Nathan: The first question that I ask everyone that comes on these, how did you get your job?

Arman: My job, my job. I have worked so hard to not define what I am doing as a job. I actually find that question to be super fascinating, man. By definition, when you look at job, it’s really this trade, and almost like a term of employment. For me, I really look at everything that I’m doing so holistically and I look at everything that I’m doing as a sort of … ultimately, I would define it more as my craft, my craft in life.

When it comes to an actual job, shit, man, I really built it from the ground up. I designed and architected and engineered every little brick that goes into this building, that I define as a job. It’s because I really felt like there was no other way. I was ultimately left with a choice less choice of having to build a career around these components of who I truly am and what I do best, and I just could not see any other way forward as far as that’s how I am now, how I got here. That process never ends.

I’ve had some actual job jobs in the past. And I think that was the moments worth my back against the wall realising “How the hell am I supposed to fit myself into these roles that I didn’t actually configure and choose for myself, or at least the employer didn’t configure and build around me?” I just had to, man, I had to. I think that’s how I’ve gotten here and I don’t think that journey will ever stop, because every single day what I do best and the role I’m supposed to be playing in my company that I’m building changes every single day.

I find that question fascinating asking founders that. There’s some deep psychology behind that question, then you really start to see how people define the word job too. So kudos on that one.

Nathan: Thanks, man. Tell us, you run this amazing company called Project EVO and I really want to talk about that a bit more. How did it all start, man? Because before EVO, it seems like from what I’ve gathered, you did a lot of freelancing, and you were a digital nomad. From what I can find out, you’ve done quite a few things. Take me back, man. What was your first foray into business, and, yeah, how did you build up to where you are today?

Arman: Today as far as … I like to talk about things in the context of the presence because I think it really helps to give people a sort of clear understanding of how you got there. Today I sound says what do you do? My most recent answer is I help entrepreneurs and creatives find their flow. Depending on who I talk to, I change out the who, like entrepreneurs, or creatives, or leaders, or executives. Ultimately, what I do is I help people find flow, find their flow and how they uniquely define it.

That’s what we do at Project EVO, but, yeah, man, where I started was a completely different place. I started in a place of where I just hit a crisis of meaning. I was an employee working at Google and I really attained a moment of hitting … a point in my life where I thought, “Is this all there is? Is this truly what it comes down to to work at what was still, and at that time, definitely for sure, one of the best companies in the world to work for, consistently rated one of the best places to work in the world that had everything for me.

I finally had to make a decision that, “No, this isn’t going to work.” There’s more to me, there’s more for me, and there’s a lot of energy within that was not able to be expressed. When it was expressed, it was met with, “Not now, not here. This is not the place for that.” I very much felt like I was just stuck in a box.

Actually, what I really did was, I quit and I flew to Cuba. Like we were talking about before these trips that give you clarity, I pretty much went on a sabbatical, a short one, but I completely disconnected myself, went to Cuba, and after that trip decided I was going to become a solopreneur. I decided I was going to document that process and write about that process.

I started a blog around solopreneurship, and I pretty much did whatever it took to make money, to be free. My primary driver and the first value that I was really looking at was freedom. I mean, at that time, I even remember I coined the whole thing like Solopreneurship and the freedom lifestyle. I was so obsessed with this idea of freedom because I felt like I’d been shackled in these shackles. That was my primary driver for a long time.

I developed my own information products, I did consulting and freelancing. I really did whatever it took to do two things. 1) build my skill sets and begin to understand what I could actually do independently that provided other people value. And 2) exercise my ability to connect with other people because I am very much like a natural connector. The way that I build these relationships from such a genuine place that it’s … I really only build relationships with people that I find interesting and that I want to be friends with. That generally leads to a 10X outcome with the relationship because I’m never asking for shit.

It just happens. We’re just friends that want to help each other. I really focused my life and my career, and my craft around those two areas. Yeah, like you said, I got into consulting. I then found a sweet spot in copywriting where I really began to make a name for myself. That’s honestly happened on accident. It just came to be, actually.

Nathan: That’s interesting. You went to Cuba, you started this blog just around freedom and solopreneurship. What were you doing at Google?

Arman: At Google initially, first, I started on the Gmail team. I was an Accounts Executive, and then I switched over to Google Offers, which was at that time the Groupon competitor and the division that was trying to buy Groupon, but got denied. I was a little bit involved with Google Wallet for a short stint, but then really focused on this Google Offers piece, and played like a project manager role, and helped to pilot and build out our online channel for all online offers that we were making with Google offers because we had the in-person sort of like, “Hey, go to the store and get $10 off of $20 this place.

Then we really started to scale with national brands like Armani Exchange, and Lucky, some online brands as well. That that was really my gig, was focusing on National Online Brands, and so, doing a lot of relationship building, but then it pivoted into this Project Manager role, which actually was really, really good for me because I became a little bit more technical, and I got to work around legal and operations, and even got to connect with engineers at Google, which are really the smartest people at Google.

Nathan: It sounds like a great gig. Why wasn’t it enough?

Arman: Yeah. Good question, man. I think that that is such a multi-variable scenario and issue that led to why it wasn’t enough, and it’s really difficult to pinpoint it down on one thing and give a simple answer. You’ll definitely find a common theme as we’re talking, I just pretty much don’t have favourites or single defining points for things. I think that everything is a little bit sometimes complex. When you take all the different variables into account, that’s when you can actually begin to find the real answer behind things.

There was a lot going on. There was a lot going on in the organisation. There was a lot of outside people coming in and creating a new culture that was a little bit outside of what the Google culture was intended to be. It was really a new company within the overall company. For example, on some of the more legacy and old school products that Google has, the culture is very much … I don’t want to say fixed, but it’s in place, the Gmail team, Google apps.

I was really on the broader Google apps team. With a product like Google offers where you guys, you’re pioneering something, it took a lot of hiring. And so, there’s a lot of chaos of trying to figure things out. I think ultimately what happened for me was that my initial manager was amazing, and the person I was working with and reporting to was amazing. Eventually, I worked with someone that I didn’t connect with, that did not want to allow me and everyone in that organisation to really, truly step into the role that lights them up and helps them thrive.

Actually, it’s funny that, now as I’m talking about this, I can really see what a driver that’s been for me, because that’s ultimately what we do at Project EVO, is we help people find that alignment, to identify what it takes for them to truly thrive and feel fulfilled in the workplace and in their lives, because for me, that just was gone. It was completely extinguished. I lost all … I mean, I pretty much fell into a light depression during that time. It was a short stint, but I would say it was about two to three months where I just …

Your work is such a massive component of your life. When you spend 10 hours a day hating what you do, which like so many people currently do, 86% of the workforce according to Gallup is disconnected from what they do. They’re disconnected from the workplace. Generally, people leave their jobs because they quit their boss. This is something I’ve learned also as a leader, is people don’t leave their job, they leave you.

It was completely extinguished, man, and it left me with no choice but to say, “How do I figure this out for myself so that this doesn’t ever happen again? How do I create something of value to others that can allow them circumvent, or at least shortcut this painful process that I had to go through so that other people don’t have to experience that, and they can just step right into that exact aligned place that they need to be, which is not an end point.

I want people to understand that. I’m not talking about identifying a dream job necessarily, not even dream perfect role, and this is all there is. It’s constantly emergence. The process of finding fulfilment in your career and your life in general is an emerging process, but it’s positioning yourself correctly, and then being open to the growth that comes with that. That’s what I just had to do for myself.

Nathan: What happened next when you went to Cuba, man? You said you found a sweet spot with copy. That’s how we connected.

Arman: Yeah.

Nathan: I said to Neil Patel, I said, “Man, who’s the best copywriter, you know?” And he said, “You got to speak to Arman.” Then here we are, and we’re doing a course. We’re doing a copy course, and it’s going to be based, but-

Arman: I’m super excited.

Nathan: Yeah, man. Tell me about … how did you get into that, man? You were self taught.

Arman: Yeah, completely. I’ve always had an affinity and an appreciation for great writing that was always there, and just loved just reading great books, and not even necessarily fiction. It wasn’t like this, the literature training or anything like that. It was just an appreciation for the written word because I’ve just always felt that that language is ultimately all we have. To be able to explain ideas, to be able to explain to people who you are, to be able to show the world what your company does and explain it in a way that actually makes sense to the other person’s brain, takes the precise use of words, whether they’re spoken or written. I found myself needing to learn copywriting because I was trying to sell my own stuff. One of the first things I ever did was create this email management course.

I basically took an experience that I’d had in the workplace around email management and seeing how much people were just overwhelmed with their inboxes and was like, “I can teach this. I have a love for teaching.” I’m going to create my own course around this, this idea of managing your inbox and being more effective with your time.

It bombed when I first opened it up into the world because I had no idea how to write the copy and position the marketing on the front end to be able to sell this thing. I just had to roll my sleeves up and became interested in all things digital marketing. When I become interested in something, I’m crazy, I’ll dive in all the way and build expertise really quickly, quicker than most people at least.

I began to just write and became pretty decent with copywriting for my own products, and then, as a consultant, I started helping people with their digital marketing, and then I noticed that people really needed help with their copywriting, and I could make a lot of money doing it. At that time, a lot of money to me, it was more money than I was ever making.

I started to just get introduced and get referred to different people. I never really created a website for it. I really didn’t do much other than find that initial client, get a great result, get referred to the next person, and I pretty much just take on like two, three clients Max at a time and just build their entire funnels and their entire sequences.

Next thing I know, it’s funny you mentioned Neil, next thing I know one day, I don’t remember like who I had worked with up until that point. There were definitely a few big names. I remember one of my buddies that I was working with and collaborating a lot of projects called me at seven in the morning.

Or no, he texted me and he was like, “Hey, do you have time to jump on a call with Neil Patel?” I was just like wiping the crust off my eyes, man, and I was rolling out of bed. I’m like, “Oh my God. Holy Shit. Neil Patel. I know that guy. I read his blog all the time. I’m pretty much … actually, I learned a lot from Neil and Quick Sprout and neilpatel.com and anyone who’s read his blogs knows how amazing they are. I’ve heard people call them ‘The Bible of digital marketing’ Everything you need is on these blogs.

I was like, “Uh, no. I’m not ready right now.” But as life sometimes shows you, you don’t get to choose when, you just show up. At least you show up to the best of your ability. You give you 100%. And I was like, “Fuck.” Okay, I got to show up, and roll out of bed, did my thing, got myself in my state, got on the call, and built just like, had a great chat with Neil, and I was like, “Let’s do this.” Actually, one of the things I did, which was a little crazy, which I’ve done many, many times is pretty much within a week of working with Neil. I told him that I wanted to meet with him. At the time, he was living in Vegas. I make it sound really casual like, “Yeah, I’m going to be in Vegas. It’d be good to see you.”

I bought a flight, went out immediately because the flesh-to -flesh in-person relationship building is 10 x anything you’re ever gonna have virtually. From that moment on, we became homies. That has led to many other things. I’ve worked with Lewis Howes, I’ve worked with Jason Silva, Gerard Adams, Timothy Sykes, Lori Harder, and these are all just people that are great friends now and just happened organically.

A lot of it obviously, is out of this copywriting process and style that I developed, which we’re going to uncover in this course.

Nathan: Yeah, no, it’s exciting, man because Neil’s work with obviously a lot of copywriters and he was like, “Man, you got to connect with Arman, like his stuff always convert everyone, you’re going to break it down your science into an art form, into … Did you really study hardcore direct response? who’s your favourite? I’m really curious, who’s your go-to? Gary Habert?

Arman: Yeah. I actually, almost intentionally avoided a lot of deep-dive into templated approaches or styles. One of the reasons for that, although there are people, don’t get me wrong. There are people and there are places and resources that I’ve used. If I had to say the one personal resource that for me was the most impactful, it’d be Andre Chaperon.

Nathan: Ah, Yep.

Arman: If you’ve heard of him. He has a great … or he had, I believe he still has this, it’s called the Autoresponder Madness.

Nathan: Soap opera, soap opera, yeah.

Arman: Yeah. I just thoroughly enjoyed that and it helped my style a lot. But one of the reasons I stayed away from too much of any one person is because most teachers, most experts, most everything teaches from a very subjective point of view. I really wanted to stay diligent about having as objective as a skill-set and point of view as possible.

That’s the primary. The secondary is that, in the world of copywriting, and in the world of actually connecting with your audience and making it possible for them to even hear you throughout all the chaos and the noise on the Internet, you have to have a really unique style and voice. I didn’t want to lose or rather have my voice be manipulated or changed as a result of one, any one resource or person.

I would take bits and pieces of things, but I’d almost try to ignore where it came from and just go, “Was that useful or not? Can I implement that in an objective way into my tool belt or not?” More than anything, it was developing the philosophy and the art to combine with the science that I knew to work.

But the science is changing all the time. The approaches are changing all the time. Like today, a headline that really works is, “Before You X Watch This.” and it’s like, that’s going to go away in two weeks, bro. People are going to get sick of that. It’s not going to work. The science is constantly shifting, but if you have the proper foundation, no one can take that away from you.

Nathan: I find that really fascinating that you do really go that deep on I guess the best practises that a lot of people go through. One thing I’ve heard when it comes to getting better at copies is to read some of the great rewrite in your own handwriting, some of the greatest sales letters. What are your thoughts on that process?

Arman: Yeah, yeah. A lot of people say, you essentially want to not only read it, but then, yeah, rewrite it to understand the flow and their use of language. I’ve definitely done that. I think I did that definitely in the early stages, and I think that it’s useful. What I found to be more useful was first just getting an understanding of what are my initial tools in my tool kits in terms of, “How do I even distinguish copywriting from normal writing?” Then, how do I really distinguish when I’m writing for a brand to explain something versus direct response copywriting where I am pushing hard to get a conversion.

Once you understand these initial pieces … Actually at one point I had been doing some copywriting coaching too, and one of the things I would have people do is just to free writes around their product or service. If they didn’t have one, I would say, “All right. I want you to just give me like 25 headlines that would go on this page.” Or “I want you to at least just write, let’s say, like one of my guys I remember had an ecommerce product on Amazon.

I’d be like, “Take these five bullet points that are on the Amazon description, and I want you to write them like 10 different ways.” It was more around getting people comfortable with writing in their own words and correcting some of the structure, but I didn’t want them to fall too deeply into just learning how to write like me or any other practitioner. You know what I mean? Because I think people fall down that rabbit hole, and you can tell right away as a copywriter or a marketer when you’re reading something that’s really similar to someone else. While the audience might not know that. What they do know subconsciously is that they’ve seen it before, they’ve felt it before.

What people actually get excited about, is when the voice is unique. When it’s a voice that they haven’t connected with before. We talk about authenticity. What is authenticity? It’s ultimately actually having a unique voice that is from your true core nature that people have not heard before that properly explains your product or service or who you are, if you’re like, say an influencer.

Nathan: We know you’ve done a many like and launches and done your copy has converted really well and stuff like that. If you were to write copy for perhaps a client or an influencer, how do you maintain their voice, but making sure that it converts if, you know what I mean? Is that … Yeah.

Arman: yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that’s a great question. That’s a really great question. For example, when we’re talking about say Lewis Howes. My voice, my actual natural voice is very different from Lewis’ voice. There are some commonalities between us, but ultimately like, if what we put up for Lewis’ sales video doesn’t match his tone, it’s not going to work. Someone like Lewis is going to be like, “This doesn’t fit with the School of Greatness brand. This doesn’t fit with my voice.”

A lot of what you have to do as a copywriter is really dive deep into the research. I spend my 80/20, the Pareto principle, my 80/20 to the copywriting process is actually diving deep into understanding who that brand or product or service is, and what they think their voice is.

Most of the time from a copywriting perspective, if you’re talking about working for someone else, if you have a client, that’s the last thing they want to hear. They want to know that what you’re doing is just writing, which I found hilarious. But really, ultimately, what creates the copy that Neil goes, “Holy shit. This is really good. This really converted” Is 80% research.

It’s sitting in it and carrying super deeply about every little nuance and diving into the detail so much of the product and his lessons and his ideas, and the way he explains something, that by the time it’s ready to put your fingers on the keyboard, it just flows out of you, because you know it so well, you know everything so well that all you then have to do is take the science of your current understanding of what is currently working well, and what are some things that you know are going to convert.

Bit even more deeply is who is this product or service from a very deep nuance level, and who is their customer or target audience from a very deep nuance level, and then drawing that bridge between the two, helping the target customer connect with the brand, or product, or service.

Nathan: Do you think that copywriting is a skill that every founder and entrepreneur should know?

Arman: That’s a good question. I think that it’s similar to saying, “Is software development a skill that every founder should know?” I think that, and the answer to that would generally be to a certain degree, yes, because you have to understand, I at least in my opinion, I think that in order to effectively either do it, obviously do it yourself, you need to develop, you need to be adept. You need to develop a true skill. To even be able to hire someone of quality, you need to know what quality looks like.

But something as technical as software development, a lot of times, a lot of founders are not going to take the time to go deep and get even a core competency in that. But because copywriting is not nearly as technical or difficult, and the learning curve is not nearly as difficult, and it doesn’t take a bootcamp of six months to be able to just write in basic language, I say, “Yes. Why not?”

Unless you have an insane amount of pain toward copywriting or writing in general, and it just like literally brings out pain in you, and it’s something that you should absolutely not be doing, I say, why not? Why not learn to a basic degree? Because no … and I say this as a former, like someone that you could hire for copywriting. No one hires me anymore. I don’t do that anymore for people other than my own brand. I say this with some … it’s funny to say this, but no one, no copywriter is ever, ever, ever, going to care or be able to write copy as well as you can if you just learn the core basic competencies of copywriting like ever.

I think, Nathan, the only thing that actually … not the only thing. The thing that really distinguished me and people like Neil Patel go “Yeah, Arman. I want to work with you is that I gave a shit, like really, deeply gave a shit.

Nathan: Yeah. No, I love that, man, nd I think it’s interesting how you talk about going deep. Just from my own experience I’ve found with the content or the products and things that we produce at Foundr, the person that’s quite close to the project and really understands the market and what that product offers, and the customer Avatar really goes deep on that side of things. When you can get that side of things dialled in, that’s when things really, really start to come together.

We’ve seen that quite a few times because we’re getting pretty decent at this stuff now, that yeah, it appears to be the case that … if you’re going to develop a product or a service, you really got to do your research. You really got to validate that. You’ve really got to work at your custom Avatar. You’ve really got to understand the battlefield, the market, the landscape. You’ve really got to get your message dialled in, your hook, your big idea, and really, really understand that person’s pains in that market, that person’s gains, what they want to achieve. Yeah, it is a bit of work, but man, it can pay its weight in gold if you really aren’t doing that recon properly.

Arman: I think it’s everything. Maybe I’m biased, but this bias of mine is so strong though. It’s like … or this experience of mine is so strong that I’ve seen so many companies and worked with so many companies that had incredible genius products and services men, but they could not sell and convert anybody. Ultimately, it came down to that. They could not clearly articulate at all who they were, what they were even trying to sell you. What does that journey look like to me as a prospect?

Well, these were generally the companies that I would say a pass on for one reason or another and come to term on and deal or whatever. I would generally see that how badly they needed me. They could not articulate it at all. That’s what copywriting is ultimately. They think that their product … I mean, you’ve heard this, I’m sure people listening have heard this. So many founders think that their product or service is for everybody, or they won’t at least except that they need to refine their messaging to be more specific.

That yes, your cool little quantified self-tracking machine is for humanity, but humanity is not a target audience. You have to get really specific at least to start and build these concentric circles of audiences so that you know who you’re ultimately working with. I’ll give an example of my own thing. Project EVO, yeah, I mean, we want this thing to truly, positively … our ambitions are massive for this, and it comes from a deep, deep mission of knowing that people need this and there’s a lot of pain, and that we are creating a framework and a system and a platform to help people solve that pain and really give them a roadmap to thriving.

We know that if we were to just go out and talk about the mission and the evil planner, or assessments, or any of the tools that we’re building to be for everybody, it’s never going to resonate. It’s never going to cut through the noise. That’s why it’s all context of the situation depending on who I’m talking to. It’s like, we help entrepreneurs find their flow. When we’re talking about anything in the realm of focus or productivity, or anything like that, it’s really important to distinguish our markets.

For us, we know that currently, at least on our core primary product, the EVO Planner and the EVO App, there’s one core audience, and it’s almost 50/50 between these two audiences and the situation where we’re really serving them both, but the one that was most organic is entrepreneurs and what I call, self-development junkies that are committed to their growth, and are looking for a tool that is personalised and made for them.

They’re tired of stuff that’s cookie cutter and subjective opinions about what works and how to be productive, and we instantly cut through the noise because we’re like, “Look, we understand how difficult it is to focus. We’ve been there myself, my business partner, Chad and I have been there. We know how difficult it can be to even just plan your day. What do I do? GTD, this productivity thing. The one thing, that thing, like this planner, that planner.” Well, What if there was something that was actually personalised to you? What if I’m telling you that I don’t even have the answer, but what I have as an initial starting point for you to at least begin your journey of self- discovery and finding out what it is you do need to do to be more effective and to find your daily flow, and then to make it a little bit better every single day.

That’s really all we’re talking about here. Is it beginning starting point and making it a little bit better every day. Not An end-all-be-all panacea answer.

Nathan: Yeah, man. This is amazing. This is a good segue into Project EVO. How did all that come about, man? Obviously, you’ve taken a massive step back on any consulting copy and you’re going all in, on Project EVO, so, how did that all come about? If you’ve worked on other … You’ve worked on many projects, I know, and you’ve mentioned this to me. Before Project EVO, were you working on any other companies? What else have you had going on? I’m curious.

Arman: I built my consulting practise. I built my blog up, I got to a place where I was in a really good place with passive income, and with active income. I was just living my freedom like really in a good place where I was really comfortable, really happy with the people in my network and everything I was doing. The opportunities were just really abundant, but had never built what I call … I still had very much that solopreneur like freedom. Even though I had a team of contractors and small business, I still very much had a business, but I had a lot of freedom. I wasn’t building a company culture, and doing team off sites and things like that like I am now.

Now we’ve really built an incredible company and the beginnings of what I know are going to be something that is going to create an incredible, incredible impact. I know this with such a deep, deep certainty now from a place of, like, “Oh, I’m so ambitious and I just have to, and I have to make this much money” Or “I have to have this for my ego because it’s going to look good or feel good.” But from a place where I know I have for one reason or another, in a way that life just happens for you stumbled across and opportunity that has asked me to show up fully to make it a reality in this world.

It is truly like a deep, deep calling and mission what I’m doing. The way it came about was one of my friends … one of these people that I’d worked with through the years, Chad Maretta who’s now my business partner with Project EVO met about, I don’t know, five, six years ago. Actually, I had known him longer. I met him when I was still … when I just left Google.

We had just become friends, and have been friends for a long time and became best friends and travelled the world together, went to the World Cup, did all kinds of stuff together. We were actually working on a book, and the way Project EVO and this whole company came about was one of the things that I really wanted to do from both a personal dream perspective, and it comes from the same root of this exact same mission, was to create a resource for people that at that time was in the form of a book that helps people accomplish exactly what we’re talking about, which is ‘Who am I and what do I do best?’ And actually giving people a tool and a resource and a framework for identifying all of that.

Especially, in the workplace, like, ‘who am I? What is my craft? How do I …’ Because the number one question I would get through all these years of writing on my blog was, “Arman, I love this stuff. I love everything you’re doing, and like all this talk about finding your passion, finding your purpose. How the hell do I actually do that? Is it really just by asking myself these three questions? Or is it really by just trying a bunch of shit? or is it really by just … I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I’m good at.”

I thought it was so fascinating that people would keep telling me they don’t know who they are. What does that mean? What does that mean when a human being says, “I don’t know who I am.”? I think there’s something really deeply profound going on there. I think that a lot of the crisis that we see around the world right now with a lot of the depression and anxiety is actually related to this exact same point. A lot of the reason we see so much unfulfillment in the workplace is this exact same point.

People just coasting around through life because they’ve never had an opportunity to stop and identify these very foundational things about themselves. What I wanted to do was build this go and do this whole traditionally published book with Chad. I presented this idea actually at a mastermind. At the mastermind, I was like, “I have this big dream. I have this big vision of doing this traditionally published book. I want to go to a random house or Simon and Schuster and do this book.”

Then Chad was like, I remember him going like, “Well, why don’t we do this together? I’ve been a published author. I wrote a traditionally published book already.” He had written a book called ‘App Empire’ This is amazing. I have a deep why around this too. Let’s do it together.

We started this crazy journey of this whole book proposal process and getting this agent, this incredible agent who’s been an agent for many other big names, and began this journey. We eventually hit a wall with the editor because we just never landed on the proposal the way we liked it. And we kept going back, and we kept rewriting and rewriting. Eventually, we found ourselves at a Summit Series which many of the people listening here probably are familiar with this group.

Nathan: Yeah.

Arman: They had an event called Summit at Sea that Chad and I went to. Our whole plan was to just meet up and discuss what’s next. We paid like 4k or 5k to go there. Literally, for the first two days just sit in the cabin of the boat discussing ideas. Really, Chad had this ulterior motive and plan the whole time to get me there and talk about what he saw as potentially a different direction for everything that we were doing around the book and the ideas.

That was really the root of the EVO Planner and not this book, but taking our assessment and taking our tools around cognitive psychology and plugging that into a planning system, combining the physical and the digital and making that really the starting point of something much bigger, and building a company.

Ultimately, it was really a beautiful moment because what ultimately allowed me to say, “Hell yes” was just seeing the place that he was coming from and what a deep why he had around it, and how I knew it was so in line with everything that I was trying to do and what we were trying to do together that it was just a no-brainer to be like, “Wow, okay. I guess we’re gonna go build this company.”

Of course I come in with my very different thinking. We really balance each other well. I come in with my different thinking around, “How do we really turn this into a massive company? How are we really going to this world of shifting the conversation around fulfilment in the workplace and building these tools and products and services that actually give people a roadmap and a framework for identifying ultimately two things, like I’ve said, who they are from a pure personality and psychology perspective, and what they do best behaviorally in your life, which changes throughout the years.

If we can identify those things for people, we can build a company around personalised products and services that help them show up and do more and more and more of that.

Nathan: Yeah. I love it, man. One thing that you guys have done is, you’ve done a Crowdfunding campaign. Why did you do that? Was the purpose to validate the hypothesis? Or had you already validated? Why did you choose that route out of curiosity?

Arman: We actually had already validated the product. We’d already validated our brain type assessment. By the time we launched on Kickstarter, we already had 73,000 people take the assessment, and we’ve been getting feedback for so long. This process has been, I think it was a year, like three years of the research around the assessment because it was going into the book, but all we did was pivot it and turned it into this physical format of the planner and the app. We’d done so much research already around the market. We knew exactly the language from a copywriting perspective. We knew exactly what we needed, and we were eating our own dog food.

We knew … We’ve been building this system for ourselves since day one. That’s like that. I don’t know how to show up without this tool, man. I don’t know how to show up without EVO. I would be lost without it. That’s why it’s such a drive, because I need it so desperately, and I’ve talked to so many people that I know need it so desperately that we have no choice. By the time we launched on Kickstarter, it was really ultimately around, I think our primary driver was being able to have this big pop and this big foray into the market, because … especially with the product that we were creating, a physical planner and an app, and this type of thing.

It is not the first planner, but we knew that we would be able to capture people’s attention because we were pioneering something so different. It is the world’s first personalised planner. It is the world’s first flow system. With the eyeballs and the community that you’re able to build out of crowdfunding, we knew that would give us like the big initial jump that we wanted to be able to really scale at mass, while still being careful about not scaling too quickly because, it’s funny like you see a lot of these crowd funding campaigns go to shit because they raise too much money.

They can’t the product orders, and then the inventory. Inventory is a crazy beast, and any ecommerce entrepreneur knows that the inventory game is crazy and staying ahead and being capital efficient is difficult. We really wanted to create that story, so we did this whole Kickstarter. We raised three hundred sixty something thousand there.

Arman: Then we did an Indiegogo, which our Indiegogo as of the time we’re talking is still open. It’s in the high 600s right now. Six hundred eighty something thousand. It’s been incredible, man. It’s really been incredible.

Nathan: Wow. Amazing, man. I can really hear and feel your vision. I’m so excited to get an EVO Planner for myself and our team and we’re doing something special around there, which if you guys can hear about soon. I’m curious around what’s next, because I agree. To be honest, we were looking at … I was thinking about doing a plan of like literally a plan of Foundr, then I scrapped that whole idea purely because of focus, purely because of vision, purely because it just didn’t really line up with everything that we’re doing.

Yeah, I’m curious, what is next? You said that you guys plan to produce not just a planner and you’ve got the assessment app, which I think is genius, which I’ve been through, but around the tools, what is next? Once you go live, what’s going to happen next?

Arman: Yeah. We are ultimately just really beginning this journey of getting the actual system into people’s hands. Step one right now, like what we’re actually doing in the middle of right now is a shipping out the planners and launching the app in the App Store. Once that app is out, ultimately that’s really 50% of the system, so people are able to document and scan the results from their planner into the app. The APP becomes this place that ultimately is going to have all your information on how you’re performing so that you can see what’s working and what’s not for you on a daily basis.

Like I said, this is all based around who you are, your brain type, whether you’re an Oracle and Alchemist, and Explorer or an Architect like me, that’s my brain type. The whole system is designed for you, and you’re able to track that data in the app.

The big thing we have coming up right now is the app launch. Chad, being Mr. App Empire and having launched many apps and doing these various things through the years, we’re going to do a big launch on this app and really build that app. Ultimately, our focus right now is to just really show up and over-deliver for these customers. We’ve been in a mode of marketing, and now it’s time to be in a mode of product and really deliver on that.

Once we deliver on that, we are going to go back into the product drawing board, and we’re doing a couple of other tools as well, like add-on products. We’ve got this thing called EVO Go, which is sort of on the go version of the daily planner. The big, big thing that I’m really most excited about that’s next is, we have this brain type assessment that is free. Anybody can take that online. At this point we’ve had, I want to say like 110,000 people take our brain type assessment. And it’s free. It’s accessible to anybody, and we can share a link to that if you want in the notes or wherever. You’ll find it on our website, projectevo.org. You’ll see the brain type assessment right at the top.

We are launching now, and working on right now, an advanced version of that brain type assessment that will be a paid assessment that goes much, much, much, much deeper into these components of the psychology around who you are and what you do best. When you take our current BTA, Brain Type Assessment, we really designed it to be simple, but as enlightening as possible.

People walk out of that with an identity. They’re able to put language to things around their brain and who they are that they never been able to before. The stories that we see, the things that people say just from the free tool, just from the brain type assessment is life-changing for people. It’s incredible. People that have not even outside of even the entrepreneurship world, people that haven’t been able to connect with a family member, that have had difficulties communicating with their mother, finally understand the construct, the mental construct of how their mother sees the world and why there’s friction in the relationship.

It’s wild, because when you’re able to put language to the model of someone else’s world, that creates instant empathy. You finally are able to see and put language to Because what is Language creates the reality. Without the language you don’t understand. It’s all just abstract. It creates a reality and understanding, a concrete understanding around who that person is.

Just from our free tool, people have had this incredible insight. They changed their days, they know how to show up better. They know how to get into flow on a daily basis. Now, this deeper assessment, which I won’t go too deep into because we’re still … I make sure I don’t promise anything that we’re not doing, but we we’re essentially … it’s a deeper advanced version of this that we are going to target toward not just individuals, which is still great, but also companies.

We’re really looking to go as wide and big eventually as what StrengthsFinder has done. StrengthsFinder 2.0 thats which I believe they renamed recently to CliftonStrengths or something, or like a disc, or like any of those assessments and tools that’s being used in the workplace. We’re going to go much further deeper into the brain type. We’re going to go into their compass, which is around their decision-making, learning and communication styles, and then what we call the crafts, which everyone has a three top crafts around what they do best, and the role that they should be playing in the workplace. I’m super, super excited about that.

Nathan: Yeah, man. Wow. This is incredible, dude. We’ve connected before and you’ve told me about the vision fever, but not to that extent. I’m so pumped to get our team to go through it and get these plan is and everyone to do the assessments, and really say how we can all jam together. I think that’s really key, because I’ve been getting a lot into that DISC Profiling stuff. Haven’t gotten into the StrengthsFinder stuff, but, yeah, man, it’s incredible.

Talk to me around like, I guess, you’ve got EVO going on. What does your day look like right now because you’re a CEO. People always find this interesting. What tools are you guys using to … Are you guys just local or remote and local? A bit of a hybrid? Mix? Are you all in San Diego? Talk to me around like that and how your day looks.
Arman: Yeah. our structure has been … it’s pretty interesting. It’s kind of a hybrid. Most of us are in San Diego. We’ve got a couple of people in Portland, one in Denver, but most of us are in San Diego. Then we also will work with contractors and hire out for different specific roles. We work with a few different agencies, but our core team of eight is like a hybrid and remote. Most days I’m in the office downtown San Diego. Couple days, one to two days out of the week I like to work from home. But yeah, I really … it’s actually funny. You talking about like remote or in person.

I’m kind of at a point right now where I’m really trying to decide what is the best path forward because the future is definitely around remote working. I just don’t think that the power of being in the flesh will ever be replaced. Let me take that back. Maybe not ever because I’m down to jump into the VR rabbit hole and what’s possible. And I’m very … we’ve already done this a little bit before, and I’m very philosophical around these things and like what in terms of future and what’s possible.

I really think that the in person magic that happens, the water cooler talk, the ability to just be able to on the fly, connect on something and make something happen is very difficult to replace. I’d like to maintain both as much as possible. And I love my freedom. I love being able to work dynamically some days from home. I love being able to travel and work. I’m also building a company, and like you said, I’m a CEO. I have to be there. I have to show up.

Presence shows up in a lot of different ways. I try to really … right now we really want to build this culture in this office around both being in San Diego, but also a couple of our most important team members are in Portland. It’s important that I make them continue to feel very much a part of the team, and they are. We just finished up a week long immersion last week where they were here all week.

Everyone was here for the full week, and we did these crazy 12-hour days where we were just going, “Man.” We were in our flow and working long days and doing an activity at the end of the day, and it was incredible. I really saw the value of the immersions. We’ve committed to doing that at least once a quarter where we’re going to have everybody here in San Diego.

As far as the tools, I mean, yeah, I don’t think we could live without zoom. Myself and my co-founder are both … We communicate primarily verbally. That’s just how we communicate and we know that because of our learning and communication style, of course. We really need to be able to capture voice notes and voice memos. We use a kind of … it’s not a great app, but it’s called Voxer.

Nathan: Voxer, yeah.

Arman: Yeah. It’s like the walkie talkie app. It’s a little glitchy and all that, but it gets the job done and it allows us to be able to like stay on the go and be able to capture as we’re going. We also use a lot of the main tools like Slack. Asana is our main project management dashboard, and that’s what keeps us all together and consistent. We’re still very much learning around how to be as effective as possible with everything that we’re doing.

I think that the key has been that we just really stay on top of it. If any ball is dropped, we stop and we figure it out. I have like a very strict … We cannot allow the ball to drop, and if we do, we have to find out what that inefficiency is and set people up in a way to win. If I noticed that someone on my team is not winning, I don’t ignore it. There no … If she ever listened to this, one of the advisors of our company, there’s no lying, faking and hiding with us. I’ve really learned that from her.

Her name is Kim Harrison. She’s the CEO of Start With Why and Simon Sinek organisation, and her ability to bring that into our culture, and I’ve learned so much from her around this, is like really leaning into the difficult conversations. I can’t say I have no fear, I’ve begun to learn to build the muscle of having no fear about leaning in and having these difficult conversations. Because when you allow these things to just sit, you’re asking for a death sentence. It’s going to ruin the company. It hurts that person. When you don’t put your employees before the customer, you’re screwed. I’ve really learned that. It’s employees first all the way.

Nathan: I liked what you said around having these difficult conversations as well. One of the things I learned from that book, ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’, which actually when we were talking about that trip, was around courage. The greatest CEOs have to have courage. They have tremendous amounts of courage. Whenever you feel that fear, or you just got to do it, man.

Arman: Yeah. That reminds me of when you’re nervous, you just got to reprogram yourself to feel excited. It’s the same feeling. It’s the same, exact biological like mechanisms. Like you said, even with fear, maybe that’s really just an indicator that this is the thing that you must be doing. That also reminds me of Steven Pressfield around ‘Doing the Work’ and ‘The Art of War’. Ultimately, wherever you feel resistance or fear is where you actually have to really show up and knock through it and push through it. I always think of fear of that way as well. I’m like, “It’s an indicator. It’s an indicator of the thing that I should probably lean into.” Where I get some sort of result.

Nathan: Yeah, I agree. Usually, I think that’s where the magic happens.

Arman: Definitely. Yeah. Most people aren’t willing to have crucial conversations. I got to a point where I would joke around with my business bar and go like, “How many crucial conversations are we going to have today? Let’s just fucking eat them up.” Like, “Let’s just eat up these crucial conversations.” Then I’m like, “Oh, I got to talk to that agency and they suck, and I got to tell them that they suck and then we got to fire them. You know what? I need this standard.” And it’s like, “No. We have standards, and this is what we stand for. If I speak from a place of truth and love and honesty, it will be received. It will be received.”

Every single time I’ve done it, people walk away thinking me, and I’ve seen other people do it to me. I thank them for showing up and being authentic and being real. No one wants to bullshit, man. No one wants to bullshit. But the bullshit’s easier, that’s why people do it. It’s easier, or, at least it’s perceived to be easier because it’s a short term solution. If you’re playing the long game, every time you avoid confrontation or a crucial conversation, or you don’t have the courage, as you said, you will regret it. You will pay the price later in the future.

Nathan: Yeah, I agree 100% percent. Well, look man, we have to work towards wrapping up. Incredible conversation, dude. I could keep talking to you for a long time, man, but we got to work towards wrapping up. Where’s the best place people can find out more about yourself, your work and get a copy of the EVO Planner and get plugged into the system, and really understand themselves better?

Arman: I would really say to anybody listening to this, take the time to really sit down and just begin that process around those two core things. Who you are from a psychology perspective, and what you do best from a behavioural perspective. You can take our brain type assessment. That’s probably the best place to start, projectevo.org/bta. Projectevo.org will link you to the actual EVO Planner and the EVO App. We’d love to see people jump in there. Please let me know directly what you think. The best place to reach me is going to be Instagram.

I’m really going to actually focus on this and make that a thing to commit to social media and really be active on Instagram. I’m just at @armanassadi, so Instagram is the best place for that. Then my website is armanassadi.com.

Nathan: Awesome. Well, look, thank you so much for your time today, Arman. It’s been an absolute pleasure, my man, and yeah, look forward to connecting with you further and hanging out. We’re got to meet in person and, yeah, I’m really excited about this course we’re launching. It’s going to be amazing. It’s gonna help so many founders, and, yeah man, just, thank you so much for your time today.

Arman: Thank you, man. Really appreciate it. It was awesome time.