00:00
And I'm like, yeah, I could see how this would work. If this is working on secure, married,
00:05
you know, two kids or the third on the way, thirty six year old me, Dude, seventeen year old me would be, like, this app is now my life. And I think that's what's happening. So the the the general trend here is basically that
00:25
Sam,
00:26
notice anything different about me today? You're wearing a collared shirt? Do you know what that's called nowadays, Sam?
00:32
No. It's called Lookmaxing.
00:35
Have you ever heard this term? I've seen a genius CEO use the phrase lookmaxing.
00:41
Yes. Okay. So I wanna talk to you about look thing because
00:45
I saw this app called U Max.
00:48
And so I download it. It
00:51
says are you male or female? I say, okay, male. It says one million
00:57
one million people have done this on Umax.
00:59
Are you ready? And I'm like, yeah, I'm ready. And so then it says, take a picture of your face right now. And I'm gonna score you on how ugly you are. So
01:09
Your boy takes a bed selfie.
01:13
Then
01:13
it's like, hey, you want your score. Pay three ninety nine. And I'm like, gladly, sir, take my money. Apple Pay three ninety nine. And,
01:21
I'm a sixty nine overall, Sam. I just found that out this morning that It's something I've been wondering my whole life really is where am I, and I am a sixty nine overall.
01:30
I am
01:31
better looking than forty nine percent of the people. Which means the majority of people are better looking than me. And then what's interesting about this, so Wait. That math doesn't work out. You're not better. Forty nine percent was there a hundred and ten percent of people?
01:46
No. I'm better than forty nine. Fifty one or better than me.
01:50
Well, why are you a sixty nine then? Shouldn't you be a fifty one percent? No. I don't know. Yeah. That that that doesn't make sense. Yeah. Sixty nine overall. Okay. So I got a sixty nine.
01:58
But my potential
02:00
is in eighty three.
02:02
I'm intrigued. Tell me more. App. And so the app basically then rates me on my jawline,
02:08
masculinity, my grooming, my skin quality, my hair. That's from that one
02:12
selfie of you in bed. It's AI. It's a two two. Do you take a side profile and then you take a front profile? What did they say about your jaw line? You got a good jaw line? Oh, do jaw line sixty nine skin quality sixty eight, masculinity eighty two. Nice. Your boy's a man.
02:26
Yeah.
02:27
You know you're a man when you have to use an app to tell you you are a man.
02:33
So what's amazing about this app? This app,
02:37
I saw it on Twitter
02:39
somebody tweeted our interview with the founder, and,
02:42
he's hanging out on the subreddits. And I don't know if you've seen, but, like, on Reddit,
02:46
these, like, here's if you go to the beauty and grooming category, so, like, there can be a bunch of reds in here. Number three and number five are both
02:56
This, number three is look maxing advice,
02:59
and number five is male grooming with seven hundred forty four thousand members.
03:03
And so the these are three of the top five subreddits. So he's hanging out in these. And, basically, what people do is they would go post them. Grooming? Just pictures of pubes.
03:12
No. It's your your hair, your beard, your face. It's your your your your your that's that's all that. Got it. And so you would post a photo of yourself and he would say, hey,
03:22
give me some advice. How can I look better? Strangers of Reddit. You know, my family, they all just tell me, oh, you're beautiful, honey. Don't worry. At school. I'm too embarrassed to ask, you know, I don't wanna look like a loser. But on Reddit, we're all losers here. It's all good. And so they they post a photo and they say, what can I do better? People give advice. What this guy did was he turned that into an app. He's like, let me sprinkle a little AI on this. Turn this into app. The app does three and a half million downloads.
03:47
He's making six million in ARR on this app right now. Six million ARR run rate. The app costs three ninety nine a week when you unlock your thing. So I think it's, like, one of these, like, you pay to unlock because god. I really wanna know. And then you
03:59
forget to unsubscribe. It's, you know, probably the the reality. But you're supposed to do a daily update
04:04
as you take the steps they recommend. So for example,
04:07
now this part, the first part was me doing it for science. The second part was me being like, well, you know, it's got a point here. So I click in and it's like, hey, you know, your first your he says, your glow up routine. And it says first priority is skin care. Gonna make your skin care better so I click it, and it says easiest way to improve your skin is limit your processed foods, opt for meats and natural produce, work out five times a week, and wash your face with warm water in the morning and evening. That's the easy mode. It says the best mode is you should clean your face in the shower, moisturize after the shower, exfoliate two or three times a week. And it says products for you, and then there's, like, some Wow. Some skincare product. And I went and I immediately was like, oh, let me buy this shit. So I bought this twenty dollar
04:49
thing. And it's not, like, their product. It's, like, just a link to Amazon of, surveys, like, moisturizer after showers, something like that. And I'm like, yeah. I could see how this would work. If this is working on
04:59
secure, married,
05:01
you know, two kids or the third on the way, thirty six year old me, Dude, seventeen year old me would be like, this app is now my life. And I think that's what's happening. So the the the general trend here is basically that
05:14
Guys who are, you know, guys, it's, like, acceptable to be, like, how do I,
05:20
how do I look better? And normally, the answer was just we go to the gym. That was, like, the societal norm was you can become a jim bro and you're not seen as doing anything weird or lame or whatever. It's, like, acceptable.
05:31
And now guys are like, cool. But what about from the neck up? What am I gonna do about that?
05:36
And,
05:37
honestly, Sam, this is my greatest fear come true. And I the greatest fear is,
05:42
for for years, decades,
05:44
centuries and millennia,
05:45
men have had a truce.
05:47
And the truth is this.
05:49
Beauty's all relative. And if you don't try, I won't try.
05:53
And while women had to put on makeup and wear heels and do lip fillers, and then they it became a beauty contest, and they all had to continue to keep up with whatever the norms were guys were like, look, I'm not doing shit to my face. So, yeah. Me neither, bro. I'm not doing nothing. It is what it is. I'm I take it or leave it
06:09
as is condition.
06:11
And now as soon as people really start doing this,
06:14
It's gonna become an arms race. Everybody's gonna have to do it. Do you do anything for your face? Nothing. Dude, I have no no moisture. No moisturizer. No skincare routine.
06:23
I've never applied a cream in my life. I'm not even really sure what you would do if you put it on. Like, what are what are you supposed to do? I have no idea. Yeah. I've never done it either, but since I married a black woman, I now have so tons of, like, lotions and all this crap, like, in my house. And I'm slowly starting to, like, learn a little bit about it. You're a muggle. That stuff that's for wizards. It doesn't it doesn't work. No. I've been my eyes have been opened to the Korean skin care team. I'm like, slowly understanding what all this stuff means that I wanna use it, but I've never I've never really gotten into it until recently where I started seeing some wrinkles. And I'm like, Alright. I think I can learn now. And the pro the problem is is that, like, when you see issues, like, you know, you should have done something, like, five years ago. Right. But this is amazing that this guy's doing. It's one guy. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how many other people, but, yeah, one guy basically saw the trend on Reddit and decided to productize what he saw people were doing on Reddit, which I think is just a great, like, you know, one one common way to do a business is that is you you observe an organic trend And you say, cool. Could I use tech to make this more efficient and to actually, like, ramp this up? When did he launch it? I think it's pretty new, dude. This is, like, It's not that not that old. I don't know exactly when you launched it, but it looks pretty pretty fresh. It's also such a simple app. Like, when you download this,
07:38
You know that this was built by, like,
07:40
a growth person?
07:41
Not a skin care person. Not a engineers engineer. This is built by somebody who was, like, trying to solve a problem and was, like, cool. Big blue buttons. One button per screen can't get lost.
07:52
Alright. I'm gonna take take a picture. I'll give you a number. Alright? And then I'm gonna tell you how to make the number go I mean, and I'm also gonna give you your potential number, which is higher, and I'm gonna sell you a product to fill that gap. And, like, they also have, like, a chat GPT. So it's, like, your coach. So it's, like, you know, you can go on here and be like, how do I
08:11
lose more body fat. And then it just it you don't even type the question. You just select from one of the preset questions, and then it types out some advice for you from there. Then you can ask more questions, and it's basically like a custom, you know, chat GPT type of interface,
08:24
for you from there. And the idea is that this is, like, an overall trend. So there's some more more thoughts on it, but I don't stop there. Hey, real quick. As you know, we're big on ideas here. We love bringing new ideas, business ideas, brainstorming ideas for the podcast. Well, a lot of people ask, what do you do with all those ideas? Can we go find them? Is there a list somewhere, the great people at HubSpot have put together a business ideas database. It's totally free. If you just click the link in the description below, you can go download a collection of over fifty plus business ideas that are from the archive listed out for you curated.
08:54
And so, what are you waiting for? Go download it. It's free. Check it out. It's in the description below. Alright. Back to the show. People shared this in my, work Slack, and they were, like, you know, trying to get us to use it. And I was, like, This is like asking me to step on the scale a few days after Thanksgiving. Like, I'm just not gonna happen. Ignorance ignorance is bliss. I don't wanna know I don't wanna know the the reality.
09:14
But this is awesome. I guess I'll I guess I'll use it. Are you paying three ninety nine? Oh, yeah. I'm paying three ninety nine. Ozzy, I would've been happy to go to seven ninety nine. I'm just saying that out loud. So I asked a friend. I said, I'll I said, under the under an anonymity, I said, he I know I was, like, I know he knows about this kind of the trend. The space he's younger. He's more into TikTok and stuff like that. I was, like, Give me the your your honest reaction. What are your thoughts on this? And he said,
09:38
he said, well, to most older guys, this movement just seems completely bewildering. Like, what are what are what are young guys doing nowadays? But it makes sense. He goes
09:47
he goes, it's a response to men generally being rejected and cast aside. We can now take ownership and pride in how we look. Can you max out your natural genetics and ultimately become a more desirable person?
09:58
Know, societally, men caring about their looks has been viewed negatively, narcissistically
10:02
seen as lame,
10:03
or even gay, but now the view of the the the narrative is shifting where they just frustrated and they wanna be able to, you know, to be their most attractive self I can see this trend continue to grow. It's already big in Korea with the Korean beauty trend. Basically, like, in Korea, I think men's beauty products are, like, you know, on par or close to on par with with women's beauty products.
10:23
And he also pointed out, like, a interesting thing, which is that I don't know if you're not a big sports guy, but two of the most famous college athletes, not named Caitlyn Clark.
10:33
The two two most famous male male college athletes,
10:36
are there is this guy named Caleb Williams. He's the the quarterback at USC. So like imagine, like, the most alpha male position in the country. You are the quarterback
10:46
of USC, you know, the in LA, you're the, you know, you're the guy. And he's this big athletic guy, but he would paint his nails.
10:54
And, and he would get he got criticized for it. And people were like, oh, man, I don't I don't wanna, like, because he's in the draft right now, but I don't want my team drafting a quarterback who cares about stuff. And I'm like, I want a tough guy. And people and other people are like, what are you talking about? Why are you overreacting? The guy pays his nails so what? And then the there's a a guard at at Duke. So the, you know, Duke's probably the number one basketball program in the country. And this guy, Jared McCain, built a huge following on TikTok.
11:19
By doing goofy TikTok dances where he's laughing and happy.
11:23
Like, even if they would lose a game, you know, a day later, he would still do this. And he paints his nails. And, like, the opposing teams would would harass him in the crowd every every game, calling him all sorts of names. But he was like, dude, I'm just doing me. I'm having fun. He's like, oh, yeah. It's dishes thing. I did it once. I had a good game, so I decided to keep doing it. And he's like, I don't know. I like it. It's fun. What's the big deal? And at first, he got a lot of negative backlash, but then over time over the course of the year on TikTok, this guy had mass like one or two million TikTok followers. I think he was one of the highest paid because, you know, college athletes can get paid now. So he's one of the highest paid NIL athletes because he was getting sponsorships from beauty companies. Like, the nail polish companies are sponsoring him know, paying this guy, you know, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars just opposed to simple ten second TikTok. And so in the end, he had the last laugh, and and he, you know, someone like me, I became a huge fan of this guy just because he was so unafraid to be himself. And, I that was, you know, obviously a very that's a very attractive trait in general. Dude, this is amazing. By the way, I when I was in my, like, boxing phase, my boxing instructor who was, like, a tough guy and would kick my ass all the time, he wore nail polish all the time.
12:28
And I was like, why are you doing that? And he was twenty five? And he was like, it's a thing. It it's cool. It's what people do. And I was amazed by that. You know, I I remember as kid, you would paint, like, a fingernail black as a punk rocker. But now it's, like, it's mainstream. I think I think it's cool. By the way, I just downloaded U Max and I just took my pictures. I just clicked the button that says, give me the results.
12:50
Oh. Yeah.
12:51
I know. I know. I didn't even wanna do this. It's not real. This isn't real. This isn't real. This it's not real. Your jaw line's fantastic. I could tell you that right now. And eighty nine oh my god.
13:03
You are maxed, sir. Wait. What? My my masculinity is in ninety three. My skin quality
13:07
no.
13:11
Just good lighting. It gave me a ninety four. My skin quality is not that good. And I'm frankly, I should be in the You're doing that thing that women do where you're like, no. No. I this little thing I bought oh, no. This was on sale at Target. You know, you're you're immediately going into that mode. That's hilarious. It said life. Classic hot guy thing to do. I I
13:30
dude, if I'm hot, I mean, that's just the the reality. Overall, eighty nine. P potential is ninety five.
13:38
Masculinity, ninety three jaw line, ninety cheekbones, eighty seven. I got some work to do.
13:44
What are you gonna do? Shave them? Yeah. What do you do? I I don't know with your eyebrows. I guess get them plucked. I don't know. This is a this is a good app. I'm gonna have to take
13:53
pictures without good lighting and actually get a a realistic rating.
13:57
I just paid my three ninety nine. I'm into it. Kudos to this guy. I have a few, spin off business ideas for this. So I think that,
14:05
I don't know if you've seen, but, you know, what med spas are? These things are booming. No. What's a med spa? Med spas are absolutely booming. If you don't know about them, we should do a separate segment altogether about them. But, basically, it's like microblading
14:17
you know, you get your Botox, you get your lip filler. I don't know what what doesn't happen there, but stuff like that. Basically, the optional aesthetic
14:24
glow up type of stuff that you could do. That's beyond manicure pedicure and, like, you know, hair blow dryer or whatever. Has your wife, by the way, Sean, has your wife ever said she wants to get Botox. And if she has, what has your reaction been?
14:36
She has said it.
14:38
But she's like, she's like, oh, yeah. I wanna do it someday. And I'm just float she's like, floats it out. There's a little trial balloon just to see how it feels. I feel. And,
14:45
and I'm like, what? No. You don't need again, I just go into that mode. And I'm but, like, genuinely, like, I, you know, I have always told her. I I prefer her, like, completely without makeup. I think she looks way better that way. I've been telling her that for, like, you know, a decade, but she's she's like, I'm not doing it for you. You idiot. I know you like me. Like, she's like, this has nothing to do with you. Every man
15:04
and every man has had that same response. My wife will say it too. And I go, no. Just age normally. You look great. Just be normal. And so I think every man has said the exact same thing about women in Botox. It's very funny. They get this Botox, and I think most every man that I've spoke to, they're like, I don't give a shit. Just do just age. Also, it goes like, it's not even just like, oh, you're fine without it. It's like, actually,
15:27
don't get Simon Cowell face. Like, have you seen Simon Cowell? Yes. They all look like cats, like Shashar cats. See, it's weird, man. They all look the same. It's, like, they they go to the Mad of Tucson factory. And at some point, it's like, it look you look fine. You look good. Oh, you look better. Oh my god. You look, like, non human, and then they never recover from them. So there's there's some stuff there that's, like, a little scary to They all look like the ladies on the desperate housewives or whatever it's called, like, the housewife reality shows. I I can't I don't like that look. And I think most men do not like that look. So that's a PSA for the women listening. And what was the okay. Med spas, that's cool. Okay. I think influencer content on this niche is gonna become really big. So I think that anytime you have a new generation, anytime there's a learning curve and there's, like, a trust gap, and there's, you know, it's a it's a new norm that's being established.
16:14
You need your you need your shepherds that are gonna guide you. You need your sherpas that'll take you up the mountain. And so I think that,
16:20
anybody who goes all in on this, like, in terms of their social content. You know, there's gonna be some, you know, twenty one year old dude who all the, you know, fifteen to nineteen year old dudes look up or even actually fifteen to twenty four year old dudes look up to because he's gonna show his before and after. And I think that there's gonna be room for and I'm sure this I'm just and I don't I don't even open up Instagram, so I'm probably out of the loop on this. But,
16:43
I think there's gonna be some really big influencers I can go into this space because they're gonna hold the keys. Whatever products they recommend, whatever procedures they recommend, whatever brands they recommend, that's where the masses are gonna go because you're in a low trust environment. You don't know anything. So you're gonna need that. So I think that's an opportunity here.
17:01
More AI driven app. So I think I think another person could create u max right now and get the same exact result. I agree. I think this app can be cloned in seven days. And I think you could just blitz the marketing on it, and you will also have a six million ARR app. That's the unfortunate side of it.
17:16
I think that male nail polish and male, like makeup brands, you know, it's obviously coming. But even, like, as a gateway, I think that somebody could recreate old spice.
17:24
So, like, what's the deodorant for guys who care about their, like, guys who are, like, in gym culture and maybe now even in kinda, like, hair and grooming culture.
17:35
Who is speaking to them? Like, I don't think Procter and Gamble knows how to speak to them. I don't think they have the right influencer strategy. I don't think they have the right brand and content strategy. And I think somebody could do what native deodorant did for, like,
17:47
you know, the natural movement and, you know, native basically built the product that would ride on the wave of natural chemical free aluminum free products.
17:56
And that was where Native got built. I think somebody can create the axe or old spice of
18:01
today. Right now and get bought by Procter and Gamble or Unilever, whoever for, you know, two hundred million dollars, three hundred million dollars if you you just build a great brand. This is insane in in Hampton.
18:12
We have this company that's called For Them. And their name is Kylo, and they have a company that makes clothing that are like unisex,
18:20
and they're killing it. And if you would have told me that this company was gonna take off five years ago, I would have been like you're insane. They are killing it, and they are kinda pouncing on this exact same niche of men who are andro androgynous. You know what I'm saying? Like, this
18:35
Timothy Shallemagne.
18:37
My wife said she likes Timothy Shallemagne, and I'm like, what?
18:41
Really? Timothy Shallemagne, that guy. Like, it's these feminine men
18:45
are
18:46
kinda having their moment at the at the moment, which I guess they always have. Right? Like, Mick Jagger is basically that Prince Prince is that. You know, Devin and Men have always kinda killed it in the game, but
18:58
this brand is one of those brands that I didn't think would be,
19:01
a thing, and it is. And so I'm on board with what you're saying. So I'm look maxing now. Alright? I mean, I'm in I'm in on the train. I'm gonna ride this. I'm gonna relate to my fellow,
19:10
you know, seventeen year olds, and,
19:12
and I'm gonna see what happens. This is great. Dude. Good. Fine. I can't believe this U Max thing is as because it is. I had coworker share it with me today. You brought it up. It must be, like, going everywhere then. Well, someone did an interview with the founder and did a good, like, Twitter summary of it. So I think it was just like a tweet that, like, a lot of people saw today. God bless them. God bless America. God bless capitalism. Right? I would have thought that this was, like, some Chinese app, because wasn't there a Chinese app recently that was, like, here's what you
19:38
would look like if you were better looking?
19:39
Yeah. Well, yeah. I thought it would when I first downloaded, I thought it was gonna be, like, face was gonna be you take a picture, it makes your picture look better. This is like, no. No. No. The real face. We're gonna try to make your real face look better. By the way, I we should shout out the person who who did it. A AT ATPie, I think, is that eightyPie? I don't know how you say the the name of the person who did the podcast interview, but shout out to them. Those good good fine, good interview. By the way, the tagline for this app is become hot. It just says u max dash become hot. This is, these guys are just
20:09
digging right at every insecurity we have. I love it. Alright. Let me tell you about a a a trend that's happening as well. So this will be like the trends episode. U Max is happening right now. I wanna tell you about a trend that's happening as we speak. Before we get to the trend and and this is recent. Some news just happened. But before we get to that trend, I need to tell you the background.
20:27
So have you heard of this company called DuPont? It's a large chemical company. So in the nineteen forties, they were tasked by the government of coming up with a sealant for atomic bombs. So, basically, atomic bombs needed some type of, like, sealant for gaskets. Gaskets are the parts that put two pipes together so nothing leaks. Talk about a job. You don't wanna fuck up. Yeah. A job, you do not wanna fuck up. In a job that requires a chemical that is very, very, very, very strong. The chemical they eventually created. It was one it's one of the strongest bonds in chemistry. It's a very strong chemical. And this chemical, it's resistant to heat, and it's super strong.
21:02
And so the world the war ended, and they were like, we have this great chemical. What do we do with it? And they start testing new things with it, and they go, we got a great idea. Let's make a pan out of this. If we make a pan out of this, nothing will stick to the pan, even if it's burnt food. And so they run all these commercials. They go, we got this new thing called Teflon. They trademark it. And they go, this chemical, you can burn food on this pan, and you could still just wipe it off. It's the easiest to clean thing. And it takes off this chemical. We're gonna call it Teflon,
21:30
but it's a it's a long chemical name, but it takes off. And they trademark it and they make it a huge thing, and it's and it's a massive hit starting in the forties all the way up until today. It's a big hit. Well, what they noticed was that there's this subset of chemicals that when you make Teflon called PFAS, and PFAS is basically a broad term that describes, like, nine thousand different chemicals that are kinda created when you create Teflon.
21:53
But what they noticed
21:54
is that some of their workers working on the line were getting sick. And so they go, we should probably, like, look into this and test a little bit. So they started giving it to rats, and the rats started getting enlarged kidneys,
22:06
which is a bad sign. Then they go, well, Fuck. Let's give this to monkeys and see what happens with these monkeys. It killed the monkeys. And then eventually after
22:15
twenty years of making this chemical, we're getting to the seventies now And some of the ladies that are working on this on this in this factory, they're having kids that are be being born with weird defects. Like, some kids were born with one nostril,
22:29
or, like, they had eye issues. Like, it was a massive problem, and they tested these kids, and they found that they had pfas
22:36
in their spines. And so it was, like, being passed down from mother to son or mother to to child. And they're like, alright. This is really weird now. This is actually becoming a big deal. For some reason, the FDA doesn't call them out on it. They're still able to produce this. Now we know Teflon is incredibly popular and non stick pans are are are incredibly pop popular, but here's the problem with this chemical because it is made for atomic bombs essentially.
23:00
It lasts forever. This chemical doesn't get broken down. And now we're calling them forever chemicals. Instead of PAPS, a lot of times in the media, they'll just call it a forever chemical.
23:10
And what they're noticing now is that basically one hundred percent of American of Americans have PFAS in their bodies because it gets in our water. And so it's in all the water in America. Not only is it in all of,
23:24
our water, it's in everything else. So for example, all your cookware, your non stick pans, that's an easy one. However, It's in all of your, it's in a lot of your clothes clothing. So any clothing that kinda feels like plastic, like a,
23:36
like, a,
23:38
rain jacket or, like, sports pants or, like, workout shirts, that has pee fast in them. And it gets even worse. It's actually in all of your food packaging. And so
23:47
in order to, for your pizza box, in order for the grease not to seek through and go through the cardboard, it has
23:53
This can of soda, I believe, has pee fast in it because it helps make it a little bit more resistant to liquids.
23:59
Well,
24:00
this has been a big deal. And so recently, I think last year DuPont lost a billion dollar,
24:06
class action lawsuit where it says that they basically can't be doing what they're doing. They have to they can't put this in people's water anymore because they were just dumping it in water or dumping it in the environment, and it was getting in our water because the forever chemicals don't go away. Well, last week, or two weeks ago, I believe, the EPA, which is the Environmental Protection Agency, basically just said, that this is a big deal, and that they're banning a lot of these companies. So DuPont, Gore, and a few other companies, 3M,
24:32
from putting this into water, and that they're gonna demand that
24:36
local
24:37
water companies, you know, the your city water is gonna have to start testing for this and getting this out of the water somehow. And so that was, like, a landmark case. And so in my opinion,
24:48
this is a trend that's happening right now. And I think that amongst my hippie friends. Do you have any hippie friends who refuse to use non stick pans?
24:56
Yes. And I never understood it until now. I never understood it either. They just said it's bad. And if you look at your non stick pans, what you're gonna notice is that there's chips in it. There's like little chips from where you, like, put your fork or a knife on it and chipped that little piece of teflon and it, like, went into your food, you're basically consuming this stuff, but it's in plastic water bottles. It's into everything. And you actually hung out with Joe Gevia recently, the founder of Airbnb, and he said that he only drinks a certain type of water. And I looked up that water company. What was it called? Aquapana. Aquapana was one of the few water companies that did not they did not detect PFAS in the water.
25:31
And the implications of this are quite big. So have you heard about men having, like, really low sperm counts right now and that's impacting fertility? Well, one of the hypothesis is is that if your mother consumed this stuff, you
25:43
the studies have shown that the men are likely to have lower sperm counts later in life. And so there's all these implications where people are getting cancer right now at super high rates, and there's rumblings that maybe this is called from PFAS.
25:55
And so the reason I'm bringing this out, obviously, this is a big deal and it freaked me out as a consumer because
26:00
By the way, the takeaway of this is basically you can't avoid it in your screen. That's basically Oh, god.
26:07
That's kind of the I mean, it's in everything. It's floss. It's in everything. And once it's there, it's there. And so our generation might just be screwed. But the reason why this interests me is there's a common theme of hippie
26:20
or, like, French people being interested in something, and it becoming mainstream and popular in the next ten, fifteen years. Pipies are just innovators. They're just They really are innovators. Yeah. Like, birkenstocks are cool now. I mean, like, they they they start stuff early.
26:34
My opinion
26:36
is right now is a wonderful time to get into this business. And I was googling
26:41
which products
26:42
are
26:43
P Fast free.
26:44
I couldn't find a decent website. There's one website called mama vation dot com. This lady's been blogging about this since two thousand and nine. And she does, like, crazy tests on, like, different products. So it'll be, like, which ziplock bags are PFS free? And she basically does all this analysis where she sends these plastic bags to the lab, and then her conclusion is none.
27:07
Non rp pass free. I don't have any good recommendations for this bottom line. Shout out to her. How how long has she been doing this? Two thousand and nine. This is amazing. And She has a rabid fan base. Forever chemicals in contact lenses. Damn it. It's in everything. It's in everything. And she'll and then she'll do, like, bottled water and she'll, like, measure she sends us off to a lab and she, like, measures all the bottled water and she'll say, these are this is the order of least likely to have PFAS, or she'll do a variety of pro products like jackets or clothing, things like that.
27:38
And in my opinion,
27:40
The same way that cold plunge is popular right now, the same way that, I don't know, whatever trends are popular
27:48
I think P Fast free
27:50
or forever chemical free products are gonna absolutely take off and they're going to be a thing. In a in a in a few years, we're gonna see do you remember, Thrive Market. Thrive Market was like an online marketplace for, like, organic food. We're gonna see Thrive Market
28:04
for forever chemical free products.
28:07
I think this is going to be a very popular thing because all of the brands that you and I probably use are are really, really heavy in this. So for example, like,
28:16
you know, ten thousand shorts, have you heard of that brand? Ten thousand? No.
28:20
It's just like an Instagram brand of of workout shorts. That's basically
28:24
what this pro what their product is is, like, this, like, plastic liner that are in your shorts.
28:29
They're in everything. They're in everything. Not to call it ten thousand, but they're in everything. It's in your food packaging, everything. And so the EPA actually just announced that food packaging starting, I think, next year, can no longer have this. So everything that you order from DoorDash, your Chinese,
28:44
food cartons, everything This has that shit in it, but starting twenty five, it's supposed to not have any of that crap in it. Of course, there's a huge issue here, which is The FDA has kinda, like, sat on this for, like, fifty years, and
28:58
the damage kind of has been done. And there's new chemicals that you can kinda get around the stuff that are probably just as bad for you. But I still think that this is actually a turning point to make this trend mainstream. We've talked about inflections on this podcast.
29:12
Now is what I call a regulatory inflection just like when COVID happened, you could do online therapy and you saw better health and a bunch of other businesses like that take off. This is a a thing that's gonna actually get quite popular the next five and ten years. Wow. This is,
29:26
this is wild, dude. It's pricing.
29:31
Not only was this a good segment.
29:33
You might have saved my life and many people's lives by bringing this. What a story.
29:38
I did not I had heard a few fast because I tried to buy a,
29:41
like, a kid's bed. And I was like, how come check out's not working? I guess at first, I was like, why is this not, like, interesting. It's like, oh, I contacted help. It's like, oh, you're in you're in California.
29:50
We can't ship PFAS,
29:54
like, anything that contains PFAS. To California.
29:57
And I was like, oh, god. How annoying?
29:59
What is that? What do you mean? We can't take it. You can't ship it to California. I didn't realize What I was, when I was angry at, I should've been happy about. And why are these in, you know, I guess why are these in beds? Why why do beds need these? Why do I try sweeping these forever chemicals? Most of the paint you have in your home have it as well. And so it's like a it's a sealant is what it is. We need to clip this because I think in in two, three years, it's gonna be We're gonna see that look I'm looking at these categories. Like,
30:24
so for example, she she's testing, you know, contact lenses make up dental floss toilet paper,
30:30
tampons,
30:31
wrappers,
30:33
oils,
30:34
pans, active wear, all these different categories, you know, that's just like a a a minefield of opportunity to go through and build P Fast free, you know, alternatives.
30:44
And popularize the story. The story that you told at the beginning is the story that needs to be told more. Right? Like, it's one thing to say, has p fast. It's another thing to say. Do you know what that is? You know how bad this is? Do you want your kid to be born with this with one nostril?
30:57
How many nostrils do you want your kid to have? Right? Like, that's all, somebody needs to say, and If you tell that story well, that's gonna be incredibly powerful. Well, this is why when I read this, I was like, obviously, this is bad, but the bray the business side of my brain was like, This is advertising. It's a great goal.
31:13
Yeah. Like, I'm, like,
31:15
an age back guy during a heat wave. I'm, like, this is this is
31:19
This is cool. Is that our version of kid in a candy store? Yeah. I'm looking at HVAC operator.
31:24
Yeah.
31:27
Like, it's it was gold when I read this stuff. And the reason being is forever chemicals,
31:33
awesome branding. They're already branding it for us. That's a great time. I feel like that's almost sounds like
31:38
I don't know. There's, like, a slight positive twist. Is that good? It'll last forever. Are forever. Oh, great. You know, like, kinda want it to be a little more dangerous.
31:47
Right? Like, a little more off putting.
31:49
Well, I just think that, So there's a lot of research, but I think a lot of a lot of people actually, when I was reading the research, there's some debate over it. And I don't know why there's too much debate over it. I wasn't able to, like, read all the research but there's some debate as to how dangerous they are and in which setting.
