Beyond A Million

If your revenue resets every month, growth is harder to predict, and harder to scale. That's why so many companies are moving toward a membership model. A lot of businesses assume recurring revenue doesn't apply to them. Today's guest has spent nearly two decades proving that assumption wrong. Stu McLaren has helped more than 20,000 entrepreneurs to launch, grow, and scale membership-based busines...

Physical security is a brutally competitive, commoditized industry. Most companies look the same, act the same, and sell for the same. Will Duke did things differently. And when it came time to sell, buyers lined up. He didn't just exit the core business. Along the way, Will built an internal software platform to manage and track thousands of security devices for customers. That platform eventuall...

Today, I'm sitting down with Larry Walshe , founder of Larry Walshe Studios , a global event design firm producing large-scale, luxury weddings and private events for ultra-high-net-worth families, celebrities, and royal households. While Larry's roots are in floristry, his work goes far beyond flowers. His studio designs fully customized experiences—shaping the creative vision, transforming space...

Amy Simmons is the founder of Amy's Ice Creams—a beloved Austin institution with 19 locations built over 41 years—not through franchising or rapid expansion, but through deep community roots, creative culture, and an unshakeable commitment to people first.  In this conversation, Amy shares how she grew the company without franchising, avoided national rollout, and even allowed each store to operat...

Most founders dream of selling their company once. John Arrow sold the same company twice. He bootstrapped a mobile product development firm (Mutual Mobile) in college, scaled it to 300 people, and pushed nearly $50M a year in revenue. But the real unlock came from one bold decision: moving upstream into enterprise clients. Prior to that, his model was unsustainable. He and his co-founders made th...

Robin Alex is the co-founder of HighLevel, a marketing automation and CRM platform that has grown to more than two million users since launching in 2018. The company scaled rapidly—doubling and tripling year after year—largely through a white-label model that allows agencies and implementation partners to resell the platform under their own brand. HighLevel now operates with roughly 2,000 employee...

For nearly two decades, Pat Flynn has been creating content. What's interesting is how that work has fueled multiple 7-figure businesses. Over the years, he's launched and scaled companies across education, media, software, community, and physical products—from Smart Passive Income  and SwitchPod to niche websites, podcasting tools, and more recently, a Pokémon YouTube channel that pulls in 10 mil...

Too many business owners are trying to use AI as a shortcut to fire people instead of using it to multiply the output of their best people. And that mindset is killing their growth. Matt Leitz has been building automation systems for 7- and 8-figure companies long before AI went mainstream. He's seen inside the machines powering 9-figure brands… and the truth is simple: automation isn't optional a...

This is a clip from the Beyond A Million podcast where I talked to Steve Sims – entrepreneur, speaker, coach, and bestselling author, best known as the creator of the world's first luxury concierge service. Here Steve shares a killer strategy for getting the attention of high-level people (like billionaires or big-time investors). His approach is simple, but a bit unexpected… and it definitely doe...

Starting a business is hard. Starting a beverage company is almost impossible. With a 95% failure rate in year one and 99% by year five, most founders never make it out alive. That's what makes Aaron Hinde's story so compelling. As the Co-Founder of FITAID, a clean-ingredient beverage brand now valued north of $100M, he's navigated a landscape that destroys nearly everyone who steps into it. In ou...

"If Apple CEO Tim Cook needs a board of directors to help him make decisions, what makes you think you can do it all by yourself?"  That's the question Brian Will – serial entrepreneur with multiple exits under his belt – poses in this clip from Beyond A Million.  Brian explains why letting go of ego makes it easier to grow your business. He talks about how financial stability helps you become les...

Collin Ship built his YouTube channel for one purpose: drive qualified leads into his business. He wasn't trying to grow an audience or chase viral moments. He wanted a predictable system that pointed people toward his offer. And it proved how effective a small channel can be when it's built the right way. Collin took an "unsexy" niche (blogging) and paired it with a search-driven YouTube strategy...

In this clip, Brad Sumrok talks about why apartments have turned out to be one of the most dependable ways to invest in real estate. Some properties look good at first, but fall apart when the market shifts. Apartments tend to stick it out. Brad's not hyping anything. He's just explaining what's worked over 20 years of doing deals – and why more investors are starting to take notice. If you've eve...

