Building A Million Dollar Business The Degree Free Way with Samuel Ross (DF#184)

Samuel Ross [00:00:00]:
I don't have a single college degree because it's everyone defaults to that method, but in reality that doesn't have to be the path. You can sure, you can go to college and that's perfectly fine. But for people that's not what they want. There is a plethora of opportunities. It is unlimited, and you don't have to find that one thing you're just super passionate about.

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:25]:
Hello, folks, and welcome back to degree free. I am super excited to have our guest on today, Samuel Ross. Sam, we have been trying to make this happen for months now. I am very excited. Thank you for taking the time.

Samuel Ross [00:00:39]:
Oh, man. I'm just glad that you were able to make it now because I think I'm the one that canceled on you, didn't I?

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:45]:
Yeah. Well, it doesn't matter. We are here now. And for those listening, Jam is really a jack of all trades. He has been through the ringer. He has done all of the jobs under the sun, and I wanted to have him on the podcast to share his background. And currently, Sam is the CEO of Claim Climbers. We had the CMO, James Stewart, of Claim Climbers on a few months ago, and he's great.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:16]:
James is a friend of the pod. Sam, we were lucky enough to get an introduction, and I wanted to have Sam on as soon as I heard his story because of your varied background and how you ended up being in the position that you're in right now. But before we get there, Sam, I wanted to start with, when you were in high school, I know that you went to the military. Can we talk a little bit about the thought process of how you decided to go into the military?

Samuel Ross [00:01:40]:
I think we can talk more about the lack of a thought process. I remember I was sitting in an accounting class one day. I was talking to one of my friends, and I said, I don't know what to do with my life. He said, oh, go join the coast guard. And I immediately said, no, I think I'll go join the marine corps. So I left school that day. I went in and I applied. And after about 7 or 8 months, I got denied because I had a tumor back when I was 15.

Samuel Ross [00:02:01]:
So I did not like being denied. So I went to the air force, and they wouldn't talk to me. So I went to the navy, and they wouldn't talk to me. Went to the active army, and they talked to me for 2 weeks, and then said never mind. So I still was kind of being and I was kinda irritated that they just kept saying no. So I researched all the regulations and ended up pulling all my medical records and compiling about 800 pages appeals. Brought it to the National Guard to a good friend of mine now. Then he had just become a brand new recruiter, put it with him.

Samuel Ross [00:02:33]:
I think we spent 2 or 3 appeals in 2 years before I was able to actually get approved. Yeah. It was just a random thing, and then I just joined because they told me no. I had no reason.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:45]:
When you first went into try out for the marine corps, how old were you?

Samuel Ross [00:02:50]:
17.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:50]:
When you applied. And then when you finally got into the National Guard after your 3rd appeal, how old were you?

Samuel Ross [00:02:57]:
It was October, so I was 18, about to be 19, because I turned 19 in basic training.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:02]:
When you say that there was a lack of a plan. I mean, you spent 2 years of your life trying to get into all of these different branches of the military. Why do you say that that was, there was a lack of a plan there. Hey there. I hope that you're loving today's conversation At degree free, we want to help as many people as we can thrive and succeed without needing a college degree. Having these guests on that share their experiences so that you can learn from their stories and their mistakes is one of the ways that we do that. Genuinely, I'm just grateful that these guests take the time to come on and share their wisdom. And if you're getting value out of this conversation or you've listened to 2, 3, or 4 plus episodes, I have one quick ask.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:44]:
Please take a moment right now to review this podcast on whatever platform you're tuning in on. With your review, you're not just supporting us, but you're amplifying the voices of every guest we bring on, and ultimately, helping more people thrive degree free. Thank you for doing that right now and for being such an important part of Degree Free.

Samuel Ross [00:04:04]:
Because I just didn't wanna be told no. I didn't even know if I wanna join while I finally got the yes. I was married at the time and I called my wife and I just got married and I said, hey. So they said I finally got accepted and she said, okay. You should join. I said, okay. And so I did. There was zero plan for me.

Samuel Ross [00:04:21]:
I knew where I wanted to be when I was 30, but I had zero idea on where to start or how to do anything. I was just going with it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:30]:
Just to pull on that thread, what did you wanna do when you were 30? When you said you knew where you wanted to be, where was that, or what did you wanna be?

Samuel Ross [00:04:37]:
I wanted to own a business, and I wanted to be worth at least $1,000,000.

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:43]:
What made you think of those two goals? Is that something that you just picked out of a hat? Was it something that somebody influenced you in your life?

Samuel Ross [00:04:50]:
So my dad, he owned a company for he still owns it. And I worked with him growing up and spent all my time there and then realized that I absolutely hated what he did for a living. And it was incredibly boring to me, but I loved the idea of owning a company. That was my whole thing. I just started saying it. Yep. I'm being a millionaire when I'm 30. Gonna be a millionaire by the time I'm 30.

Samuel Ross [00:05:11]:
And I would consistently say it to anybody, and I'd have zero idea how I'd get there. But I knew that that plan was there. That was just that goal.

Ryan Maruyama [00:05:19]:
Talking about your dad's company, you said that he hated what he did. What did he do?

Samuel Ross [00:05:24]:
He prepared coffee equipment. So coffee machines, espresso machines, tea machines. I had zero interest in doing that. I knew how to do it. I knew how to do it well. My brothers worked for him. I worked for him. I started doing his bookkeeping when I was about 16, and he refused to move anything past QuickBooks 2005.

Samuel Ross [00:05:44]:
Matter of fact, to this day, he still has QuickBooks 2005. I'm serious. Will not change. No matter what I've suggested. I build technology and this man will not change. There was a lot of things stuck in the past with him. Man, I I wanted to be able to have the say in what I did. So I think I got the drive to have my own thing and know that it was good to be able to do that and know the freedom you could have.

Samuel Ross [00:06:09]:
I had no idea about how hard it was or anything, but I was like, that's a cool goal. We'll do it. I'm just kinda went with it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:16]:
That is the story for so many people that we help, never mind the people that we help. That's my story too, which is I had a goal, but I didn't know how to get there. And because I didn't know how to get there, I ended up taking what whichever opportunity was in front of me. And while that's great, and I think at the very beginning of your life and when you're first starting to learn things, you kind of have to at least stretch the muscle and learn how to say yes to a bunch of different things, learn the resilience, and then also learn what you like, learn what you don't like, learn what you're good at, learn what you're not good at, learn what you're good at learning, those types of things. But at a certain point, you do have to kinda look at your life decisions, and you have to be like, okay. Well, I made this goal for myself. That's not related to me being a bartender. How am I going to get to this goal if bartending isn't gonna get there? And, eventually, the rubber meets the road, and you have to plan it out a little bit about where your life is going.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:10]:
And I think that's where what we try to do with this podcast is have other people learn from our mistakes personally for me. I'm speaking for myself now. If I had a little bit more direction, I was a hard worker. I always was. I was a dishwasher. I always wanted to work the maximum hours. I always wanted to work overtime, those types of things, but I was just working hard on the wrong things. And I don't wanna speak for you, but I'm starting to think that that's very similar.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:36]:
When you finally got into the National Guard, what did you end up doing?

Samuel Ross [00:07:39]:
I was a medic.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:40]:
I know that before offline, we've talked about you were in and out of school. What did that end up looking like?

Samuel Ross [00:07:46]:
So it started off with me becoming an EMT on a whim because my girlfriend who then turned into my wife, I asked her what I should do. She told me to go be a firefighter. So I said, okay. So I went and volunteered. They told me to go get my EMT license, so I did. So it started there. And while I was an EMT, I cannot tell you how many different careers I chose. I was a dog trainer.

Samuel Ross [00:08:08]:
I went to school to be a pilot and gave up during my 2nd solo flight because it was boring and incurred some student phone debt from that one because I went to school to go fly. And I'm telling you, I remember sitting up there, and I was like, there's no radio. There's nothing. This is dumb. So and I wasn't even that good. I didn't even get my private pilot. It was on the test going up to that. So I tried doing that.

Samuel Ross [00:08:38]:
I did the dog trainer thing for a while. I was really good at that. I ended up being very good at sales doing that. I was a horrible dog trainer. Not a good one. Absolutely atrocious. However, I was good at sales. So I would continuously fall back into EMS as an EMT, and then I would enroll in paramedic school to go get my next level, and then something would come up in life and I would give up or say that this is too much.

Samuel Ross [00:09:00]:
I remember I'd get to the 1st day in orientation. I think I got to it 2 or 3 times. One of the times, I just didn't go. The other 2 or 3 times after that first day, I was like, do you know what? I don't feel like I can commit myself to this. So I just didn't do it. Then finally went to paramedic school again. I found a hybrid course, so I was able to do most of it from here so I could still continue to burn myself out and work a 168 hours a week in EMS, and basically eat, sleep, and breathe ambulance. And I finally went through the school program, got my license, and started working, and really thought I had a strong life plan at that point.

Ryan Maruyama [00:09:37]:
And once you became a paramedic, how old were you?

Samuel Ross [00:09:39]:
I was 24. I remember that because I had my second divorce, and I was living in a place, Alamo, Tennessee, a real small town. And I had told someone recently that I was going to be a millionaire by the time I was 30. And I sat there on my couch and stared at the wall all night with this freaking realization that, dude, I'm 24, and I'm in a career where I'm not going anywhere. There is no millionaire for here. It's done. So I thought to myself, well, how do I fix this? How do I change it? And absolutely nothing came to mind. So I just continued on with my regular job.

Samuel Ross [00:10:14]:
And I started using the CRM high level. It's very basic, but there's so much you can do with it. And they had free trials, which is why I used them. So I went through and would fill out this CRM and build an account, build a little store. I did men's clothing, kids clothing. I did tours, whole bunch of stuff. And then the 30 day subscription would run out, and I'd have to give it up, restart again. And between all my career attempts and trying to change consistently, I still kept doing that little free trial, and now I'd completely forget about it until a couple months later, I'd do it again.

Ryan Maruyama [00:10:49]:
So when you sat down at 24 years old, you were thinking, k. How do I get out of this? Or at least how do I reach my $1,000,000 by 30 goal? And nothing came to mind. But that's what you said. But then you went and you downloaded or you subscribed for the free trial of go high level or high level. What prompted you to do that? Was it that your sales background that you knew something of a CRM? Was it that you were just I need to sell something, and I don't know how to do that, and this all in one CRM thing is kind of the way to do it? What made you do that?

Samuel Ross [00:11:23]:
I looked at the Amazon, the, drop shipping. I looked at all of the MLM style things. Were you selling your products? Were you becoming an affiliate? I googled all this stuff because I've gone on Google, and I was like, how to make money while working? And so this whole list of things comes up. So I just followed down the list, and there's part of business. And I was like, not a bad idea. Let's try it. I made TownTech Corporation and never did anything. JS Plans and then my first actual company was JS Marketing Firm.

Samuel Ross [00:11:55]:
And that just came from when I made that free trial over and over. You have to keep picking new businesses. And I finally got an opportunity once to use it, and it needed a business name. And I was telling the guy, oh, I've been doing this. I can do this for you. Sure. And I was like, yeah. This is my company over here that built all this stuff.

Samuel Ross [00:12:16]:
And so I came up with JS Marketing Firm right there. So it was a little improv name that popped up.

Ryan Maruyama [00:12:23]:
That is amazing. One of the things this is in my own life that I remember very, very vividly. And I've told this story in this podcast before, but I'll tell it again. Around the kitchen table, my dad and my stepmom, we were teenagers. They would always say, all we need is a big idea. And then whatever that big idea, whether it's a product, whether it's a service in their mind, it was a product. You come up with a big idea. We get that thing manufactured and then we sell it and then we're rich.

Ryan Maruyama [00:12:51]:
And thinking about that now, I realized that that was totally wrong. And what I mean by that is that it's not the idea that's valuable. Do you need to go after a big enough market? That's for sure, but it's really all in the execution. And here you are without any idea, but you just go on and look at the most generic things possible because you're just googling it. But it didn't matter if the idea was bad. It was in your execution of it. You went in and you executed and you just didn't give up. I think where I would wanna key in on the story is 1, like I said, just doing things and not getting caught up on the ideas, whatever it is.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:30]:
If you wanna sell lemonade online or whatever, just figure out how to do it. And then the second thing is being resourceful. And now the free trials of high level, you're not gonna make any amount of money unless you start paying for it, right, or unless you start bringing in lots of money in your free trial. You get so proficient at it that within the 1st 5 days, you could set your store up. And then the next 25 days, you make enough money to then stay on, but that didn't matter to you. You were still being resourceful, and you were using what you had where you were.

Samuel Ross [00:13:59]:
I'd use what I could, and I knew that at some point, it could become useful. And I saw the tools for it, and every other thing I wanted to try, this was one common source that I could still use to try all these other millions of things. Right? Because you could sell the thing as a SaaS, and I looked at that and it it did not go well for me. That's actually one of their biggest things that they sell on is for people to sell as a SaaS. I never made one sale off it like that, Not once. And I ended up just learning the workflows and how to utilize it for different industries because I kept trying a building different things. So when I had somebody tell me, oh, I'll toss you a couple dollars, something like that if you bring me bring me some people. I was like, cool.

Samuel Ross [00:14:45]:
I created my company and on a whim maxed out my credit cards, put all the high level subscription on there, but all the cool plugins you could do. And I was like, cool. I'm gonna build this whole thing. So I tried to take the approach that you're talking about. Open up a store and then get your revenue real quick, and then you'll be able to pay it. Right? Tried that approach. And then I realized after about 3 weeks of solid 20 hour days in in here trying to make this thing work. And I was living in a hotel because the we had a storm blow the roof off our house.

Samuel Ross [00:15:18]:
So there were 5 children, my girlfriend at time and her 3 kids and then my kid. And so it was me, 20 hours a day, 4 children in a hotel room for about 2 months. And at that point, I dug myself completely into it and was like, I'm just gonna completely focus on this thing right here. I put all my money towards it, and I'd never once discussed pay with that person or anything until about 3 weeks in. I sat there and Googled how to make a bill and Googled what I charge for what I do because I had helped him bring in some revenue and stuff. I was like, cool. So now I'm gonna charge for this. You know? And I shot him across a bill, and it took everything in me.

Samuel Ross [00:15:57]:
I was scared as anything to send it, man. I was terrified. It took me several days of just preparing it and writing down, and I did this comparative analysis of what the regular people will get paid of this. Of developers is when I was going myself as a developer. And I was like, but, you know, even though I'm new at this, I'll give you 20% of all that. This is my first time to ever do this. So I appreciate the patience on that side when nothing worked right. So I finally sent my first bill and I got that bit of a check and I was like, I got something here.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:26]:
Just doing things and doing things that are outside of your comfort zone, I mean, it's really obvious, but that is definitely where you see the most growth. But, man, it is scary. Definitely. Every entrepreneur has been there. I think with each level that you go up in, if you've never been there before, it's always uncharted territory for you. If you've never been there, then how would you know what to do?

Samuel Ross [00:16:50]:
It is uncharted territory.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:52]:
Yeah. Right. And, you know, so you're just okay. Well, how do I charge for my time? Well, then here you go. Oh, well, how do I hire people? Like, what is a company culture?

Samuel Ross [00:17:04]:
When you bring everyone as contractors, you realize that they're not really contractors. You've gotta go back pay and change all these things because every single day, you're just supposed to know all these rules. I have no idea how anybody would know all these rules. It's ridiculous.

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:19]:
That's where I try to tell parents when they're thinking about, especially for their kids, encouraging them during that time of their life where they are I don't wanna say sheltered, but they're safe, meaning that they're within the confines of your home still, and the stakes are never gonna be any lower. And you're not living in a hotel room with 4 kids and your girlfriend. And granted, I'm sure that was part of the reason why you did so well. It was a driving factor of getting out of that. But for those people that have the means to help their young adult early in life just try different things and

Samuel Ross [00:17:54]:
If I could change one thing about how I started and if I could just make anything happen, it would be when I was living at home as a kid and all these big ideas. You don't even have to fully push it, but if they just heard it, listen to it, and let me try it out on my own. You don't have to help with it at all. Just listen. That at least would have helped me get more creative, would have helped me learn to push harder because I had a lot of failures before I even built up the slightest bit of confidence for what I was doing. And they were all lessons I had to learn fast and they just kept coming. Whereas if you have these ideas and you don't have that high risk environment, if you're in a low risk right now, then now is the absolute best time to promote all of those ideas. You never know what's going to actually work.

