THIS is a Thing – Details, episodes & analysis

Dasti Llenga was juggling three things at once — private equity job, master's degree, growing side hustle — when he asked himself a simple question: what could he do if he put all his focus into one?

It started with a $4,000 Mercedes he flipped for $15,000 in three days. Then came the flea market finds, the first liquidation pallet, a truckload of Costco returns sold out of his parents' garage. By the time his employer told him to come back to the office, the decision was already made.

Today Dasti runs American Liquidations — New England's largest liquidator — with nearly 100 employees and 200,000 square feet across Connecticut.

www.americanliquidations.com

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Arthur Wei was a three-time national chess champion by age 11 — and then he quit. That decision taught him a framework for making big choices that he's used ever since: always choose the path that maximizes the number of potential positive outcomes. It's the logic that led him to leave a stable job at Oracle, travel the world for four years as a filmmaker, build a custom camper van in Brooklyn during the pandemic, expanded that into a thriving business and launched another business creating mobile offices.

In this episode, Arthur talks about how he built Brooklyn Camper Vans from a pandemic side project into a thriving business — and why he recently launched Next Gen Vans to regain more of his freedom.

🚐 Brooklyn Campervans: https://www.brooklyncampervans.com

🏢 Next Gen Vans: https://www.nextgenvans.com

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Owen had a wild idea: starting a new rugby 7s professional sports league in the US, Premier Rugby 7s.

In this episode, Owen talks through some of the big decisions that got him there — from raising his hand for a summer internship with the New England Free Jacks Rugby Team, to running a scrappy pilot tournament as a proof of concept, to making the hard call to pivot the business toward talent development when factors outside his control threw up challenges to pro competition.

This one's great if you've ever thought about pivoting your career into an area you're more passionate about or wondered what the business of sports actually looks like from the inside.

https://prsevens.com/

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Antoine Richard graduated a top French business school and quit a marketing job at L'Oréal to learn to be a mountain guide. Then he stumbled into a job post that caught his eye and decided to jump into a new adventure running one of the world's top climbing wall manufacturers. After 12 years, he walked away to start something entirely his own: HAPIK, a fun indoor rock climbing concept that's growing fast.

https://hapikclimbing.com/

@hapikclimbing

Richard Worsham's Janus Motorcycles hand-builds classically-styled motorcycles inspired by the 1920s and 30s — and makes them in small-town Indiana with a network of Amish craftsmen, local RV suppliers, and other domestic manufacturing partners. He graduated with a master's in architecture and had never run a business, but turned a moped hobby into a thriving busieness with a passionate following, and is currently in the midst of a crowdfunded equity raise to support their financial goal of $20M in annual revenue by 2030. We talk about betting on a place, building community before building a company, and why his COO was once just a customer.

Janus Motorcycles: https://janusmotorcycles.com

Janus WeFunder: https://wefunder.com/paragonmotorcyclesinc/

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David Barnett co-founded Noble Signs, a Brooklyn-based design studio specializing in hand-painted and neon signage His wild idea? Keeping the art of craft signage alive in a world where fast and cheap vinyl signs are becoming the norm.

He's in his dream job now, but before this he was in a different dream job -- designing album covers and posters for Def Jam Records as Art Director. He tells the story of how he landed that interview with Damon Dash and why he eventually decided to leave and bet on himself.

https://www.noblesigns.com/

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Entrepreneur Joe Hession built SNOW Partners into a $100M company from just $60,000 in savings— he rescued Mountain Creek from bankruptcy and opened Big Snow American Dream, North America's largest indoor ski area, after it sat unfinished for 15 years. We talk about how he made two wild ideas a reality that everyone doubted, why credibility beats capital when starting a business, and what it really means to walk through every open door.

This Is A Thing is a podcast about founders who built unusual businesses — and how they made wild ideas a reality.

SNOW Partners: ⁠https://snowpartners.com⁠

Mountain Creek: https://mountaincreek.comBig Snow American Dream: https://www.bigsnowamericandream.com

Peter is one of the only artisan globe makers in the world today. He and his team make custom globes out of his London studio for passionate individuals, collectors, and museums that can run well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. He didn't start out in the arts, though. He created a business for pizza parlors, ran a nightclub, did some property development ... It was only when he tried creating a custom globe as a birthday present for his Dad that he fell in love with the craft and decided to turn it into a business.

Bellerby & Co Globemakers - https://bellerbyandco.com/

Bellerby Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/globemakers

I’m Dana—NYU entrepreneurship prof and host of THIS is a Thing, a podcast about founders who built unusual businesses. If you’re curious how people make wild ideas a reality (and maybe have some wild ideas of your own), you’re in the right place.

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Chris Turner is a treasure hunter and the Founder of the Ring Finders. He and his community of over 300 treasure hunting professionals across 18 countries are there to find anything you've lost (wedding rings are the most common!). In this interview, Chris shares his story of starting and growing the Ring Finders -- it wasn't part of his master plan, but he says it's better than anything he could have dreamed.

The Ring Finders -- https://theringfinders.com/

The Book of Smiles -- https://theringfinders.com/#book

Nation of Doers Newsletter -- https://nationofdoers.substack.com/

Pete builds high-end treehouses, bringing dreams to life for the young at heart. In this interview, we talk about how he fell in love with treehouses, how he ventured into turning his passion into a business, and how he grew beyond his wildest dreams with a major assist from a TV show on Animal Planet.

Nelson Treehouse and Supply: https://nelsontreehouse.com/

Treehouse Point Resort: https://www.treehousepoint.com/

Nelson Treehouse on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nelsontreehouse

Pete's original coffee table book: https://www.amazon.com/Treehouses-Art-Craft-Living-Limb/dp/0395629497

This is a Thing Newsletter: https://nationofdoers.substack.com/