32:04
But I still think you can
32:07
this sounds manipulative, but you can use fear to be like, just don't have any of it. And so, for example,
32:13
I remember I was pretty nervous about this ship. And so I was looking just for cotton only clothing. So clothing that is just plain cotton. But you look at which what your clothing is, like lululemon. I mean, it all has,
32:26
P Fast in it. And so it's been quite challenging. And if you Google
32:29
P Fast free products,
32:31
you're basically just gonna come across a bunch of subreddits. And so it's still quite
32:36
niche and grassrootsy.
32:38
There's not like a a good website that refers you to different products. There's just mama vation website, but, like, it's still kind of a messy website and kind of confusing and hard to read. They're not just telling me what to buy and how to live my life. They're kinda telling the science behind it a little bit. But I think that there's gonna be a lot of interesting brands that pop up on this trend. I know Patagonia is doing it right now. They've said that ninety five percent of their clothing is PSA free or PaaS free. I know that I Kia has been on this since two thousand and nine, and they've tried to say that their their furniture doesn't have it. And a lot of people are committed to not having it by two thousand twenty five.
33:13
But
33:14
very interesting movement, I think. Alright. I got another trend for you.
33:19
So this is a cool story. And I would say this is an example of niches and riches, which is a phrase we've said many times. And I if there's anything more niche than this,
33:29
I'd love to hear it. So here's the story.
33:32
There's a guy named Josh, and Josh Dunning. He his wife is a high school teacher.
33:38
And when he's talking to her and he goes, maybe, he picks her from school, He notices kids are doing something outrageous in schools,
33:45
which is that they're coming into schools, and they are just blasting each other with water guns.
33:50
He's like, what is going on? She's like, oh my god. I know. These kids are obsessed with this game.
33:56
I said, what's the game? The game I don't know if you ever played this one. You were in school, but it's it's the game ASSAS sense.
34:01
And the game of SAS is the way it works really simply is you can place one on one or, like, free for all or teams or whatever. But, basically,
34:08
One person is the target,
34:11
and other people have to find them, and you have to basically get the target first. So you wanna shoot you wanna shoot the target with the water gun first. And then after you've got them, you get points because you were the assassin who not who got them, and then the the target moves. And so
34:25
First of all, that that sounds awesome. I wish I could have played that game. That sounds great. I'd I'd be making a game right now. This is allowed. Right?
34:32
Water guns?
34:33
You imagine the mess. This is ridiculous, but somehow, you know, rather than being annoyed, he sees opportunity.
34:40
And so he goes, How are they playing this game? Like, how do you know who's it? And they're like, oh, we have this sheet, this paper, and then we have to, like, keep track of this, keep track of the points. He's like, So he goes home and he builds an app, and he builds an app called splashing.
34:53
And the splashing app is,
34:56
just a way to, like, run your assassins game.
34:59
And so he messes his I don't know how Ben found this guy, but he's messaging Ben.
35:04
And he starts explaining. He's like, yeah, I built this app And I built I just turned the game into
35:10
something that would just, like, keep track of this. Like, replace pen and paper for this. He's like, it's good because he keep track of the points, and it tells you who's it, and then all this stuff. It's like a very simple app. And super, super niche. So he would not think this is how somebody gets wealthy. So he starts texting, banned his revenue numbers.
35:25
And he's like,
35:26
you know, week one, pretty small, week two. And he's, like, week three is, like, forty k. What? I was like, wow. You made forty thousand dollars on this thing? Next week. Like, how's it how's it going? Did you keep the four did you stay at forty k or did it kinda fizzed out? He goes, yeah, that ninety three k.
35:40
We're like, what?
35:41
Hundred sixty seven thousand the next week. This week, two hundred fifty thousand. He is just, like, week over week. It's this thing has gone viral.
35:49
And so he's getting five thousand sign ups per day right now.
35:53
And so in about four in a four week span, they basically went from no revenue to two hundred fifty thousand dollars a month in revenue on this. It's called splashing.
36:02
Splashing. Let me let me show you that. But you can go to their TikTok. Every TikTok they post, they post three or four times a day. Each one gets, you know, ten thousand views or so.
36:10
And then people are posting this. And it's also inherently viral. So not only do they do well with TikTok organic, but, like, This has something that that Michael Birch, one of my mentors taught me was was playground playground virality,
36:22
which is,
36:23
when be when Bebo went viral, I asked Michael did it grow? Because it had playground virality means, like, literally on a school playground, one kid would be talking about it and all the other kids who were out of the loop had to go home and figure out what the heck this thing was.
36:36
And, similarly, like, if one group of people are playing splashing in your your school, you're going to have to go get the app to, like, play or you're left out. And so this thing goes super viral on high school and college campuses right now. And,
36:51
and their content is really good because they'll start with someone running after somebody the video starts. First three seconds, somebody's running after somebody else spraying them with water. And the other person's like, oh, no. And then they're, like, laughing, and it's, like, What app is this? What game are they playing? Is the is the hook? It says if you've seen random people running around water guns, splashing each other at the population of someone splashing someone in a car, someone diving under the bleachers, somebody, like, run jumping through a window.
37:16
The trick is to have these videos that, like, from a marketing perspective. You watch these. And in the first three seconds, it shows somebody chasing somebody else and splashing them with water, and it says, what game are they playing? And then it says, if you've seen people all over your feed who are, you know, spraying each other with water. And it's just a compilation of crazy. People diving through windows, being sprayed with water. It says they're playing a game called
37:38
splashing. And, the way it works is you're assigned a target. You see them on a map. Somebody's targeting you and then blah blah blah. And so that's that's the game. And, pretty amazing to see this thing going viral. And, like, this also falls into a category of apps that is
37:54
not sustainable necessarily
37:55
But who cares? But who the hell cares? Yeah. It's a summer fling. And it's a great summer fling.
38:01
Dude,
38:02
you we're kinda glossed over the fact that this guy just messaged Ben, and he just Ben's just like, what are your sales? Tell me your revenue, and he tells them every week. Did that that happens to Ben, like, ten times a day.
38:16
It's like in parks and rec where they find out that, one of the one of the main characters is a nurse and they start sending her dick pics to, like, diagnose so they can get diagnosed with an STD.
38:25
And she's just like, dude, my my inbox is just full of, like, men's penises to ask if they have herpes.
