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[7:32] Speaker 2: Generating income for a lot of small businesses. So it's funny.
[7:34] Speaker 2: I had two apps. I had two mobile apps. So
[7:37] Speaker 2: one was a hospitality app where people could get... People
[7:42] Speaker 2: could sign up to the platform businesses in the hospitality industry.
[7:45] Speaker 1: And they pay for that? Yeah, they would pay for it.
[7:47] Speaker 1: It's a subscription type thing?
[7:48] Speaker 2: Yep. And they would give my members a discount to
[7:54] Speaker 2: shop there. And it was like a timed sort of... So,
[7:57] Speaker 2: you know, restaurants and that, they've got their busy periods,
[7:59] Speaker 2: they've got their quieter periods. So what I wanted to
[8:01] Speaker 2: do was... give them an option to almost like a
[8:05] Speaker 2: social media for the hospitality industry where they could push
[8:08] Speaker 2: a notification out to thousands of people and say, for
[8:11] Speaker 2: the next two hours, we're going to give you 20%
[8:13] Speaker 2: off your meal.
[8:15] Speaker 1: So just on that, so you would aggregate a whole
[8:17] Speaker 1: lot of these small business owners in the hospitality industry.
[8:21] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[8:22] Speaker 1: You would also aggregate an audience underneath it, your own audience.
[8:25] Speaker 2: Correct.
[8:25] Speaker 1: You would say to these small business owners, look, let's
[8:28] Speaker 1: say Tuesday night is a slow night for you. but
[8:31] Speaker 1: you've still got to put staff in there to pay.
[8:33] Speaker 1: You've got costs, you're paying rent, you're buying food, blah, blah, blah.
[8:36] Speaker 1: If you want to advertise a 20% discount for meals
[8:38] Speaker 1: on Tuesday night, come through to my aggregation site, aggregate
[8:42] Speaker 1: it to me. So I presume what you do is
[8:44] Speaker 1: you clip their ticket, you get a small fee from
[8:47] Speaker 1: the small business owners?
[8:48] Speaker 2: It was very new, so we weren't really capitalising off
[8:52] Speaker 2: it in that sense, but that was the model behind it.
[8:55] Speaker 2: So we had a good 100 restaurants, cafes, bars just
[9:00] Speaker 2: in Melbourne. And that's the thing. And then they'd push out,
[9:02] Speaker 2: you know, in their slow periods when they wanted a
[9:04] Speaker 2: bit of a boost, they'd push out. And it actually
[9:07] Speaker 2: showed signs. It actually was pretty cool to see it
[9:10] Speaker 2: in effect. But, you know, you're bootstrapping these businesses. You know,
[9:16] Speaker 2: tech businesses, they're very expensive to get up and going,
[9:20] Speaker 2: and a small percentage of them actually succeed.
[9:23] Speaker 1: So you're basically a marketplace using technology.
[9:26] Speaker 2: Pretty much.
[9:27] Speaker 1: Was that called an LMCT plus?
[9:30] Speaker 2: No, that was called Ticker.
[9:31] Speaker 1: Ticker.
[9:31] Speaker 2: So it was called Ticker, the whole timer sort of thing.
[9:36] Speaker 2: And yeah, no, it was good. It definitely showed signs,
[9:40] Speaker 2: but at the same time, I was running out of money.
[9:42] Speaker 2: I was funding it and I funded a few projects
[9:46] Speaker 2: like that and running out of money. So on the side,
[9:49] Speaker 2: I was creating LMCT +, which was this software would
[9:55] Speaker 2: go to a whole bunch of sites. You got your
[9:56] Speaker 2: car sales, you got your marketplace, you got eBay, you got...
[10:00] Speaker 2: your auction places. It would collect all that data. So
[10:04] Speaker 2: strip it all out. So it would find two, 300,000
[10:06] Speaker 2: cars that were for sale. And then based on the price,
[10:10] Speaker 2: it would compare it to market value. It would take
[10:12] Speaker 2: in consideration the kilometers on the car, the condition.
[10:15] Speaker 1: So Redbook stuff.
[10:16] Speaker 2: Pretty much.
[10:16] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
[10:17] Speaker 2: Yeah. It'd compare it with Redbook valuations. And then, you know,
[10:21] Speaker 2: in the space of 10 seconds, we could sort through
[10:23] Speaker 2: like two, 300,000 cars and show you which car you
[10:25] Speaker 2: could buy and make the most money on. I actually
[10:28] Speaker 2: bought it for myself because I used to do that
[10:30] Speaker 2: in my spare time, buy and sell cars. That's how
[10:32] Speaker 2: a lot of people- Sort of.
[10:33] Speaker 1: Like an arbitrage. Yeah, yeah. You go and sell, well,
[10:35] Speaker 1: that car's undervalued.
[10:36] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[10:37] Speaker 1: Somebody who's obviously desperate or some old fella that can't
[10:40] Speaker 1: drive anymore and he's probably only got 3,000 kilometers on it.
[10:43] Speaker 1: I'll go knock it off. It's an old Cortina, but
[10:45] Speaker 1: it's got this, that, and the other thing going for it.
[10:46] Speaker 1: It's a Tarana or something. Doesn't understand the value of it.
[10:49] Speaker 1: But I reckon I can resell it.
[10:51] Speaker 2: Even that or like, you know, even just the way
[10:54] Speaker 2: people present the cars.
[10:55] Speaker 1: Yeah. I can clean it up.
[10:57] Speaker 2: Some of them just need a good polish.
[10:58] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[10:59] Speaker 2: The right setting, good photos.
[11:00] Speaker 1: It's a good hustle.
[11:01] Speaker 2: It's a good hustle.
[11:02] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[11:02] Speaker 2: You can make good money on it.
[11:03] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[11:04] Speaker 2: So anyway, so we built that software.
[11:05] Speaker 1: And that was LMCT.
[11:07] Speaker 2: That was LMCT Plus, yeah.
[11:08] Speaker 1: What does LMCT mean?
[11:10] Speaker 2: It's a licensed motor car trader.
[11:12] Speaker 1: Wow.
[11:12] Speaker 2: So it's the official license for dealers in Australia.
[11:15] Speaker 1: Why did you call it that?
[11:16] Speaker 2: Oh, it's, you know, like. every time you go to
[11:19] Speaker 2: a dealer, if you look on the front window, they've
[11:21] Speaker 2: got their LMCT license. Every time you listen to a
[11:24] Speaker 2: car ad, they've got their LMCT. They have to say
[11:27] Speaker 2: their LMCT license at the end as well. So I
[11:29] Speaker 2: just wanted to play on it. For me, it was
[11:31] Speaker 2: cheap marketing.
[11:32] Speaker 1: Everybody else is marketing for you.
[11:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And eventually I wanted to, you know,
[11:37] Speaker 2: essentially change the meaning of LMCT. Because LMCT in the dealership,
[11:43] Speaker 2: it's huge. It's a license that all motor traders use.
[11:48] Speaker 2: And now, If everyone hears LMZT.
[11:50] Speaker 1: They think of you.
[11:50] Speaker 2: It's not the sexiest name, I'll tell you.
[11:53] Speaker 1: But it just shows. Mate, I thought, honestly, I thought
[11:56] Speaker 1: it stood for something. And I thought this is something that,
[11:59] Speaker 1: you know, someone in your age cohort would all know.
[12:04] Speaker 1: And that me being an old fella, I don't understand it.
[12:07] Speaker 1: And I'm expecting you to tell me it means something
[12:09] Speaker 1: really spectacular.
[12:10] Speaker 2: It means absolutely jack.
[12:12] Speaker 1: And you know what?
[12:13] Speaker 2: It just shows. How you build a brand. How to
[12:17] Speaker 2: build a brand.
[12:17] Speaker 1: So you built the software to buy and sell cars. Yes.
[12:20] Speaker 1: So where did it go from there?
[12:21] Speaker 2: I was having a hard time selling the software because
[12:25] Speaker 2: dealers are just stuck in their ways. I approached a
[12:29] Speaker 2: lot of dealers and was finding it very difficult to
[12:32] Speaker 2: pitch it to them. They're just like, look, we've been
[12:34] Speaker 2: in this industry for how many years? We don't need
[12:36] Speaker 2: your software. We're fine. So then I started pitching it
[12:40] Speaker 2: to just people in the car community, like everyday people
[12:43] Speaker 2: like me. myself and we started to get some traction
[12:46] Speaker 2: and I had some cars that I was collecting that
[12:51] Speaker 2: were just sitting there and I said, you know what,
[12:52] Speaker 2: I'm going to give one away to try and get
[12:58] Speaker 2: some hype behind this brand.
[13:01] Speaker 1: Give one away to your audience.
[13:03] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So I want to fast track it, see
[13:06] Speaker 2: how much publicity we can get out of it.
[13:08] Speaker 1: Like a tester.
[13:09] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[13:10] Speaker 1: What sort of car was it?
[13:11] Speaker 2: It was just an old, like, Nissan GTO. Was that
[13:14] Speaker 2: an expensive car? Oh, back then, not much, maybe 20,
[13:17] Speaker 2: 25 grand. Okay. So it was all right, like, and
[13:20] Speaker 2: I didn't expect anything from it. You know, I just
[13:23] Speaker 2: wanted to, you know, I'm a marketing guy and I'm
[13:25] Speaker 2: just like, I need hope, I need to make noise
[13:28] Speaker 2: to get this up and running as quickly as possible.
[13:32] Speaker 2: So it was a big gamble for me because, you know,
[13:34] Speaker 2: I didn't have much money back then. So, you know,
[13:36] Speaker 2: I put this car up and, you know, It was
[13:39] Speaker 2: a bit of a flop.
[13:40] Speaker 1: People weren't that interested in it.
[13:44] Speaker 2: No, I thought I'd do a post that I'm going
[13:46] Speaker 2: to give away this to you and then I'm going
[13:48] Speaker 2: to wake up the next morning and it's going to
[13:49] Speaker 2: be crazy. It didn't work like that. It was a
[13:53] Speaker 2: big eye-opener that I was like, okay.
[13:55] Speaker 1: What did you think you did wrong? Was it the
[13:56] Speaker 1: quality of the car or was it the amount of
[13:58] Speaker 1: marketing you did around it?
[14:00] Speaker 2: It was funny because the software itself was a membership-based platform.
[14:05] Speaker 2: You had to become a member to enter to win
[14:09] Speaker 2: this car. And it's funny, you know, with a few
[14:12] Speaker 2: days left, you know, I was sleeping and I was
[14:19] Speaker 2: dreaming about entering it as well. Yourself?
[14:21] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[14:22] Speaker 2: I had this dream. It was really weird. And I
[14:25] Speaker 2: was like, oh, yeah, I want to win this car.
[14:27] Speaker 2: And it's like, oh, you've got to become a member.
[14:29] Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh, well, I'm not going to do that.
[14:31] Speaker 1: So that's friction.
[14:32] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[14:33] Speaker 1: And you identified friction straight in your own dream.
[14:35] Speaker 2: Straight away, yeah. So I woke up. It's like 3 a.m.
[14:37] Speaker 2: Woke up. Changed the whole model. You know, because, all right,
[14:42] Speaker 2: let's let people try the software for a limited time
[14:45] Speaker 2: and not lock them into a membership. Because, you know,
[14:47] Speaker 2: this was 10 years ago. So membership models in Australia
[14:50] Speaker 2: weren't really a thing at that point. In America, they
[14:54] Speaker 2: were popping. Like everyone was used to that whole membership platform.
[14:57] Speaker 2: Now everything's membership. But back then it wasn't. So, you know,
[15:01] Speaker 2: I changed the model and went back to bed.
[15:03] Speaker 1: Does that mean you made it free?
[15:05] Speaker 2: No, no. So it wasn't a membership anymore. It was
[15:07] Speaker 2: a one-time fee. Right. And you can come in and
[15:09] Speaker 2: try the software, and then if you wanted to become
[15:12] Speaker 2: a member, you could.
[15:13] Speaker 1: Right.
[15:14] Speaker 2: Change the model, went to sleep, woke up, bank. We
[15:18] Speaker 2: had our best day at 9 a.m. So I'm like, okay,
[15:21] Speaker 2: there's the problem.
[15:22] Speaker 1: So just understand that, though, Adrian. So when you say change,
[15:24] Speaker 1: the model before, the financial model before was you had
[15:27] Speaker 1: to be a member.
[15:28] Speaker 2: A member.
[15:28] Speaker 1: That's a monthly subscription or something like that. What you
[15:31] Speaker 1: did is you changed it as a result of this
[15:34] Speaker 1: thought during the night, which, by the way, some of
[15:36] Speaker 1: my best thoughts come at 3 o'clock in the morning.
