# ClickFunnels Startup Story – Part 3 of 4

- Link: https://jarvislegacy.com/podcast/clickfunnels-startup-story-part-3-of-4/
- Published: 2019-02-27T09:00:00-07:00
- Author: anchorwave

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ClickFunnels Startup Story - Part 3 of 4

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On today’s episode you will hear part 3 of 4 of Russell’s interview with Andrew 
Warner about the Clickfunnels start up story. Here are some of the awesome things
you will hear in this part of the story:

 * Hear how selling Clickfunnels at a Mike Filsaime event got Russell his first 
   ever big table rush at the end of his presentation.
 * Hear from both Dave and John about how they feel about Russell and what they 
   do for the company.
 * And find out how going to Dream Force this year, renewed Russell’s passion for
   growing his business.

So listen here to find out more about the Clickfunnels start up story.

—Transcript—

Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast.
I hope you enjoyed episodes 1 and 2 of the interview with Andrew Warner at the Dry
Bar Comedy Club where he was telling the Clickfunnels startup story. I hope you 
are enjoying this interview series so far, and I hope also this motivates you guys
to go over to the mixergy podcast and subscribe to everything that Andrew does. 
Like I said, he is my favorite interviewer and I think that what he does is second
to none. So I hope that you guys enjoy him as well, and go subscribe to the mixergy
podcast. But with that said, I’m going to queue up the theme song, and when we come
back we will start into part 3 of the Clickfunnels startup story interview.

Andrew: I actually got, I did see, I don’t know, I didn’t see the video you mentioned,
but I did see what it looked like. Here’s one of the first versions. He compared
it to Clickfunnels, he said, I mean to Lead Pages. He said, “Look at how Lead Pages
has their stuff all the way on the left, all the controls.” Oh you can’t see it.
Oh, let me try it again, let me see if I can bring up the screen because this is
just, it’s just too good. Hang on a second.

I’m just constantly amazed how you’re able to draw people to you. So this is the
article from Lead Pages, this is the first landing page from Clickfunnels, this 
is what he created before, this is what you guys did together. This is your editor
and h e said, “Look, if you’re on Lead Pages, their controls, their editor is all
the way on the left and it’s just moving the main content to the right, which is
not looking right. And I prefer something that looks like this, with a hundred pixels
on the left, a hundred pixels…” I go, who knows a hundred pixels, it’s like you,
what is this?

Russell: Dylan is obsessed with that type of stuff, it’s amazing.

Andrew: Obsessed. And you draw people like that. You draw people like Dave, who 
is just phenomenal. Dave, the traffic and conversion event that he was just talking
about, is that the one that you went to?

Dave: The one after that.

Andrew: The one after that. Okay, we’ll come back to that in a second then. So this
became your next version, you brought on a new partner, and then you did a webinar
with this guy. Who is this guy?

Russell: It’s Mike Filsaime, one of my first friends online. It actually wasn’t 
a webinar, it was a live event. He was doing a live event in San Diego and he was
like, “You have to come and sell Clickfunnels.” And I was like, “Nobody’s buying
Clickfunnels.” We had a free trial and like, we couldn’t give it away. It was crazy.
And he’s like, “Well, you’re on this website, you’re picture is there, you have 
to come and sell Clickfunnels, and I need you to sell it for at least $1000.” Because
the way it works, if you speak at someone’s event, you sell something, you split
the money 50/50. So he’s like, “It needs to be at least $1000.”

And I was all bummed out. I didn’t want to do it. And the event actually started,
but they were streaming it live online, so I was actually sitting at our office 
in Boise, watching it as I’m putting together my slides to create Clickfunnels, 
and then flew out to the event. And then we had a booth, and I don’t know if I told
you this, we had a booth and Lead Pages had a booth right across the little hallway,
skinny hallway. And Todd’s wife was manning our booth and then Lead Pages was right
there, and it was so funny because she was not shy at all about talking about Lead
Pages.

