Alan Hidalgo – Car Fleet Academy

The Transcript Is Auto-Generated And May Contain Spelling And Grammar Errors

 

Intro  0:00  

from ABC News Radio, okay, I’m at 1490 in Southern California. This is BizNinja Entrepreneur Radio with your host, Tyler Jorgenson.

 

Tyler Jorgenson  0:13  

Welcome out to biz ninja entrepreneur radio. We are here with Alan Hidalgo. And Alan and I met at the West Hollywood, with an event with a mutual friend. And one of the things I learned really quickly about Alan is that the guy works hard. And he has a big vision of what he wants to accomplish. But what I thought was unique was he’s doing it in a way that’s different than most people that I’ve talked to. So we’re going to learn a little bit about that about Alan’s journey, and about how it might be able to help you so welcome to the show, Alan. 

 

Alan Hidalgo  0:44  

Hey, man, thanks for having me on. It’s an honor to be here.

 

Tyler Jorgenson  0:48  

Sweet. So what is it that you do? Let’s start right at the top with what you do and then we’ll go backward from there.

 

Alan Hidalgo  0:55  

Okay, so I mean, I do a lot, I guess. But to sum it up, I have a marketing channel. Honey, that was my main business out of college, I started investing in other businesses. After that, I’m heavily invested in Airbnb. Now I own ATMs. So always just looking for other streams of income. But the main thing that, I guess that I’ve been able to help a lot of people with, in particular, I would say in recent times is with Uber and Lyft, actually learning how they can make six figures with Uber and Lyft monetizes those platforms without actually having to drive cars. So people, when I say make money with Uber and Lyft, you think I’m saying drive a car. And that’s not at all what I’m talking about. I’m actually talking about having people drive for you. And you collecting rev share off of that making passive income every single day, every single week. Awesome.

 

Tyler Jorgenson  1:40  

So like many entrepreneurs, you’ve got a lot of lines out in the water, but you have car fleet Academy, which is this, this opportunity where you teach people how to do exactly what you just said, which is making money off Uber and Lyft without actually having to get behind the wheel. So let’s go into that a little bit. And then, you know, how did you decide that that was an option? opportunity.

 

Alan Hidalgo  2:00  

So yeah, it all started honestly, man, it started when I was in when I was at LSU. So I went to LSU Louisiana State University. I was going for the kind of job route when I had first I guess, left high school, but I always was a hustler always was into money and finding ways to make money and I was very creative with finding ways to make money. One of the first things I did was I basically didn’t want to work a normal job like all my other college peers, I was in a fraternity my first year of college, All my friends are working as bartenders or working as waiters. I didn’t want to do that. Right. So I was always looking for other ways to make money and trade, not trade my time for money. But one of the first things I did was actually drive on Uber. So I heard that it was a really good way to make money. It was at the time it was very trendy and people were making a lot of money. So I decided to give it a shot rolled up my sleeves, put my ego aside. I was thinking I was like 19 at the time, maybe like the right after I turned 18 started driving Uber and Lyft I was making anywhere I would say three to $500 a day busting my ass working crazy hours. I would do that about four days a week while I was at school. And then the rest of the time, I would literally just spend it, you know, studying and getting ready for exams. What I realized was after a few weeks was Yeah, this is a really good way to make money and it’s pretty stable. I can work what I want. But I want to be able to have freedom. I don’t want to have to drive this car. In other words, if I stopped driving that car, I stopped making money. Right? What if I could convince someone else to drive for me? And I just split a percentage with them. So I found a friend of mine that I was going to school with, he was in a bad financial situation. He didn’t have a car, you know, transportation and have a job. So I threw out the idea to him, I was like, Hey, how about you take my car? It was my personal car at the time. It was a Hyundai Sonata. I said, Hey, how about you take my Sonata and you go and do what I did. And we just split the money. So it was good for him because he got to make money. He had a way to have a car now. And then I got to sit on my bed in my dorm room and make anywhere from two to 200 and $250 a day from him just driving, right? Not doing anything. So that’s where it all kind of started a light bulb went in my head and I said, Well, what if I could do this with another car, five cars, 10 cars, 12 cars. Eventually, I scaled it up to 13 cars, half of them in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the other half in New Orleans. And, you know, it’s been good. It’s been a really good business. And so, yeah, so that’s how I got into it. A lot of people approached me about it because it was interesting to a lot of people because I started traveling the world. I went over 14 countries in the last two years, while living this lifestyle business, but the whole business on automation. And I’ve got so many people that asked me to teach them how to do it. So I launched the car fleet Academy, the end of last year, we did one webinar, I think it was pretty successful. And I have students now earning six figures with Uber and Lyft. Awesome.