[15:37] Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
[15:38] Speaker 1: It's weird how that works, but you changed it, so
[15:40] Speaker 1: you only had to pay once to be eligible for
[15:45] Speaker 1: this card draw. Yep.
[15:47] Speaker 2: So you'd get access to the software, but it was
[15:49] Speaker 2: for a time period. So it's like, all right, you
[15:50] Speaker 2: can have a trial for a week or a month
[15:53] Speaker 2: or six months. And that went much better than locking
[16:00] Speaker 2: people into a membership.
[16:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, people don't like that.
[16:03] Speaker 2: No. Especially when you're a new company, people have no
[16:06] Speaker 2: idea who you are. You've got no... brand, no social
[16:10] Speaker 2: proof or anything.
[16:12] Speaker 1: Can I just talk on that? Because that's an important thing,
[16:14] Speaker 1: social proof. To your audience, you now have social proof
[16:18] Speaker 1: because they've seen you perform, they've seen your longevity, they've
[16:20] Speaker 1: seen what you give away, et cetera. That social proof,
[16:24] Speaker 1: when you first started, you didn't have it. In other words,
[16:27] Speaker 1: people didn't trust you.
[16:27] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[16:28] Speaker 1: I don't mean they distrust you or mistrusted you, but
[16:30] Speaker 1: they weren't prepared to give you trust because they didn't
[16:32] Speaker 1: know who you were.
[16:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
[16:33] Speaker 1: They didn't know what the deal is. So I'm not
[16:35] Speaker 1: going to give you money every month. for 12 months
[16:37] Speaker 1: or whatever the case may be. But what I will do,
[16:41] Speaker 1: I'll give you a chance. Yep. And if you just
[16:44] Speaker 1: charge me once. And give me a period of time
[16:48] Speaker 1: that I can make a choice about. So you give
[16:50] Speaker 1: them back the power.
[16:51] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[16:51] Speaker 1: And you use that to build trust. And then over time,
[16:55] Speaker 1: once your brand was built, do you still run that
[16:59] Speaker 1: sort of program or is it now subscription 12 months,
[17:02] Speaker 1: whatever the case may be?
[17:04] Speaker 2: It's funny you say that. Then I think it was maybe...
[17:07] Speaker 2: maybe 18 months after we originally launched, we then introduced
[17:13] Speaker 2: the subscription model again. Right. It was maybe 12 months
[17:17] Speaker 2: after I launched, then I started putting my face to
[17:19] Speaker 2: the brand. Oh, really?
[17:20] Speaker 1: You weren't there before?
[17:21] Speaker 2: I did not have my face to the brand.
[17:23] Speaker 1: Wow.
[17:23] Speaker 2: Social media was private. Everything was private. I'm not a
[17:26] Speaker 2: public person.
[17:27] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[17:27] Speaker 2: People might laugh now about that, but I'm a very
[17:31] Speaker 2: private person. And I don't know why we did it, but.
[17:36] Speaker 2: I said, you know what, let's run an ad, an
[17:38] Speaker 2: advertisement with my face on it. And it went really well.
[17:42] Speaker 2: And I'm like, you know what, as much as I
[17:44] Speaker 2: don't like it, it's putting a face to a brand,
[17:47] Speaker 2: just fast-tracking so much quicker. You just build that trust
[17:50] Speaker 2: and connection.
[17:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, cut through.
[17:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
[17:52] Speaker 1: Because, I mean, like the brand LMCT, well, it doesn't
[17:54] Speaker 1: mean anything to me. But if I put your face
[17:57] Speaker 1: in front of it, I can sort of have a
[18:00] Speaker 1: relationship with it. And I get to think I know you.
[18:02] Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly.
[18:03] Speaker 1: And the more I know you, the more familiar with you,
[18:05] Speaker 1: the more I trust you. That's the deal. Did you
[18:09] Speaker 1: know about that concept before or did you learn about
[18:12] Speaker 1: the concept just off the back of a random decision
[18:16] Speaker 1: to put your face in front of it?
[18:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a random decision. And then we saw
[18:21] Speaker 2: the results and then obviously it just makes sense.
[18:24] Speaker 1: Maybe you probably didn't make this decision or think about
[18:26] Speaker 1: this at the time, but it's something I reflect on
[18:28] Speaker 1: all the time. And similarly, I did that with my
[18:31] Speaker 1: wizard business like 30 years ago or whatever it was.
[18:34] Speaker 1: Do you ever think about the personal cost of putting
[18:38] Speaker 1: your face on a brand? And did you know that
[18:41] Speaker 1: personal cost at the time?
[18:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I always wanted, when I was younger, I
[18:49] Speaker 2: always wanted to be successful. The personal cost, you know, we.
[18:54] Speaker 1: Loss of privacy, for example.
[18:56] Speaker 2: Loss of privacy. It's like we've got, I don't know,
[18:59] Speaker 2: I feel like I'm an open book. You know, I
[19:01] Speaker 2: say it how it is. And a lot of people
[19:02] Speaker 2: respect that. You know, although there might be like a
[19:06] Speaker 2: lot of hate online, in person, it's just like we just,
[19:12] Speaker 2: I don't walk around with security. I don't fear for
[19:14] Speaker 2: my life or anything. We get nothing but support. So,
[19:18] Speaker 2: and this is another reason why we moved to Dubai
[19:21] Speaker 2: as well, because we can have the best of both worlds.
[19:23] Speaker 2: You know, I can go out and we can, you know,
[19:25] Speaker 2: I feel like now I'm at service to the public
[19:28] Speaker 2: where I can go out and, you know, I'm just
[19:30] Speaker 2: a normal person. You know, I don't see myself any
[19:32] Speaker 2: different to anyone. I get out there. I help people.
[19:36] Speaker 2: I still go to the same places I did 10
[19:38] Speaker 2: years ago. I don't think I'm any better. I feel
[19:41] Speaker 2: like I'm in a position where you know, I can,
[19:45] Speaker 2: you know, branch off in other industries and be able
[19:50] Speaker 2: to leverage of what I was able to build by
[19:53] Speaker 2: putting my face to this brand. I wouldn't be in
[19:56] Speaker 2: the position I am today if I didn't do that.
[19:59] Speaker 2: So it's a small price to pay, you know, everything
[20:03] Speaker 2: I wanted to achieve of 10x.
[20:05] Speaker 1: And, Maybe even more.
[20:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. But if that means me going to a
[20:15] Speaker 2: supermarket or a shopping center and someone wanting to come
[20:19] Speaker 2: take a photo with me and say hi, then so
[20:21] Speaker 2: be it. I'm all for it.
[20:23] Speaker 1: I wouldn't mind understanding a little bit more about that.
[20:28] Speaker 1: Who was Adrian Portelli when he was a kid? I mean,
[20:31] Speaker 1: it's obviously an Italian surname.
[20:33] Speaker 2: Maltese.
[20:34] Speaker 1: Maltese surname, okay. Yeah. Well, Malta's very close to Italy.
[20:37] Speaker 1: They like to serve pasta.
[20:38] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[20:40] Speaker 1: And it's a wonderful place. Who was Adrian Portelli growing up?
[20:45] Speaker 1: You're from Victoria originally?
[20:47] Speaker 2: From Victoria, yeah.
[20:48] Speaker 1: Where'd you grow up? Which part of Victoria?
[20:49] Speaker 2: Western suburbs. Explain that to my audience because we don't know.
[20:54] Speaker 2: So it's like the socioeconomic area of Melbourne.
[20:58] Speaker 1: Yeah. And same as the West Suburbs of Sydney to
[21:00] Speaker 1: some extent where I grew up. Did you go to
[21:03] Speaker 1: a private school or did you go to a Catholic school? No, no.
[21:06] Speaker 2: Primary school, I went to a Catholic school, and then
[21:09] Speaker 2: high school, just a public school.
[21:11] Speaker 1: Right. And brothers and sisters?
[21:13] Speaker 2: Two older sisters.
[21:14] Speaker 1: Two older sisters, yeah. Mum and dad, what did dad do?
[21:17] Speaker 2: Dad was a mechanic.
[21:18] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[21:18] Speaker 2: Who later started his own workshop.
[21:21] Speaker 1: Is that where your love of cars comes from?
[21:25] Speaker 2: He does love cars, but I just, I don't know,
[21:27] Speaker 2: I think. My whole friend circle growing up loved cars.
[21:30] Speaker 2: So when I hear someone's not as passionate about cars,
[21:33] Speaker 2: I find that weird because everyone I know is into cars.
[21:37] Speaker 1: But is that– because I'm trying to work it. Was
[21:39] Speaker 1: the kid– were you a good student? Did you like school?
[21:42] Speaker 1: Did you like sport?
[21:43] Speaker 2: No, I wasn't really– Were you Mr.
[21:46] Speaker 1: Popular like you are today?
[21:47] Speaker 2: Not really, no. No, I was just– Just a kid?
[21:50] Speaker 2: Stick to myself. I was just a kid, yeah.
[21:53] Speaker 1: Would you say you were very social?
[21:54] Speaker 2: No, not really. No, I wasn't a social person.
[21:57] Speaker 1: You stick to your family type of thing?
[21:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
[21:59] Speaker 1: And a couple of close friends. Is that how it works?
[22:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got a really small circle. So, you know,
[22:03] Speaker 2: my friends that are with me today have been with
[22:05] Speaker 2: me since high school. So, you know, we've got a
[22:08] Speaker 2: tight pack. And I'm not that one to go out
[22:10] Speaker 2: and socialize and want to make friends. And I think
[22:13] Speaker 2: that's what's, you know, kept me out of a lot
[22:15] Speaker 2: of trouble. I think when you start doing that, mixing
[22:18] Speaker 2: in crowds. Drinker? Not really.
[22:22] Speaker 1: You'll have a drink, but like you're not too tall.
[22:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know what? I don't have. I don't
[22:26] Speaker 2: have an addictive personality, and thank goodness. But, yeah, no,
[22:31] Speaker 2: we're not a big drinker. Just, you know, if we
[22:33] Speaker 2: go out with some mates. I don't drink socially.
[22:37] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not there Friday night down the pub.
[22:38] Speaker 2: We're drinking to have a good time.
[22:39] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[22:40] Speaker 2: But, no, I won't go down to a pub or
[22:41] Speaker 2: have a wine or beer with mommy. No, it's not
[22:44] Speaker 2: my type. Are you still close to your family? Yeah, yeah,
[22:46] Speaker 2: of course. Mom and dad and sisters.
[22:47] Speaker 1: Mom and dad are still married.
[22:48] Speaker 2: Yeah. They're all in Melbourne, so.
[22:51] Speaker 1: How do they feel about the publicity you get? Do
[22:53] Speaker 1: you ever worry about that.
[22:54] Speaker 2: A little bit?
[22:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, fine.
[22:57] Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel like I was built for
[22:59] Speaker 2: this in the sense where everything deflects off me.
[23:02] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[23:02] Speaker 2: Like I'm just, I've got so much going on that
[23:05] Speaker 2: like I can keep a train of thought for maybe
[23:07] Speaker 2: like 10 seconds and I'm on to the next. So, um, in, in,
[23:11] Speaker 2: in regards to, you know, the heat or the publicity
[23:14] Speaker 2: or hate comments or the government or this and that,
[23:17] Speaker 2: it's just, I just, I just absorb it. It doesn't
[23:19] Speaker 2: affect me at all. I actually thrive off it. So it's, it's,
[23:22] Speaker 2: you know what? I, If I ever feel overwhelmed, no,
[23:26] Speaker 2: that's a lie. I don't really feel overwhelmed. But if
[23:28] Speaker 2: I ever feel a sense of discomfort in any way,
[23:32] Speaker 2: I always just remember what it took for me to
[23:35] Speaker 2: get here. It was a hard slog to get to
[23:38] Speaker 2: where I am today. It wasn't an overnight success.
[23:41] Speaker 1: Do you have many failures?
[23:43] Speaker 2: I've had a lot of failures, and I still have
[23:44] Speaker 2: a lot of failures. And I love failures because they're
[23:47] Speaker 2: the most important part of your upcoming and your upbringing because-
[23:51] Speaker 2: Those are the failures that, one, you learn from, but two,
[23:53] Speaker 2: the things you remember when you have made it. So
[23:56] Speaker 2: I do think back of the times where I locked
[24:00] Speaker 2: myself in my parents, in the study at my parents' house,
[24:04] Speaker 2: day in, day out, night and day.
[24:07] Speaker 1: Wouldn't come out.
[24:07] Speaker 2: Wouldn't come out. Just trying, trying, trying to get there,
[24:11] Speaker 2: trying to get there. Crying, the tears and just the frustration.