She’s like, “Yeah, we’re like Lead Pages except for way better. We can do this and
this.” And the other guy is sitting there like, right in front of her as she’s telling
them everything. And it was..anyway, I digress. It was pretty funny.

Andrew: By the way, she’s still at it. I saw a video that you guys created, you 
were talking to her and she goes, “I will be Clickfunnels.” I go wait a minute, 
you still had that fire, okay. So you were at that event.

Russell: So we’re at the event and there’s probably, I can’t remember, 150-200 people
maybe in the room. So I got the slides up and Dylan was there and he was like, when
we got to the funnels he was going to demo the editor, so I did the whole thing,
showed the presentation and we demo’d Clickfunnels and at the end of the thing I
sold. And I’ve been good onstage, but by far, that was the first time in probably
8 years that I’d seen a table rush, where people are stepping over the things, jumping
around, trying to get to the back to buy as fast as they could.

Andrew: What did you say to get them to want to do that?

Russell: We made a really, I mean we gave the presentation, and gave a really good
offer at the end. They get a year of Clickfunnels for free, plus they get training,
plus they were going to get all these other things for $1000.

Andrew: It was $1000 training and a year of Clickfunnels for free, and then they
become long term members. And it was also called, Funnel Hackers?

Russell: Funnel Hacks, yeah.

Andrew: Funnel Hacks. And that’s the thing that became like…

Russell: The culture.

Andrew: This culture, this tribe. It wasn’t just they were signing to learn from
you, they were becoming funnel hackers. That’s it.

Russell: I mean, that wasn’t planned though. It was like, I was trying to think 
about a sexy name for the presentation, so I’m like ah, Funnel Hacks. And somebody
owned FunnelHacks.com, and I’m like, I’m still doing the presentation that way. 
And then later we made t-shirts that said, “Funnel Hackers” and then now we got 
4 or 5 people have tattooed that to their bodies, it’s really weird. But anyway,
that’s what happened.

We did that and we sold it and I remember going to dinner that night with the guys
who were there, and Todd and his wife and everything. And we were all excited because
we made some money finally. But I was just like, “You guys don’t understand, like
I’ve spoken on a lot of stages, and I haven’t seen a table rush like that.” And 
I remember back, there was a guy, he passed away a couple of years ago, his name
was Fred Catona. And he was a radio guy. He was the guy who did the radio commercials
for, do you guys remember, it’s got the guy from Star Trek, what’s his name?

Audience member: Priceline.

Russell: Priceline. He did the Priceline radio commercials and made that guy a billionaire.
And he told me when we were doing the radio ads, “This is what’s going to happen.
We’re going to test your ad and if it works, I’m going to call you on the phone 
and let you know you’re rich. Because if it works, it means you’re going to be rich.”

So I remember going to dinner that night and I told the guys, “Just so you guys 
know, we’re rich.” And they’re like, “What do you mean? We made $150,000.” I’m like,“
No, no, no. The way people responded to that, I’ve never seen that in my life. We’re
rich.” The response rate from that, I’ve never seen.

Andrew: And then you went to webinar after webinar after webinar.

Russell: On the flight home that day I’m texting everybody I’ve ever met. “I got
a hot offer, this webinar crushed it. We just closed whatever percent of the room
at Filsaime’s event. Who wants to do it?” And we started filling up the calendar.

Andrew: And the idea was, and you told me you did 2 to 3 some days. And the idea
was, they would sell somebody on a course, and then their members would then hear
how your software and your funnel hacking technique would help up what they just
bought and then they would sign up. You’re still excited, I can see it in your face.
And then this thing took off. And then you started doing an event for your culture,
your community, and this guy spoke, Tony Robbins.

Russell: Oh yeah, there’s Tony.

Andrew: One of the first ones. Was he at the very first one?

Russell: No, he came to the third one, was the first one we had him come to.