 

Tyler Jorgenson  4:59  

Okay, so we’re going to unpack that a little bit. So you first just started hustling yourself figured out how to do it, how to make it profitable. And then you realized, okay, this is a good job. But you want more than a job you wanted a business. So you started with one and worked up to 13 cars. Now you’re teaching other people how to do it. What was the craziest thing or the biggest hurdle that you had to overcome? As you were starting to move from one car up to 13 cars? The biggest

 

Alan Hidalgo  5:23  

hurdle was probably finding good employees, good drivers. So yeah, I had that first car, right. And I was my friend that was driving and for the most part, I felt like I could trust him to do the right thing to not get a rag to not you know, do anything bad with the car. And it was good. He was very trustworthy. He was pretty honest. But then I thought, okay, realistically, I’m not going to be able to hire 13 other my friends that I knew personally or family members to do this again, right. If I really want to turn this into a business and get to the six-figure level with this business, then I’m going to have to basically Put trust in other people that I don’t have any connection or tie to. So that was the biggest hurdle was learning how to hire the right drivers. It took me a while to learn this, but I did learn it. And now on my program, I teach people how to do that. But it is a very, like there’s a formula for hiring good people. I think that was the biggest hurdle.

 

Tyler Jorgenson  6:19  

Cool. That makes tons of sense. I think that’s, you know, acquiring cars, how you’re going to finance them, how you’re going to handle the insurance, how you’re going to handle. There’s a lot of problems that you’ve got to solve throughout that. But I’m sure people it’s probably one of the biggest ones. And the most unknown variable throughout the process. Everything else, you figure it out once you can pretty much do it every time. Yeah. So let’s go backwards a little bit in your entrepreneurial journey. You mentioned a lot of things that you’ve done, you’ve done you do different kinds of investing, you’ve done marketing agencies, and you’ve got ATM machines around the world. When was the first point in your life that you realize, man, I’m not a nine to five type of guy. I’m an entrepreneur, cuz you’re pretty young. So you’ve been grinding pretty hard already, but like what do you like it? kid and you just realize, man, I gotta get happy.

 

Alan Hidalgo  7:03  

Okay, so here’s the thing. So when I was 12 years old, that was my first entrepreneurial like journey, I guess or like touching entrepreneurship. I started a pet boarding business when I was 12. The reason what my motivation behind starting that was the fact that I always wanted things, right. I always wanted the latest game on Madden or Xbox. I always wanted the newest cell phone, I was very just always wanting things. I was a high maintenance kid. And my parents did not give me everything I wanted by any means. So they would always tell me know when I wanted things, and out and my dad literally told me, he was like, if you want all those things you want, we’re not going to buy them, you’re gonna have to go and work and find a way to do it. So I got creative. I realized that years old, it’s against the US labor laws to work. So I’m gonna have to be more creative, cutting grass, things like that, right? So I basically started a pet boarding business where I was taking care of other people. Pets while they went on vacation, they lived in my area. It started off very small, like one or two clients that were in my neighborhood. And I ended up becoming the most successful pet boarding business in my, in Louisiana we call our counties parishes. So we have a different word for that. But in my county, if you want to say it became the most successful one, how did I do this? Literally, it was by becoming an expert at SEO, I was able to rank my business above everyone else in my area. I was 12 years old. I had so many like Weebly website. It wasn’t sophisticated or anything. And I was getting booked like crazy. I think I made like 20 grand in one summer doing that at 12. So then I was like, Okay, I can make money for myself, right? So that’s when it hit me man. I went to high school and middle school, stopped at business eventually. And then somehow my parents kept talking me into the corporate world. So I got my I got the whole entrepreneurship out of my out of my DNA after that out of my brain, and then it wasn’t until when I went to LSU when I went was a freshman when I just got It was like, okay, like, I don’t want to be working a job like all these other people, there’s gotta be more than this. So I dropped out of LSU, I think at age 20. And I was making so much money with my first initial business that I was like, I’m not. I was making more than college professors at age 20. And going to college. So that was when it hit me, man. I think

 

Tyler Jorgenson  9:21  

it’s awesome. Very cool. All right. So you I mean, this sounds like a lot of young entrepreneurs that I know, they realize really early on that if they want something, it’s up to them to go get it. If they want to achieve something, it they’re not going to wait for the world to hand it to them. So you did that as a kid starting the pet boarding business, did it again in college starting, you know, basically your Uber and Lyft business. And now you’re doing it again with car fleet Academy. Tell us a little bit about what you’re doing with car fleet Academy and how it’s helping other entrepreneurs.