38:32
I guess that's just Ben's inbox. It's just all these guys said Yeah. Because he's useful, dude. Like, you people tell him what's going on. And then he's like, oh, you should talk to this person. They will solve that one problem you're having. And then they're like, wow. Love this guy. And then he does it again. And, like, you know, because I'll be like, hey,
38:48
like, two people that don't know each other that we know are talking. I'm like, oh, wow. How'd they meet? He's like, oh, yeah. I introduced them. I'm like, how did you even think to introduce them? He's like, well, every week, he tells me, like, how it's going. And then he said he was having this problem. And so I told him about this other guy who solves that specific niche problem. And now it's, like, you know, working out great. And I was like, oh, you're, like, a router. He's, like, a, like, a switchboard operator
39:08
who's able to just, like, once he knows what you need, he knows what somebody else has to offer. He makes connections, and he asks for nothing in return, and that, like, in a works out. Have you seen a boardwalk empire? The show? No. So the main character amongst other things, he's basically a a a mafia guy. He's in the mob, and he connect like al capone
39:25
with this one distiller who can make al capone's whiskey or whatever. And whenever he does that, He goes, alright. Where's my cut? And he that's how he makes a living and gets rich off that by just making connections, or he'll introduce al capone to a politician who's gonna help hide his whatever. That's what Ben needs to do. Ben needs we need to start we need to change because in Silicon Valley, people make these introductions, and they don't ask for anything.
39:49
Then should ask for something. He should get he goes, where's my points? He just needs to start asking for points. That's No. No. That ruins it. That's why guys like you and me don't don't have what he has. He just he's just happy to be useful. Of and then value just comes back. Dude, there's a there is a business karma. Value does come back. You know, a few of these people will be like, hey. Let me cut you a check. Or,
40:09
hey, if there's more like that, I'm happy to, like, incentivize you to to give me more like that. He's like, okay. Sure. I didn't ask for it, but people come to him with that because they're like, give me more of where that came from. And so he's created a lot of value. And I think that in general,
40:23
You wanna be, like, ultra free or ultra premium. So it's basically, like, don't make money on every transaction. Don't be a gatekeeper
40:30
who stands in the way of of the traffic flowing.
40:33
And it's like, not let ninety nine percent of the cars go through completely free. But then on the one where, you know, there's a bigger opportunity or something like that, we get to invest or we get to be a part of it in some way. And, it pays off for the the ninety nine free things that he did. And I think he's got the right method. How old is this guy Josh Dunning?
40:52
I just looked him up. It looks like a young a really young guy. I mean, that's pretty impressive. These,
40:57
Basically, kids like coming up with these things that are making very, very meaningful traction as one or two people operations Well, it's also the magic of software. Right? Like, software is so different than a services agency or an e commerce per day. We have a physical product. Right? Like, these software things. They build it once. It runs forever.
41:16
You know, they can have three mil this umax guy, three and a half million customers can use his thing. This guy's signing up five thousand people a day because software scales, software is magic. That's not the magical part. The magical part, I think, is the psychology behind it. And I think you don't we have a friend Nikita who frankly, I don't know what's reality versus the story,
41:35
but, like, there's all these people who claims are coming to him for advice on how to make my app viral. And he, like, says, like, he he doesn't say it, but the the story that I kinda glean from is, like, beep, boop, boop, you just do this, this, this, this, you change this thing to this thing, that's to change this metric to this thing, it boop, done. Like, where's my money?
41:53
And
41:54
I don't know if that's the reality, but he's, like, he's, like, hey, look, three of the apps that I advise are now in the top one hundred of most downloaded apps in the in in Apple Store. And
42:04
it just, like, is amazing how there's
42:07
a little bit of a pattern. And I don't entirely understand the patterns because I'm not just describing expertise. Right?
42:13
Yeah. But it just seems like,
42:16
more than ever before it's becoming like a playbook.
42:19
And it just it is ridiculous how, like, I do think that you could take some of these, the, these, this knowledge and apply to five or ten other things, and it works almost as well. Hey. I wanna take quick break to congratulate our friend, Tim Farris,
42:34
Tim's podcast has crossed one billion
42:36
downloads.
42:37
Billion. That is insane, especially for a guy who said when he started the pod, hey, I'm gonna do six steps. So just give this a try. See if I like it. And if I don't, It'll just be six, but but if I do, maybe I'll keep going. And he, sure enough, kept going. Tim is amazing
42:51
at the pod. He's a big inspiration for me. In fact, when I started this podcast,
42:55
I still remember the day. I had sold my company.
42:57
I was walking around San Francisco. I did a four hour walk with my buddy. We walked ourselves into a frenzy and he goes, well, what do you want? What do you really wanna do next? And I said, I think I wanna beat Tim First. I said, I don't wanna beat Tim First. I wanna have the impact Tim First had. I said, you know, I have listened to so many of his episodes. Like the, the Jamie Fox one I remember was Epic. The ones with Naval, are are all killer. His ones with, Arnold Schorzenega. We're really good. You know, he's done so many episodes that really stood out to me and and shifted my perspective, changed my lens.
43:26
Gave me some inspiration. He was there when I was doing just boring commute and, I wanna thank him for doing the show.
43:32
The world would be a a worst place if he did not do the Tim Ferris podcast. And he's done he's now this is his ten year anniversary. So happy birthday, Tim, for the ten year anniversary of your pod, a billion downloads. That is incredible.
43:46
He is still to this day, I think one of the best question askers on the planet, which he probably didn't even think was a skill, but it is, of course, and his quote about questions has always inspired me. He says that questions are like the pickaxe of the brain. You can use a question to just unlock information. That's what he does. He breaks down world class performers by asking them amazing question. So Tim, congrats on the ten years. If anybody's out there, if you're listening to this podcast, just hit pause and go listen to Tim instead. You know what? I don't mind. It is a it is a great move by you. You can find the Tim Ferris show wherever you get your podcasts.
44:17
He's also got a newsletter called five bullet Friday. With two million weekly subscribers. You can find that at tim dot blog, and you can find the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.
44:26
So I'm gonna tell a story. I don't know if I can use the guy's name just because I didn't ask him if I was gonna tell the story, but I could tell tell a version of the story. So,
44:34
met a guy recently, really awesome guy, became friends with him, and he is like a growth expert.
44:40
Not like the,
44:41
you know, Twitter YouTuber,
44:43
you know, I I I'm a growth expert, hire me for five hundred dollars an hour and and I'll be your growth guy. Like, this guy actually, like, the big name Silicon Valley products, he was, like, running the growth team there. And so, like, you know, like, in the same way that,
44:56
you know, Shamath or Javier grew fit, you know, they were the the lead guy on the Facebook growth team. And they, like, they fought those wars or Josh Elman did this at different companies. There's another guy who did this at other companies.