Ryan Maruyama [00:18:41]:
And I know when I talk to parents about these types of things, and I was just having a conversation last week with a parent who was saying, that's all great, but I don't know how to support them. Let's just say that they wanna go and sell, trading cards. This is what what we were talking about. Pokemon, back in my day, was like Yu Gi Oh. I think Magic the Gathering, those types of things. And they're like, well, I just don't know how to help them get started in that, and that's okay. It's okay that the parents don't know how.

Samuel Ross [00:19:07]:
I don't know how to do anything. I don't know what that is.

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:11]:
I get it. The best thing is to just get out there and let them get out there. And if you want to support them, 1, try not to get in their way as much as possible. And 2, if you're trying to actively push instead of just getting out of their way, even just a Google search of saying how to do this, exactly where you started, it makes you feel like an idiot, sure, but you just go back to ground 0. You know, this person was, like, a mid level manager at a company, and they're doing well in life. Even if you're doing well and you think you understand business and everything like that, if it's something that you don't understand, just go back to being a beginner and just being, it's okay that I don't know this. I don't know how to help my child on this. And I think a pride is where, at least for this person, when we got down to it, that's really what it was and was so difficult to deal with because it's like, what you have to confront basically is that I don't know how to help my child, and that's tough.

Samuel Ross [00:20:01]:
Or because we are supposed to know everything, man. Parents are supposed to know everything It's how we feel. The thing is we don't know anything. We know what has happened in our life and what has gotten us here. Our child's life is completely different from ours. It should be because I know as a goal for me as being a parent, it is give your child everything you didn't have, which means they're going to grow up in a completely different outcome and experience than you. So when you don't know how to help them, if I could have picked anything, it would have just been to a, be able to talk about your ideas and be heard out. Even if there was no follow-up questions, it is someone that you know that you can go talk to about it and then you can reference it later.

Samuel Ross [00:20:48]:
It helps you give that self motivation. Just being there for your kid and supporting them.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:53]:
I completely agree. Thinking back to I was just having this talk with my dad. I I went back recently. I live in Texas now, but I'm not originally from here. I had a trip that I had to do overseas, and I made a stop back in Hawaii last week. And I was talking to my dad, and I was talking to him, and I might have shared this story in the podcast before. So for those listeners who've heard this, I I apologize. But, Sam, I I know that you haven't heard this before.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:18]:
So, you know, I was talking to him about when I was 16 years old, I was a dishwasher. That was my first job. Let's call it a fast food restaurant. It was, like, a local fast casual place. And there was an extra shift, like, my 1st week or so that I could pick up, but I couldn't pick up because I was already at the allotted amount of hours for somebody my age. And I got into the car. My dad picked me up from work because I didn't drive yet, and I was pissed. I was like, dude, I could have worked it's like the weekend.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:46]:
I think it was a Saturday. So I could have worked another shift. I could have made more money, but I can't because of these stupid rules. And I think my dad I don't remember exactly what he said, but I just remember the general gist of it, which is I'm pretty sure it was just like, well, that's just the way that it is. And I was talking to him about that, and that was really formative for me at that time. And I think what would have been a more program I'm not blaming my dad for everything. It was my fault for not thinking this too. But I think what would have been better at that time would have been, well, oh, if you don't like the rules the way that they are, then go play in another area with different rules that don't have rules.

Samuel Ross [00:22:23]:
You don't have to be completely new. You can make your own rules and then find the thing that best fits to that. So that way you feel like you picked it because if you go and make your own rule list and it's you can work no. I would not suggest anybody work 80 hours a week. I've been there, done that. It's not fun. We still do it all the time. Right? But if you were to make a rule book and you said, hey, 80 hours a week is your max.

Samuel Ross [00:22:47]:
This is as early as you can work. This is as late as you can work. This is how you get to work just your own rules and then just apply that to anywhere that matches those. So you don't even have to create something. Creating things is awesome, but it's also incredibly rare. The best thing to do is to optimize something that you find, in my opinion. And in that, you still end up creating something for you and you end up creating your own thing no matter what. Whether it's a process or a method or a product, whatever it is, just find something that's already there because you can't solve a problem unless you know the problem or you create a problem.

Samuel Ross [00:23:26]:
If you create a problem to solve a problem, that's kind of a problem.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:32]:
Sam, I wanted to switch gears just a little bit. We've been talking a lot about how you're a paramedic and then, you know, thinking, k. How do I get to my goal of making $1,000,000 by 30? No idea. Googled it. Got into high level, and you started messing around there. You employed it a little bit, but then how did you get to Claim Climbers?

Samuel Ross [00:23:53]:
To go through this, there's gonna be a few pieces I have to skip over for legal reasons, just complications, everything. But it started when I was given an offer to help someone, and that's when I was like, well, of course, I know how to do this. I know how to do everything. Sure. God promised in the world right there. I mean, I just put it all on the table. You know, in the book Art of War, it is act as if there are many when there are few and act as if there are few when there are many. I thought about that.

Samuel Ross [00:24:21]:
Or Tim, like, I've got everything. And I was like, oh, yeah. I've got this, all this stuff. I've got a whole developer thing, work with a developer. None of that was there. I immediately went on right at the next day and started searching for a developer to work with me. I found 1. So I went through and just promises dude the world.

Samuel Ross [00:24:37]:
And then as soon as I got a yes or let's give it a try, I just dug everything in. I maxed up my credit cards, paid for the high level. I move forward with all these things, all these different third party applications, trying to make it pretty and just built out this whole system. And I did it as fast as I could because they were gone for a little bit of time. And when they came back, it was about a couple weeks. When they came back is when I got to present what I had. So I did all this without any permission from them whatsoever. So I knew I was taking a risk, then saying, oh, you know what? Never mind.

Samuel Ross [00:25:09]:
I won't even use it. Then I feel like I basically begged them to use it, and here we are. So at that time, I was filing for my VA claim, and I was actually going for my disability because I was still in. It was within my 365 days from separation because you can file for a claim then. And I was working through all this stuff, and this opportunity had been given dealt with these thing called medical opinions, nexus letters. So I went and Googled what those were and found out what those were. And I was like, cool. I'm gonna build this whole system, the CRM.

Samuel Ross [00:25:39]:
And then I was like, well, I don't wanna let this opportunity go. I need to know something about this. I need to be able to step into this. So I started researching about the thing that they dealt with. And the company had not necessarily started yet, but I learned as much as I could. And then I started working with them and just saying, oh, I can automate that. I can build this. I can do that.

Samuel Ross [00:26:03]:
And then doing it manually behind the scenes really well while I try to pretend it was automatic while I was trying to figure out how to automate it, I was working nonstop because you have to produce fast results with automated things, and nothing was automated. It was so bad. And I almost gave up. I can't tell you how many times, and it was bad. If you look at it objectively, we'll we'll say revenue and all that when it started. All you'll see is this fantastic trend that goes upward. You don't see my hours which go from a 100 to a 140 to a 120 to a 100 to a 140 to 10 because I just completely burnt out, and then to a 140 the next week. I'm just moving through it.

Samuel Ross [00:26:44]:
Through that process, I ended up getting contractors brought on, getting employees brought in, learning what it was like to have people you're in charge of. I've had experience as a paramedic with that, and I've always worked like that. So I was like, cool. This is good. It's not the same in an ambulance as it is in a standard job. Not at all. 2 totally, completely different things. So I went through and I got to learn a lot, and that venture ended up going away.

Samuel Ross [00:27:12]:
Just due to a whole bunch of complications and things in there. I decided that I wanted to go in different path. Then I started working on building claim climbers. And at that point, I had no idea what it was going to be. I knew what the premise was. We wanna deal with medical opinions. But I said, well, how do I take my past experiences? How do I make them better? What do I want? So when we started doing all this stuff and had these employees and these people I'm working with, it was a huge change to me. And I feel as if at that point, my thoughts and my decisions very slowly started to mature out of it, the 16 to 18 year old Sam mindset.

Samuel Ross [00:27:54]:
Keep in mind, I'm 24 at this point. So it's a little late, but it works. So I went through and I found out what I wanted. As I started claim climbers, I was like, man, I'm gonna create this the same thing, but just a little bit better. I've got a couple different ideas on how this could be better, and that was never more wrong. It became a completely different entire entity. So after I ended up creating Claim Climbers, the company originally was not called Claim Climbers. It had so many other names and I could not decide what to go with and what the industry was gonna be because I was still stuck in that mindset of Sam of let's run and just do everything under the sun.

Samuel Ross [00:28:36]:
We're talking earlier about how you have to have that separation at a specific point to where you finally do pick something. I did not pick a job or any type of occupation with this. I decided to pick owning a company. That was didn't know what the company was gonna be. I was hoping I could model it after the last thing and just build off what I had already built prior, because the only way I knew how to build this stuff previously is because I googled everything and then chat gpt 3 dropped. Oh, man. You have the rate limits. I would get kicked out every day.

Samuel Ross [00:29:07]:
I had multiple accounts and it would just continuously kick me out and you have to wait for your hour to reset nonstop. So I had gotten this in-depth knowledge on this industry and I was like, cool. How can I make it better? So we came out with Claim Climbers and I brought on my CMO, James. Without him, none of this would have been possible because I came to him and I said, hey, I've got this cool thing. It's done something before. It did this cool thing over here and it can do more. I know it can, I just can't do it? I need help. I have zero experience in the world.

Samuel Ross [00:29:41]:
So he hopped in and started looking at everything with me. And piece by piece, we started bringing on employees and started with the mindset of for me, it was I worked off a loyalty mindset if you will first. So I brought in my closest friends and all that. I know people say don't hire your friends and I would give someone the exact same advice, don't hire your friends. But to be honest, when you start a company, nobody trusts you. You don't trust yourself. There's a lot on the line there. It's a start up.

Samuel Ross [00:30:07]:
So I got my friends to come in, and I started very quickly learning the difference between friends and coworkers and the balance you have to maintain. And I will say it took about April of 2024 is when I finally started moving in a new thought direction, if you will, or a thought pattern. Instead of saying, oh, this isn't working. Jump ship. Try a new project. Right? I said, okay. I've made this work once before. I can make this work now, except I have all the say.