[24:15] Speaker 2: I just wanted to be successful. I just wanted to
[24:18] Speaker 2: make it. My whole life was consumed in that.
[24:23] Speaker 1: What makes someone like Adrian Portelli want to be successful?
[24:26] Speaker 1: What is the driver behind you? I mean, is it that,
[24:29] Speaker 1: you know, and I can say this, is it that
[24:32] Speaker 1: WOG mentality? You come from a WOG family, you know,
[24:35] Speaker 1: everybody's just doing their best, low socioeconomic. You want to
[24:38] Speaker 1: get out of something or into something. What is it
[24:40] Speaker 1: that drives someone like you?
[24:42] Speaker 2: I think it was just the doubt, the self-doubt and
[24:45] Speaker 2: the doubt others had in me. I just wanted to be.
[24:49] Speaker 1: Proven wrong.
[24:50] Speaker 2: That... And, you know, I just wanted to, you know,
[24:54] Speaker 2: I just wanted to have the finer things in life.
[24:56] Speaker 2: I wanted to be able to, you know, have my
[24:59] Speaker 2: cars and not be, because I lived. I refused to
[25:03] Speaker 2: get a job.
[25:04] Speaker 1: Work for someone, you mean? Like as an employee? I refused, yeah.
[25:08] Speaker 2: I refused because I didn't want to, you know, sell
[25:12] Speaker 2: myself short and get comfortable in that position. But I
[25:15] Speaker 2: never went on Centrelink or anything. I just would stay broke.
[25:20] Speaker 2: I wouldn't have a cent. So I almost starved myself
[25:23] Speaker 2: and I just made myself obsessive to have to become
[25:27] Speaker 2: successful and just punish myself in any way I could.
[25:30] Speaker 1: That's true entrepreneurialism though.
[25:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, I did sacrifice, you know, a lot of my
[25:34] Speaker 2: younger years, you know, I didn't have money to go
[25:36] Speaker 2: out and go out with my friends or if we
[25:38] Speaker 2: did go out, you know, I wouldn't drink or eat or,
[25:43] Speaker 2: but just, you know, I was too embarrassed to say
[25:45] Speaker 2: I had no money, but I'd say, you know, I'm
[25:47] Speaker 2: not hungry, I ate before or, you know. Make something up. Yeah,
[25:51] Speaker 2: make something up just so I could, you know, because
[25:54] Speaker 2: I was broke and I wouldn't leech off anyone. That's
[25:56] Speaker 2: the last thing I'd ever do. But that's the levels of,
[26:01] Speaker 2: you know, the extent I went to to, you know,
[26:05] Speaker 2: keep myself on the right path. And that's why I
[26:07] Speaker 2: find that's one of the most difficult questions I find
[26:11] Speaker 2: answering is when someone asks me, how do I become
[26:14] Speaker 2: successful like you? And I'm just, I don't know how
[26:17] Speaker 2: to answer that because, well, The way I did it
[26:20] Speaker 2: was just, you know, I wouldn't expect anyone to do that.
[26:23] Speaker 2: You've got to be built a certain way.
[26:25] Speaker 1: Plenty of sacrifices.
[26:26] Speaker 2: Plenty of sacrifices. And I was, like I said, I
[26:28] Speaker 2: was an introvert, so I wouldn't. For me, networking was
[26:31] Speaker 2: completely out of the picture. I could not come up.
[26:34] Speaker 2: If I saw you on the street, I wouldn't even come.
[26:36] Speaker 2: Even now, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't. I'd
[26:38] Speaker 2: be too embarrassed to come.
[26:39] Speaker 1: Really? Yeah. Even walk up and say, hey, Mark, how
[26:42] Speaker 1: you going?
[26:43] Speaker 2: No way. To me, I'm petrified to do that.
[26:48] Speaker 1: Because I mean, the camera's probably not picking up, but
[26:51] Speaker 1: I can see you moving around a lot. You are
[26:55] Speaker 1: uncomfortable talking about yourself. That's what I'm getting.
[27:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't do many podcasts because I don't want
[27:04] Speaker 2: to feed off that story.
[27:06] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
[27:07] Speaker 2: Because it was something for me. It was something I
[27:10] Speaker 2: did for myself. I don't need the whole world to
[27:14] Speaker 2: hear about it.
[27:15] Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
[27:17] Speaker 2: I don't need that. That was for me and I
[27:19] Speaker 2: cherish that because, you know, I think back of those
[27:22] Speaker 2: times and I'm like, you know, we made it.
[27:24] Speaker 1: How cool. Yeah.
[27:25] Speaker 2: We did it.
[27:25] Speaker 1: Well, maybe if those circumstances didn't exist, you may not
[27:27] Speaker 1: be sitting here right now.
[27:29] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[27:29] Speaker 1: I mean, in fact, to some extent they're an advantage
[27:32] Speaker 1: in a sort of way, an advantage for you because
[27:34] Speaker 1: it drove you. What do small business owners actually need?
[27:38] Speaker 1: They need someone to tune to when they're stuck, people
[27:40] Speaker 1: who understand what they're going through, and the tools that
[27:42] Speaker 1: make running a business a little easier and cheaper. That's
[27:46] Speaker 1: what I put together with Mentored. You can ask me
[27:48] Speaker 1: questions on our monthly Zoom calls, connect with hundreds of
[27:51] Speaker 1: other business owners in our community, access an extensive catalog
[27:54] Speaker 1: of resources, and potentially save thousands of dollars from over
[27:58] Speaker 1: 600 plus software discounts we've brought together. Check it out
[28:01] Speaker 1: at mentored.com.au. Let's go back to the LMCT +. So
[28:05] Speaker 1: you worked out that I've got to put, after about 12,
[28:07] Speaker 1: 18 months, you've got to put your face in front
[28:08] Speaker 1: of it and that worked. Yep. That's a big business
[28:11] Speaker 1: decision in terms of brand. You were starting to realize
[28:14] Speaker 1: you could put people back on the subscription program because
[28:16] Speaker 1: they started, you won the, you know, the trust of
[28:20] Speaker 1: your audience. All of a sudden you're building up this
[28:23] Speaker 1: big audience base. Did you, when did you decide to
[28:27] Speaker 1: move from, um, giving away a, whatever the car was,
[28:31] Speaker 1: a some of the flash stuff that you do now.
[28:35] Speaker 2: So, so what actually happened was then, you know, that
[28:38] Speaker 2: hospitality app I spoke about earlier.
[28:40] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[28:40] Speaker 2: I actually merged that into LMCT. Right. So I wanted
[28:44] Speaker 2: to broaden the audience, um, and, and, you know, cause
[28:47] Speaker 2: not everyone wants to buy and sell cars. So I said,
[28:49] Speaker 2: all right, I need to broaden my audience and make
[28:52] Speaker 2: this usable to the everyday Australian to be able to grow, uh,
[28:57] Speaker 2: this business into what it is today.
[28:59] Speaker 1: So, to build your audience. Yeah. You need a bigger audience.
[29:02] Speaker 2: I need a bigger audience. And, you know, people that
[29:06] Speaker 2: buy and sell cars is a very niche audience. People
[29:09] Speaker 2: that want to use discounts and save money, that's a
[29:12] Speaker 2: much bigger audience. So I grabbed all the tech, the app,
[29:16] Speaker 2: all that stuff and remodeled it into LMCT Plus. And
[29:20] Speaker 2: instead of hospitality, we pivoted towards the automotive industry. So
[29:24] Speaker 2: we team up with a lot of partners, people that
[29:27] Speaker 2: were working on our cars, you know, We'd team up
[29:30] Speaker 2: with them and we'd be like, hey, you pay us
[29:32] Speaker 2: an onboarding fee. Give our members a discount. We'll promote
[29:35] Speaker 2: you guys on our app and website.
[29:38] Speaker 1: Can you give an example of one place?
[29:40] Speaker 2: So for example, you know, UltraTuner on there.
[29:43] Speaker 1: Yep. The mechanics, yeah. Yeah.
[29:46] Speaker 2: And they might give, you know, 10% off or 15%
[29:49] Speaker 2: off or a free wheel alignment or whatever. So we've
[29:53] Speaker 2: got 2,000 businesses that have signed up and, They pay
[30:00] Speaker 2: an onboarding fee.
[30:01] Speaker 1: All in the motor industry?
[30:03] Speaker 2: No, we did start in the motor industry and then
[30:05] Speaker 2: we have scaled that now. We're in every industry now
[30:08] Speaker 2: from pet food to housing supplies, furniture, gym equipment, the
[30:12] Speaker 2: whole lot. We've got everything on there. So we started
[30:15] Speaker 2: onboarding all these companies and we started generating traffic from
[30:20] Speaker 2: these promotions. And it's like I said, these promotions, it's
[30:24] Speaker 2: no different from the whole point of promotion is to
[30:29] Speaker 2: promote your brand. Yeah. So we run a trade promotion.
[30:32] Speaker 2: We've been doing it for 10 years, and we promote
[30:34] Speaker 2: LMCT +. The more traffic we generate from these promotions,
[30:39] Speaker 2: the more people come in through the app, the more
[30:42] Speaker 2: our partners benefit from that. So it works extremely well
[30:49] Speaker 2: to the point where, you know, one business in particular
[30:53] Speaker 2: paid a $ 200 onboarding fee and has generated about $ 1. 3
[30:57] Speaker 2: million in sales.
[30:58] Speaker 1: Not a bad return.
[31:00] Speaker 2: I've never had that return.
[31:01] Speaker 1: That's a pretty good return.
[31:02] Speaker 2: That'd be great. Yeah.
[31:03] Speaker 1: So one vendor for $ 200 to be onboarded onto our
[31:07] Speaker 1: MCG Plus platform, they've made how much did you say?
[31:11] Speaker 2: Or generated? $ 1. 3 million. Wow. We have 2,000 businesses on
[31:17] Speaker 2: this platform that have paid $ 200. And they're there for life.
[31:22] Speaker 2: Just look after our members. They add the value.
[31:26] Speaker 1: And.
[31:27] Speaker 2: our members get the benefit of getting mates rates or
[31:31] Speaker 2: discounts um and even my brain so i've got you
[31:34] Speaker 2: know i've got an energy drink and the alcohol company
[31:38] Speaker 2: and we've put them on there as well and we've
[31:40] Speaker 2: generated you know six figures in sales just by having
[31:44] Speaker 2: our brands on there and it works really really well
[31:47] Speaker 2: and the trade promotions that's what i mean we're just
[31:49] Speaker 2: skyrocketing that brand and we were able to do it
[31:52] Speaker 2: in a way where we just fine-tuned it to a
[31:53] Speaker 2: t where we were like we scaled very, very aggressively.
[31:59] Speaker 1: So obviously the brain comes first, but what comes second, maybe?
[32:02] Speaker 1: Is it building the audience or is it building the vendors?
[32:07] Speaker 2: They go hand in hand.
[32:08] Speaker 1: So you're sort of doing one, then the other, then one.
[32:10] Speaker 2: They go hand in hand. The more noise you create,
[32:13] Speaker 2: the more the influx of businesses that come in.
[32:16] Speaker 1: In the beginning, you probably had to go to them.
[32:17] Speaker 1: In the beginning, we had to go to them. Do
[32:20] Speaker 1: they come to you now?
[32:21] Speaker 2: They do come to us now.
[32:22] Speaker 1: Can we get on your platform type of thing?
[32:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So- In the beginning, yeah, we did. We
[32:26] Speaker 2: cold called. We door knocked. We signed these people up.
[32:31] Speaker 2: Each one of these 2,000 independently signed up and they've
[32:37] Speaker 2: given us an exclusive discount. A lot of people have
[32:40] Speaker 2: this misconception that these discounts are found.
[32:43] Speaker 1: Online, but they're not.
[32:44] Speaker 2: We actually do have a team that's putting these deals together.
[32:48] Speaker 1: Negotiating the discounts. Negotiating, yeah. With a vendor.
[32:50] Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. So- it started with maybe, you know,
[32:54] Speaker 2: maybe like 20, 30 places and then we expanded and
[32:57] Speaker 2: then our customers would tell us what they want and
[33:00] Speaker 2: where they want.
[33:01] Speaker 1: Oh, you asked the customers, you're actively engaged.
[33:02] Speaker 2: And they'd be like, you know, we want, you know.
[33:04] Speaker 1: Vitamin discounts. Yeah. Or something like that.
[33:07] Speaker 2: Yep. They'd be like, oh, we need more in Queensland
[33:09] Speaker 2: or we need more in.
[33:10] Speaker 1: The- It's also regional and by geography too.