 

Alan Hidalgo  9:50  

Right. So yeah, so I mean, when I first to be honest with you, man, when I first realized the amount of money I can make with Uber and Lyft on my own, I was honestly very selfish about it. I didn’t want anyone else to know how to do it because I thought well, like I figured something out that, like no one really knows about. It’s pretty underground. Real is right. I’m the first guy coming into the space teaching programs on it. Kind of like when Brian came out with Airbnb Brian page with b&b formula I’m kind of in his position but with Uber when he first started, so I had a few friends that were viewing my Instagram stories and Facebook saying how many places I was traveling to and they all were like, dude, like, how are you doing that? Like, we just graduated college like we have all this debt? Like how are you traveling? What are you doing? So I told him about Uber and like the stuff I was doing, I had like two good friends that I told about it. And they lived in other states at the time, like we all had went separate ways after college. And literally like they were like, hey look like is there any way you could just teach me how to do it? And they paid me a little bit of money like like I charge them a fee because it did take And they did it. And they were able to replicate what I did. And they were making some, and they still are making some really good money with it. So they were like, Yeah, why you don’t make a course Alan, like, there’s nobody doing this. There’s nobody that’s teaching what you taught us how to do. So that’s when the light bulb went in my head. It took me a while because I didn’t want to be known as a course guy. But then I realized, like, Okay, I’m making this money with Uber and Lyft. But what is my greater calling? What’s my greater purpose? How can I scale even bigger, and have an internet business too, and I thought, well, if I could sell my knowledge and my expertise, and equip people with a business that makes sense, that can make them a bunch of money, I’ll make money from it. And I also will feel really good about helping tons of people, you know, around the world. So now I have over 60 plus students, I have students in the US, Canada, Argentina, Europe, Australia, and parts of Latin America, and I have people that are killing it now making six figures with it. The biggest thing that I’ll tell people and I guess for the audience listening, that why this is such a great business model is because it’s the only business out there that I’ve seen in recent times where you don’t have to know how to market, you don’t have to invest money into marketing or take a risk. Uber and Lyft are going to send you all your customers. So in other words, the second that I have a car, right running and Ubers on it, Uber sending me money every single day, all hours of the day, I don’t have to put Facebook ads up, I don’t have to take that risk of figuring out how to get customers, they do all the work, and I’m just fulfilling their, you know, their work in a sense. So, right, I think that’s the biggest thing. People are always going to need to go from point A to point B people are always going to need transportation. So I’ve had a lot of people approached me about it now, because they see what I’m saying. And they’re like, that makes total sense. You know? Yeah,

 

Tyler Jorgenson  12:52  

absolutely. What I think is really interesting about that part of your story is you first had to overcome the scarcity mindset. The idea do that if I teach someone else it’s going to impact my business or my opportunity, which obviously, given the the sheer volume and the size of Uber and Lyft, there’s no way that’s gonna happen. And you had to overcome some battles of self identity, where you’re like, No, I don’t want to be known as an education guy or a course guy. So yeah, to overcome, like those two things to start really teaching, then because of that, you’re able to say, look at all these lives, that I’m helping with all these students that I’m able to help make, you know, make an impact in their in their lives. And so it’s fascinating to me, when entrepreneurs go through this part of the journey, which is the, the false scarcity and the false, you know, the stepping into the spotlight of their true identity, which is the ability to create impact through education, really, no matter what industry you go into, there’s a point where your expertise, you’ve either got to share it as a, as a mentor, or as a course or whatever, you got to start sharing, right. So you’ve mentioned a couple times that you have some other mentors in the space, or just in marketing and stuff in general, how important to you is it to continue to get mentors and look up For what your next steps are,

 

Alan Hidalgo  14:01  

I think it’s extremely important. It’s probably the reason why I’ve got to where I am now, as far as success wise, and financials and stuff like that business wise, I’m always actively trying to find people well above me. I mean, I’ve literally I mean, just right before this podcast, I was on a call with one of my mentors, he makes a million dollars a month profit online with his offers, and I think he made like $34 million before 28 online. So I’m just always like, blown away, because it makes me feel a lot smaller compared to them. And it gets me into conversations to where I would have never had those conversations or been challenged by them, if it wasn’t from talking to them and being with them. And the only way to me to get to those levels, is to be surrounded with people that are going to force you to I guess go beyond your horizon of what you think is possible. Right? You know, so I was just thinking six figures for example, when I first got started in business I started opening my mind now to seven figures. And I’m like, okay, actually, I think seven figures is now becoming the new six figures. Right, right. I never thought eight figures, right. And now I’m talking to people that eight figures for them is like normal. And so now I’m starting to think with that mindset, I guess. So I think it’s critical for anyone in business.