Samuel Ross [00:30:38]:
I have the vision of where this is going to go. So what do I want to do? What was the coolest thing I thought of when I first started all of this? And to me, it was I could fix the entire VA health care system. All these huge ideas, you know, and I set that as my north star. At that point, I ended up writing myself not the bad types, but a manifesto, but not not a bad one. You know? You have the good and you have the bad ones. I am not a bad one. I wanna be clear. So I wrote a manifesto, though, and what I wanted to be, which was I wanted to be the person that defied expectations.

Samuel Ross [00:31:15]:
I was a middle child of 5 boys. I had swapped careers nonstop. I did not have any formal college education except for paramedic school, which if you ask anybody else in the world, they will tell you it gives you really good knowledge on very specific things. Overall, it doesn't tell you how to start a business. Nothing like that, actually. And now, I mean, I can tell you about a crack of thyroidotomy, but I can't tell you how to start a business. So having all that, I wanted to be someone that defied all expectations. You know, when you're a kid or you're in high school or something like that, and I got picked on a little bit as a kid because I've you know, what kid doesn't? Everyone does.

Samuel Ross [00:31:57]:
Do you go through your brain into running through when those shower thoughts where you said the cool thing back? You said the cool retort or all that stuff. You're the winner now. I know nobody talks about it, but everyone does it. You replay scenarios. I always did that as a kid. I've always done that. I wanted to defy my expectations of what I should have done. So I said, I want to change the entire health care system.

Samuel Ross [00:32:21]:
My whole goal is change it. I had no idea what that meant. And I said, I know that's impossible. Well, Well, I'm gonna define my own expectations. So I started working towards that with a goal and slowly my mindset was it wasn't a forced change, but it was a needed change. I had to start changing my perspective into it's difficult to not jump when things get scary. It's difficult to have hard conversations. And there were so many things that I did not learn until I started Claim Climbers that I had so much growing to do, so much personal growth, so much emotional control, they worked.

Samuel Ross [00:32:58]:
They got me there. These impulse choices, these triangulated for things, it got me to where I am now. But once I hit that point, I had to stop and slowly start to learn how to change. And I wanna be very clear, it was not my idea to change. It was James's idea. James gave me three rules to all of business. And rule number 1, he says this to everybody, Don't be a liability. That is the rule that I I remember the other ones, but not word for word.

Samuel Ross [00:33:28]:
That is one that he has ingrained in my mind because this is a type of man that will come to you with every single thing he thinks about you that he thinks could be a liability. So I got this whole list of concerns, and I was like, me? I wouldn't do any of this stuff. Why do you think that? And then he logically explained my thought process and how it would lead to each one of these things. And I was like, okay. Maybe a sudden change. I'll listen.

Ryan Maruyama [00:33:52]:
I wanted to ask you when you in April of 2024, when you're thinking about making the change, like, when we talked about, we have to sit sit down at a certain point and think, okay, well, there's gotta be some vehicle. Like, we have to get it to some sort of opportunity or whatever to get us to our goals. What made you have the audacity to think that you had the ability and you have the ability to change the way that the VA is handled.

Samuel Ross [00:34:21]:
Because I did one really cool thing in the first company. It was a extremely lucky thing. It went back to the very first thing that I was working with. I went on Reddit and I made a post, and it went viral. I had never posted on Reddit in my entire life. And that's what started all this traffic and all this stuff is I just made a random post about something. Right? I thought to myself forever later, fast forward to April, I'm like, you know what? If I could do that so unintentionally, and unintentionally have something good come from it, maybe I need to trust that I can make this work. There's zero proof behind it because you know what? I wouldn't try the same method.

Samuel Ross [00:35:04]:
It did not work at all. Did not help. At that point, as soon as that happened, when I first started claiming collabers, I tried the same approach in my mind. I was like, here we go. Nothing happened. It was so anticlimactic. I started it, I launched it, and I sat there for hours and just stared and just felt my heart sink in sync. And thought to myself, well, this is it.

Samuel Ross [00:35:26]:
I'm a failure. I'm done. This is bad. That's when I met James. Couple of days later, Fast Track, James came in. And if you haven't listened to the podcast about him, listen to it because that man is a magical unicorn of skills. I don't get how. He fascinates me, Dave.

Ryan Maruyama [00:35:43]:
James is amazing and very generous to to have come and shared his knowledge a couple of times already on this podcast. And, exactly, for those that haven't listened to it, definitely go and check out those episodes. I'll put those episodes in the show notes for everybody. It's greefreedot c04/podcast. But, Sam, there's a very fine line. The reason why I asked I didn't mean in a rude way that having the audacity, but just the audacity to have somebody think that you can change that. Like, where does that come from? Because there really is a fine line between optimism and delusion when it comes to entrepreneurs.

Samuel Ross [00:36:14]:
Dude, it was complete delusion. It really was. However, you know how they tell you if you shoot for the stars, you always hit the sky? I was like, man, let's aim 6 solar systems away at that one planet way down there, and I'll get somewhere. I don't know where, but that's my goal. And I'll tell you to this day, to fix the entire VA health care system is my 5 year goal. It is not a delusion. I can tell you right now that within 5 years of the start of 2025, I plan to have a fix in the VA disability benefit section. Oh, it's narrowed down just a little bit.

Samuel Ross [00:36:48]:
It's not fix the entire VA because I realized how many things are good about it because there's so much bad stuff that goes around about the VA. But in reality, the people at the top definitely care. There's so much stuff for vets. It is the trickle down effect, though, of how it goes in government. So I wanna get in there and be a pivotal piece in fixing it. Still my delusion, if you will.