Andrew: Yeah? Why do an event? Why do your own live event?

Russell: So we’ve done events in the past. I know events are good, but I’d sworn
off them because the last event we did, I think we sold 3 or 400 tickets and less
than 100 people showed up and I was so embarrassed. I was like, “We’ll never do 
events again.” And as soon as this, as soon as Clickfunnels launched and it was 
growing, everyone’s like, “We want to do a meet up. We should do an event.” All 
the customers kept asking. And against my, I didn’t really want to do it, but at
the same time I was launching my book, and I had won a Ferrari in this affiliate
contest so I was like, “What if we did an event and we had the Ferrari there and
we gave it away and then we’re…” we had other ideas for giving away other cars and
it became this big, exciting thing that eventually turned into an event.

And that was the first Funnel Hacking Live event in Vegas, and we had about 600 
people at that one that showed up. And that’s where it all kind of, it all started.

Andrew: And it built how much, how many people are you up to now?

Russell: Last year we had 3500 people and we’re on track to have about 5000 at this
year’s event.

Andrew: 5000? Yeah.

Russell: Those aren’t free tickets. Each ticket’s $1000, so it’s….

Andrew: So how much is that in total revenue?

Russell: From the event?

Andrew: Yeah.

Russell: So ticket sales, last year was $3 ½ million, this year will be over $5.
But at the event we sell coaching so last year we made $13 million in coaching sales
at the event as well.

Andrew: Wow, would you come up here for a second, Dave? Do you guys know Dave? Yeah,
everyone knows Dave. You know what’s amazing…

{Audience catcalls}

Andrew: That’s amazing.

Dave: I don’t know who that is.

Andrew: A catcall. I saw a video, you guys have this vlog now, a beautifully show
vlog. You guys went to sales force’s conference, you’re looking at the booths and
in the video, do you remember what you did as you saw the different booths?

Dave: I think that one I went and asked what the prices for each of the booths were.

Andrew: Yes, and then you multiplied. And he’s like, you’re not enjoying the event,
you’re calculating ahead, how much. “10,000 that’s 100,000….” It’s like wow, right.
You do this all the time?

Dave: Yeah. It’s a lot of money in an event like that.

Andrew: And you think, and if this was not your event, you would be doing the same
calculation trying to figure out how much they brought in today. Wowee. Alright 
when you went to sales force did you calculate how much money they probably did 
from their event?

Dave: We were doing that the whole time, absolutely.

Andrew: You saw the building, you had to know…

Dave: Oh my gosh. 61 stories.

Andrew: Why? Why do you guys want to know that? Why does, how does that… I want 
to understand your drive as a company and I feel like this is a part of it. Figuring
out how much money other people are making, using that for fuel somehow. Tell me.

Dave: I think it actually goes back to Russell and his wrestling days. We had the
experience of going to Chicago right after that, and super just exhausted. And it
was one of those things where he literally landed, we walked down and we’re underneath
the tarmac and all the sudden Russell goes from just being totally exhausted to 
a massive state change. Where he’s literally right back where he was with his dad
and he and his dad are walking that same path to go to, I think it was Nationals.
And I saw Dan Usher, who was doing the filming, capturing that moment and it’s that
type of a thing for Russell. Where all the sudden it’s the dream, where as soon 
as you see it, it can then happen. And Russell’s just been amazing at modeling, 
and again the whole idea as far as just going at a rapid, rapid speed. I mean it’s“
Ready, fire, aim.”

Andrew: It’s not you gawking at the sales force, what’s the sales force event called?

Dave: Dream Force.

Andrew: Dream force. It’s not you gawking at how well Sales Force’s event, Dream
Force is doing, it’s not you having envy or just curiosity, it’s you saying, it’s
possible. This is us. That’s it.

Dave: It’s totally possible.