[33:12] Speaker 2: And then we got, okay, well, some people are remote,
[33:15] Speaker 2: so let's bring on some more online businesses so they
[33:18] Speaker 2: can post anywhere in Australia. And- It just, yeah, we,
[33:24] Speaker 2: it worked to a point where it's like.
[33:25] Speaker 1: It's not genius. It's pretty basic.
[33:27] Speaker 2: It's basic. You're only, you're matching up, you know, A
[33:31] Speaker 2: and B. Yeah.
[33:32] Speaker 1: Yeah. You're putting parties together.
[33:34] Speaker 2: Putting parties together.
[33:35] Speaker 1: What about the cars? These things you give away.
[33:38] Speaker 2: So then the cars, you know, I gave away this,
[33:40] Speaker 2: this GDR and then I gave away, I think another
[33:44] Speaker 2: Japanese car and then the same thing. I needed to
[33:47] Speaker 2: build my audience. So, okay. Okay. Let's go to a
[33:50] Speaker 2: different demographic. So we grabbed a HSV Holden and we
[33:55] Speaker 2: targeted that demographic and we brought them on board.
[33:58] Speaker 1: So you went, okay, you didn't just say I need
[34:00] Speaker 1: a more expensive or a more flash car. No, no, no.
[34:02] Speaker 1: I need a different demo.
[34:04] Speaker 2: Different demographics.
[34:05] Speaker 1: So you worked out.
[34:06] Speaker 2: We weren't just scaling the level of price. We were
[34:08] Speaker 2: going to different demographics.
[34:09] Speaker 1: To add on to the current demographics. Okay. So how
[34:12] Speaker 1: do you know who these people, I mean, I guess
[34:14] Speaker 1: you're a car guy. You don't understand cars. was it
[34:17] Speaker 1: more instinct or was it did you go and research
[34:20] Speaker 1: and say okay let's find out if we find guys
[34:22] Speaker 1: between 35 and 45 we need those in our system
[34:27] Speaker 1: because they like to buy gym equipment etc but therefore
[34:30] Speaker 1: what we need to do is get them more of
[34:31] Speaker 1: those we'll get their HSV people is that the deal
[34:35] Speaker 1: well it's funny depending on what car you know what
[34:37] Speaker 1: definitely you know who you're targeting so and being around
[34:41] Speaker 1: cars and the car scene in Melbourne you know definitely
[34:45] Speaker 1: educates you in that sense so You know, me doing
[34:48] Speaker 1: a GDR, it was a 1990 GDR, so it was
[34:53] Speaker 1: like people around my age were around that car.
[34:55] Speaker 2: And then some, you get some younger as well. But
[34:58] Speaker 2: that's the demographic. So males, you know, maybe like 25
[35:03] Speaker 2: to 40-year-olds.
[35:04] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[35:04] Speaker 2: Bang. And the HSVs, it's like, okay, now, you know,
[35:08] Speaker 2: it's a newer, we go for a newer car, you know,
[35:10] Speaker 2: then we're targeting 18 to 30-year-olds.
[35:12] Speaker 1: And do they bite?
[35:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. Yeah. And then, you know, we did
[35:17] Speaker 2: HSVs and it's like, okay, what else do we need?
[35:19] Speaker 2: All right, let's go muscle. So we'll get an old
[35:21] Speaker 2: school muscle car, an old Mustang. So now we're bringing in.
[35:25] Speaker 1: Love those cars.
[35:25] Speaker 2: Yeah. Now we're bringing in males, you know, from, you know,
[35:29] Speaker 2: the ages of 40 to 70. And we're building this.
[35:33] Speaker 1: I just fit in.
[35:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, you just fit in. We'll find something old. But no,
[35:39] Speaker 2: so we're building on the audience.
[35:41] Speaker 1: Sorry, I just interrupted. When you're thinking about what audience
[35:45] Speaker 1: do you want, Do you actually break that audience up
[35:49] Speaker 1: into sex, age, maybe location, maybe even income? Do you
[35:56] Speaker 1: get into that level of detail in terms of these
[35:58] Speaker 1: cohorts you're trying to chase?
[35:59] Speaker 2: Of course. When you're pushing the marketing for these demographics,
[36:03] Speaker 2: you're definitely targeting that specific genre of people. And that's
[36:10] Speaker 2: what it was. We were just tapping out audiences online.
[36:13] Speaker 2: And building that network. And it was all male predominant audience.
[36:17] Speaker 2: There was a very small percentage of females. So, you know,
[36:21] Speaker 2: it got to a point where we've covered all cars.
[36:23] Speaker 2: We did, you know, the four by fours. And that
[36:26] Speaker 2: was just, you know, a broad, a much broader audience
[36:29] Speaker 2: as well. And then we tapped out and it's like, okay,
[36:32] Speaker 2: you know, we've covered.
[36:33] Speaker 1: When you say tapped out, your growth was slowing? Yeah, yeah.
[36:35] Speaker 2: Growth was slowing. It's like, okay, we've done everything in
[36:38] Speaker 2: that sense. We need to find a new audience. And
[36:43] Speaker 2: then it's like, okay, let's try, you know, we got
[36:46] Speaker 2: into boats, targeted the fishing audience, got into motorbikes, targeted
[36:50] Speaker 2: that audience.
[36:51] Speaker 1: And each time you do a giveaway that appeals to
[36:53] Speaker 1: that particular audience.
[36:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, just growing, growing, growing.
[36:56] Speaker 2: And then it's like, okay, you know, we've done, we've
[36:59] Speaker 2: got a lot of males. How do we bring on females?
[37:02] Speaker 2: But now it's like, okay, let's do houses. House. Yeah.
[37:08] Speaker 2: So we've got a house on the Gold Coast, waterfront,
[37:10] Speaker 2: all styled nicely. We started targeting females, started leveling out
[37:15] Speaker 2: our demographic, our audience.
[37:17] Speaker 1: So you're not just giving stuff away. You're actually being
[37:21] Speaker 1: very strategic about it because we want females and we
[37:25] Speaker 1: know the females are more interested in a muscle car,
[37:28] Speaker 1: for example. Some would be, but they would be interested
[37:30] Speaker 1: in a place on the Gold Coast.
[37:31] Speaker 2: Correct. So we ran the houses. That leveled up the
[37:36] Speaker 2: playing field, the block.
[37:37] Speaker 1: We went on the block.
[37:38] Speaker 2: That built our audience.
[37:39] Speaker 1: You bid for every house at one stage on one
[37:41] Speaker 1: of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[37:43] Speaker 2: We took every house on the block.
[37:45] Speaker 1: And what do you do with that? Did you give
[37:48] Speaker 1: those away too? Or you sold some of those too,
[37:50] Speaker 1: didn't you? Because they're not always going to be great resales.
[37:56] Speaker 2: Well, from the outside perspective, yeah. People see like, you know,
[38:00] Speaker 2: the house you're selling, for example, these Phillip Island houses. Yeah.
[38:04] Speaker 1: That's a more recent one.
[38:05] Speaker 2: That's the most recent. That's the one I bought the
[38:06] Speaker 2: whole complex.
[38:07] Speaker 1: You're right.
[38:09] Speaker 2: Now- For someone that's business-minded will understand what I was doing.
[38:18] Speaker 2: When I bought those houses, anyway, I'll talk about it,
[38:23] Speaker 2: but whatever. So I bought these houses. I wanted to
[38:27] Speaker 2: buy these. I had the idea in my mind what
[38:29] Speaker 2: I wanted to do. There's five houses there.
[38:32] Speaker 1: And get grateful for the city. You're running off the
[38:34] Speaker 1: back of a TV show.
[38:34] Speaker 2: Correct.
[38:34] Speaker 1: Which is all being filmed and broadcast and social media
[38:38] Speaker 1: and everything.
[38:39] Speaker 2: There's five houses and there's all the communal areas as well.
[38:42] Speaker 2: So between the five houses, the five owners of these properties,
[38:46] Speaker 2: they've got to share the communal areas. But if I
[38:47] Speaker 2: bought the whole five houses, I get all the communal
[38:49] Speaker 2: areas for free.
[38:50] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[38:51] Speaker 2: There's a lot of land there. So before even the auction,
[38:55] Speaker 2: I took my team down there. We filmed. We built
[38:58] Speaker 2: the website. We applied for our permits. We set up
[39:02] Speaker 2: the whole promotion in the sense that I bought all
[39:07] Speaker 2: these properties. So we were working for weeks and weeks
[39:09] Speaker 2: and weeks before the actual auction day. Then came the
[39:12] Speaker 2: auction day. I wanted to buy all five. I knew
[39:15] Speaker 2: if everyone caught on what I was doing, then people
[39:18] Speaker 2: would just, you know, try and make me pay through
[39:20] Speaker 2: the ringer. So I put in buyer's agents in there
[39:23] Speaker 2: as well, and we managed to, you know, get all five.
[39:25] Speaker 2: And then just to piggyback off all the publicity and hype,
[39:28] Speaker 2: we said we need to open– well, as soon as
[39:31] Speaker 2: the show airs come midnight or six seven a.m we
[39:34] Speaker 2: open the doors and we just hijack all their media
[39:38] Speaker 2: and you know we paid off that whole investment in
[39:41] Speaker 2: less than 48 hours wow.
[39:44] Speaker 1: With new subscriptions with new yeah yeah that's amazing that's
[39:48] Speaker 1: a good um A good ambush. That's a marketing ambush.
[39:53] Speaker 2: It was structured to a T. It was my finest moment.
[39:56] Speaker 2: And now it's like, you know, some of the winners
[39:58] Speaker 2: are selling the properties and they're selling for $ 2 million
[40:00] Speaker 2: less than.
[40:00] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[40:01] Speaker 2: And you're seeing people laughing in the comments, you know,
[40:03] Speaker 2: that I've lost money and this and that. I'm just like, guys,
[40:05] Speaker 2: come on.
[40:06] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[40:07] Speaker 2: The explosion.
[40:08] Speaker 1: Because I was going to ask you about that, Adrian.
[40:09] Speaker 1: So the mathematics of making the decision to, I don't know,
[40:14] Speaker 1: go buy HSV or go buy these houses for that matter,
[40:17] Speaker 1: There's a bit of a gamble and there's a risk
[40:19] Speaker 1: in there because you're risking you may not get the subscription,
[40:23] Speaker 1: you may not get the extra people into your audience
[40:26] Speaker 1: platform paying. You run a big risk. How do you
[40:30] Speaker 1: assess the risk? If you're going to give away something
[40:33] Speaker 1: like a house in the Gold Coast, maybe it costs
[40:35] Speaker 1: you to build it, maybe it costs you a million
[40:38] Speaker 1: and a half, let's call it, or buy it or
[40:40] Speaker 1: however you go about obtaining it. How is that funded?
[40:44] Speaker 1: Is it funded through cash flow from the businessman? prior
[40:46] Speaker 1: to that, or are you hoping that you'll get enough
[40:50] Speaker 1: new subscriptions to pay for it? Do you say to
[40:52] Speaker 1: the vendor for the House of the Gold Coast, look,
[40:55] Speaker 1: I'll pay you 10% now, I'll give you the balance
[40:57] Speaker 1: in three months' time, taking a bet that in three months'
[41:00] Speaker 1: time we'll have enough new subscribers to pay for it?
[41:02] Speaker 1: How do you sort of arbitrage that?
[41:03] Speaker 2: I did that once at one time.
[41:05] Speaker 1: Oh, you did have that? I thought you did.
[41:06] Speaker 2: That was my second ever promotion that I ran. I
[41:09] Speaker 2: didn't have the money, and I did that.
[41:11] Speaker 1: You probably don't have to do it now.
[41:13] Speaker 2: No, we buy the houses outright now. So we just
[41:16] Speaker 2: buy the houses and we keep them in stock. What
[41:20] Speaker 2: we do is to try to eliminate a lot of
[41:23] Speaker 2: the risk is we do offer a cash alternative as well.
[41:26] Speaker 2: Because not everyone wants to win one of these vehicles
[41:32] Speaker 2: or even if they did, they can't afford the upkeep.
[41:35] Speaker 2: So we always put a cash option there as well.
[41:37] Speaker 2: And by putting that cash option there as well is
[41:40] Speaker 2: You know, if we're giving away a HSV, yeah, you're
[41:42] Speaker 2: targeting the HSV audience. But as soon as I add
[41:44] Speaker 2: that cash alternative there.
[41:46] Speaker 1: You're opening it up to everyone again. Others, yeah.
[41:48] Speaker 2: Everyone wants cash.
[41:49] Speaker 1: But is it a discount to what it actually is worth? Yeah, yeah.
[41:51] Speaker 2: It's like, you know, maybe like 20% less. Yeah. But
[41:55] Speaker 2: if you win the cash, you're not paying any tax
[41:57] Speaker 2: on the cash prize. Right. But if you take the
[42:00] Speaker 2: car and you sell it, then you may be open.
