Entrepreneur launched viral multimillion dollar store without permission from billion dollar brand
"My business partner and I launched a store to get their attention. I went to their store with my four kids and wife. We bought one of everything. I hired a photographer. One of everything. And I just started cold emailing reporters. I used my Gmail account. I went to Southern Living Eater, Texas Monthly, and I just found, oh, who wrote this? I started, hey, I like bies. I launched a store for them. I thought you would find this interesting. And they need stuff to write about. So they did, and it went mega viral. We did hundreds of thousands of dollars our first 30 days selling their products. Their products. Just marking it up."
About this episode
Serial entrepreneur Chris Kerner, who has launched 75 businesses with multiple reaching seven and eight figures, joined Lewis Howes to reveal unconventional paths to generating $10,000+ monthly income with minimal capital. Kerner challenged the conventional wisdom that starting a business requires money, instead advocating for immediate customer acquisition before building infrastructure. He shared striking real-world examples including TV mounting contractors earning $300,000 annually using only free listing platforms, VCR resellers making six figures through simple arbitrage, and his own multimillion-dollar e-commerce business built by reselling Buc-ee's products without permission. Kerner emphasized that the greatest barrier to entrepreneurship is not capital or skills but fear of others' perception of failure. He revealed his personal practice of learning iPhone repair on customers' devices in real-time, breaking phones occasionally but ultimately earning six figures by launching immediately rather than waiting for mastery. The conversation took an emotional turn as Kerner shared how his daughter's life-saving double lung transplant from a deceased nine-year-old donor inspired both him and his wife to each donate a kidney to strangers, timing the donations to honor the young donor's death and birthday. He disclosed that his financial life has never been better since the donation and advocates for policy changes allowing compensated kidney donation, noting that if just one in 10,000 healthy adults donated, the 5,000 annual American deaths from kidney shortage would drop to zero. Throughout the episode, Kerner maintained that entrepreneurial skills should be treated like emergency food storage and that serving others is the most selfish thing anyone can do because of its personal returns.
Key takeaways
- Chris Kerner revealed a TV mounting contractor earning $300,000 annually with zero marketing spend using only free platform listings like TaskRabbit and Thumbtack
- VCR resellers in rural Virginia are making six figures buying obsolete units for $5-10 and selling them for $100-150 through simple marketplace arbitrage
- Kerner built a multimillion-dollar annual business by launching an unauthorized Buc-ee's e-commerce store that went viral after cold-pitching journalists
- The entrepreneur learned iPhone repair on customers' devices in real-time during his first retail store, occasionally breaking phones but ultimately earning six figures by launching immediately
- Both Kerner and his wife donated kidneys to strangers after their daughter received a life-saving lung transplant, with Kerner noting his financial life has never been better since
- America's 5,000 annual kidney transplant deaths could be eliminated if just one in 10,000 healthy adults became living donors, a statistically simple solution
- Kerner advocates that the only real entrepreneurial fear is perception of failure from others, not actual failure, arguing that people are too distracted to care about individual attempts