As an entrepreneur, once you hit 7-figures, the game changes. Scaling isn't just about more revenue, it's about smarter systems, better people, and the mindset required to lead at the next level. In this special compilation episode of Beyond a Million, I've pulled together powerful clips from past guests — 8- and 9-figure founders who share the unfiltered lessons behind building and scaling succes...

In this clip, David Hassell, co-founder of 15Five, breaks down why hiring someone who's not aligned with your culture – even if they check every box on the skills side – is a ticking time bomb.  He shares how culture shapes behavior more than we think, why execs especially need to embody company values, and how even small misalignments can kill trust inside a team.  He also talks about the mistake...

Tons of entrepreneurs claim to be "scaling" their business, but when you look under the hood, they're actually just growing fast. And there's a big difference. Growth can be exciting, but without structure, systems, and the right leadership in place, it's not sustainable. That's where Allison Maslan comes in. She's built and scaled 10 companies across multiple industries, and as the CEO of Pinnacl...

What if you could close high-value clients... without pitching, posturing, or even talking about what you sell? This week's guest, Corey Lilburn, is a senior consultant and shareholder at Acrisure, a $35B global insurance and fintech firm. From selling Cutco knives to advising enterprise clients, Corey's success comes from mastering the timing, psychology, and nuance of complex sales.  Corey share...

What if you could create a marketing funnel that works for you while you sleep? Today's guest, Patrick Riddle, is here to show you how to turn cold traffic into cash with a high-converting funnel. Patrick is a seasoned entrepreneur and the CEO of a multi-million-dollar educational publishing company. After getting his start in real estate, he shifted to the info product space, where he's helped th...

He lost $40 million in 2008... and built a real estate empire from the rubble. Today's guest, Levi Benkert, went from running coffee shops to flipping houses, losing $40 million in the 2008 crash, relocating his family to Ethiopia to run an orphanage and start businesses, and then returning to the US to build a thriving Class B industrial real estate empire in Texas. He breaks down the mindset shi...

What happens when you've built multiple companies, lost control, got burned by partners, and then finally get it right? Patrick Dillon has done it all. He's built several digital agencies, and even a janitorial company. He's taken on investors, lost equity, made painful pivots, and come out the other side with a lean, wildly profitable agency. Today, his company, WISE Digital, is scaling steadily...

How do you make an offer so irresistible that you don't even need a sales team to sell it? Jake Setterlun is 29, runs four different companies, and somehow manages to make offer-building look easy. He started out doing Facebook ads for real estate agents, but everything changed when he figured out what makes an offer irresistible. That insight led to The Offer Code, his "Purple Ocean" framework, a...

Is SEO really dead… or are you just doing it wrong? Andy Kolodgie has already built a multi–eight-figure business by mastering SEO in a space most people think is too competitive: real estate. And he's only 29! Andy started out wholesaling but quickly realized it wasn't his game. With a background as a Navy software developer, he shifted gears and leaned into his strength – building systems that d...

Ryan Pineda talks about the system behind his daily million-view content engine.  He shares a framework that drives his content strategy: get recognized, deliver value, and make timely CTAs. He explains how he integrates subtle calls to action without turning his content into ads, and why value has to come first if you want attention to convert into revenue. He spends $40K a month on his team that...

She didn't have a plan. No investors. Not even a laptop. At 25, Sava Lelcaj had 60 days to figure out her next move after losing the lease on her 10-table café. Most people would've played it safe. She didn't. Instead, she convinced investors, who'd just lost money on the space, to hand her the keys to a 300-seat restaurant. And somehow, it worked. Today, Sava runs a $25M hospitality group with mu...

In this clip, Cole Gordon breaks down why so many entrepreneurs struggle to hire top-tier sales reps – no matter how many interviews they run or how flashy their job posts are.  Most think they have a hiring problem… but what they really have is an offer problem.  If the right candidates aren't saying yes – or aren't even showing up – it's probably because the opportunity doesn't match what elite...