[42:02] Speaker 2: So it might be a capital gains tax.
[42:05] Speaker 1: Okay. I sort of get the... The model, although I'm
[42:07] Speaker 1: sure there's a lot more sophistication associated with it than
[42:10] Speaker 1: what you've told me, but I sort of get the model,
[42:12] Speaker 1: the business model. Why did you get in trouble then?
[42:14] Speaker 1: I mean, what was it that got you in deep
[42:17] Speaker 1: water in South Australia or wherever it was you got
[42:20] Speaker 1: in trouble with? I mean, you've upset somebody.
[42:22] Speaker 2: So what happened with South Australia? We were working with
[42:24] Speaker 2: South Australia for many years. We had a good working
[42:27] Speaker 2: relationship with them.
[42:28] Speaker 1: Doing this?
[42:28] Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah. So we've obtained a number of permits.
[42:31] Speaker 2: We ran dozens of promotions over in South Australia, and
[42:35] Speaker 2: as a result, They've allowed me to invest millions and
[42:38] Speaker 2: millions of dollars into the state of South Australia and
[42:40] Speaker 2: build not only my customer database, but the partners as well,
[42:44] Speaker 2: the businesses have signed up as well. The problem was,
[42:46] Speaker 2: you know, in Australia, there's a lot of opportunists. When
[42:52] Speaker 2: someone sees someone doing well, they'll literally just clone it
[42:55] Speaker 2: and try and rip it off. Right. People were doing that,
[42:59] Speaker 2: but they weren't doing the business the right way. They
[43:01] Speaker 2: were scraping discount coupons online. Yeah. plugging it up to
[43:07] Speaker 2: their back end and saying, oh, here we go, we've got,
[43:09] Speaker 2: you know. Without going and finding it themselves. Without doing
[43:12] Speaker 2: the hard work. It was just a quick cash grab. So,
[43:15] Speaker 2: you know, dozens of these businesses popped up. As soon
[43:17] Speaker 2: as we started making noise, dozens of them popped up.
[43:20] Speaker 2: And the problem is, you know, South Australia just had enough. And,
[43:24] Speaker 2: you know, I genuinely don't blame them.
[43:26] Speaker 1: South Australian government.
[43:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, they had enough. They just said, this is ridiculous.
[43:29] Speaker 2: Maybe there's been complaints. Maybe people are doing the wrong thing.
[43:32] Speaker 2: People are getting ripped off. So, overnight, they just said, done.
[43:38] Speaker 1: Change of legislation.
[43:39] Speaker 2: Tough luck overnight. Do I blame them?
[43:43] Speaker 1: No.
[43:45] Speaker 2: But for grouping us all in one category, I don't
[43:49] Speaker 2: think that's the right thing to do because we've got
[43:51] Speaker 2: a genuine business. We've been around for a decade. And
[43:57] Speaker 2: we do the right thing. We generate a lot of
[43:59] Speaker 2: income for small businesses around Australia. And you know, for
[44:03] Speaker 2: them just to close the doors overnight and just bunch
[44:06] Speaker 2: us up with these people not doing the right thing,
[44:07] Speaker 2: I think was incorrect. So then what happened there was, okay, yeah,
[44:12] Speaker 2: we told everyone from South Australia, you know, oh, yous aren't, um,
[44:16] Speaker 2: in our drawers. There's, you know, the, the, uh, media, obviously, uh,
[44:22] Speaker 2: steering people the wrong way saying, you know, we're operating
[44:25] Speaker 2: illegally in South Australia. We weren't, you know, I blocked
[44:28] Speaker 2: South Australia off my email list, uh, from what we
[44:33] Speaker 2: could because we don't obtain people's addresses. What we do is,
[44:38] Speaker 2: you know, they just sign up with their phone number, email,
[44:41] Speaker 2: and full name.
[44:42] Speaker 1: I don't need someone's. Yes. Yeah.
[44:44] Speaker 2: So what we did was we sourced everyone's IP and
[44:48] Speaker 2: we tried to, you know, limit it as closely to
[44:51] Speaker 2: the South Australian proximity as we could and banned them
[44:56] Speaker 2: from our email lists, online marketing. We excluded South Australia. Yeah.
[45:02] Speaker 2: There's always going to be people that are going to
[45:04] Speaker 2: drip through. It's impossible to stop it, especially when you've
[45:07] Speaker 2: let me spend millions and millions of dollars building my
[45:11] Speaker 2: business in South Australia, and then you just close it overnight.
[45:14] Speaker 2: I can't police that. I can tell people, but the
[45:19] Speaker 2: problem was what they wanted me to do then was
[45:22] Speaker 2: go back to every South Australian that won a prize
[45:26] Speaker 2: and take it off them. I'm not going up to Susie,
[45:30] Speaker 2: you know, 70-year-old Susie that just won a million dollars
[45:33] Speaker 2: and say, hey, sorry, I need that money back. And
[45:36] Speaker 2: I said, you know what? I'm not doing that. Fine me.
[45:40] Speaker 2: Give me the fine. I'll pay it. That's where it
[45:42] Speaker 2: all started. That's the truth. Everyone thinks, you know, we
[45:45] Speaker 2: were running illegal lotteries and taking money off people. We
[45:48] Speaker 2: weren't doing that at all. That's not what we did.
[45:50] Speaker 2: I was sticking up for the South Australians and said,
[45:52] Speaker 2: I'm not taking the prizes back of them. So that's
[45:57] Speaker 2: where the whole court case started. You know, we got
[45:59] Speaker 2: a $ 40, 000 fine. I said, just fight it. We got
[46:03] Speaker 2: no conviction. No, it was clear.
[46:05] Speaker 1: Nothing personally?
[46:05] Speaker 2: No, nothing. It was just a regulatory fine.
[46:07] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[46:08] Speaker 2: Businesses face these all the time. I was like, just
[46:11] Speaker 2: fight it, just for the fun of it. But look,
[46:15] Speaker 2: you know, the law needed to change. Yeah. And when
[46:21] Speaker 2: people come up to me and say, oh, how do
[46:23] Speaker 2: you feel they changed the law? I said, I've been
[46:24] Speaker 2: telling them to change the law. I've been telling them,
[46:27] Speaker 2: I said, you guys need to fix this because there's
[46:30] Speaker 2: people out there doing the wrong thing. And we've got
[46:32] Speaker 2: a team that reports others not doing the right thing.
[46:36] Speaker 1: Is that not happening, though, in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland,
[46:38] Speaker 1: the same thing, people copying you?
[46:41] Speaker 2: Of course. It's Australia-wide. Every state has different regulations.
[46:45] Speaker 1: But are the other states stronger than South Australia in
[46:47] Speaker 1: relation to stopping the rort going on, the so-called rort
[46:51] Speaker 1: that the others were doing?
[46:52] Speaker 2: We work, like I said, we've got a close relationship
[46:56] Speaker 2: with the gaming commissions and we report, we help them
[47:00] Speaker 2: do their job where we report people not doing the
[47:02] Speaker 2: right thing because it's not just, you know, dibby-dobbing on
[47:05] Speaker 2: people if someone wants to say that. We're protecting the
[47:08] Speaker 2: industry we created, you know, and it hurts. It affects everyone.
[47:13] Speaker 2: The trust that I've spent hundreds of millions of dollars
[47:16] Speaker 2: building with the public for someone just to piggyback off
[47:20] Speaker 2: my coattails and try and do the wrong thing and
[47:22] Speaker 2: steal from people and not do the right thing. So,
[47:26] Speaker 2: Everyone thinks I did this with the wrong intentions. When
[47:31] Speaker 2: I started this business, I was broke. I didn't know
[47:35] Speaker 2: what it could become. I built my software. I built
[47:38] Speaker 2: my apps. I built the platform. And then I was
[47:41] Speaker 2: using trade promotions, as they should be, to build the brand.
[47:44] Speaker 2: Whereas other people, they've seen the success of me and
[47:48] Speaker 2: their drive changed. is to replicate what we've done and
[47:52] Speaker 2: try and make as much money as they can.
[47:54] Speaker 1: As fast as possible.
[47:54] Speaker 2: As fast as possible. That wasn't my intention because I
[47:57] Speaker 2: didn't know what it could become. I didn't know that
[48:00] Speaker 2: I was going to be in the position I am today.
[48:02] Speaker 2: I'm just an entrepreneur. I just like building businesses. I
[48:05] Speaker 2: love to hustle, and this is where I am today
[48:08] Speaker 2: as a result. But when these other businesses carve and
[48:11] Speaker 2: copy my business, make their marketing look like mine, their
[48:15] Speaker 2: websites look like mine, And then take shortcuts and create
[48:21] Speaker 2: all this heat on the industry and heat on the
[48:23] Speaker 2: government to change the legislation. I'm obviously affected.
[48:27] Speaker 1: So you did post recently something about that some government
[48:32] Speaker 1: authority froze the business and you couldn't make payroll and
[48:35] Speaker 1: stuff like that. What's that about? Was that related to
[48:37] Speaker 1: the South Australian stuff? No. What is that?
[48:40] Speaker 2: This is the ATO.
[48:42] Speaker 1: ATO, okay. Well, they're not an enemy you want to have.
[48:45] Speaker 2: No. No.
[48:46] Speaker 1: So do you mind explaining that?
[48:48] Speaker 2: So same thing. It's just a really strange situation. You know, we,
[48:56] Speaker 2: you know, there's, when, you know, I'm on my business,
[49:04] Speaker 2: you know, I pay, you know, as many of you
[49:08] Speaker 2: would know, like that own businesses, you pay, you know,
[49:12] Speaker 2: we were on a payment plan.
[49:14] Speaker 1: For tax.
[49:15] Speaker 2: For tax.
[49:15] Speaker 1: Yeah. So, you see, you get the tax bill.
[49:17] Speaker 2: Your tax bill get your assessment payment plan.
[49:19] Speaker 1: You sell pay it off over two months whatever it
[49:21] Speaker 1: is monthly or whatever.
[49:22] Speaker 2: So we have that yeah then you've got your you
[49:25] Speaker 2: know your installments yeah yeah you.
[49:27] Speaker 1: Gotta pay installments installments could be monthly whatever it is
[49:30] Speaker 1: quarterly whatever it is here.
[49:31] Speaker 2: Yeah so we pay our installments as well And their projections,
[49:34] Speaker 2: you know, you have a good year in one year,
[49:35] Speaker 2: and they project, oh, yeah, you're going to make 30%
[49:37] Speaker 2: extra the next year.
[49:38] Speaker 1: Yeah, so they put a new payment plan based on
[49:41] Speaker 1: last year's income and plus something.
[49:43] Speaker 2: Plus something. Yeah. At one point.
[49:45] Speaker 1: So you're paying in advance.
[49:47] Speaker 2: We're paying in advance. At one point, we were paying
[49:50] Speaker 2: about 70%, 80% of our turnover in taxes. Wow.
[49:56] Speaker 1: Yeah, so 70%, 80% of this year's, of a year's turnover,
[49:59] Speaker 1: which relates to, But the taxes related to previous periods
[50:03] Speaker 1: takes up 700% of the issues.
[50:05] Speaker 2: Yeah. Makes up for your payment plan, your installments, your GSTs.
[50:09] Speaker 2: I was up to about 70%, 80%. I said, this
[50:11] Speaker 2: is ridiculous. You just sink the business. This is crazy.
[50:16] Speaker 2: On top of that, I pay a quarter of a
[50:18] Speaker 2: million dollars weekly auto debit.
[50:20] Speaker 1: What's that?
[50:21] Speaker 2: That's just auto debit just to keep them happy. Just,
[50:23] Speaker 2: you know, just.
[50:24] Speaker 1: Automatic.
[50:25] Speaker 2: Automatic, direct.
[50:26] Speaker 1: Yeah. Direct debits.
[50:27] Speaker 2: Direct debit.
[50:28] Speaker 1: How much?
[50:28] Speaker 2: $ 250, 000. Every week? Every week, that goes to them. And
[50:32] Speaker 2: I've been doing that for four or five years or whatever.
[50:35] Speaker 1: And that's 12 million a year.
[50:37] Speaker 2: Just, yeah, and that was just putting not even a
[50:41] Speaker 2: dint in it. But that's showing, you know, I think
[50:44] Speaker 2: they were nervous because the business is privately owned by
[50:49] Speaker 2: one person, the scale of the business. And, you know,
[50:52] Speaker 2: I think they wanted some sort of weekly commitment from me,
[50:54] Speaker 2: which I'm fine. I'm happy to do it. And like
[50:58] Speaker 2: I said to you before, I'm an open book person.
