[10.22] Business

• Business is a loaded word
• When I think about business, I think about what wakes me up
• Your excitement for the challenges
• Business is a roller coaster ride
• You before I is the only way business is successful
• Business is solving a real problem and enhancing a feature
• If I start serving the You then ‘I’ will take care of itself

[13.56] Journey of AJ Asgari

• The whole life is a journey
• When you realize there’s no end, perspective changes
• Sometimes hard times lead to better times
• My cousin died of cancer at very young age
• My aunt died of breast cancer that could’ve been treated
• As young kid I realized how fragile is life
• How fast life goes and how quick it can be over
• Life is too short to drop that “F” from the word “SHIFT”
• AJ’s friend story [16.44] to [17.34]
• My father had ALS
• ALS is a disease which affects neurons in your body
• In ALS the firing signals in body falls apart
• It’s a demoralizing disease because your brain is still your brain

Barry Shore: When things happen to people that you’re very close to, it causes a shift in your perspective.

Barry Shore: OK, Life happens, but how you choose to respond is the key.

[33.12] Entrepreneurship

• My father was Persian, and he wanted me to become a doctor
• I was training people as a bodybuilder
• I learned a great lesson in leverage
• When I was training people, it required me being in the facility with person giving him my knowledge
• Pharmacy owner asked me to go to pharmacy school
• He said he’ll write a recommendation letter for me
• “When you come out, I’ll pay you a six figure salary,” said the dentist.
• I switched from dental to pharmacy
• The dentist required to take his skill set into work every day to accomplish what he wanted
• I loved business more than health care
• Third year in the pharmacy school, this guy gets busted for Medicare fraud
• That explains all the cash he was hiding

[40.1] Leverage Buyout

• When I got out of school, I got hustled my way into ownership
• I was in hundred and fifty thousand dollars in school debt
• I’m out ready to play a game of Monopoly
• LBO: Leverage Buyout
• No instant gratification in business
• I worked with CVS
• I told store owner, I’ll come in and work for you for free on my day off
• If I prove I am dedicated to what I’m going to do, then you’ll work a deal out
• After a month, I asked him to make deal
• I can grow your business, if you can share the percent of equity that I grow in this business
• In three years, I doubled the business
• I used my equity to get bank loan and that’s how I bought my first pharmacy

[49.22] Scaling

• I continue to grow, and I scaled all the way to 12 locations
• I sold a few strategically to other independents
• Owning store, you start to recognize the holes in your own industry
• If you’re in active need of help as a patient and you need something
• Me telling you a little bit about staff and hours will do nothing
• How can I take all the things we’re able to do in our retail location and get those online?
• How can I get the rest of the population the same type of access like my family?

[51.58] Drugs Store2door

• There are two people I want to serve with this model
• Drugstore was created for the end consumer: the patient.
• I made a conscious decision that my goal is going to be independent pharmacy
• There are 19,600 independent pharmacies in the US
• We’re not just in a major metropolitan
• How do we handle Idabel Oklahoma or the town of 2600 people?
• We’re going to build a product that takes the end patient and connects them
• Let’s support the small business owners who are 100% dedicated
• Who will pick the phone at midnight and help your family out?

What’s your most fervent desire?

Freedom of Choice. Building business in a way I get to choose how, when and where I impact and how Impact.

Husband & father | entrepreneur | doctor of pharmacy | multi-pharmacy owner | CEO & founder Drugstore2door | Real Estate investor | Bank Board/investor |

AJ is a true leader and hyper focused on elevating everyone he meets. “We only win when we win together!”