Ryan Maruyama [00:37:11]:
We've talked a lot about your journey here, and you've been very gracious to talk about the inner of yourself and the work that you've had to do to become the leader of Claim Climbers. I don't wanna take your whole day, but with just with the last few minutes, I'd love for you to be able to talk about what Claim Climbers does because I think that for first hearing, we had a call before this, and just for those who's listening, when we were talking about Claim Climbers and the product that you guys have there, As somebody just looking out from the outside who's never dealt with nexus letters, has never dealt with the VA, when you started to tell me, it really is a superior product or at least a superior offer to what's out there in the market today. So I'd love if to spend a couple of minutes of just talking about what Claim Climbers does.

Samuel Ross [00:37:54]:
Well, first off, Claim Climbers' goal is to be the same goal of a therapist. It's to one day, we don't wanna be needed. I do not want my company to have to operate with veterans, directly with veterans. One day, I want that them never to have to come talk to us because I'm gonna get in the VA and fix system so it'll have to be cleaned up. But right now, what we do is we go through these veterans have been trying to get VA disability. Some of them have been denied 22, 25 years, and they submit all of these records to us. So we have medical people that go through these records, people that I have trained and that we have all trained now on VA benefits to understand it's their guidelines, so they call it 38 CFR part 4. It's this giant book that gets updated all the time of information and how things connect and how things are rated.

Samuel Ross [00:38:42]:
And in order to know that it's a full time job just studying it, it is ridiculously difficult. They hire these raters, these VA raters that come in, and it's not the VA's fault, it's not the raters' fault. There's a lot of claims. They get overworked, and they are not able to give that attention to detail to every single claim like they should. So the VA denial rate is much higher than the approval rate. So what we try to aim to do is we provide these nexus letters or service connection letters, and we tie their condition that was caused in service 10 years ago, last year, 3 weeks ago, 50 years ago, whatever. Agent Orange, any of it. We take that, take where they currently are, and we meet them in the middle, and we look for that link in between there.

Samuel Ross [00:39:27]:
And then once we find that link, we research medical literature that's all peer reviewed and VA case law to find where similar cases and similar studies have been performed. Then we write it all out for the veteran, and we put it on a letter to VA saying this is their condition. This is what they've got. This is how it all connect. Here's our data to prove it. Here's the actual articles. Look it up. You can now instead of reading 10,000 pages of medical records, they can look at our letter and then say, okay.

Samuel Ross [00:39:55]:
I want them to still review medical records. So they can look at our letter and say, okay. I see all these different things. These are the dates I wanna go look at. So now it streamlines a process for the rater, for the veteran, and for us. So we end up creating this middleman in between there to create a buffer. And that is our entire goal is to help reduce the stress without taking any back pay because we charge an upfront. It's a low upfront fee that we do.

Samuel Ross [00:40:22]:
A lot of companies that do things in this realm, they do back pay and it's just a standard option here. We do not do that with my company at all because I feel as if a veteran getting their back pay and their disability is life changing. Why make them pay that out?

Ryan Maruyama [00:40:36]:
Where I found your product to be above and beyond is exactly what you're just talking about there with the back pay and to the fact that it's just all one time upfront fee. And for all of those services that you provide and then giving the nexus letter as you guys do written, ready for them to go. That's amazing. And I think it's something that now that you've educated me, it's easy for me to say. I mean, it seems like it's very needed in the market.

Samuel Ross [00:41:00]:
Unfortunately, it is. Because my goal is for claim commerce will still be here. I just don't want the veterans to ever have to pay us. I want us to end up working in the government, being able to fix the system and help it go smoothly without ever taking a dime from them. Like I said, that's why we charge minimally above cost in everything we do. But I feel as if doing that would even though it's not the largest change and affects everybody, it is one way I know to help the people that I serve with or others that have served and they don't have any idea that they qualify for disability or anything like that. We have to spread more awareness. We have to do all these things to help them see now and to continue working with them.

Ryan Maruyama [00:41:40]:
Amazing. Sam, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom and sharing your knowledge with everybody here on degree free. And, Sam, before we go, couple more questions. I know that you guys have grown insane this past year, and I'd love it if you were able to just share one of your most recent wins lately for the company, trying to get your guys' message out there, trying to help more and more people.

Samuel Ross [00:42:04]:
So one of the biggest things that has happened recently is we just signed a 3 season contract as a small business partner with the Seattle Seahawks. It is one of the most amazing things. We're gonna be in all their home game stadiums for the next 3 seasons. You can see our logo go around, be on the scoreboard, on the TV. And that way, in my opinion, 1, it's just awesome. It's so great to work with the guys. But 2, it is so nice to know that we can get more awareness even spread out there even if they're not gonna come become a customer or anything. We put out so many free resources, articles on VA claims, articles on your conditions, all these things as free resources for them.

Samuel Ross [00:42:44]:
So even if it just gets more awareness to people, I that's what I'm excited about.

Ryan Maruyama [00:42:48]:
That is amazing. And that's a big deal. It's definitely a big deal maybe to other people listening to it. It's not, but, like, as a fellow entrepreneur to another And

Samuel Ross [00:42:58]:
it is a huge deal to me.

Ryan Maruyama [00:42:59]:
Yeah. Exactly. That's exactly what I'm trying to get to.

Samuel Ross [00:43:01]:
And clear that I now watch football. I now root for the Seattle Seahawks. Wanna throw that out there? Just a heads up, I'm gonna go see the Packers game with them. We're gonna be out there at the game. So it'll be my 1st NFL game to get to go to.

Ryan Maruyama [00:43:14]:
That's awesome. I'm sure you guys are gonna have a lot of fun, and that is well deserved, man. Like you said, just getting the word out there and showing people that there's a better way is amazing. And before we go, I wanna talk a little bit about what you were saying about hopefully one day you guys don't have to exist and maybe claim climbers will exist, but your guys' service and your product will exist in a different way. I totally feel that because with degree free, I wish that Hannah and I didn't have to exist very truthfully because if the college system wasn't so broken and people weren't getting ripped off left and right and going into a $100,000 of debt for 5 and a half years of their life, we wouldn't have a job. I wish we didn't have a job. I wish that it wasn't like that, but it is. Hannah and I feel called to do something about it, and we have the audacity to think that we could change the education system.

Ryan Maruyama [00:44:05]:
That is our goal, and the way that people decide what to do post high school. In a perfect world, our methods and the way that we do things, we think can be useful to everyone. I don't know about around the world. We've talked about that, but at least in the US, for sure. Be in every high school and at least on every parent's kitchen table going through our resources, be like, should we do this, go to college, or should we go do something else?

Samuel Ross [00:44:33]:
Because that's the thing is it is if I alright. So if the degree free was around and I knew about it from when I was in high school, if it was around then and I had caught that, do you know how many times I have gone to college? I can't count. I truly can't. I don't have a single college degree because it's everyone defaults to that method, but in reality, that doesn't have to be the path. You can, sure, you can go to college and that's perfectly fine. But for people that's not what they want. There is a plethora of opportunities. It is unlimited.

Samuel Ross [00:45:06]:
And you don't have to find that one thing you're just super passionate about. I was not passionate about VA claims. I was to an extent, but my driving force is not that. My driving force ended up becoming a leader and having people, and that is what I wake up for every single day, is to lead my people into a better life every day. That's my passion. I did not find my passion when I first all started this. I found a cool area where I could help, and I felt useful, and it made me feel good. I told you, I tried to sell, kids clothes.

Samuel Ross [00:45:36]:
I make boutiques. I tried. Things did not work out, and I don't know how to dress. You were interest there. And I was just like, well, you know, I know how to I can put together one of those websites. I get it. There are so many options out there. College doesn't have to be the only path.

Samuel Ross [00:45:53]:
I wish that there was a school out there like a program that was just life. You get out of high school, you go for 6 months, and they teach you about taxes, And they teach you about what do you wanna do. Okay. Cool. Maybe someone that insults you by accident and just, like, tries to figure out where you're sensitive and you can grow up in life a little bit and strengthen yourself. That would be a cool 6 month course, you know? Not an actual college course in my opinion, but I can see that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:46:17]:
That is actually something maybe not the insulting and, like, poking and prodding. Maybe not that part, but it is something that we've thought about a lot. We've had so many curriculums and stuff that we've created. We've just never published it, just because we're not sure, like, where it's relevant. Sam, thank you so much for your time. Just 2 more questions before we leave. If people wanted to say hi and follow along with all the good work that you guys are doing at Claim Climbers, is there something that we can point them to, your LinkedIn or Instagram or anything we can follow on?

Samuel Ross [00:46:53]:
Samuel Ross on LinkedIn, or you can look up Claim Climbers. We post on there. We're also on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram. Well, x as well, not just Twitter. We're pretty much everywhere social media wise, but I'm personally on LinkedIn. You can find me there.

Ryan Maruyama [00:47:07]:
Perfect. And for everybody listening, we'll put that in the show notes, degreefree.c04/podcast. We'll link out to all of that. And then, Sam, do you have any last words of advice, wisdom, anything that you just wanted to say before we head out?

Samuel Ross [00:47:20]:
A real quick thing, which I don't know if it's gonna make that much sense. It's what I've always thought the one line I've always thought to myself to help myself keep going. And that is quite literally when you have nothing else to lose because you've already lost all of it. So you feel like you're at the bottom. That's the best time to start pushing for the absolute most because you have the least amount to lose.

Ryan Maruyama [00:47:40]:
I agree with that completely. There's, like, a saying. I'm gonna mess it up, but it's like everybody's hardest thing they've ever done is the hardest thing they've ever done. Your rock bottom is might be different than my rock bottom, and all of that, basically, is the point.

Samuel Ross [00:47:52]:
Turns out there's no such thing as a true rock bottom until after you have passed. Once you are dead, at that point, they can say, man, rock bottom was really here for him. Hopefully, they're not referencing to the ground.

Ryan Maruyama [00:48:03]:
Yeah. Exactly. I know, like, for myself, when I felt like I always had rock bottom, and rock bottom might be further on in my life. I hope not, but it could be. But at least so far in my life, that is the hardest time for me to push, at least for me, the way that it manifested for myself. There were days that I just just, dude, I don't even wanna get out of bed today. How am I supposed to be thinking about what I'm doing tomorrow, or how am I supposed to be thinking about how I'm supposed to be improving my life for tomorrow? Sam, thank you so much for taking the time, and I'm really glad that after the couple of months that we were trying to make it happen, we finally found the time to make it happen, and you are always welcome back on the podcast whenever. Sam, thank you so much for taking the time.

Samuel Ross [00:48:44]:
Yeah, Ryan. Man, it's been great. Maybe one day after something else happens, I can come on back.

Ryan Maruyama [00:48:50]:
You can come back anytime. Alright. Have a good one.

Samuel Ross [00:48:52]:
Alright, bud. Take care.