[51:01] Speaker 2: I encourage audits. We do get weekly audits. I'm probably
[51:05] Speaker 2: one of the most audited people in this country. You know,
[51:07] Speaker 2: I get audited from the ATO. I get audited from
[51:09] Speaker 2: the gaming commissions, every state in Australia. So, you know,
[51:14] Speaker 2: it's not uncommon for me to sit in a room
[51:17] Speaker 2: with a bunch of these ATOs and regulatory people. You know,
[51:25] Speaker 2: they'll say, all right, can you come to Sydney? So
[51:27] Speaker 2: I'll walk in there with just me and my laptop.
[51:30] Speaker 2: There's a bunch of 10 people all suited up. I'm
[51:33] Speaker 2: just me in my tracksuit. I said, okay, I'll show
[51:36] Speaker 2: you everything. So I opened up my laptop. I connected
[51:39] Speaker 2: to the big screen and I show them everything from
[51:43] Speaker 2: the software to the promotions, to the winners, to the
[51:47] Speaker 2: income we make. This is how 100% of the income
[51:50] Speaker 2: is coming through one source. There's no cash payments. Everything's
[51:54] Speaker 2: through there. So whatever you're seeing, that's the business.
[51:57] Speaker 1: Because everybody pays by credit card.
[51:58] Speaker 2: Yes. So it's like, That's it. And I've done that
[52:01] Speaker 2: with the ATO. I've done that as well. I've done
[52:03] Speaker 2: that with the gaming commissions.
[52:04] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[52:06] Speaker 2: Use my laptop. Take it. Everything we do is by
[52:09] Speaker 2: the book. You know, I grew up in the Western suburbs.
[52:10] Speaker 2: There's a lot of dodgy people. So when I finally
[52:13] Speaker 2: made it, the last thing I want to do is,
[52:16] Speaker 2: is do something illegal. Like why would I, I'm finally
[52:18] Speaker 2: in a position where, you know, I'm making this money. Um,
[52:22] Speaker 2: do everything by the book, make sure everything is done perfectly. So, um,
[52:29] Speaker 2: We did that, and then I'm paying my taxes and
[52:33] Speaker 2: all this, and it just got to a point where
[52:36] Speaker 2: I'm like, this 70-80% is ridiculous.
[52:39] Speaker 1: It's ridiculous.
[52:41] Speaker 2: So I'm like, why am I paying my installments? I've
[52:44] Speaker 2: got all this money that's bunched up, millions and millions
[52:47] Speaker 2: of dollars for installments, for future taxes, future income that
[52:52] Speaker 2: I make, and I'm not getting interest on that.
[52:56] Speaker 1: So you go, You're paying advance, but not getting paid.
[52:58] Speaker 2: You're getting like seven, eight figures just sitting there. I
[53:01] Speaker 2: don't make any money on that. They're holding that there.
[53:04] Speaker 1: Right?
[53:05] Speaker 2: But then on my payment plan, I'm getting charged interest.
[53:10] Speaker 2: So you're holding my money here.
[53:11] Speaker 1: So you're charging on the amount that you haven't paid.
[53:14] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[53:14] Speaker 1: On the balance. Yeah. Yeah. And it's quite high, usually.
[53:17] Speaker 2: But then there's all this money sitting here that will
[53:19] Speaker 2: pay off all my debts, pay off everything, and I'll
[53:21] Speaker 2: be in the green. So I'm just like, you guys
[53:24] Speaker 2: are like... just leeching off me it's incredible so anyway
[53:28] Speaker 2: so i'm like i don't want to pay my installments
[53:32] Speaker 2: you know i've relocated to dubai you know i'm um
[53:36] Speaker 2: you know i'm not a resident anymore in australia um
[53:41] Speaker 2: you know it's like everything's up to date and then
[53:45] Speaker 2: i was in china and you know i started you
[53:50] Speaker 2: know made some good contacts there and I wanted to create,
[53:53] Speaker 2: you know, another arm to LMCT and that was like
[53:55] Speaker 2: importing goods. And I don't know, there was someone at
[53:59] Speaker 2: the ATO that just like, you know, I shouldn't be
[54:04] Speaker 2: talking to you like this, but no, no, not thought
[54:06] Speaker 2: I ran away though. Called up my accountant and they said,
[54:09] Speaker 2: you know, um, you know, Adrian's creating businesses with our money.
[54:15] Speaker 2: He's got no respect for the ATO. Hangs up the phone.
[54:21] Speaker 2: go to pay my bills at night, you know, in
[54:22] Speaker 2: China on my laptop and it's not going through. I'm like,
[54:26] Speaker 2: what the hell's going on? Called on my banker. He's like,
[54:29] Speaker 2: it's like 15 million or something, 10 million or something's
[54:33] Speaker 2: been wiped out of your account. So I'm like, what?
[54:36] Speaker 2: So I look in my business bank account and it's
[54:38] Speaker 2: like 20 cents in there.
[54:40] Speaker 1: Whoa.
[54:42] Speaker 2: I said, where's all my money gone? No word, no letter.
[54:46] Speaker 1: But they just went and took it.
[54:48] Speaker 2: Boom. Gone.
[54:49] Speaker 1: They can do that, can they? They can just go
[54:51] Speaker 1: and take behind Australia account. I don't know. Ring your
[54:54] Speaker 1: bank up.
[54:56] Speaker 2: They did. Yeah. My accountant had no word of it.
[55:01] Speaker 2: We had no word of it. They do that. They've,
[55:04] Speaker 2: you know, if, um, if they're going to take money
[55:07] Speaker 2: out of your account, they, they send you a letter
[55:09] Speaker 2: and they said, Hey, if you don't pay this, we're
[55:11] Speaker 2: going to take the money forcibly.
[55:13] Speaker 1: So it makes sense.
[55:13] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. That's fine. If you want to work for it. Um, but,
[55:18] Speaker 2: You know, it just wiped out the accounts. Then on
[55:22] Speaker 2: top of that, they had a lien, like a 30%
[55:25] Speaker 2: lien on my Stripe account, so my payment gateway. So
[55:29] Speaker 2: they were freezing money in there as well.
[55:31] Speaker 1: So the money that was coming in.
[55:32] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So they were freezing 30%. So there was,
[55:35] Speaker 2: you know, a few million stuck in there. And then,
[55:38] Speaker 2: you know, my daily payouts from my Stripe to my
[55:41] Speaker 2: bank account were frozen. So I couldn't send money out.
[55:46] Speaker 1: Because you had no money coming in.
[55:47] Speaker 2: Well, the money was coming in, but it was frozen.
[55:52] Speaker 1: So you had no money coming to your own.
[55:53] Speaker 2: Business bank account? No, it was actually sitting in the account.
[55:55] Speaker 1: But you couldn't grab it?
[55:56] Speaker 2: I couldn't transfer it to another account. I couldn't pay bills.
[55:59] Speaker 2: I couldn't pay my wages. Couldn't do anything. And they
[56:03] Speaker 2: just froze it.
[56:04] Speaker 1: So what did you do?
[56:05] Speaker 2: I was like, this is ridiculous. What the hell's going on?
[56:08] Speaker 2: Thank God I think ahead. I've got bank accounts all
[56:12] Speaker 2: over the world. And I had you know, other bank
[56:16] Speaker 2: accounts here in Australia. So I was able to, you know, survive. But,
[56:20] Speaker 2: you know, I was just like, this is extremely strange behavior.
[56:24] Speaker 2: And then when we found out it was the ATO,
[56:28] Speaker 2: you know, we were trying to find out what was
[56:32] Speaker 2: going on because, you know, we had no word of it.
[56:34] Speaker 2: The accountants didn't know what was going on. And then
[56:39] Speaker 2: they received, you know, funny enough... We received, you know,
[56:45] Speaker 2: a few days later, a letter from the ATO to
[56:49] Speaker 2: say that there was this Ganeshi order and it was backdated.
[56:52] Speaker 2: I'm not going to say that's what they did, but
[56:59] Speaker 2: we all know what happened here.
[57:00] Speaker 1: We got a letter.
[57:02] Speaker 2: I got one and my accountant got one. And then
[57:04] Speaker 2: the date on it was prior to when they Took
[57:08] Speaker 2: the money out.
[57:08] Speaker 1: But you're saying you didn't receive it prior to them
[57:12] Speaker 1: taking the money out or stopping the money being paid?
[57:14] Speaker 2: From my theory is they backdated that letter and sent
[57:17] Speaker 2: it out.
[57:18] Speaker 1: That's heavy. Yeah. Wow.
[57:21] Speaker 2: My accountant's in Sydney. I'm in Melbourne. We both received
[57:25] Speaker 2: it on the same day.
[57:26] Speaker 1: So was this, do you think this was off the
[57:28] Speaker 1: back of you announcing you're going to go to Dubai?
[57:31] Speaker 1: Do you think they're related events? And here you are
[57:35] Speaker 1: in China, they're worried that the guy's scarpered?
[57:38] Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean I was always committed, you know
[57:40] Speaker 2: what I mean? I was always paying that $ 250 a week.
[57:42] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[57:43] Speaker 2: So it wasn't like I was, you know, there was
[57:45] Speaker 2: always that, the war of, you know, I was always there.
[57:51] Speaker 2: I was always committing.
[57:52] Speaker 1: Where is it now? They still got, those orders are
[57:55] Speaker 1: in place? Those gun issue orders are in place?
[57:57] Speaker 2: No, no. Everything's been lifted. And... It's business as usual.
[58:00] Speaker 2: Is this money? I don't know.
[58:02] Speaker 1: You're still paying your payments?
[58:04] Speaker 2: Well, no. I'm still trying to find out what's going on,
[58:07] Speaker 2: to be honest. Yeah, but it's been lifted. So we
[58:10] Speaker 2: were in credit. Apparently, I'm owed millions, and I haven't
[58:14] Speaker 2: seen any of it. Wow.
[58:16] Speaker 1: When you said really early on, you said you tend
[58:18] Speaker 1: not to worry about things. How did that feel? I mean,
[58:22] Speaker 1: that would have sort of got under your skin a
[58:24] Speaker 1: little bit, I imagine.
[58:26] Speaker 2: No, you just got to laugh about it.
[58:28] Speaker 1: I see you are. This guy's got so much money
[58:31] Speaker 1: laying around for his joints, it doesn't really matter that
[58:33] Speaker 1: much to me in a relative sense. That or he's
[58:36] Speaker 1: unbelievably good at not feeling stressed.
[58:39] Speaker 2: No, I don't feel stressed at all. I don't get stressed.
[58:42] Speaker 2: I laugh about it. I just think, oh, it's a
[58:46] Speaker 2: blessing to have these problems. Back in the day, it
[58:49] Speaker 2: was struggling to eat. Now we're fighting with the government.
[58:55] Speaker 2: That's awesome.
[58:55] Speaker 1: Now you're fighting over the food on the table.
[58:59] Speaker 2: I love it. I love it.
[59:00] Speaker 1: Do you think you'll stay in Dubai as a Dubai resident? Yeah, yeah, 100%.
[59:05] Speaker 2: Me and my family, we absolutely love it. I love Australia.
[59:07] Speaker 2: Australia's the best country in the world. At the moment,
[59:11] Speaker 2: it's a bit sketchy.
[59:12] Speaker 1: But you know what?
[59:13] Speaker 2: I don't want to keep all my eggs in one basket.
[59:17] Speaker 2: I plan to move much before all these regulatory changes
[59:24] Speaker 2: or You know, there was like, there was some reports that,
[59:26] Speaker 2: you know, the regulatory change is happening and he's fleeing
[59:28] Speaker 2: the country.
[59:29] Speaker 1: Yeah, around the capital gains tax. I read something on that.
[59:31] Speaker 2: There's online reports. There's online, like, you know, we do
[59:35] Speaker 2: like vlogs on YouTube sometimes. And we've got videos in
[59:37] Speaker 2: there when, you know, from two years ago, you know,
[59:40] Speaker 2: in Italy, putting offers on houses. So, you know, we
[59:44] Speaker 2: plan to move for a long time. And it's just,
[59:46] Speaker 2: you know, I'm always like, I like to keep things
[59:49] Speaker 2: fresh and fun. And I thought, you know, I don't
[59:53] Speaker 2: want to just keep all my eggs in one basket. Like,
[59:56] Speaker 2: let's go live abroad.
[59:56] Speaker 1: Why not?
[59:57] Speaker 2: Like, we've got the money. We've got the freedom.
[59:59] Speaker 1: But it'd be fair to say that it's probably impossible
[1:00:03] Speaker 1: for you to avoid tax by living in Dubai other
[1:00:05] Speaker 1: than at a personal level. It's impossible for you to
[1:00:07] Speaker 1: avoid tax in relation to your businesses because your businesses
[1:00:10] Speaker 1: are all domiciled here.
