YouSaid · the spoken record

Paul Orfalea

lines on the record: 71
first: 2023-08-21
most recent: 2023-08-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I think when you're four years old and you say, what's it going to be like when you're an adult, you just kind of go through it. I follow my mother's advice. She said, you know, honey, in your 20s, try everything. In your 30s, figure out what you do best. 40s make a bunch of money from what you do best. In your 50s, try not to do too much. And I did follow her advice. I remember sitting there thinking, if I can't figure out how to get out of this job of running this store, the students are that are coming to me now are going to say to their children, go see Paul he did my copying at school. And I kept thinking, I do not want that for my future, just to sit in this coffee shop.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All three, well, they're synergistic products. I actually cash flowed the very first month. I had more money in the bank account at the end of the month than I started with.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One, you understand, if Xerox never build you. I buy stationery, notebooks and pens. And the first day of school, I put my notebooks and pens on the sidewalk. I sold $2,000 a day worth of notebooks and pens the first day of school. Everybody needs a notebook and pen. I did film processing like a photo mat. They had cartridges.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, there was enough that I was able to, by then I was in my fifth year of school, I paid my tuition on my own, and I supported myself that year. There was enough customers to support myself.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Interesting things like they're writing a term paper in Alger Hiss or they wrote a paper on Richard Nixon and the war in Vietnam I remember Xeroxing for students how to make Molotov cocktails because the anti-war movement was so strong. You can't believe what they would copy.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was $1,100 a month and the variable cost after that was one half a cent. So for an example, if I did 100,000 copies, my cost me $1,100 plus a half a set or $500 for $100,000. And I could sell it for four cents. That's $4,000. Plus, I charged extra for colored paper and legal size. So my average sale was about four and a half cents.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Didn't buy it. And they were, I'll tell you, it really built that business. Xerox was so screwed up in their invoicing it gave me an enormous amount of float. I wouldn't get a bill from a Xerox machine for, say, 60 days, 90 days after it was installed. I didn't have to put up any money to get it.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I beat him because as my volume went up, my marginal costs went down that I could make a profit at three cents a copy.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, anybody could get these Xerox machines. In fact, the campus had free labor, they got better contracts on their Xerox machine. So I'm competing not on a level flame, but I'm competing in an unlevel plane with the government. And pure competition price is the determinant why people buy. So I had all these things against me. I had to outfox the college campus in getting that business started.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had a girlfriend up here in Santa Barbara, and I was up there, and it just so happened that they didn't have a copy shop. And I like the town. So I figured, well, if they're copying it, USC, why wouldn't they copy in Santa Barbara? Now, I didn't have to do it in an elaborate business plan. They're doing it here, they'll do it there. I mitigated my risk by the fact that students are similar in both campuses.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, if people are in line, that's a big sign of success. I was in the vegetable business. Overnight, my inventory rotted, my cucumbers, my corn, and I looked at the Xerox machine and I thought, man, that paper does not go obsolete. That inventory stays there for months and months at a time. And I thought I don't want to be in a business where I have to fight my inventory.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, everything resumes, whatever. You could just sit there. People want to communicate. And it's a great way for people to communicate their ideas”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. This place called Magic Machine. It was right by SC. Needed Xerox copies for three cents of copy. And there were Unbelievably long lines.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I learned in school. I really did pay attention and I enjoyed college. I never cut class, but I really did listen and I learned.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I absolutely adored my finance classes. Marketing I enjoyed, organizational behavior. I didn't have to take notes. I was just absorbing everything. Now, for an example, a professor would say sub chapter S corporation. Everybody else is frantically taking notes. I understood I got the concept. It made so much sense. I didn't have to take notes on those kind of things. And I calculated at SC, I had so many B's. You had to have an exact C average to graduate. My last 16 units were all D's because that's all I needed to graduate. Yeah, I didn't see any reason. My diploma looks almost the same as everybody else.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had a vacant lot in La Ca ⁇ ada. It was a great location. For an example, there'd be, you know how a freeway goes? And then there's a vacant lot, and then I would have the stand right there. So I had great visibility”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had a vegetable stand. And then back in those days, the farmers would send all their produce to a central market. And the big markets would go from, say, three in the morning to five at six in the morning to buy all their stuff. I would buy in the late market the stuff that was left over, the peaches, the cantaloupes, the pineapples. I would buy that. My vegetable stand.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think in raising children. Have one of two choices. They better be good at school, good accountant, lawyer, whatever, do a profession, or they better be good with money. And my parents encouraged me with money skills, saving, what to do with your money. And I think when raising children, you better have a child with one of those two skills. Money skills or school skills.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. My mother would say, honey, you know, you work for other people. You're only as good as yesterday's paycheck. There is no encouragement to work for other people.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Typical report card was two C's, three Ds, and an F. And in sixth grade, they never let me graduate on stage. They just put me on the junior high. In junior high, there were a letter saying, you know, he's not really a junior high school graduate. He hasn't got enough credits or whatever. And the vice principal said to my mother, you know, Mrs. Orfala, maybe one day if Paul can really apply himself, he can learn to lay carpets. My mother came home and said, I think he can do more than that. So I'm not a grade school or a junior high school graduate, but I have a high school woodshop degree, as I was able to graduate.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tell you something that bothers me is when a business person says I love my business, that's absolute bullshit. You love your family. You can enjoy your business. But once that becomes a love affair, you lose your objectivity. I never loved my business. I could enjoy it, but man, your business is an instrument to make you happy. And you own it. It doesn't own you.”
2023-08-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Kinko’s: Paul Orfalea · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT