How to Network with Billionaires with Andrew Wilkinson | My First Million Ep. #174

TL;DR

Andrew Wilkinson describes his strategy of buying undervalued, distressed businesses (e.g., Girl Boss, Medimap) by stripping out venture-cost structures and running them lean. He advocates paying for access to high-leverage rooms (TED, charity lunches) to build a network that compounds, and uses small “hobby businesses” (a sugar-free bakery) to distract himself from making overpriced investments i

Key insights

• Buying Girl Boss worked because the asset had 2M social followers and 250k email subscribers but a venture-sized cost structure; by cutting to 5–7 employees, it becomes a good business even at $3M/yea
• Medimap built an unassailable moat by solving a real pain point (walk-in clinics getting constant phone calls asking wait times) and now has 86% of Canadian walk-in clinics using its software, making
• Andrew treats venture investing as a hobby (“roulette”) and is sitting on his hands because everything is overvalued; he sees parallels to 1999 and believes indexing random startups would lose money t