 

Tyler Jorgenson  15:20  

I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of paradigms or what you expect it what your normal is, how much how easy that normal shifts, and then what’s possible to you massively shifts, and not only what’s possible, but what the minimum is for you to even be considered successful or pursue an opportunity. And so I think it’s fascinating by surrounding yourself with people who are kind of farther up that journey or further along that journey. It allows you to really kind of adjust your mindset and move forward that way. What would you say? You know, you’ve done a lot, right? You’ve got a lot of things happening. You got some big moves that you’re working on. What are some pieces of advice that you would give to young entrepreneurs that are still trying to figure out what they want to do? You

 

Alan Hidalgo  16:00  

I would give you advice and I tell this to people all the time. And I think everyone that I’ve told this to literally changes their whole mindset number one, okay? We live in an ADHD world now I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was six years old. So for me, for those of you listening that may not know what that is, it’s an attention deficit disorder. It means that it’s hard for me to focus on just one thing. I’m always scatterbrained thinking about 10 different things at the same time, right? I was medicated for that since I was six years old. So I had to learn how to focus right focus is the biggest thing that I see a lot of people failing because they want to jump and hop from business to business, right business. I used to be in MLM it used to be people hopping from company to company. Now it’s turned into people hopping from business model to business model. So I would say we live in ADHD world now because we’re constantly being bombarded with YouTube and Facebook ads. Think about it like the last day. I saw a five For a marketing agency, starting a marketing agency, starting an e commerce store, starting a crypto brand starting forex, right in the last few days. So for the new entrepreneur out there, I can see how hard it is to pick one thing. So I would say, to block out the noise as much as you can. And then my number two advice, and I think it’s the best advice. For me, I’ve had more success in business, choosing businesses that focus on people’s needs or their wants. So many people like to be creative and start businesses like I know so many people that want to start their own clothing line, because they think people are going to love their clothes, right? Do people need those clothes? No, those clothes are just a luxury. You’ll make way more money and you’ll have more stability and less risk if you focus on stuff that I guess are people’s needs. So I always use this example. When you go to a grocery store right? Or you go to the supermarket and you need toilet paper like do you think about it you debate Oh, do I need it. Now you just Buy it off of instinct because we all need that, right? We all need certain things. So in the same way that I started, Uber and Lyft, people always need transportation. So I’m always going to have customers, people need Airbnb ease, people always are going to need places to stay hotels. Right. I guess my point, what I’m trying to say is get into a business first, where you’re monetizing off of people’s needs. And I think that will save you a lot of headache and failure, in my opinion. Yeah, that’s great. I think,

 

Tyler Jorgenson  18:30  

you know, when there’s three core business, you know, areas, right health, wealth and relationships, they say, right, when you’re teaching and so you teach in the wealth segment, right? And so when you’re saying, Hey, if you’re going to be teaching here, you’re going to be pursuing a business. Look for something in one of those segments, that is less, you know, optional or less luxury driven, but more something that is a requirement in that person’s life or something that’s a staple, choose business on people’s needs. I really like that. Now. I think learning to focus is probably the number one issue for true Entrepreneurs I think a lot of people that I talk to struggle to come up with business ideas. And that’s really foreign to me because I haven’t I think the opposite issue, how do you know which one should we work on? How do we stay and get on that one, even though there’s other opportunities coming up. And so I think learning, you know, staying focused picking your goal, you know, shooting for that one target, I often say, you know, you got to pick a certain amount of time to work on a project. And then you’ve got to have you got to have like gates on better drop dead dates, like, okay, hey, if we don’t hit this goal by this date, am I willing to move on from the project, you know, so that things don’t end up taking, you know, years of your time for a lower level opportunity? What are some of the next like big moves for Alan Hidalgo and for car for the academy?

 

Alan Hidalgo  19:45  

Yeah, so right now I’m putting a lot of focus, focus, focus, like we said, I’m putting a lot of focus on cars lead academy right now. I have a lot of people that after my first webinar approached me, um, that are pretty big in the space people like tai lopez Different people that have approached me with different, I guess offers on helping promoting it, or where I’m at right now I’m going to be promoting it throughout the year. I’m going to be you know, using I guess more so than the Dan Henry model that’s out there with my program Brian page is someone that I mean, I became friends with Brian a year ago, I literally like reached out to him and he gave me the time of day and I was like, everything you’re doing is amazing. I’m doing the same thing with Uber and he was so intrigued with it we’ve been you know in contact ever since so cool. That’s where I’m going with it. I want to build my own b&b formula, my own get clients calm.

