YouSaid · the spoken record

Pete Maldonado

lines on the record: 117
first: 2023-01-30
most recent: 2023-01-30
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

“And so I was like, man, there's got to be a better way. Maybe I could bring something to the market that would solve the problem at the time. It was like NutraSystem was the big, was that like a meal plan delivery. And I was like, I could create something better than that because their food is absolutely terrible. And I thought I could compete. And I ended up calling it frozen fitness. And I ended up finding a co-packer to help me make the product.”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Did actually, I went to, I bounced around to a couple different gyms and I would just kind of train there and do their thing. But then I had this wild idea that I wanted to start a food company. You know, I think one of the, as a personal trainer, one of the things I noticed was that I would spend a lot of time and way too much time putting together meal plans for clients. And they're always busy and it was very difficult for them.”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, what was it that you decided to do? I mean, you've got no cash and no credit and no ability to borrow money. And obviously you could make money as a personal trainer and through odd jobs. You try to get a job as a personal trainer right away”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's exactly what he said. And the other thing he said was if you have something you're working on that you think is going to be successful, the time to do this is now where you have like something that you're going to work on that could be a bright future. That would be the time to clear things up and move on to that.”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so this lasted for a year. I ended up working with a local attorney here who was representing a bunch of other people in the same situation. And he introduced me to a bankruptcy attorney. And that bankruptcy attorney was like, well, this is how you do it. You basically use this file bankruptcy. You control it now. So in hindsight, it was. Felt like it was a bit premature still. And I hate, and I also hated the idea that I walked into that courtroom to do the bankruptcy filing. And my credit was still just below 800. And then you file a bankruptcy and it's just done. Like it was like a 400 like within this week's.”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Looking back at it, it's like the craziest thing. Like, I am like, did that really, like, what was, who was, what was anybody thinking? And I see pictures of myself now at that age. And I'm like, I would see this guy and never lend him money But yeah”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At the time, it was four houses, I believe, where it was like there's no coming back from this, it's just getting worse and worse. Nobody's buying anything.”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely to the gills. I mean, it was. At my rock bottom, it was Couple million in loans that I ended up getting stuck with.”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The absolute height. Like, if you look at a chart of real estate prices, you see it go up, up, up until right after we bought the first house, and then it would just tanks, right? And so it was a very weird time.”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yep. And so I would partner with my buddy who was the contractor. He would have his guys come in, help us, and we would split the profits, right? That was the concept.”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so when I moved down to Naples, I actually moved in with a buddy of mine who owned his house and I rented a room from him. And he was in real estate. And then my other buddy was obviously the contractor. And I'm watching him just crushing it. He's building homes for some of the largest publicly traded home builders and building a great business. I was like, I'm missing out. I see the opportunity. Let me get in on this. So I had perfect credit and a really, really high credit score, which was pretty much all you needed back then to get a loan. So I decided I was going to start flipping houses.”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I love the weather. I had a buddy that I grew up with that lived here as well. And actually, he was also very entrepreneurial. And we would always talk about business ideas. And he was in the contractor. So he actually got his certified contractor's license. He was building homes. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to go down and start a business. And so that's what I did.”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, I never graduated, actually. Funny story. So I was in this business class. One of the classes, one of the professors, we leave the class. He was done teaching it. And he goes to go start his car up and he starts driving to the parking lot. I see him driving and he's got a flat tire. He's driving this little tiny hatchback car. And it was a real beater. But I felt bad for the guy, was freezing out. And so I went and changed his tire for him. I was just like talking about him, about his car and he's like, this car is terrible. It breaks down on me all the time. And I just remember thinking to myself, like, how am I learning business from this guy? Like, this can't be right. There's no way he's a successful businessman. Like, I made that decision literally as I was changing this guy's tire that. Was done with college”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, for a college kid, it was big, big money. I would get up to $100, $100 an hour sometimes, up to $150 if I was visiting someone's house. So I'm like, that's a good amount of money for a young kid”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I played baseball and then I started wrestling, and then I started weightlifting because of my wrestling coach. He was a big weightlifter. And he taught us a bunch of different weightlifting moves. And I just wanted to get as jacked as I could get. Like, because that's just what you did growing up in Long Island in New York. That's very much part of the culture up there. Everyone was, looks like you went to a nightclub when you were a little older, you looked like a bodybuilding show. I mean, everyone was just huge. So that's, I got really, really into it. I would learn every little thing about it. And that's what I did. So I would help my friends all with their workouts. And I would help them, you know, with their nutrition plans and all that. And I did this in high school. Wow.”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Starting something that fails is one of the worst feelings in the world. You invest time, money, energy, passion, and for some reason, the idea you have just doesn't work. And then you're left to figure out what went wrong. And if you know what I'm talking about, that process is a little like physical therapy after an injury. It takes a long, long time to recover. But it's also critical, and without that reflection, you are less likely to land on a new idea that will work. Because if there's one thing about this show, I want you to learn from, it's not the successes of the founders, but rather their failures. Today's show is about two failures that would eventually lead to a success. One of those failures was so catastrophic that it left Pete Maldonado millions of dollars in debt.”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“1.1 million sticks. It was larger than the previous year altogether in a single PO. And I'm thinking, oh shit, like how We discuss this is way more than what we had discussed. And so I was like, give me a second. So I like, I go in my room, I build my spreadsheet. I'm calculating the total, like what does it actually look like? So I'm like, Pete, we need, I don't know, it was like 1.0 million to be able to fund this. And so we then had to figure out how we were going to get the money to even fill this PO.”
2023-01-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Chomps: Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT