00:00
Here's the headline. Great headline. Great headline. Guy sells one dollar bills for fifteen dollars. Here's how. Right? And so,
00:08
Here's what he did. So he basically he's fifteen years old, and he says he sees a dollar bill on eBay that instead of who's on the dollar bill? Is Washington or something like that? Instead of whoever, let's follow George Washington,
00:21
it's Michael Jordan's face in the middle. Right? And he orders it is he's like, oh, love Michael Jordan or whatever. This is funny. And he gets it. And it's a basically, it's a normal dollar bill, but then there's just like a sticker paper
00:34
over the George Washington.
00:35
And you could just, like, do that. You could just go to Office Max and, like, do this. And so that's exactly what he did. He goes to Office Max. He's like, I need to be able to create these because
00:45
What better business is there to sell dollar bills for fifteen dollars.
00:48
And so he's,
00:50
he goes there and then he goes, he puts them up on eBay.
00:59
What's up?
01:00
Let's jump in. What you got?
01:03
You tell me. You I I think I've been driving the last handful of,
01:07
sessions. I I I'm gonna ask you to drive right now.
01:11
Let's switch gears. I wanna do,
01:14
a topic about you do you I think you know Jenny. You know Mark Jenny? Mark Jenny is a great friend of mine. He's he's an amazing amazing, amazing entrepreneur.
01:22
He's an awesome guy. We're going I'm gonna meet him next week. We're going down to
01:26
at one of us. Well, he has this, like, luxury Airbnb portfolio,
01:31
and you should follow him on Twitter. I don't Well, you want me to give his background? Do you know his background?
01:36
I know a little bit of it, but go give give the story. So if I remember correctly,
01:40
I think he was raised. He had a, something was a little won't want you with his childhood. I think, like, he didn't have a dad or a single single household or something like that. So he wasn't he wasn't raised in like a very,
01:51
privileged place. And then at one point, I think he was even homeless and he lived out of like a storage unit or something like that. He started a bunch of different companies like info marketing stuff and everything did kind of okay. Then he started RV trader, I believe, or it's r v r v share, which was like Airbnb for RVs,
02:08
He eventually sold a large portion of it to KKR, I think, a large PE company, and he probably made many, many tens of millions of dollars a lifetime of money. Now he has a new thing that he's been doing for the last maybe five or something like that years where he buys. I think he owns twenty of them now. He's got a huge portfolio
02:24
of Airbnb,
02:25
and these are high end luxury homes that sleep, like twenty people.
02:30
It's like two acre, like a two acre plot with, like, a fancy
02:34
four or five, six thousand square foot home with, like, basketball courts, tennis courts, mini putt putt, and he's built this, like, really, really good
02:42
business making millions and millions of dollars renting Airbnb's
02:45
and he's doing it right. And he's got a small team, and it's a proper company. Like a side project. Yeah. I think what what is it? Like a fifty million dollar luxury Airbnb portfolio at this point. Yeah. I mean, I I I'm friends with Mark, so he tells me lots stuff. So I'm trying not to say any of the numbers because I forget what's public and what's been private. So anything that you I'll let you actually say any of the numbers because you're probably getting it. Yeah. That's just what he tweets you should follow him on Twitter. He's a good follow, and it's cool to see, like, he'll post like a before and after photo of these properties. He's like, here's what it was. And then We added a McDonald's play place in the backyard. And it's like he does, like, dope stuff, like, which I like. You know, he's not just like And he's totally unheard of, like, hipper.
03:22
He's got, like, maybe
03:24
two thousand, three thousand followers on Twitter, I think. Like, he's not, like, a popular, like, a, like, a big name person. So he tweeted this out the other day, and I thought that this was a great
03:33
we haven't done a blue collar side hustle in a while. So I thought this is kind of a great little well, almost like a blue collar side hustle that he he said he had done. I don't know if you saw this. He he was talked about one of his very first,
03:45
like, sort of side hustles that he did or early early hustles
03:49
was
03:50
selling dollar bills for fifteen dollars. Did you see this? Yes. Yeah. Go tell tell the story. So he tweeted this out. You can kinda look at it. But Here's the headline. Great headline. Great headline. Guy sells one dollar bills for fifteen dollars. Here's how. Right? And so,
04:06
Here's what he did. So he basically he's fifteen years old, and he says he sees a dollar bill on eBay that instead of who's not the one dollar bill? Is Washington or something like that?
04:16
Instead of whoever, let's follow George Washington, it's Michael Jordan's face in the middle. Right? And he orders it he's like, oh, love Michael Jordan or whatever. This is funny. And he gets it. And it's a basically, it's a normal dollar bill, but then there's just like a sticker paper
04:32
over the George Washington.
04:34
And you could just, like, do that. You could just go to Office Max and, like, do this. And so that's exactly what he did. He goes to Office Max. He's like, I need to be able to create these because
04:43
What better business is there to sell dollar bills for fifteen dollars.
04:46
And so he's,
04:48
he goes there and then he goes, he puts them up on eBay. And he I mean, at first, he looked on eBay. And at that time, eBay was showing,
04:55
like, how many,
04:57
how many items a seller would sell and he could just keep track of it. Like, okay. This week, that, oh, wow. They're selling, like, you know, a hundred of these. Like, that's amazing. So he starts doing it. He creates an eBay account
05:07
He starts selling these, and he starts averaging a hundred
05:11
a hundred bill sold per day for fifteen dollars, which includes the shipping cost. General profit is about fifteen
05:16
hundred a day? Not fifteen hundred a day. He's he's profiting basically a thousand dollars a day,
05:22
doing this. And then he's he ramped it up, and he got it to I think ten thousand dollars a day
05:27
in,
05:29
in sales.
05:30
And he became the largest seller of custom novelty
05:34
collectible dollar bills on eBay, it's a real dollar. It's it was a real dollar bill. Real dollar. Yeah. And then you just add the, the sticker on top so you could sell it. Can you do that legally? I guess so. Why not?
05:44
I don't know. I I don't know. There I just thought there'd be some weird rules around money. No. I think you could do it. Like, you know, people sell these, like, coins and whatever. It seems seems legit. So then what he would do, he's like, you know, here's how to start thinking of growth hacks. How do I beat these other eBay guys at doing this? So what he would do is he would do one of the auctions,
06:03
and then he would direct message everybody who didn't win the auction, offering him the bill at whatever their highest price was. And so
06:11
and so he's like, you know, whatever. Eight was your top price hard. I'll I'll do it for eight.
06:15
And so he started, like, just racking up as many sales as he could. Doing this. So then he became the top ranked seller, which helped him in the organic search,
06:22
as he was going from there. And I kinda love this, and I loved it for a couple One, it's just another example of these little nuggets, these little stories that shows you, there's a trillion ways to win. There's a trillion ways to get rich. Right? Like, he was doing basically three hundred sixty five thousand dollars a year of sales or whatever.
06:39
You know, he was doing really, really well. At that time,
06:42
you know, a hundred of these a day. What? How old was he? Did did you say he's like kids? He was fifteen, sixteen years old. That's amazing.
06:50
And,
06:51
and, you know, it probably didn't last forever, but these these our arbitrage opportunities that come up. And then I started thinking, okay. Like, what would somebody do if they're doing that now? So here's, like, I'm gonna give you three ideas of how you could do that now.
07:03
First, I think you could probably do the same thing. Like, what's old is new? What's out is in? And I I think you probably do the same thing either on eBay or Etsy or find one of the marketplaces,
07:14
and you could try to win doing the same thing. I went on Etsy you could see that there's people doing this on Etsy right now and you could see, you know, how they're how they're doing. So possibly you could go do the same thing and compete
07:24
especially if you could pick a different, you know, celebrity face to put on the thing, like,
07:29
trump is the obvious one. But if it's not Trump, like, maybe there's some other some other ones that you could do. But Trump dollar bills is my first idea of how I would do this. Second idea,
07:39
okay. Well, let's let's remix it. Right? We wanna keep eighty percent of the idea wanna change twenty percent. So what's the twenty percent change? I would try to piggyback off of whatever's trending in movies or music or something like that. So for example, Remember when Superbad came out, and there was, like, the Mcglovein,
07:57
you know, ID, his Hawaii ID, the rainbow on it. It's like the same iconic look. I think you could just do Mick Love and IDs at that time. Like, if that was the movie that had come out now, I think you could take a prop from a movie or like in pulp fiction, they had the bad mother f or wallet or whatever. Like, I don't know. I had one. I don't watch a bunch of movies now, but, yeah, exactly. I wanted one of those, and you could just, like, jump on that trend and be like, cool. Like, for the Mc Level. It's like, up upload your photo, and we'll send you yourself as a Mc Love, and I, ID and maybe use a little of these, like, AI things to, like, create the avatar where it looks the same. But I think that's one that you could do. Really cheap print and, and laminate. And then you, you know, you can send these out very cheaply because they're they're so thin.
08:40
Then I saw some other ones. If you go on TikTok, you'll see things that are like this. One,
08:45
for example, I think the second
08:48
biggest Etsy store
08:50
Maybe the first, actually, now. I think it's second or first on the planet is this thing called Caitlyn Minimalist.
08:56
I'm guessing you've never heard of this, but No. What is this? I got a whole thing coming on the pot my Etsy deep dive, but but I'll just give you a little sneak peek. The top selling store is Caitlyn minimalist. What she does was how she got her break was she was like, she was Making jewelry for herself or friends were like, oh, that's cool. Then her friend had a special real question because my mom or dad passed away. I forgot which one.
09:17
And, like, the last thing they wrote me was, like, this note,
09:20
is it possible to, like, get their signature in their handwriting as, like, a bracelet?
09:25
And she's like, yeah, you just like, I can do that for you. And she, like, just gave it to her for free. She was like, this is so meaningful to you. I'll just give it to you for free.
09:32
And she was like, overwhelmed. Was like, this is the most meaningful thing in the world. And so
09:37
she was like, oh, wow. People just want, like, you know, their name, their parents name, their kids name, and ideally in their own handwriting, like, done in jewelry. And so that's what how do you do that? You, like, send her, or is it all digital? You, like, send her a picture or or you write the name, you know, it depends. If you wanna match the handwriting, you gotta send a picture of the, of the of, like, a piece of paper with the writing on it. And there's some tech that just then, like, tells her Yeah. Just like, who etches it in that that look. Right? Just copies that look. So it's not, like, made out of metal. It it's a metal plaque, or it's like a it's like a dog tag. And then she, like No. No. No. It is it's cut. It's like the name is cut in. Let's, like, out of the chain or whatever. Like, it is, like, you know, whatever, somehow somehow cut. I don't know exactly her manufacturing process, but
10:19
these little, like, custom
10:20
custom name things, I think, work And, I was on TikTok yesterday when I was thinking about this idea. How big is it? Oh, it's huge. She's done, like, probably eighty, ninety million in sales is my my my dad. So she's done two million transactions, I would guess our average transactions, like, you know, something forty, fifty bucks, something like that. Wow. You know, that's like eighty million dollars in sales lifetime. And,
10:41
She's just like this woman out of LA or whatever.
10:44
And,
10:46
I was on TikTok and I was scrolling and I saw another one of these, which was,
10:50
You it was a hoodie. It's like, here's a perfect gift for the holidays or for Valentine's sake or whatever. It's a hoodie, and they're like, take a picture of you and your whatever, your your boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, whatever.
11:02
And it basically takes, like, let's say it's a picture of you and your wife and you're kissing. And it just, like, it'll etch it'll stitch like a silhouette of that as, like, into the hoodie. So it's like a meaningful gift. Again, it's like this kind of what they call mass customization. Right? So if you could do mass customization,
11:19
if you could figure out a manufacturing process to do this, There's a lot of opportunity to sell somebody these, like, kinda gimmick gifts that I think will, that can and will work. Do you remember, t spring?
11:30
Teespring. Yeah. It was like the print on demand type of Yeah. It was a really cool t shirt company. Starbucks guy named Walker Williams, and they were, like, of these companies that was like, oh, this is gonna be one of the fastest companies ever to get to a hundred million in revenue. And the way that they got popular was it was on demand t shirt printing.
11:46
And they figured out this hack on Facebook where you could target people that have your, like, by last name. So it could be, like, the one thing we all know about Smith's is that they
11:59
loved to party. Or and then they also did my location, like, The one thing we know about people who are raised in Boston is that they love blank and it had a t shirt that said I'm from Boston and I'm proud or I'm from Boston and I love blank or I'm a proud Smith or something like that.
12:15
And the engagement on those ads was crazy, so their CAC was like stupid low, and that's one of the ways that they grew. And it's just like that. It's that thing from Dale Carnegie, the most beautiful word in any language is as a person's name. Right. And I think it's like, name, location, and maybe, like, where you went to school, and then followed by, like, your friend's names. And if you could figure out how to, like, incorporate those into ads -- Or -- the click through rate is crazy. The pet's face. So there's another one, which is pet socks. Pet's face on socks. I think, I have a pair. Jungle creations was the name of it. So if I remember correctly,
12:48
At one point, they did, like,
12:51
a million dollars in, like, a week selling,
12:54
you'd basically go on the website, you'd upload a photo of your pet's face, and they would print it on They would just drop ship that to you, basically. And,
13:01
let me see if I can find,
13:03
yeah, they did two thousand eighteen. They did seventeen million in revenue
13:09
they did seventeen million in revenue doing basically pet pet face on socks. Right? And so that's the same thing. You know, Celebrity face on dollar bill, pet face on socks. Right? Like, we have a buddy who is doing the,
13:20
pet portraits.
13:21
Right? Like, a painting of your pet. That would just be like mass mass customized,
13:26
produced. There's there's a ton of these, like, little opportunities. Yeah. And the click through rates on these things are, like, kill it for the ads. So, yeah, I yeah. That's an interesting idea. Let's see if anyone actually files through with it. I I but Mark Jenny's amazing, man. He's awesome. Alright. So let me break them one thing up.
13:42
Dude, this guy made fun of me the other day for having a course, and it hurt my feelings. Or a internet stranger.
13:52
A little bit of both. And it really hurt my feelings. Do you
13:57
feel, like,
13:59
Because alright. So I built a business before. I built a few businesses before. So a few that I've got the seven figures, a few that I've got the eight figures, I've sold things. I should feel confident about this.
14:09
And then you and I both have courses. I'm gonna actually launch another course, and I think it'd be like a
14:15
like a million dollar plus a year income stream for me and my family, which is awesome. It's never good when you have to say it for me and my family. Like, if you have to justify feeding your family, that means, there's that's just needs security poking out
14:28
poking out of there.
14:29
Well, it gives context. And I what I mean is is it the contact the question that I'm gonna ask is is it worth it? Because part of me thinks, well, if I'm such a big shot, I shouldn't talk about it. I should just have shit and not teach it. But then I'm like, but I like doing it. And it's a significant, like, it pays for my whole life.
14:48
So do you Yeah. If you again, the the only push guys. Do you like it? You like doing it?
14:54
Yeah. Alright. Then that's enough. Right? Like But but do you feel like a you feel like a fraud too, or at least I you've never said that to me, but you said that when we had when we were interviewing that one person, you're, like, I kinda feel like,
15:05
a fraud every once in or I forget what you said. Not a fraud, but, I do feel like I make fun of myself
15:11
about the course thing,
15:13
because the same thing. Self conscious. What's that be?
15:17
Self conscious is a better word. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, I would say somebody who is, like,
15:23
Somebody who is really locked in, and I'll I'll use the word locked in because it's not about
15:29
how much money you have.
15:31
Like, but it's true. Somebody who's really, really wealthy would not
15:36
do a paid course. I don't think. I don't think somebody who's, like, super wealthy probably should be or would be doing paid courses pretty unusual to do that. I I think that's definitely wrong though because like Warren Buffett had a course at Columbia. I mean,
15:49
there's a lot of examples of, like, wonderful investors who go and they -- Yeah. But I don't think Warren
15:55
Buffett did his course
15:57
like, I don't think he was pocketing a bunch of money doing a direct sales course type of thing. Like, I if I went and taught a guess, if I was a guest lecturer at Stanford, right? I drove forty five minutes away. I go guest lecturer at Stanford. I'm a teacher there. I would be doing that for different reasons. And it would feel totally differently than me being like, Hey, I have my power writing first. Go sign up and pay for it.
16:18
I don't know why it is. It's it's just different. It's it's a different thing, but I would say two things. I said locked in because also
16:26
if you have, like, a main thing
16:28
that is totally
16:31
an obsession for you. You're you're loving working on it. There's so much there's more to do than you'll ever have time to do. You really wouldn't take the time to
16:39
stop pause and go, celebrate. So my opinion about myself, I should say. I would not go do that. So to me, as long as I'm still doing courses, it's me part of my wandering around phase, trying to figure out what I really wanna do when I grow up, what I wanna do with my life, what I wanna do with my time, I know that if I get locked in on, oh, man, I really love this project. I'm just
17:01
building brick by brick. This is something that I'm really excited about. There's no chance in hell that I would push pause and teach course, even though my courses are like, it's two weeks out of the year. So it's not a lot of time. But even even those two weeks, I probably wouldn't do if I was in that position in the same way that when I was building my startup, I had no podcast.
17:20
I had no angel investing. I had no courses. I didn't do I didn't tweet. I didn't do shit when I was building my startup for like seven years because I was fully locked in on that. It's only after we sold that I started doing a bunch of these things.
17:34
And that became the new the new business was the podcast and other things. I think I'm gonna keep doing it.
17:40
But I think you should totally keep doing it. You said you like it. So keep doing it.
17:44
Let me share a little thing. I do it during my course, because during the course, the, the writing course, some people will be like,
17:52
you know, okay, I get, like, this lesson was really great. I feel like I now have a much better idea how I would write to, like, kinda grow viral or
18:00
build my brand.
18:01
There's a part of me that just feels like, you know, they'll ask you a question that's like, how much content would you say is too much? You know, is what so it's too much to post or Would you say that, like, you know, I should wait, you know, until my product launches to start doing content or, like, they they ask all these questions that are sort of, like, self promoting and, self conscious feelings. Self conscious. There's just a under there's just a layer of self consciousness around the whole thing or like, well, you know, what do you What do you say? If you post something and then somebody comments, do you take it down? Blah blah blah. Do you do, you know, how do you deal with, you know, a negativity or blah blah blah? And I always just say the same thing. I go,
18:36
I go, I was like, I'm gonna ask you a question, but hang on. What what time is it? I wanna make sure we don't go over what time is it? And then they're like, nine thirty four. I'm like, no. No. It's me o'clock.
18:46
You forgot that it's me o'clock.
18:49
You know, you're thinking about what everybody else might think and what they might say and how they feel and what my
18:55
bro, you forgot the main thing. It's always me o'clock. You just gotta ask yourself, do I like this? Do I wanna do this? How do I feel about doing this?
19:03
Remember, it is always me o'clock. In fact, I wanna get watches made or a clock on my wall that just just reminds me it is me o'clock.
19:11
Should I wait to go do this thing? No. It's me o'clock. Should I care what other people are thinking? No. It's me o'clock. How do I feel that's what I'm gonna do things off. Dude, there's this funny picture of Fidel Castro, you know, like the the dictator of Cuba, and he's wearing two Rolex's
19:25
at the same time, both on the same wrist, just because he's just, like, He just wants to flex that hard. No. No. It's a real clutch. You need to get two watches on each hand. That's a wait. Just let me make sure this other one's not broken.
19:41
Yeah. That's exactly how I feel. So your question to me, I don't even need to answer. It's remind you, it's Mio Clack. You do it. You do what the hell you want. Alright. You have another thing on here that was like
19:53
the ten list?
19:54
Yeah. The list. I I'm a read the title and you you go from there. So it just says a few non popular things I've learned from this pod. Pretty good headline.
20:03
Eight out of ten. Thank you. We'll accept. I'm gonna say each one, and I want you to give me your reaction, and then I'll explain a little more But, alright, the first one. Well, can you give context on the whole thing? Like, where did this come from? Or what why did you even think of this list of unpopular things you've learned from the pod? I see a lot of things online of people talking where they try to explain,
20:24
like, rules.
20:26
Like, you do have to work this much or you don't have to work this much. Or
20:30
and the reality is is that,
20:33
there's
20:34
a million ways to get the same things done. Like, for every example of one person succeeding in one way, there's gonna be lots of examples of them succeeding a totally different way. So I think it's silly to have rules
20:45
And so I, like, will see these things of people posting of, like, oh, you know, like they say, it's a ten year overnight success. And in my head, I think
20:53
man, I know people who have had overnight successes were like literally in three months, their life has changed. And I think it's silly to not acknowledge that, you know, And so that's how I kinda came up with this list. Okay. Alright. Hit me. I'm excited now. Alright. The first one I just said. So an overnight success, which is like one or six months, it's absolutely possible. And those those exist and they're real. What
21:14
agree or disagree. Alright. Give us an example For example, we covered this company called Broumate, b r u m a t e, and the I think in, like, year two, they got the twenty million in revenue. In year one, to, like, eight million. And I know a few people that have had other companies were, like, in the first six months. Like, it kinda just took off and it worked. So we interviewed. Who else did we interview?
21:36
Well, you're I would say your current
21:39
stealth company we haven't talked about yet
21:42
taken off right away. Yeah. It's it's succeeded, like, pretty quickly.
21:46
You count that. Do you count that overnight success, or do you say I've been preparing my whole life for this? Right? That's the that's the account argument.
21:53
I'll say, like, I built up a reputation, and I'm trading off that reputation. But there are times when you and I have, like, talked to people, for example, we, I had this on who you weren't here, but you know him. His name's Val. You know Val, v a l, Val.
22:06
He had a company where in year one, it made, like, ten million in profit, and it was selling, like, ringtones on the internet.
22:13
And, like, just some people just have the it factor. And then like luck is real. So that's another thing. Luck is real. Sometimes you just kind of nail it and it just works. Not always, and most of the time, it doesn't. But every once in a while, it just happens. And so I think for people to say overnight success isn't real, I think that that's nonsense because I I know a handful of people who are like nineteen, twenty year old kids who
22:36
they like, within a few months, they've got something making many, many tens or sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in sales. And it just works. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm with you on that. I agree.
22:46
Alright. Here's another one. I think at least in the beginning of your career,
22:50
where you live, It actually really, really matters. It's incredibly important. And the people who don't move some places, I think they are at a disadvantage.
23:00
Hundred percent agree.
23:02
I
23:02
did this. I was sitting in Australia,
23:05
and I wanted to do startup. And I was go I went to a local startup, like, event.
23:11
And I was like, okay.
23:12
I'm, like, looking around Everybody's being super nice. Right? Australia. Everybody gets along great. And I just thought in my head, I go, who's the most successful entrepreneur in this room? And it was this one old ass motherfucker who was like, you know, had built something in the nineties, and he just, like, stuck around. And then
23:30
Nobody else pretty much. And then I was asking some questions. I was talking and something, and then they got the organizer was like, dude, you should give a talk next next month meet up. Like, this is great. We would love to have you teach. And I was like, teach. I'm twenty three. I've done nothing. I was like, if and I, like, at first, I was flattered and then I caught myself two seconds later. I was like, oh, wait.
23:50
This just means I'm in the wrong pond. I do not wanna be a smart guy in the room. They should be like, dude, you should shut up. You don't know anything about anything. That's the type of room I wanna be in. And so I literally went home.
24:03
I went on, I think, like, T Mobile or whatever. I activated a a a phone plan and I got a six five o area number, area code, because I was like, I need to just mentally before I even move, I need to go to Silicon Valley now. So I changed my phone number. And then I booked a ticket, and my mom was like, you know, what are you gonna where are you gonna stay? Do you have a job? I was like, I don't know. I don't I'm gonna figure it out, but I'll I have a better shot of figuring it out there than I do from here. And that was my whole mindset. And Tony Robbins has a thing he says about this. He goes, Proximity
24:33
is power. And I am a huge believer that proximity is power. I have done pretty crazy things to just get in proximity of people that I think are awesome. Like, I will take jobs that I think are, like, the worst job of all the job offers I have If I know that it's gonna get me to sit side by side with somebody awesome, because I know six months next to that person is gonna do more for me than
24:57
you know, like a better higher paying job would have done. And so proximity is power. I'm big This goes beyond business. It's beyond business. It's just anything. If you wanna make it in the movie industry,
25:07
you have a higher likelihood if you at least spend a handful of years early on in Hollywood. Just putting in the time matters, you know, if there's, like, these funny stories about Bill Murray, who lives in, like, North Carolina or something, and he's, like, totally out of the loop. It's like, yeah, that that that definitely works. There are examples of that. But I think it helps. Your odds. Yeah. You wanna increase your odds of success.
25:27
The second one or the third one. Luck is is incredibly real. You know, I remember, like, early on in my career. I was thinking, like, there is no such thing as luck. It's just hard work, and I'm just gonna do it.
25:38
Nah. Shit's real. Shit's real. I remember I I've said this story a bunch of times that we were selling our company, Brian Halligan, the CEO of HubSpot at the time, gotten a life threatening
25:46
accident,
25:47
two weeks after we closed, and there's a world where two weeks before,
25:52
if it happened, it could have ruined it. I think you've had a couple where if one or two things happened before or after selling a business, like, it it, like, within, like, a month, it could have changed things,
26:03
getting sick, really matters being born, like, in a healthy place, in a healthy family, like, things like that. Black is totally real, and I think that we dismiss it too often.
26:12
Yeah. I think,
26:14
I agree with that. I would say
26:16
luck is real.
26:17
I would also say a big part of luck is in your control and a small part of luck is out outside of your control.
26:24
So most of the luck you experience in your life, there's a whole bunch of things at the beginning being born in a certain place, healthy, your parents, whatever. Those are outside of your control. A lot of what happens after that is in your control. And we've done the there's a podcast episode called four levels of luck where we talk, you know, on framework Friday where we talk about actually
26:42
manipulating luck to be to go towards your advantage, if that makes sense. There is a set of actions you can take that will increase the amount of luck you end up having in your life. And this is not like, you know, hold crystals or something like that. It's like more practical, tangible stuff.
26:56
Okay. The last part of that that I'll say is
26:59
I remember when I was
27:02
I had moved to San Francisco, and I met Michael Birch, the guy I came to work with, because again, proximity's power, I just took the job because I was like, oh, I get to sit next to this guy. This guy is like a billionaire who's built for successful internet companies. Well, what is the thing I wanna do? Build a successful internet company. I think this is the place to sit. And I was talking to him, and I was trying to figure out, like, did this guy just get lucky or what happened?
27:22
Because a lot of people, I think would look at him and say, oh, he got lucky. Because the thing he sold
27:28
two years later, Bebo. He sold it for eight hundred fifty million dollars, two years later, a year later,
27:33
AOL wrote it off for, like, you know, a giant tax write off and just, like and nobody uses Bibo now. Facebook won and Facebook beat And so some people say, oh, he got lucky. Right? You know, he sold it for whatever.
27:44
And I definitely don't think that's true because he's built, like, multiple companies that have been successful.
27:50
But what I figured out what I the the thing I ended up figuring out was it's not lucky that he won, but it is lucky how much he won. So he was gonna be successful either way. But whether that number was
28:03
twenty million, eighty million, or eight hundred million There was a large degree of luck and timing that was outside of his control that contributed to that. He could just easily just as easily have been an eighty million guy versus an eight hundred million guy. And that, I don't think, was necessarily in his control. That was right place, right time, right time, right circumstances.
28:21
You know, the right person had the right drinks at the right bar, next to the right person. And I think that, you know, the magnitude of success is a lot more based on luck, not the,
28:31
appearance of success, not the, not the, existence of the success. He was gonna be successful in a matter of what. Alright. And I'm gonna jump around. Another one Ivy League ish schools. So I don't know how we're gonna define that, but like the a top twenty university,
28:45
is totally worth it. One, even if that means that you have to go into a lot of a debt I think it's totally worth it. I think state schools where you get some type of in state tuition and you still get a college experience
28:58
totally worth it. Most everything in between,
29:01
if you have to go into debt for it, I think it's absolutely not worth it.
29:06
You're like, where I went to school. Where I went. I went to Belmont University. I was I was fortunate. I got a little bit of a scholarship, and my parents paid for for
29:14
one hundred percent not worth it. It was at the time, I think, thirty or forty grand a year, and it's a no name university that, you know, it does it just completely irrelevant. One hundred percent not worth it. But I know people who went to I my wife went to an Ivy League school. I know people like you, you went to Duke and, like, you have a a handful of connections go to Stanford, you have all these connections that seem one hundred percent worth it and here's another, like, thing. If you have Stanford on your resume, you're gonna at least get the interview.
29:41
This is true. If you look at how people recruit, they just gotta scroll through an Excel sheet, and it just says where you graduated.
29:46
Belerman in Kentucky, that costs sixty thousand dollars a year or whatever it is, that is not the same as Stanford or darth darthman. Like, you're just automatically going to have an increased likelihood of getting that interview But even more important than that, you're gonna meet people who are have been maybe been around the world, have rich parents,
30:04
like, that stuff actually matters, and those connections and that that influence on your life, it really actually matters, and it's worth going into debt to debt. I
30:14
kind of disagree here. So I went to Duke, which is not an eye not technically an Ivy league school,
30:19
but is, like, considered up there with with Ivy league is actually, like, a sports thing, but, like, you know, whatever. It's considered like a top school.
30:26
And
30:27
it wasn't worth it for me because I was not ready to figure out how to make it worth it. Right? It's It's what you make of it. It is not gonna be handed to you just by showing up. And I had the total I had totally the wrong mindset.
30:39
I thought I'm here
30:41
I gotta, I don't know, do the thing I've been doing to get here. Get good grades.
30:46
You know, eventually
30:47
graduate, pass the test, you know, go to med school, do whatever I'm supposed to do. It was like a track.
30:53
And there are some people who made it worth it. The people who were like, yo, we got these resources for free or I'm gonna go and meet these these two professors or I'm gonna get exposure to these other classes that I wanna learn about or I'm gonna
31:06
use my time here to socialize plus spin up some side hustles because, man, there's no better time to find co founders and build a startup than when you're in college. Like, There were some people who had that right mindset. The light my light bulb is not on. Right? Like, now I got this floating ass light bulb. There was no there was no light bulb on at that time. And so I misused it. I think the majority of people misuse it.
31:27
I did have one phone call that was really important. And I'm just gonna say it out loud here because if there's somebody who these to hear this, you know, I got lucky that my dad gave me this phone call. Maybe your maybe your dad doesn't have the same sort of wisdom that that my mind did. So I'm gonna say it out loud. I called my dad my second year into college. And I was like, hey.
31:44
He's like, how's it going? And I was like, I don't know. It's okay.
31:48
Like, what do you mean? Like, how's how's your, you know, how how's school? And I was like, well,
31:53
grades aren't great. He's like, oh, Man, what would happen? I was like, no. They're not terrible. I'm not failing. I just, like, you know, I'm a b minus student here. And, like, you know, I've been getting a's in high school. So b minus was like, no. Not very good. He's like, alright. That's alright. He's like, are you trying? And I was like, yeah, I'm trying, but man, like, everybody here is smart. Like, you know, everybody here is just as smart as me. If not smarter,
32:14
and they all work harder than me. I'm trying to figure out this whole hard work thing, but, like, you know, just to be honest with you. It's
32:21
Like, these guys just live in the library, and I just don't even, like, I just figured out where they go. They go to the library. They go to office hours. Like, I was I didn't even understand where people were going with their free time. That's what they were doing. Were your was your dad paying?
32:34
Yeah. Parents are paying for it. So I that's what I told him. I go, you know, you're paying a lot of money for me to go here.
32:39
And,
32:40
you know, I could go to UT, you know, state school. It'd be, I think, ten times cheaper or something like that. Like,
32:46
five times cheaper maybe. I was like, if you want me to try like, I'm willing to transfer, by the way, just because, like, I don't think I'm gonna do that well here. And so I don't think it's worth it for you to pay this amount of money. And so I told him that and he goes,
33:01
and but I had been telling him he he's like, He he goes, why do you say that, you know,
33:06
you're not, like, good there. And I was, like, well, like, dude, my my this guy who lives next door to me, He's like a freaking genius. He's like a, you know, he just gets the physics stuff right away. And then he's also good, like, outside of class. Like, you know, in the summers, he goes in, he drives ambulance and the Palestinian warfront just for fun. And, like, if that's how we spend the summers, like, you know, I'm over here picking boogers with you. Like, you know, I don't I don't even know what to do in the summer. These guys all got plans and internships. And and this and that, and, like, this guy's uncle works at JP Morgan, but he's doing that thing. And I was, like, and he goes,
33:37
Yeah. That's the point because that's why you're there. You're not there for the classes.
33:41
You're there because when everybody around you is like that, it will just raise your standards. You won't even know what mediocre looks like. You think you're mediocre, but that's because you're hanging out with exceptional people. If I take you and put you in a state school, you're not gonna have as many exceptional people around you who for them, that's normal. And you go, so, you know, the point of being in college for you to go to that school is not you could graduate at the top of the class and get the best grades and be the smartest kid in this in the classes. It's so that that becomes your network and that becomes your normal. And he's basically said something to that effect. And I So you're proving my point. By the way. Pretty deep. You're kinda proving my point. I know. I know. So I'm saying, like, that is the the saving grace of it. I don't know if the
34:23
I don't know. Like, that light bulb went off from me halfway through. Then I started to focus on, oh, yeah. Then once I realized that, I started to get to know those people. Before that, I was like, Oh, these just they're just different. I'm a stay away. And, like, I don't know. I gotta find people who are like me who are just basically bumming around here who don't know what to do. Instead, I was like, oh, the point is to be hanging out with these people and become more like them and not feel like I'm competing with them or intimidated by them. Alright. I've got a few more and I'm gonna actually merge a couple of them. So,
34:51
of, another one. Having a technical skill if we're talking about internet companies, it this mostly means like being able to like code or design.
35:00
In my case, it was writing, which actually I think counts but it's a little bit less more important. But having a technical skill, like, in training to have a skill set is a massive, massive advantage. And I think being a generalist
35:12
is not that is just a bullshit excuse,
35:15
but you should actually
35:16
be good at at least one thing and -- Right. -- particularly coding or design would be better, but copywriting counts as well. And there's a few other things. Sales actually, I think, can count, but you need to be good at something. And I think that most agree, don't do that. It's gonna be great at something. You gotta, like, train for years to acquire a skill and then go beyond that, but you need a skill. I think it's a massive advantage and people dismiss that as being a generalist, and that's just like self masturbation. That is a bullcrap excuse in reality, you should be you just try to get great at something. You know what's the funniest version of a generalist? So generalist already is, like, you're teetering on the edge of just being a bullshitter.
35:54
Yeah. It's people
35:55
who call themselves a polymath. Have you ever heard somebody call themselves? That's bullshit. Dude, yes. That's, like, people who call themselves a contrarians. Like, dude, if you gotta label it, you're probably not it. You can't be the one who calls yourself a polymath nor could you call yourself a contrarian? It's other people who got it pointed out, that's when that label works. It's like you can't nickname nickname yourself brain. That doesn't it doesn't work that way. You know? You gotta you you you either you either
36:20
yeah. No. No. That's how that works. Other people can go. You're humble. You can all get to call yourself home. Yeah. So Polybazi is like the you've you've you've
36:29
fallen over the fence, like, humpty, and now you're fully in bullshit land.
36:33
When you call in yourself a polymath. So, okay, that's my that's my rant on that. I think you're a hundred percent right. You gotta have some skip what do we say? You gotta have some attributes. Yeah. You gotta bring some attributes, man. You gotta have some size strength time. You gotta have attributes. It can't just be a dope.
36:49
I hired a guy that I thought was gonna be great because he was, like, you know, saying all the right things, hustling, he was saying all the right things. And within a month, I realized
36:57
guy's got no attributes.
36:59
He's gotta have some attributes. What are you good at? What can you do?
37:04
Man, I can help with anything. Okay. You can help with anything. What can what problem can you go solve? What what are you great at? If I hand you this thing, what can you just nail this part of it?
37:14
I I would also consider myself somewhat of a generalist, but it's you can only really what people mean when they're actually a good version of a generalist is they're great at one thing. But they decided not to just specialize as that -- Yeah. -- that one tool for the rest of their life, and they've decided to go broader.
37:31
But they got that in their back pocket. One or two core skills. They're amazing at paid marketing. They're amazing at copywriting. They're amazing at building at, you know, coding. They're amazing at,
37:42
sales.
37:43
And they could just do that as their job, and they could be, you know, in the top ten percent of people if they did that just as their job. Not the top one percent. Right? Because they're not. Specializing and being like, I'm gonna hone this craft every day for the rest of my life, but they're in the top ten percent already at that. And then they're in the top, like, thirty percent at four or five other things. That's a real generalist, not somebody who's just
38:03
average at everything.
38:04
And, like Or good at nothing or good at nothing. Right? Yeah. What what did a Rhonda Rousy called it? A DMV. You remember that? What's that mean? She she goes. She was talking about this when she was on the in the in the OC, and she she goes, all these other girls are just d n bs. They just do nothing bitches.
38:22
And I was like, wow, that is an incredible
38:25
face. And so in my head, when I hear a generalist, I'm like, let me make sure you're actually not just a DMV.
38:33
Yeah, dude, dude, nothing bitch. Like, you need to do something in in or, like, in your case, your skill set could actually be, like, charisma and, like, attracting and recruiting people and, like, putting them in the right direction. That a skill set. You know, leadership is a skill set. Getting things started that that and being like the the the initial
38:51
match that gets like a a fire started I think that's a skill set, but I think having a skill and actually being great at something that's really important. Alright. I'll give you a few more.
39:01
Assume
39:02
that people don't change.
39:04
I think that's like a safe that's like a safe role. You know, we we have this attitude. Maybe it's an American thing. I don't know where it's just like you can change. And I do believe that's possible. You know, I've had demons in the past that I've overcome. I know a lot of other people who have had things that they've overcome That shit does take place. It's fairly rare. And if you are a person that talks the talk and you don't walk the walk,
39:25
you will never change. And if I meet someone like that, I just assume, oh, they're just always going to be like that and they will not change. No amount of encouragement is gonna make them change. Sometimes that happens.
39:36
Assume
39:37
it won't. And that's I used to have a different attitude when I started my company. I'm like, oh, I'll just get these people, and I'll teach them how to be great yada yada yada. As I've grown with this pod and talk to people, I just the people who act a certain way have always acted that way. Yeah. There's, my sister says this. She goes, no. Well, people change
39:56
for the worse.
39:57
Like,
39:59
they will decay more often than they're gonna be, like, turning it around and, like, you know, going from a to b. And so I think you're right. That is the working assumption.
40:09
Unto, you know, innocent until proven guilty, you know, same till proven different is how I feel with people. Right? Exactly. You gotta show that something is changing. I am not gonna assume And I'm not gonna be the, you know, the the stereotypical, like, the woman who wants to fix him. It's like, don't I'm not that. I'm I don't wanna be that when I recruit people anymore. No. I'd rather just recruit people who are great and, like, just let them do their thing versus somebody that I'm gonna train and groom and turn around a project. It's, like, Why do all that effort? You'd know bonus points for making it harder.
40:42
I can't find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot?
40:45
HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team could stay aligned. No out of sync spreadsheets or dueling databases.
40:54
HubSpot grow better.
40:57
Alright. The last two. So I actually don't think necessarily
41:02
that the time effort put into a project is going to dictate the outcome. I think to get like,
41:09
to build like a company
41:11
Now I would have to, like, put numbers on it to build a company that, like, makes you potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars in some cases.
41:19
You don't necessarily have you you you can achieve that by having balance, but I think to have these massive outsized
41:27
world changing companies, things that create tens of billions of dollars in ten, fifteen years and have a meaningful impact in the world, like a Tesla,
41:36
or something crazy like that,
41:39
or a stripe, something like that.
41:41
I think that working eighty hours a week raising lots and lots of money and having zero balance is one hundred percent needed.
41:48
That said, I think you could still achieve a huge amount of success compared to the average Joe and actually do it working forty hours a week or in some cases after a while, less.
41:58
And, that's like an interesting dichotomy, but I think it's to be I think it's true. Yeah. I'll go with that. I like that. What else you got? Any one more?
42:07
Last one.
42:08
And this is like an e this is one of the very few irreversible decision.
42:13
So having some type of success and taking a a meaningful amount of risk
42:18
before you have a family meaning you have less time. You've got less responsibility.
42:24
Unfortunately, it's an irresponsible
42:27
decision, but getting an early ish win
42:30
early in your career is one hundred percent a huge advantage.
42:34
And you are at a massive disadvantage
42:37
by having a young family and not having, like, achieve something and then wanting to go achieve it. It's not impossible,
42:43
but like, taking those risks early on, people should be encouraged to do that more because it is life changing.
42:50
Yeah. I think so. The,
42:52
Paul Graham has this essay that he wrote. I don't remember the name of it, but he basically was like, assume I forgot the exact metrics. I read this a long time ago. I was in my early twenties, and I, it, like, stood out to me. He was like,
43:05
assume you start out with seven points
43:07
as an entrepreneur. And these are your set the seven points is, like,
43:11
your capacity
43:12
to, like, take risks and, like, achieve what you want.
43:16
And then he's like, for every one of these things, like, you know, minus one. Right? It's like
43:21
mortgage and whatever. Minus one. Kids, minus two.
43:25
You know, and he's basically like, you know, you can still do it. But you your margin of error and the difficulty that you're gonna have and the stress. And the stress you're gonna have pulling this off, like, assume you are sort of sapping your your, you know, your life, mana, your your points,
43:40
in terms of how much ammo you have to go attack this thing. It's being sapped by each one of these these factors.
43:47
And,
43:48
I don't remember what all of them were, but it's worth, you know, go go and find this essay because I think is actually true. It's an uncomfortable truth. People don't like this because it doesn't sound politically correct because, like, you know, the politically correct thing to say is You can do it. You could do anything
44:02
And,
44:03
and you could argue, and you should, by the way, if you're forty, you shouldn't be listening to this part. You should be saying,
44:09
screw that. I got all the wisdom. I got the my purpose, my kids. I got the experience,
44:14
you know, that a twenty year old will never have. I have and yes, you have different advantages.
44:19
But objectively speaking,
44:21
it is much easier to take risks. And if you were gonna just play it out in an ideal scenario, you would take your risks earlier when you have less to lose, you have less pressure, less stress, less financial obligations.
44:32
It's just a more like game theory optimal way to play. You don't have to play it that way, but it is, I think, sort of objectively speaking, and a a a preferred way to play. But, you know, if you didn't play that way, it's okay. Just still win anyways. So that's the list. That's my unpopular truce. My my not awesome stuff to discuss, but I believe it to be true that I've learned from the pod. And I'll end with
44:55
all of those rules or whatever I described them as can be completely broken, and there's tons of examples of all of them being not true. But -- Yep. -- that's what I believe to be true. So that's my list. Okay. I like it.
45:08
Me give you another idea. Alright. So,
45:11
I was doing do you do, like, gifts, like, company gifts for the holiday or something like that? Do you, like, send out gifts? You don't seem like it. No. That wasn't that wasn't a me thing. Do you are you doing that? Warm,
45:20
tender person who might that that, you know, give give exact my love language, bro. Words of affirmation are.
45:28
Silent nods of approval. Yeah. Yeah.
45:32
A pat on the back is the greatest gift.
45:36
The greatest gift is the lack of criticism
45:39
that I provided you today.
45:41
So I was thinking about it. I was like, oh, you know, and I remember
45:45
at at a, you know, at a previous company I worked at, the, the office manager, she was good at the stuff, and she would get, like, everybody's address, and then she would send these Harry and David gift gift baskets. Have you ever had a Harry and David gift basket? No. What's that? Oh, dude.
46:00
Imagine
46:02
Somebody's at the door. Who could it be? You go to the door?
46:06
Hey. We have this amazing, huge gift basket for you. You take it into your kitchen, you're like, wow. What's what's gonna be in this gift basket, Sam, take a guess. What's in this gift basket?
46:16
Chocolate, I guess. Could be chocolate. Could have been chocolate. It's not chocolate though. What else could it be?
46:22
Like local foods, like bricks of salami and cheese.
46:26
It could be sloppy cheese. There's a little bit of that. There's a little bit of chocolate. There's a little bit of cheese in there.
46:31
Pairs.
46:32
They had these jumbo
46:33
pairs, and they know because pears are the most underrated fruit. They are the official fruit of my first million as far as I'm concerned. I agree. It's huge,
46:40
delicious, pairs were in there. And I was like, what the hell is this? And I was like, what is this giant
46:46
gift that I received? And why does it Why is it so awesome? It's called Lent, Harry and David. Harry and David. Right? So so they they do gift baskets of all kinds, but this one was a a giant pear basket that we got. And I still remember this thing. And I was dude, you came over to my house. I don't care if you're the the cleaner. You're just a guy walking by. I was slinging pairs to you because I had the juiciest pairs that were gonna go bad. They were massive, and I needed to offload these things. And everybody asked, oh, wow. Where'd you get this? I said, my company sent it to me because they love me. And that's how I felt. And so I thought I I always remember this experience. And so then I started digging, I was like, what's with this Harry David thing, by the way? Oh, my man. And they're huge.
47:26
Harry and David
47:27
sold to a company that you know of, one eight hundred Flowers for a hundred and forty two million dollars back in twenty fourteen.
47:34
And they have a couple, you know, main brands of this. Like, Harry and David, which is these gift baskets. They have Wolfherman,
47:41
which is Gourmet English muffins and other foods like that. And they have stockyards, which is, you know, prime, you know, prime meats, basically.
47:50
And Harry David, it's a super seasonal business fall in winters when they get a lot of their orders.
47:55
And,
47:56
they got fifty retail stores that, like, you know, help them fill the stuff. And it got me thinking about Harry David. It got me thinking about one eight hundred flowers. I did a little deep dive. So one eight hundred flowers starts off as a phone number. Forty two years ago. Literally, it was just one eight hundred flowers. And it goes on to build basically, like, a six hundred million dollar plus business.
48:15
They, you know, for a long time, it's just the phone number. Then nineteen ninety five, they they start e commerce because they're like, oh, we need this. And they basically have, like, thousands of locations and fulfillment centers, not all owned by them, but, like, fulfillment partners, somebody who can send flowers to you. And,
48:30
you know, basically these guys are it's like four it's like a bundle of fourteen brands. And let me just give you their their revenue last quarter. So
48:38
Yeah. What's that? Publicly traded? They did four hundred and eighty five million in revenue,
48:43
last quarter. So that that means they're now a,
48:46
What what is that? Five hundred times Well, and that's not even a popular quarter. Probably probably their February revenue, like, trumps, like, the the the deal. The winter's probably their biggest. Well, let's say a billion and a half a year is is is pretty pretty safe to say.
49:00
The gift baskets, which are the Harry and David section, they're doing they did a hundred forty eight million last quarter. That means that's probably, like, a five hundred million dollar a year business.
49:08
Florals was three hundred million.
49:11
And then,
49:12
yeah, basically they have, like, whatever. They have some other stuff. They got Cheryl's cookies. They bought her for forty million. They got, you know,
49:19
personalization mail, which is something I don't know. They bought for two hundred and fifty million. They got Sherry's berries. Know. Sherry's berries. I love Sherry's berries. Yeah. Right? It's great. Poporn factories bought that for thirty million back in the day. So they own all these brands. So I'm like, okay. This is great.
49:33
Now I've also been
49:35
doing this food gifting thing lately because
49:39
I'm like you, I'm not a big gifter. Trying to get better at it inspired by our buddy Ramon, and who is a prolific gifter.
49:46
The best gifter. Some would say. Absolute savage of a gifter.
49:49
So he got me thinking, man, he he really highlighted my gifting deficiency. So I said, alright. I'm a start sending gift, but I I'm not a big plan ahead guy. So
49:58
day of Where do you get a last minute gift that can get to that person's house same day, same hour? Maybe maybe it's eleven PM. I'm trying to squeeze it in before midnight.
50:07
DoorDash and Uber Eats. That's what I've been doing. I will just doordash you food because food is, you know, the universal love language. Yeah. But what are you gonna send me a pizza at eleven AM. That's stupid. I'll send you a pizza and wings. I'll send you
50:21
four slushies. I'll send you boba tea. I'll send you a cinnabon.
50:25
I'll send you bro. I I got options. I got I got a whole, like, menu of my gifting foods that I'll go to because I gotta know and I gotta I gotta know what you like. Right? Like, know you've got that sweet tooth. Right?
50:36
I might hit you with sixteen pints of ice cream. And you'll be like, this is, Sean, this is simply too much ice cream. I'll be like, I know. Because I love you that much. Right? So I'll just pitch you with these kind of these kind of gifts. So
50:48
I think that somebody should build a one eight hundred flowers type of brand because the things I'm gifting, they're not made for this. They're not made to be gifted. Right? The cinnabon is not made to be sent to a friend for their birthday.
50:58
But I think somebody should build, basically,
51:01
birthday
51:01
eats or last minute gifts on DoorDash on I completely agree.
51:07
As a cloud kitchen, I'm just getting stronger as the idea builds.
51:11
As a cloud kitchen, nationwide,
51:14
it is optimized for gifts. So baskets that are nicely, like, put a bow on it.
51:19
Handwritten notes, that's gotta be a part of it. You know, so something that's gonna be able to give you a note or even a little, like, little trinket that shows that this is a card that this is for the occasion,
51:30
and then help me help you. Help me give to somebody else is how is how I feel about this. Now
51:36
cloud kitchen is already good, but if you remember back in the day, we had the idea of not just a cloud kitchen, but a cloud kitchen where you partner with a celebrity. So this is where I need your help. We need our celebrity partner.
51:47
Who is gonna be the face
51:49
of this last minute gift brand? This gourmet gift brand that we're gonna create launch nationwide across Uber Eats. It sounds like a rhetorical question.
51:58
So I have a feeling you have someone in mind.
52:01
Honestly, only person I thought of was Ryan Seacrest, and I don't even know why. I just thought
52:05
I might as well go with the hardest working man in Hollywood. I haven't seen his face in that app. I think he he would like to be in that app. So I'm thinking Ryan Seacrest is a good option. White white women like you, you'd be fine. Universally
52:18
universally not hated.
52:23
Like, a recognizable face.
52:25
But who else could be who else could be the guy or the or the gal? Like, you know, Mariah Carrie. She's seasonal.
52:31
Maybe Mariah's
52:32
maybe Mariah's is is is is maybe she needs to get out of the song game and get into the gift game.
52:38
I I I I don't know, but I do think this is actually brilliant. I've tried to order one I'm the last minute gift guy too, and I'll try to order one eight hundred flowers the the morning of Valentine's Day, and they and oftentimes, they don't let you. You know? Just like, it's too late. If you really loved her, you would have done this three years ago.
52:54
And it's a it's it's super annoying. So I'm totally on board. I I I I I think this is awesome. I think this is this is this is great.
53:04
Can you not do that now? Is there there aren't any good gift basket companies on DoorDash?
53:09
Like, if I open DoorDash right now, let's let's open this. I can't get an edible arrangement. Also a great gift, man. Edible arrangements.
53:15
Wonderful.
53:16
Yeah. Those are good. And I think you can get some of those but I think we're we need a fresh brand. So, like,
53:23
like, you know, they have, like, they have the flower and gift boutique on mine, at least.
53:30
And it's flowers, you know, it's just flowers. Right? Like It's like roses, whole foods. A cookie in a bag. Right?
53:38
You know?
53:39
A bath bomb. Come on. Come on. You think Mariah and Ryan Seacrest are just gonna lose to this?
53:48
No, ma'am. It's gotta be extravagant.
53:51
Yeah. I'm on board. I I, I've experienced the same thing, and I've also studied one eight hundred flowers. One eight hundred flowers is a really interesting company. Because they will tell you all types of insights in their annual report, and they have so much intel because they own so many brands. So I'll give you an example. In one of their reports, they said, succulents
54:08
are growing amongst millennials. And I remember reading about that, like, in two thousand eighteen, and I told a couple people about it, and they started succulent
54:15
delivery businesses geared towards millennials. And they kill it. You know, there's now the the sill. There's another one called, what's another one called?
54:23
Yeah. Millennials,
54:25
millennial,
54:25
you know, succulent stuff. Businesses. Yeah. I don't know. Dude, and they have so much insights. Or another insight that you can get for one eight hundred flowers is they're like, we're trying to what what do they say? They go, we actually don't make a lot of money from flowers, but we make a shitload of money from, like, when people buy vases. So I'm like, why aren't you, like, hating cool shit on this vase and getting people to, like, spend more money on it. You know? Like, why why don't I see, like, a free decala or whoever it is, like, painting on, like, this, like, sick vase and I'll pay you fifty dollars for it. Right. Dude, one eight hundred Flowers is actually a really, really, really good business to go and read their annual reports because they have such interesting insight, and they've been doing it for I don't know how old is it now. It's from the seventies, I think.
55:04
And so
55:05
really interesting company to study. I love that business. I love the gifting business.
55:10
But their market cap sucks. Why is their market cap so bad? Their market cap is six hundred million dollars. Is it really?
55:15
Yeah. It's horrible. They just like plummeted over the past. Well, I guess everything has plummeted, but it's been really bad over the past year.
55:22
That's interesting. I wonder if they think they're getting, like, you know, disrupted by something. Yes. Six hundred million is the market cap. That sounds.
55:29
And the guy who runs, it's really interesting. I think that the guy who invented it, who founded it, I think his name was Jim McCann. And his son now is the CEO. And Jim is like a really interesting guy. I've I've had him on the, I've talked to him on the phone a couple times, really fascinating person, and his son is is the CEO now. So it's almost like a really weird family business. Another one that falls in this category, have you ever studied Omaha stakes
55:51
No.
55:52
So Omaha, do you know what that is? No. But that just sounds, like, exactly what it is So Omaha steaks, it's a mail order business.
56:01
They sell steaks. So if you wanna buy someone, like, two hundred dollars of, like, prime rib and filet mignon chicken and and like bratwurst and shit, you order from there and they send it to you, and it's an awesome gift.
56:11
And I believe it's privately owned. They make many, many, many hundreds I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually north of a billion in revenue,
56:17
and they were one of the very first companies to take advantage of internet marketing. And so right when the internet got popular, you would see Omaha Steak ads everywhere, and they were very, very, very progressive with, like, they're they're figuring out how to market on the internet and they're still really fascinating. And it's a really, really interesting company to study. I think it's privately owned. You've never I'm shocked you haven't heard of Omaha Steaks. But you also didn't know who dolly parton was. So, like Yeah. You're really shocked. Yeah. Exactly.
56:42
But, anyway, look up Omaha Steaks. You know, I I I think they're in, like, the six or seven hundred million dollar a year in sales,
56:49
range. They're invented or founded in like nineteen twenty. They've been around forever, a really fascinating company to study. So they are they, like, in
56:59
are they mostly in stores? Or this is like No. No. No. No. It's one hundred percent online, and you gotta, like, you just have to call them. Or it was like a catalog and you, like, would order steaks.
57:09
The very first thing, it says, the classic gift, a ninety dollar package of steaks.
57:14
That's like Dude, it's a great gift. Neville, my, you know, my best friend, Neville, who's also my neighbor. His mom always is buying him Omaha stakes. And so whenever he gets an order of Omaha stakes, we all go to Awesome. We, like, we grill them. It's an awesome gift. Omaha Steaks is a wonderful gift. I'm shocked you haven't heard of it. No. But I I also feel like this could be done with, like, the right influencer partners,
57:34
like, just do a sort of,
57:36
you know, a slightly different version of this. This this seems like the type of thing that is,
57:42
you know, it's got a pretty good moat probably because they're, like, you know, they probably own the the production or something like that. No. That's their mode is, I would think. Their mode is the fact that, like, it's been around for so long, and so, like, you saw your parents gift it to people, and then you're like,
57:56
like, oh, man. What should I get this guy? Like, oh, like, I guess, like, some fucking Omaha stakes. You know what I mean? It's like sees candy. It's like, why does Warren Buffett like that? He's like, I don't know. Just because, like, that's just, like, the default gift that men give their wives. And, like, people have seen their parents do it for years, and then they grow up doing it. I don't know. You did? Local sees candy here near me. They opened up a nursing home in the store because everybody there is so old. It's an incredible, a genius idea on their part. They're like, hey, actually, well, this is a funeral home in the back. It's,
58:24
you know, there's, like, one in five chance. I have been in the store.
58:30
Dude, C's candy is pretty wack. Like, I I go and eat it. It's shit, but, like, it does seem kinda dead at this point, but, you know, I get a warm up and likes to close like a dating center for him. Like, you know, I don't know what's going on with that. Like, why is everyone ninety in inside C scanner? Is that is that just my local one here? No. It's always like that, but it is like fire. Like, yes, I'm like, just some truffles. You ever had a good truffle or a turtle?
58:51
I'm all about the turtles down. Turdles
58:54
great sack of Turtle is is nothing to to bet and I about. But, yeah, look up Omaha Steaks. Look up one eight hundred Flowers. These are really interesting companies to study because, like, they're also interesting because you think Omaha stakes and you, like, judge them of, of, like, or at least I did. I'm, like, oh, you know, it's just, like, some omaha company. They can't be that sophisticated.
59:12
They they are incredibly sophisticated at least in terms of internet marketing. And so they're really interesting to go and study. Right.
59:19
Okay. Cool. Let's let's let's cap it here. I can by the way, there's a bunch of fun stuff coming. So I gotta say,
59:26
I wanna do the studio tour and breakdown of how we did this, like, studio change and what, you know, what we learned from it, what it cost, all that good stuff.
59:35
I wanna do a plan for next year. We're gonna do our annual awards.
59:39
We're gonna drop the new intro music. We're gonna do all kinds of different stuff And, we're gonna talk about where the pod's going. So I wanna do that soon. And,
59:48
yeah, I think I think in the next The next two weeks, I think we're gonna have some fire podcasts. Yeah. We're gonna have are we gonna do the Millie Awards? We're gonna do the Millie Awards. Yeah. And let's get Andrew Bockets in booked again. So we're gonna do the Millie Awards. And we have, Austin Reef. I'm excited for Austin.
01:00:03
So it's gonna be a good couple weeks.
00:00 01:00:22