[1:00:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's what people don't understand.
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:00:15] Speaker 2: My businesses are here. Yeah.
[1:00:16] Speaker 1: The economic space of those businesses where they earn their
[1:00:20] Speaker 1: money is in Australia.
[1:00:21] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[1:00:22] Speaker 1: And Australian tax laws say if the money's earned in Australia,
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: you pay tax in Australia. I couldn't give a damn
[1:00:28] Speaker 1: where you live.
[1:00:29] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[1:00:29] Speaker 1: They're the rules, as I understand, of course. But it'd
[1:00:32] Speaker 1: be different if you lived in Dubai and made all
[1:00:33] Speaker 1: your money in Dubai.
[1:00:34] Speaker 2: If I made my money in Dubai, that's a different story.
[1:00:36] Speaker 1: Or even if you lived in Dubai and you made
[1:00:37] Speaker 1: your money in bloody Sweden or something, the Australian government
[1:00:40] Speaker 1: would have nothing to do with it. But If your
[1:00:43] Speaker 1: business is domiciled here and the income is coming in here,
[1:00:45] Speaker 1: in other words, you earn from Australians, you pay tax
[1:00:48] Speaker 1: to Australia.
[1:00:49] Speaker 2: Of course.
[1:00:49] Speaker 1: So there's no tax relationship with you going to Dubai
[1:00:54] Speaker 1: relative to the money you make here. Yeah.
[1:00:56] Speaker 2: Yeah. There's different ways you can look.
[1:00:59] Speaker 1: You may be able to minimize it.
[1:01:00] Speaker 2: You may be able to minimize it.
[1:01:01] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:01:02] Speaker 2: And it gives you more control of the movement of funds. But,
[1:01:06] Speaker 2: you know, it's… you're still paying your taxes. Yeah.
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: You're not avoiding taxes or avoiding tax.
[1:01:13] Speaker 2: And look, we, we got a really good relationship with
[1:01:16] Speaker 2: the ATO. Yeah. Funny enough. I think there was a
[1:01:19] Speaker 2: couple of bad apples in there that just had a thing,
[1:01:21] Speaker 2: you know, had it out for me, but, you know,
[1:01:24] Speaker 2: you know, I've had multiple meetings with the ATO and we've,
[1:01:26] Speaker 2: we've told them our plans along the whole, the whole
[1:01:29] Speaker 2: way that, you know, we're doing this and we're doing
[1:01:31] Speaker 2: this and this is what we're doing. And, and, you know,
[1:01:33] Speaker 2: it wasn't, you know, we're not, I've, trying to avoid tax.
[1:01:38] Speaker 2: You know, we told them the whole journey along the
[1:01:40] Speaker 2: way and they were happy. They said, yeah, that's fine.
[1:01:42] Speaker 2: We support you. You've got to pay your GST and
[1:01:45] Speaker 2: your other taxes.
[1:01:46] Speaker 1: We want to get our money. Yeah. As long as
[1:01:48] Speaker 1: we're not left at the end of the line, we're okay.
[1:01:50] Speaker 1: And by the way, they can't be left at the
[1:01:51] Speaker 1: end of the line because they've got to lien anyway. Yeah.
[1:01:54] Speaker 1: But for most of the audience, people don't know what
[1:01:56] Speaker 1: a lien is. It's spelled L-I-E-N. It's basically a security
[1:01:59] Speaker 1: over an asset which receives income, et cetera. So they've
[1:02:03] Speaker 1: got to lien over their account. So they're covered. Throughout
[1:02:05] Speaker 1: all these years, and I've seen videos or photos of
[1:02:09] Speaker 1: you hauling up a car into an apartment and putting
[1:02:14] Speaker 1: it inside the apartment and stuff like that, are there
[1:02:17] Speaker 1: any things you regret in terms of building Adrian Portelli's brand,
[1:02:24] Speaker 1: which you had to do to get traction relative to LMCT?
[1:02:28] Speaker 2: Yes.
[1:02:28] Speaker 1: Are there any things you regret?
[1:02:32] Speaker 2: No, definitely not.
[1:02:33] Speaker 1: I don't regret anything.
[1:02:36] Speaker 2: Everything happens for a reason and everything builds the person
[1:02:40] Speaker 2: you are today. So I regret. Everything I do is
[1:02:46] Speaker 2: very calculated. If I've put something online, it's because I
[1:02:50] Speaker 2: want you to see it.
[1:02:51] Speaker 1: Is this interview calculated?
[1:02:54] Speaker 2: Well, I haven't done podcasts in 10 years since I've
[1:02:56] Speaker 2: been in the public and I've done two in the
[1:02:58] Speaker 2: space of a few weeks. So there might be a
[1:03:01] Speaker 2: hidden agenda here. Everything I do is very, very calculated.
[1:03:04] Speaker 2: If I'm putting a story on social, I don't post
[1:03:07] Speaker 2: for the sake of posting.
[1:03:08] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:03:09] Speaker 2: I don't care for social media. I don't care for,
[1:03:11] Speaker 2: you know, engagement.
[1:03:12] Speaker 1: There's an objective.
[1:03:13] Speaker 2: There's an objective, yeah.
[1:03:14] Speaker 1: Mostly business objective.
[1:03:16] Speaker 2: It's very, yes.
[1:03:18] Speaker 1: Would I be fair to say, rarely ego?
[1:03:19] Speaker 2: I don't feel like.
[1:03:25] Speaker 1: No, no.
[1:03:26] Speaker 2: I think I'm beyond that. Maybe when I was younger.
[1:03:29] Speaker 2: Maybe a little bit. But. now it's just very calculated
[1:03:33] Speaker 2: i i i think you get to a point where
[1:03:35] Speaker 2: it's like money and success doesn't mean really anything anymore
[1:03:41] Speaker 2: yeah i just like it's desensitized to it like when
[1:03:44] Speaker 2: you're starting yeah okay i want to buy a nice
[1:03:46] Speaker 2: car and show it off and yada yada but now
[1:03:49] Speaker 2: it's like now i'm just on a mission to just
[1:03:53] Speaker 2: create a legacy you know i don't want i don't
[1:03:56] Speaker 2: i don't even care for the cars anymore If someone
[1:04:00] Speaker 2: came and just offered me a bag of cash, I'd
[1:04:02] Speaker 2: just get rid of everything.
[1:04:03] Speaker 1: I'd love to downsize. You'd exit.
[1:04:05] Speaker 2: I'd exit. I've got so many properties and I do
[1:04:09] Speaker 2: want to sell, but obviously now's not the right time
[1:04:11] Speaker 2: to sell, especially here in Melbourne. Everything's taken a bit
[1:04:14] Speaker 2: of a hit. But if I could downsize and just
[1:04:17] Speaker 2: run lean, I would love to. That's my biggest dream.
[1:04:21] Speaker 1: Yeah, just maybe spend more time with your family. Yeah.
[1:04:24] Speaker 1: Lapping it up, soaking it up. Can I just ask
[1:04:27] Speaker 1: you this? This is an observation from my point of view.
[1:04:31] Speaker 1: What you're doing is not sort of new, and I
[1:04:35] Speaker 1: don't mean that in a demeaning way. I mean that
[1:04:38] Speaker 1: it seems to me that you use your personal brand
[1:04:40] Speaker 1: to help build your brand, and then you build an
[1:04:42] Speaker 1: audience off the back of that brand. Then you've gone
[1:04:45] Speaker 1: out and leveraged those audience with other people who need
[1:04:49] Speaker 1: that leverage, vendors. And as a result of that, you've
[1:04:54] Speaker 1: gone out and you've built, pretty much that's a definition
[1:04:57] Speaker 1: of a disruption. And one of the things that always
[1:05:01] Speaker 1: exists in disruption is that you find a new technology
[1:05:03] Speaker 1: that gives you the same product outcome, or alternatively, sell
[1:05:07] Speaker 1: the same product but much cheaper. So you've managed to
[1:05:11] Speaker 1: work out how to give your audience products cheaper without
[1:05:16] Speaker 1: having to make the product yourself.
[1:05:19] Speaker 2: Correct.
[1:05:20] Speaker 1: And you've used the Adrian Portelli brand to power that up.
[1:05:26] Speaker 1: And then... You probably made some errors during the process,
[1:05:30] Speaker 1: but during the whole process, you just keep amping it up,
[1:05:33] Speaker 1: amping it up, amping it up, both in terms of audience, demographics,
[1:05:36] Speaker 1: who they are, and the breadth of audience and the
[1:05:40] Speaker 1: numbers of people per audience. So you're doing it in
[1:05:42] Speaker 1: a three-way leverage, each of which feeds on itself, makes
[1:05:46] Speaker 1: it bigger and bigger and bigger. So your audience just
[1:05:47] Speaker 1: gets bigger. Correct. And then, of course, you charge people
[1:05:50] Speaker 1: to be on there because now that you've got the
[1:05:52] Speaker 1: social license to do that because your audience trusts you.
[1:05:54] Speaker 1: They know you, they trust you, and they know you deliver.
[1:05:57] Speaker 1: So really, in some respects, and people generally speaking don't
[1:06:03] Speaker 1: like these types of people because we get scared of disruptors.
[1:06:07] Speaker 1: But generally speaking, you'd be best described as a disruptor.
[1:06:11] Speaker 1: You've disrupted things.
[1:06:13] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd label myself as a disruptor as well. Yeah.
[1:06:17] Speaker 1: I love it. You know what's interesting about that? A
[1:06:19] Speaker 1: lot of disruptors usually are not noisy people out there
[1:06:22] Speaker 1: making a lot of noise about themselves. They're generally speaking
[1:06:24] Speaker 1: not seeking admiration or affection or... adulation or recognition. They're
[1:06:30] Speaker 1: generally the sort of people who sort of sit behind
[1:06:33] Speaker 1: computer screens or close themselves inside indoors and come up
[1:06:37] Speaker 1: with something like this. At the end of the day, though,
[1:06:39] Speaker 1: they have to be well-known because to be able to
[1:06:42] Speaker 1: disrupt properly, you have to be well-known. You have to
[1:06:43] Speaker 1: put a face in front of it because I want
[1:06:45] Speaker 1: to know who the dude is who's disrupting this marketplace
[1:06:49] Speaker 1: if I'm an audience. And you work that out. You
[1:06:52] Speaker 1: discover that. That's what you showed me at the end
[1:06:54] Speaker 1: of the 12-month period. When you reflect back on any
[1:06:57] Speaker 1: of that, Do you ever think to yourself, how did
[1:06:59] Speaker 1: this quiet kid from the western suburbs of Melbourne, forget
[1:07:04] Speaker 1: about what money you made and houses and stuff like that,
[1:07:06] Speaker 1: but how did this quiet kid, youngest in the family,
[1:07:10] Speaker 1: two older sisters, you say, parents from Malta, how the
[1:07:15] Speaker 1: hell did I get there? Yeah. You wouldn't have dreamt
[1:07:18] Speaker 1: about it day one, that's for sure.
[1:07:20] Speaker 2: No.
[1:07:20] Speaker 1: You would have had no idea.
[1:07:21] Speaker 2: And then, you know, most people don't. You know, most people,
[1:07:24] Speaker 2: from where you start to where you end, But do
[1:07:26] Speaker 2: you ever think about it? It's a journey. Yeah, look.
[1:07:30] Speaker 1: What do you say to your kids?
[1:07:32] Speaker 2: I think it was, like, my upbringing as well. My
[1:07:34] Speaker 2: parents were very giving, very caring, very loving, hardworking. So
[1:07:39] Speaker 2: they instilled a lot of ethics in me from day dot.
[1:07:44] Speaker 2: I always said if I'm ever successful, my goal is
[1:07:47] Speaker 2: just to help. And a lot of people, like, unfortunately,
[1:07:50] Speaker 2: they paint me with this picture, this, you know, where
[1:07:55] Speaker 2: they all– automatically judge me because of my success like
[1:07:59] Speaker 2: this whole billionaire narrative and and and like oh he's
[1:08:03] Speaker 2: he's just in it for himself because my business i've
[1:08:05] Speaker 2: created a business that makes an income that's creating a
[1:08:07] Speaker 2: business but you know i've created a model where you
[1:08:11] Speaker 2: know now i can i can make money from my
[1:08:12] Speaker 2: membership payments and i'm happy to break even on everything
[1:08:15] Speaker 2: else it just it's not it's not rocket science the
[1:08:22] Speaker 2: brick and mortar businesses they break even I make my
[1:08:25] Speaker 2: profit from my memberships. That's it. Now I'm deviling into,
[1:08:28] Speaker 2: like I said, the bigger picture, building a bigger audience.
[1:08:31] Speaker 1: So you're new to petrol?
[1:08:32] Speaker 2: Petrol.
[1:08:33] Speaker 1: So you're disrupting the petrol industry? Yeah.
[1:08:37] Speaker 2: I can sell it for what I buy it for. Yeah.
[1:08:40] Speaker 1: And that brings in more members. But you make your
[1:08:43] Speaker 1: money out of the membership.
[1:08:44] Speaker 2: I make my money out of the membership.
[1:08:45] Speaker 1: So they pay like cost or like fully loaded cost
[1:08:48] Speaker 1: or whatever that is to get the petrol out of
[1:08:50] Speaker 1: the bowser into their tank. You don't care if it
[1:08:53] Speaker 1: breaks even. Because you made the money out of the membership.
[1:08:56] Speaker 2: I think it's pretty expensive. What have we got now?
[1:08:58] Speaker 1: We've got petrol. Petrol. the various silos?
[1:09:01] Speaker 2: Petrol is good and petrol is hard because it's a
[1:09:04] Speaker 2: sense game and you've got five products essentially on the shelf.
[1:09:08] Speaker 2: So it's hard in that sense where you've got to
[1:09:12] Speaker 2: create as much value as possible to justify the membership price.
[1:09:16] Speaker 2: So if I can average 20 cents a litre statewide,
[1:09:20] Speaker 2: You know, that's a saving of a few hundred bucks
[1:09:22] Speaker 2: a year. Costco, for example, if you look, people on
[1:09:25] Speaker 2: average save about $ 150 a year. So just on fuel alone,
[1:09:28] Speaker 2: we're saving a significant amount. Groceries now, we're about to
[1:09:31] Speaker 2: open up our new supermarket. That's a little bit harder.
[1:09:34] Speaker 2: I feel like it's a really corrupt industry.
[1:09:35] Speaker 1: There's a lot of items.
[1:09:37] Speaker 2: But it's a corrupt industry.
[1:09:38] Speaker 1: Is it?
[1:09:38] Speaker 2: Because there are two big players that control the market.
[1:09:41] Speaker 1: And do they protect the plot prices between themselves? Well,
[1:09:44] Speaker 1: they're not supposed to, of course, but.
[1:09:46] Speaker 2: Not supposed to, but you've got to remember the suppliers
[1:09:48] Speaker 2: don't want to piss them off.
[1:09:49] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:09:49] Speaker 2: So if the suppliers are supplying to me and I'm
[1:09:51] Speaker 2: putting it on the shelf for cheaper than the two
[1:09:53] Speaker 2: big guys are.
[1:09:54] Speaker 1: They're getting pressured?
[1:09:55] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:09:56] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:09:57] Speaker 2: I'm seeing it now. I'm seeing it now. And I'm
[1:09:59] Speaker 2: actually shocked.
[1:10:00] Speaker 1: Don't give it to Bortelli. You can't sell cornflakes or whatever.
[1:10:03] Speaker 2: I'm actually shocked. Like we saw their prices and then,
[1:10:06] Speaker 2: you know, for me, it's like, oh, jack it up,
[1:10:08] Speaker 2: 80 cents. So.
[1:10:12] Speaker 1: But if you're staying there long enough, do you reckon
[1:10:13] Speaker 1: you can break that down? Break down that oligopoly or
[1:10:17] Speaker 1: the duopoly, whatever it is.
[1:10:19] Speaker 2: A normal supermarket has about 20,000 SKUs. If I can
[1:10:21] Speaker 2: minimize that by 60%, sit around that 8,000 SKU mark,
[1:10:26] Speaker 2: there's less competition on my shelves. I want people to
[1:10:29] Speaker 2: be able to, the suppliers to fight for the space
[1:10:32] Speaker 2: for the shelves. No different from a petrol station. A 7-Eleven,
[1:10:35] Speaker 2: for example. You've got to fight to get shelf space.
[1:10:40] Speaker 2: I want that to be a supermarket as well. Less competition,
[1:10:43] Speaker 2: less products on the shelves, higher turnover. Better margins.
[1:10:46] Speaker 1: Okay, so you've got supermarkets, groceries, let's call it, petrol. Yep.
[1:10:52] Speaker 1: What else have we got? What other things have you
[1:10:55] Speaker 1: got in your mind?
[1:10:56] Speaker 2: Well, I'd love to do like importing as well. You know,
[1:10:59] Speaker 2: I believe there's a room there to grow that division
[1:11:03] Speaker 2: as well. Just importing goods, you know, just from start
[1:11:08] Speaker 2: to finish.
[1:11:08] Speaker 1: It's funny, I had a young fellow on my podcast
[1:11:12] Speaker 1: recently this week actually, and he's doing exactly that. He's
[1:11:17] Speaker 1: cutting out, let's call it, the middlemen. He reckons like
[1:11:19] Speaker 1: for a tile, it's one square meter tile. His name
[1:11:22] Speaker 1: is Jack Blomfield. Jack is saying for one square meter
[1:11:26] Speaker 1: tiles made in China, the markup is somewhere between, the
[1:11:29] Speaker 1: cost is seven bucks landed, but the best you'd be
[1:11:33] Speaker 1: able to buy for an Australian might be 55 bucks.
[1:11:35] Speaker 1: He says probably five different sets of people in between, distributors, importers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
[1:11:41] Speaker 1: like all the way through.
[1:11:42] Speaker 2: That's what we saw.
[1:11:43] Speaker 1: Yeah, he's saying the same thing. And that's why building
[1:11:45] Speaker 1: costs are so expensive. One of the reasons, labor is expensive.
[1:11:48] Speaker 1: Building costs, material is very expensive.
[1:11:49] Speaker 2: And that's the thing. There's so many middlemen in between.
[1:11:51] Speaker 2: They're all putting their margin on, margin, margin on. Then
[1:11:54] Speaker 2: you've got the government that puts their margin on.
[1:11:55] Speaker 1: And it's cozy, though. No one wants to change anything. No.
[1:11:57] Speaker 1: It's cozy. I was saying, let's just keep making the money.
[1:12:01] Speaker 1: Let's not say a thing. And let's just keep marking up.
[1:12:03] Speaker 1: And that was sort of in the mortgage industry, which
[1:12:06] Speaker 1: is one of the ones I got involved in. It
[1:12:08] Speaker 1: was sort of similar.
[1:12:08] Speaker 2: It was cozy.
[1:12:09] Speaker 1: It was cozy. And a typical definition of an oligopoly
[1:12:12] Speaker 1: is that we all price the same. We all sell
[1:12:14] Speaker 1: the same product, exactly the same product. It looks like
[1:12:16] Speaker 1: it's different. Features look like they're different, but the price
[1:12:18] Speaker 1: is the same. And we disrupted that, John Thomas and I,
[1:12:22] Speaker 1: just by offering the same product but a lower price
[1:12:26] Speaker 1: because we cut out all the costs. And it's not
[1:12:29] Speaker 1: that brilliant. Everyone thinks I was doing something brilliant, but
[1:12:32] Speaker 1: it wasn't that brilliant. And you don't have to. As
[1:12:35] Speaker 1: soon as people know about it, which is what we did,
[1:12:37] Speaker 1: we had to put ourselves out in the front like
[1:12:38] Speaker 1: you did. As soon as people know about it, they
[1:12:40] Speaker 1: come to you and you make money. And, of course,
[1:12:44] Speaker 1: it takes money from someone else. And in our case,
[1:12:46] Speaker 1: we weren't the greatest. Our biggest fan base was not
[1:12:50] Speaker 1: the banks. And they're pretty powerful. And you've got to
[1:12:53] Speaker 1: be careful of that sort of stuff. Do you worry
[1:12:55] Speaker 1: about that? Being careful of the big retailers, the big
[1:12:59] Speaker 1: grocery groups, the big petrol organizations.
[1:13:02] Speaker 2: Bring it on.
[1:13:03] Speaker 1: Bring it on?
[1:13:03] Speaker 2: Bring it on.
[1:13:04] Speaker 1: Well, that's also a true sign of a disruptor.
[1:13:07] Speaker 2: It's either work with me or work against me. I'm
[1:13:09] Speaker 2: not going anywhere.
[1:13:10] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:13:10] Speaker 2: I'm not going anywhere. And I said that to one
[1:13:12] Speaker 2: of the suppliers as well. It's like, speak to us
[1:13:16] Speaker 2: because I'm not going anywhere.
[1:13:17] Speaker 1: I'm going to do it anyway.
[1:13:18] Speaker 2: Let's work together.
[1:13:19] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:13:20] Speaker 2: We'll be competitors. You've got a new competitor. Yeah.
[1:13:22] Speaker 1: Because, you know, if the market gets diluted by with
[1:13:25] Speaker 1: one competitor and let's say everyone else has to lose 10%
[1:13:29] Speaker 1: of their total business and, in other words, they're sharing 90%
[1:13:31] Speaker 1: instead of 100%, you know, you're going to take 10%.
[1:13:35] Speaker 1: Or if you don't run with me, you've got a
[1:13:37] Speaker 1: chance of missing out yourself.
[1:13:38] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[1:13:39] Speaker 1: You're quite comfortable doing all this sort of stuff. And
[1:13:42] Speaker 1: what do you do? You keep all your staff. You
[1:13:45] Speaker 1: must have a lot of staff around the joint.
[1:13:48] Speaker 2: You know, to be honest, now we've got the petrol stations, supermarkets,
[1:13:54] Speaker 2: we've got a lot of stuff.
[1:13:54] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I mean.
[1:13:55] Speaker 2: But LMCT in particular, there's only probably like 20% of
[1:13:58] Speaker 2: staff on ground here in Australia. A lot of our
[1:14:01] Speaker 2: staff's overseas.
[1:14:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
[1:14:03] Speaker 2: Our development team, you know, customers for a lot of
[1:14:05] Speaker 2: the time.
[1:14:05] Speaker 1: You mean software development team?
[1:14:06] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we're very big on the software development team.
[1:14:08] Speaker 1: Where are you operating at? Philippines, India, Nepal? Where are
[1:14:11] Speaker 1: you operating?
[1:14:12] Speaker 2: We've got developers all over. So we've got, you know, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey.
[1:14:15] Speaker 1: Oh, you've got a lot in there.
[1:14:17] Speaker 2: Yeah. We've built our own team that work with us
[1:14:20] Speaker 2: full time.
[1:14:20] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:14:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, they're all over. All over.
[1:14:22] Speaker 1: That's your software development team?
[1:14:24] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:14:24] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:14:25] Speaker 2: And that's the thing, that doesn't need to run out
[1:14:27] Speaker 2: of Australia.
[1:14:28] Speaker 1: No, no, no. You know what I mean?
[1:14:29] Speaker 2: Like, I'm paying, like, all these fees and it's all
[1:14:33] Speaker 2: my staff. The company essentially is overseas.
[1:14:37] Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you can get great developers in Ukraine, for example. Yeah.
[1:14:40] Speaker 1: In place of Lviv. And, you know, they're very, very good.
[1:14:44] Speaker 2: Extremely talented people.
[1:14:45] Speaker 1: And they're all mathematics sort of majors and PhDs in
[1:14:49] Speaker 1: math and stuff like that. And you pay them like
[1:14:51] Speaker 1: a third of what you pay someone here in Australia.
[1:14:52] Speaker 2: No, they're fantastic. They work hard.
[1:14:55] Speaker 1: And they love working.
[1:14:56] Speaker 2: And I love, I love, I love that there's people
[1:14:58] Speaker 2: working around the clock 24 hours a day.
[1:15:00] Speaker 1: Yeah. So Adrian, I really appreciate your frankness. Um, and
[1:15:04] Speaker 1: I appreciate the fact that you allowed me to be
[1:15:07] Speaker 1: frank with you, but I have to say to you
[1:15:08] Speaker 1: as a disruptor and as an entrepreneur, I wish you
[1:15:10] Speaker 1: luck actually. Thank you. Because we need to see more
[1:15:12] Speaker 1: of this in Australia. We need to see more of this,
[1:15:14] Speaker 1: more Australians doing this anywhere in the world for that matter.
[1:15:17] Speaker 1: And I applaud you on it. Um, I also applaud
[1:15:20] Speaker 1: you for courage for taking on the big, the big,
[1:15:22] Speaker 1: the big guys, you know, that, that, that's hard. That's
[1:15:26] Speaker 1: really hard. Um, and, uh, Good luck with everything, mate.
[1:15:29] Speaker 1: Go for it.
[1:15:30] Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming
[1:15:32] Speaker 2: out and thanks for giving me the time.

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