Andrew: It’s totally possible. We could get there. And when you’re sizing up the
building, you even found out how much the building cost. Who does that? Most people
go, “Where’s the bathroom?” How much does the building cost?

Dave: There’s a number.

Andrew: It’s you saying, “We could maybe have that.”

Dave: We can have that, yeah.

Andrew: Got it. And so let’s go back a little bit. I asked you about Traffic and
Conversion because the very first Traffic and Conversion conference you went to,
you guys were nobodies. Nobody came and saw you.

Dave: We were put out in North 40 pasture, way, way far away.

Andrew: And some people would say, “One day I’ll get there.” you told Russell, “
Today we’re going to get there.”

Dave: Well Russell wanted, he was speaking and so whenever you’re speaking at an
event, it’s important that you fill a room, like this. And there’s nothing worse
than having an event and having no one show up. It’s just the worst feeling in the
world. And so he’s like, “All we need, I gotta find some way of getting people into
the event. I wish we had like some girls who could just hand out t-shirts or do 
something.” And I was like, we’re in San Diego, that’s like my home town.

Russell: Dave’s like, “How many do you need?” That’s all he said.

Dave: It’s just a number. It comes down to a number. How many do you want? So we
ended up having, within an hour or so we had 5 girls there who were more than happy
to dance around and give out t-shirts and fill the room.

Andrew: and the room was full?

Dave: Packed.

Andrew: Packed. And why wouldn’t you say, “One day, the next time we come to Traffic
and Conversion, the tenth time we’re going to do it.” Why did it have to be right
there?

Dave: It’s always now.  

Andrew: It’s always now.

Dave: It’s always now.

Andrew: It’s always now. It’s never going to be the next funnel, it’s never going
to be the next product launch. I’m going to do whatever we can right now, and the
next one, and the next one. That’s it. That’s who you are.

Dave: That’s how it works.

Andrew: And now you’re a partner in the business. $83 million so far this year, 
you got a piece of that.

Dave: Yes. Do i?

Russell: Yeah.

Dave: Just checking.

Andrew: Do you get to take profits home now?

Dave: We do.

Andrew: You do, you personally do?

Dave: Yes.

Andrew: Are you a millionaire?

Dave: Things are really good.

Andrew: Millionaire good from Clickfunnels?

Dave: yes.

Andrew: Really?

Dave: Yes.

Andrew: Wow. And you’re another one. I was driving and I said, “What was it about
Russell that made you work for him? What was it?” and you said, “I’ve never seen
anyone implement like him.” Give me an example of early days, something that he 
implemented…you know what, forget that, let’s not go back to Russell. As a team,
you guys have gotten really good at implementing. Give me an example of one thing
that you’re just stunned by, we did it, it came out of nowhere, we could have been
distracted by funnel software, we could have distracted by the next book, we did
this thing, what is it?

Dave: You’re here on this stage with JP, and this was what 6 weeks ago?

Andrew: and this whole thing just came from an idea I heard. You use Voxer. Why 
do you use Voxer?

Russell: I don’t know.

Andrew: Because you like to talk into it.

Russell: Yeah, and you can fast forward, you can listen at 4x speed, you can forward
the messages to people really easily, it’s awesome.

Andrew: and it’s just train of thought, boom, here’s what I think we’re going to…
No, it’s not that. I heard it’s, “I have a secret project…”

Russell: “I’ll tell you guys about it later.” And they all start freaking out. “
Tell us now.”

Andrew: “Secret project. I don’t know what it, it’s going to be exciting.” They 
don’t know what it is, going to be excited.

Russell: Do you know how it started, this one? I was cleaning my wrestling room 
listening to you, and you were, I don’t know whose event it was, but you were at
the campfire, it sounded like. And you were doing something like this and I was 
like, I want my own campfire chat to tell our story. And then I was like, “Dave,
we should do it.” And now we’re here. So thanks for coming to our campfire….

Dave: That’s how it happens.

Andrew: And that’s exciting to this day. Alright, thank you. Give him a big round,
thank you so much. You know what, I didn’t mean for this to come onstage, but I’m
glad that it is. This made you laugh when you accidentally saw it earlier too. Why
is this making you laugh? What is it?

Russell: So we’re not shy about our competitors, even when they’re our friends. 
So one of the companies we’re crossing out is his. That’s why it’s funny.

Andrew: It’s one of my companies. That’s Bot Academy there. It’s also a company 
I invest in, that octopus is ManyChat, I’ve been a very big angel investor and supporter
of theirs. I’m not at all insulted by that, I’m curious about it. You guys come 
across as such nice, happy-go-lucky guys. Dave asked me if I want water, I said “
Dave I can’t have you give me any more things. I feel uncomfortable, I’m a New Yorker.
Punch me, please.” So he goes, “Okay, one more thing. I’m going to give you socks.”
So he gave me socks. Really, but still, you have murder in your eyes sometimes. 
You’re crossing out everybody. This is part of your culture, why?

Russell: It comes back, for me its wrestling. When I was wrestling it was not, I
don’t know, there’s different mentalities right. And I did a podcast on this one
time and I think I offended some people, so I apologize in advance, but if you’re
in a band and everyone gets together and you play together and you harmonize, it’s
beautiful. When you’re a wrestler you don’t do that. You know, you walk in everyday
and you’re like, those are the two guys I have to beat to be varsity. And then after
you do that, you walk in and you’re like, “Okay who are the people I have to beat
to be in the region champ, and then the state champ, and then the national champ?”

So for me, my entire 15 years of my life, all my focus was like, who’s the next 
person on the rung that I have to beat? And it’s studying and learning about them
and figuring their moves and figuring out what they’re good at, what they’re bad
at so we can beat them. Then we beat them and go to the next thing, and next thing,
and next thing.

So it was never negative for me, it was competition. Half the guys were my friends
and they were doing the same thing to me, we were doing the same thing to them. 
I come from a hyper competitive world where that’s everything we do. And I feel 
bad now, because in business, a lot of people we compete against aren’t competitive
and I forget that sometimes, and some people don’t appreciate it. But that’s the
drive. It’s just like, who do we, if I don’t have someone to, if there’s not someone
we’re driving towards, there’s not a point for me.

Andrew: And even if they’re, even if I was hurt, “I accept it, I’m sorry you’re 
hurt, Andrew. I still care and love you. We’re going to crush you.” That’s still
there.

Russell: And I had someone, so obviously InfusionSoft was one of our people we were
targeting for a long, long time and I had a call with Clayton and someone on his
team asked me, “Why do you hate Infusion Soft so much?” I was like, “I don’t, you
don’t understand. I don’t hate, I love Infusion Soft. I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful
for Lead Pages, I’m grateful for….” I told them, have you guys seen the Dark Knight,
my favorite movie of all time? And it’s the part where Batman and the Joker are 
there and Batman is like, asks the Joker, “Why are you trying to kill me?” And the
Joker starts laughing and he’s like, “I’m not trying to kill you. The reason I do
this is because of you. If I didn’t have you, there’s no purpose behind it.”

So for me it’s like, if I don’t have someone to compete against, why are we playing
the game? So for me, that’s why we’re always looking…

Andrew: It’s not enough to say, it’s not enough to just say “we’re playing the game
because we want to help the next entrepreneur, or the next person who’s sick and
needs to create…” no, it’s not.

Russell: That’s a big part of it, but like, there’s something…

Andrew: Yeah, but it’s not enough, it’s gotta be both.

Russell: My whole life there’s, the competition is what drives me for sure.

Andrew: And just like you’re wrestling with someone, trying to beat them, but you
don’t hate them. You’re not going to their house and break it down…

Russell: Everyone we wrestled, we were friends afterwards. We were on the same Freestyle
and Greco teams later in the season, but during, when we’re competing, we’re competing
and everyone’s going all at it.

Andrew: Everyone’s going all at it. That’s an interesting way to end it. How much
more time do we have? How much more time do we have? I’m going to keep going. Can
I get you to come up here John, because I gotta get you to explain something to 
me?

So I told you, I was online the other day, yeah give him a big round. I was online
the other day, I don’t even know what I clicked, I clicked something and then I 
saw that Russell’s a great webinar person, everyone keeps telling me. Well, alright,
I gotta find out how he does it. So I click over, “Alright, just give your email
address and you can find out how..” Alright, I’ll give my email address to find 
out how he became such a great webinar presenter. “Just give a credit card. It’s
only $4.95, so it comes in the mail.” It comes in the mail, that’s pretty cool. 
Nothing comes in the mail anymore. Here’s my credit card.

It goes, “Alright, it’s going to mail it out. Would you also like to learn how to
use these slides? $400.” I go, no! I’m done.

Russell: Welcome to the funnel.

Andrew: Welcome to the funnel. I’m done. But I’m going to put in Evernote a link
to this page so I don’t lose it so I can come back. I swear. I did it. And this 
is my receipt for $4.95. Don’t you ever feel like, we’re beyond this? We’re in the
software space now, we’re competing with Dropbox, we’re not competing with Joe Schmoe
and his ebook. And you’re the guy who sold the, who bought the ad that got me.

John: I know.

Andrew: I asked you that. Do you ever feel a little embarrassed, “We’re still in
the info market space.”?

John: No, I think it’s the essence of what we do, of what Russell does. We love 
education. We love teaching people. I mean, the software is like the backend, but
we’re not software people. I mean, we sell software, but we teach people. All these
people here and all the people at all of our events, they just want to learn how
to do it better.

Andrew: I don’t believe it.

John: Okay.

Andrew: I believe in him. I don’t believe in you. I believe that for you it’s the
numbers. Here’s why I don’t believe it. I’m looking in your eyes and you’re like,“
I’m giving the script. I’m good, I’m doing the script.” I see it in your eyes, but
when I was talking to you earlier, no offense. This is why he does what he does.
When I was talking to you earlier, you told me about the numbers, the conversion,
how we get you in the sales funnel, how we actually can then modify…That’s the exciting
part. Don’t be insulted by the fact that I said it. Know that we have marketers 
here, they’re going to love you for being open about it.

What’s going on here? What’s going on, keeping you in this space?

John: Okay, from my perspective. Okay so, initially it was self liquidation on the
front, which is what I was telling you. It was the fact that we were bootstrapped,
we didn’t have money to just like throw out there. We had to make sure we were earning
enough money to cover our ads. And Russell had all the trust in the world in me,
I don’t know why he did, but he did. And he’s just like, “Spend money, and try to
make it self-liquidate.” I’m like, “Okay.” So we just had to spend money and hope
that we got enough back to keep spending money.

Andrew: And self-liquidate means buy an ad today and make sure that we make money
from that ad right away and then software.

John: Yeah.

Andrew: And then you told, and then software’s going to pay overtime, that’s our
legacy, that’s our thing. And you told me software sucks for selling. Why?

John: Software sucks, yeah.

Andrew: Why? Everyone who’s in info, everyone’s who in education says, “I wish I
was a software guy. Software is eating the world, they’re getting all the risk back.”
I walked through San Francisco; they think anyone who doesn’t have software in their
veins is a sucker.

John: I asked the same thing to myself, you know. I was running ads, I’m like why
can’t I just run ads straight to the offer? Why do I have go to these info products?
I want to get on the soft…. And then I was like, I feel like it’s kind of like marriage.
Like it’s a big thing to say like, “You probably already built websites, but come
over, drop everything you’re doing and come over here and build websites over here
on our thing.” And it’s like, that’s a hard pull. But “Hey, you want to build webinars?
Here’s a little thing for $5 to build webinars.” Now you’re in our world, now we
can talk to you, now you can trust us, now we can get you over there.

Andrew: Got it. Okay, and if that’s what it takes to get people in your world, you’re
going to accept it, you’re not going to feel too good for that, you’re just going
to do it and grow it and grow it.

John: Yeah.

Andrew: What’s your ad budget now? See now you’re eyes are lighting up. Now I tapped
into it.

John: We spend about half a million a month.

Andrew: half a million a month!

John: Yeah. Don’t tell the accountant.

Andrew: Do you guys pay with a credit card? Do you have a lot of miles?

John: Yeah, we do. In fact….

Andrew: You do! How many miles?

John: In fact, the accountant came into my office the other day and said, “Next 
time you buy a ticket, use the miles.”

Andrew: Are they with Delta, because I think you guys flew me out with Delta.

John: Yeah, American Express is where we’re spending all our money.

Andrew: Wow. And you’re a partner too?

John: Yeah.

Andrew: Wow, congratulations.

John: Thank you.

Andrew: I don’t know you well enough to ask you if you’re a millionaire, I’m just
going to say congratulations. Give him a big round.

John: Thank you.

Andrew: Wow, you know what, I actually was going to ask the videographers to come
up here. I wrote their names down, I got the whole thing and I realized I shouldn’t
interrupt them, because they’re shooting video. But I asked them, why are you, they
had this career where they were flying all over the world shooting videos for their
YouTube channel. I’m sorry, I forgot their name, and I don’t want to leave them 
out.

Russell: Dan and Blake.

Andrew: They were shooting YouTube videos, they were doing videos for other people.
I said, “Why are you now giving it up and just working for Clickfunnels all the 
time? More importantly, why are you so excited about it?” And they said, “You know,
it’s the way that we work with Russell.” And I said, do you remember the first time
that you invited them out to shoot something? What was it?

Russell: It was the very first Funnel Hacking Live we ever had, and probably 2 weeks
prior to that, one of our friends had an event and Dan had captured the footage,
and he showed me the videos. “Did you check out my Ven Video?” I’m like, “Oh my 
gosh, that was amazing.” And I said “Who did it?” and he told me. So I emailed Dan
and I was like, “Hey, can you come do that for Funnel Hacking Live?” And he’s like,“
What’s Funnel Hacking Live?” So I kind of told him, and he’s like, “Sure.”

And it was like 2 weeks later and he’s like, “What’s the direction?” and I was like,“
I don’t know, just bring the magic man. Whatever you did there, do that here.” And
that’s kind of been his calling card since. He just comes and does stuff.

Andrew: Bring the magic. He wants to have those words painted on the Toronto office
you guys are starting. Literally, because he says you say that all the time. And
the idea is, I want to understand how you hire. The idea is, “I’m going to find 
people who do good work, and I’m going to let them do it.” What happens if they 
wouldn’t have done it your way? What happens if it would have gone a different direction?

Russell: I see your question, and I’m not perfect. So I’m going to caveat that by,
some of the guys on my team know that I’m kind of, especially on the design and 
funnel stuff, I’m more picky on that, because I’m so into that and I love it. But
what I’ve found is when you hire amazing people like Todd for example, doing Clickfunnels.
The times I tried to do Clickfunnels prior, build it was like, me and I’m telling
developers, “here’s what to do and how to do it.” And like there’s always some loss
in communication.

With Todd, he’s like, “I know exactly what I would build because I want this product
too.” And then he just built it and he showed me stuff. And I’m like, “That’s a 
good idea.” And he’s like, “I did this too.” And I’m like, “That’s a good idea.”
And it’s so much easier that way. So when you find the right people, it’s not you
giving them ideas, it’s them coming to you with the ideas. And you’re like, “that
is a good idea. Go do it.” And it just makes, takes all the pressure off your back.
So for us, and it’s been fun because I look at, man, the last 15 years of all those
different websites and the ups and the downs, the best people have always stuck.
So we’ve got 15 years of getting the cream of the crop.

