Fact
Google now rewards brands people actually search for by name
Mike explains that Google increasingly favors sites that users seek out by name—Milk Road gets hundreds of branded searches a day, JM Bullion thousands—because branded search signals genuine human interest.
“So it's, you know, just this brand component of like Google has really moved towards rewarding brands that users are actually going to Google and searching for. Like Milk Road is being searched hundreds of times a day and that's such an indicator to Google of like humans are interested in this brand. Same with JM. JM's getting thousands of searches a day for JM Bullion.”
Steal thisBuild a brand people search by name—branded search volume is now a ranking signal.
Number
Mike sold his poker affiliate site for $565K at 19
When US online poker collapsed, Mike sold his affiliate business for $565,000 at age 19—a site that was doing $30K–$40K a month but whose future was too uncertain to hold.
$565K
Sale price of poker affiliate business · USD
“I sold for $565,000 and I was, I think, 19 then.”
Story
JM Bullion's first 'great' customers were all credit-card fraud
Mike and his partner thought they'd hit it when big repeat credit-card orders started flowing in; on Christmas morning the checking account was negative $40,000—every order was chargeback fraud, a lesson learned the hard way.
“Big credit card orders, repeat customers over and over and over. We're like, "All right, we've hit it. This is going to work." And so for 2 months this goes on, we're getting like $100,000, $200,000 of revenue a month. Or no, I'm sorry, it wasn't that much. It was probably $30,000 or $50,000. And literally on Christmas morning, my partner texts me. He's like, "Kind of weird. Have you seen the checking account?"”
Framework
The honest-mirror scorecard: why would anyone buy from us?
Mike scored JM Bullion against the five biggest competitors on website, pricing, selection, shipping speed and service, concluded they were worse at everything, and used that clarity to pick the one lever they could win on—undercutting everyone on price, since gold is a commodity.
“And I just basically like did a little scorecard for everybody.. And I was like, there's no reason anyone would ever buy from us. We're just worse at everything. We have less selection.”
Steal thisScore yourself honestly against every competitor, accept the ugly answer, then pick the one lever you can actually win on.
Framework
Don't ask how to fix it—ask who can fix it
Mike and Kendall's efficiency rule: for any problem, instead of figuring out how to solve it tactically yourself, ask who can solve it for you—freeing you to focus on your superpower.
“if you have a problem, you can think about how can I fix this problem? Like how can I solve the problem tactically or whatever? Or you can just think about who can fix this for me.”
Steal thisReplace 'how do I fix this?' with 'who can fix this for me?' and protect your time for your superpower.
Framework
Zoom out to 5–10 year increments and nothing seems like a big deal
Mike's mentor taught him to stop swinging emotionally with every chargeback and record day, and instead frame events over 5-to-10-year horizons—at that altitude, almost nothing materially changes your trajectory.
“And one thing he really helped me with was zooming out and thinking into 5 to 10-year increments. And if you frame stuff like that, nothing really ever seems like that big of a deal. There's very few things that happen to you or your business that are going to materially change your trajectory over 5 to 10 years.”
Steal thisWhen a crisis hits, ask whether it changes your 5-to-10-year trajectory—almost nothing does.