 

Unknown Speaker  20:37  

So you’ve got you

 

Alan Hidalgo  20:38  

have roughly 60 students so far, What’s your goal for 2020? How many students do I need help in 2020, I mean, so I’m definitely trying to be in the multi seven figure range as far as revenue with the business. So my course is $1,000 I have a five to $10,000 upsell as well, which is a done for you where we set up the business for my company. To actually set up the business for them, I’ve had people pay me like 10 grand just to set it up instead of buying the course. So, I mean, I would say at least like 1000 to 3000 students I would love to have

 

Tyler Jorgenson  21:11  

awesome. I’m just making some notes. I like to follow up with my guests later on in the year. Okay, that’s really cool, man. Yeah, you’d be accountable. Yeah, basically, we just put you on blast on ABC News. And now we got to follow up with you later and see how it’s gone. Okay. And so one thing I think is neat is you mentioned lifestyle design. It’s a constant thing that I have to look at, right? Because it’s very easy again, for the noise of the business to take over. You’ve mentioned that you traveled a bunch of places. It’s a big part of what you do. So two questions. What’s your favorite place that you’ve traveled in the in the last couple of years? Like if you could fly back somewhere just to have dinner? Where was that? And to follow up to that one? What is one major item on your personal bucket list you’re going to achieve in the next 12 months?

 

Alan Hidalgo  21:55  

Okay. Yeah, so as far as the traveling question, I love the question because Traveling is literally my favorite hobby slash pastime. I go to Costa Rica pretty often, I’m actually dual citizen of Costa Rica. So it’s my favorite place to go back and forth. But as far as like the most intriguing place, probably would be Shanghai, China. I went there last year, I was in China for 15 days. I mean, Shanghai just blew my mind away. It’s literally like it makes New York look like like a dump. Like it’s, it’s so modern, it’s so ahead of anything we have in the States. So I enjoyed that. I’m actually going to Japan next month to Tokyo. So I’m going to think that might be my newest place that I might get the most from, but what was the next one?

 

Tyler Jorgenson  22:39  

The other one is one personal item on one item on your personal bucket list. So entrepreneurs, we always talk about business, right? So this can be another place that you want to travel or it could be a major personal goal or something you’re learning something you’re working on something on your personal bucket list, you’re gonna accomplish in the next 12 months.

 

Alan Hidalgo  22:56  

So definitely want to hit the two comma club Before the end of this year, and I would like to do would like to hit a figure one in two years if possible.

 

Tyler Jorgenson  23:08  

I pretty much you’re the typical entrepreneur where I asked you for a personal bucket list item and you give me your business goal. And that’s I it’s not bad it’s just so how it happens almost every time because it’s like yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s my goal. And I’m like, Hey, I totally get it. But like well, you already and you mentioned you’re going to Japan so that’s cool. But you

 

Alan Hidalgo  23:25  

know Why though? I think it’s because the way my life is like my family my girlfriend like everything setup in my life. If I hit those goals, it’s gonna create all the other many things

 

Unknown Speaker  23:37  

I told. Ya

 

Alan Hidalgo  23:39  

didn’t say you know, so yeah, yeah,

 

Tyler Jorgenson  23:42  

yeah, he’s got the the finance goals the business goals fund, your ability to travel the world to see places to do the right and I totally understand that. I’ve got a bunch of travel plans with my family over the next little while. And so it’s a big part of life right is just being able to see the world and experience things. Well, Alan, really appreciate you coming out if people want To find you, where should they go.

 

Alan Hidalgo  24:01  

So the best way to reach out to me on social media, I’m very active on Instagram. So my Instagram handle is at. And then it’s my first name, which is Alan al A n. And then h ID, which is the first three letters of my last name. So Allen head, you can find me very easily on there. I’m also on Facebook and Alan Dalgo. I’m on LinkedIn. As far as like the course if people are interested in that. It’s cars fleet Academy comm is one of our sites. And then our other site is car fleet a.com, which has, it’s just another landing page. They could go either way there if they want to reach out, they can reach out. That’s the best way.

 

Tyler Jorgenson  24:43  

Awesome. So we if you’re listening on podcasts, we’ll have it in the podcast notes. If you caught this on online, then you can just check below and we’ll have all the notes and the summary of the of the episode with all the links to Alan. And if you’re listening on the radio, you just got to type it in manually because that’s how it works. So appreciate it. Listening everyone coming out. This was Tyler Jorgensen and Alan Hidalgo, the proprietor of car fleet Academy, it is now your turn to go out and do something.

 

Unknown Speaker  25:12  

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