Getting Rid of the Grift

The last time Allen Walton was on the show he talked about the origins of his e-commerce business SpyGuy grew out of a difficult period when he was living in his parents’ basement struggling to make a living. Today Allen talks to Dan about some of the challenges he’s had which, despite the considerable success, has caused him to consider if it’s time to re-orientate what he’s doing and focus more on his new venture FlyGuy:

“Spy Guy is a hard business to run. Like a lot of e-commerce businesses we've been facing supply chain problems, shipping shortages, our costs have really gone up … And I think about Tony Hsieh’s book ‘Delivering Happiness’, he talks about poker playing, and how you could sit at a table and you might just keep losing, losing, losing against the people you're playing with. One of the best things you might do is just get up and move over to another table. You might find out that you're playing way better there. And I kind of feel like that might be the case for me”.

And, later in the show, Allen gamely agrees to play our favorite fun challenge: ‘Donate A Business Idea’.