It’s kind of like, I’m a super hero nerd, but it’s like the Avengers, at the end
of, when Clickfunnels came about we had this Avenger team of people. And we’re like,
now we’ve put in our dues, now it’s time to use all of our super powers to do this
thing, and it all kind of came together.

Andrew: Build it and build it up. And then as you were building it up, you then 
went to Sales Force. You guys invited me, you said, “Hey Andrew, we’re in San Francisco,
you’re home town. Do you want to come out?” I said, “I’m going to be with the family.”
And you said, “Good. Being with the family is better than hanging out with us.” 
But I still said, “What are you guys doing in San Francisco at Sales Force?” Because
sales people don’t need landing pages, yet you guys will probably find a way for
them to need it.

Then I saw this, this is the last video that I’ve got. There’s no audio on it. I
want you guys to look at their faces as they’re looking up at these buildings, walking
through the Sales Force office. Look, they’re getting on the motorcycles in the 
lobby. They’re looking all around like, “Oh gee.” Counting the buildings that are
Sales Force labeled. Look at that! What are they doing? Not believing that this 
is even possible. And then just stopping and going, this is dream force. This is
your dream. What did you get out of going to sales Force’s event and seeing their
office?

Russell: Honestly, prior to Sales Force, I was kind of going through a weird funk
in my business, because it was like, again there was the goals. So it was like, 
okay, we’re going to do a million bucks, and then we did that. And then it’s like,
let’s make 10 million a year. And then 50, and then this year we’ll hit a hundred.
And like, what’s the next goal?  A billion, because a hundred million, 2 hundred
million is not that big of a difference. And it was just kind of like, what’s the
point, what’s the purpose?

We’ve grown as big as any company that I know. And then last year, Dave and Ryan
had gone out there and they were telling me stories like, “There’s 170,000 businesses
here.” And they were telling me all these things, and it sounded cool, but I didn’t,
and they were going crazy. You have to see this so you can believe it. But there’s
something about the energy about seeing something that makes it real. So this year
I was like, I want to go and I want to see Benioff speak. I want to see the thing,
the towers, I want to just understand it, because if I understand it, cool. Now 
we can reverse engineer and figure out how we can do it.

So for me it was just like seeing it. I think in anything, any, as entrepreneurs
too, if you’re people believe that you can do it, you’ll do it. If you believe you
can lose weight, you’ll lose 3eight. If you believe you can grow a company, and 
I don’t feel like I believed that the next level was possible for us until I saw
it. And then I was like, oh my gosh, this is not ridiculous. Benioff’s not, none
of these guys are any smarter than any of us. It’s just like, they figured out the
path. It was like, okay let’s look at the path. And then let’s look at it and now
we can figure out our path.

Andrew: And seeing it in person did that for you?

Russell: Oh yeah. It makes it tangible, it makes it like, it’s like your physiology
feels it, versus reading a book about it or hearing about it. It’s like you see 
it and you experience it, and it’s like it’s tangible.

Andrew: I told you, I asked people before they came in here, “What are you looking
for?” and a few of them frustrated me because they said, “I just wanted to see Russell.
I just want to see the event.” I go, “Give me something I could ask a question about.”
But I think they were looking for the same thing that you got out of there. And 
I know they got it. I’m going to ask them to come up here and ask some questions,
and I want to know about the future of Clickfunnels, but first I’ve got to just 
acknowledge that, that we are here to just kind of pick up on that energy. That 
energy that got you to pick yourself back up when anyone else would have said, “
I’m a failure of a husband, I can’t do this.” Go back.

The tension that came from failing and almost going to jail as you said, from failing
and succeeding, and failing again. And still, that is inspiring to see. I want to
give the whole Clickfunnels family a big round of applause, please everybody.