45:06
And so he would describe to me. He's like, yeah. He's like,
45:10
I went for a walk with him in Silicon Valley. Like, the real Silicon Valley, meaning he was walking. He's like, that's Steve Jobs's house. That's Larry Paige's Mark Zuckerberg's house, and they're, like, I don't know if you've ever been here by the way in Palo Alto. These are, like, completely unassuming houses, by the way. They they're not, like, mega McManhens. They're just, like, small cottage houses in a cool little neighborhood that's open in in Palo Alto. And he's like, yeah, that and he was like, I was like, how did you, you know, get because he was telling me about somebody he knew. I go, how did you get connected with these people? And he goes, well, I had built an expertise around SEO.
45:44
He's like, I just understood SEO. I had done it to two of my companies. I just really I was like, I feel like I knew SEO better than most people. And somebody introduced me
45:53
to,
45:54
to the guy from Cora, Adam De Angelo, who was, like, you know, co founder of Facebook now was doing Cora. And Cora had Cora had a SEO problem.
46:03
They're, they were heavily dependent on SEO traffic and then, like, some Google update happened and their their SEO traffic was dying, or was having trouble for whatever
46:11
reason. And, I did a call with him. And he's like,
46:14
I,
46:16
he's like, on that one call, I told him, I was like, oh, it's this. You are getting, penalized by Google for this. You need to change that, and it'll fix it. Because, like, and it fixed it and, like, the growth, you know, went up. And then I told them one other thing after that. They did one more call. I did one other thing and, like, basically, like, the Cora growth curve was, like, you know, really impressive afterwards.
46:34
And,
46:35
Adam, you know, called him and was, like, hey, dude. Like, can you can I When you come work here, can I hire you as a consultant? I'll pay you any number,
46:42
to hire you as a consultant.
46:44
And he's like, also, how did you do that? Because that was Like, my team's been working on this for months, and, like, you just pointed at the thing. You're like, this is it. And he's like, well,
46:54
it looks like there was just one thing. He's like, but actually, the the skill is that there's a thousand,
46:58
you know, needles that yeah. There's a thousand straws in a haystack.
47:02
And the trick is just to find the one straw that matters. And it looks like, oh, man. You only had to move one straw, but it's like, because I knew the ninety nine other things ninety nine percent of things to ignore. I knew which which ones were not the answer. Told me it's gotta be one of these two things. And then I pulled that out. He's like, that's what expertise looks like when it's done well is is not that
47:20
it's not that you come up with more ideas than anyone else. You can quickly eliminate
47:24
the ninety nine wastes of time and try to find the one or two that matter. So I love that principle. Then he said another thing. He goes, so when he offered me that, I was like, so did you go work there? Or did you take the consulting gig? That'd be awesome. I bet they could've paid you a ton or whatever he goes, I I had a better deal. I told him, I'm gonna do this for free for you. But when the time comes, I know you're super connected to Silicon Valley, and I just moved here.
47:44
I would love for some introductions. Like, you know, if come up with something, I'd love for you to make an introduction. And at the time, Adam's like,
47:51
done. Easy. You know, that that's the price. Amazing. I gotta steal here. He's like, but, actually, I got way more value out of that trade. He's like, because then when I cashed in that chip, he's like, people would say he's like, I could get an intro to anybody. And the intro would come, like, with extreme vouch
48:06
of this guy's, like, the magic man. And he's, like, that and Adam doesn't make many intro as soon as that they would enter me, the person would say,
48:14
not only did Adam Vouch for you, Adam never makes any intros. This is the first intro he's ever made. Because he knows, like, to the intermediate is, like, you know, kind of a high bar. So you must be really something.
48:23
And that was kind of that business karma so bad at it. Coming back. And he's like, I didn't do it in a manipulative way. I just, thought that that was a better ask. And,
48:31
I was like, wow, that's a great, great story. That's awesome. That is a really good story. I wanna get him on. I think he's got some he's got some good, growth some growth advice. So I'm gonna try to get him on. I'll I'll ask for his permission.
48:41
I,
48:43
I think today was a ten out of ten. I feel hyped. Wanna, like, go and learn about some of the stuff. I wanna look up splashing. I wanna play splashing. First, I need, like, friends that are immature enough to play a water gun game with me.
48:54
Adult need adults splashing
48:56
throughout Austin.
48:58
I guess I thought I gotta go buy a water gun, but, Texas, you guys just play with real guns.
49:04
Yeah. We're gonna call it bleeding instead of splashing.
49:08
That's great. Is that the pod? Well, we have one more thing. More thing about expertise, and this is also the thrill of the show.
49:15
I was watching one of the podcasts, that I recorded it when I went to Austin. And the guy said something. He goes, this is a guy who's who's, Joe Lonsilk, and his claim to fame. I think the title of the podcast is gonna be the guy who's created more billion dollar companies than anyone else,
49:31
which is just an incredible claim to fame and an incredible title. And so he goes,
49:36
He was saying something. He goes, he almost paused me while I was saying something. He goes, oh, by the way, that's always a good idea. I was like, what what is he talking about? And then he what he's saying was, he goes, anytime a company
49:47
that was successful
49:48
doing one thing had to build internally their own tool that's not their product, but they, like, hired engineers, that engineers working on something.
49:57
And they were, like, that's the tool. Like, some internal homebrew tool that they used It was, like, part of their secret sauce for their success, but it wasn't their main product. He goes, that's always a good idea, which is basically to I called this the export framework. You support something that was built internally,
50:13
and you make a product that's available to all. And so he was talking about this, for example, with Palantor. He started Palantor. Now a fifty billion dollar company, calendar, you know, the genesis of it was he was an intern at PayPal,
50:24
fighting fraud. And so at the time, PayPal because PayPal was getting popular, basically what what he said would happen. He goes, somebody would, you know, if somebody, you know, some cashier at a gas station is having a bad day would would kinda steal your credit card number. And they could go sell, you know, fifty of these on the black market to to the Russian. Russians would pay a hundred dollars a pot for these credit cards, stolen credit cards. And then they would go charge up this thing, and then then the customer would be like, I didn't buy any of this stuff. And so they would charge it back is it could PayPal was left holding the bag of that chargeback. And that to the tune of, like, millions of dollars. Okay. Would it put us out of business? It put out most of our competitors went out of business for this one reason.
51:00
And so fighting fraud was, like, a really important thing, and we had to build a set of tools to be able to do, like, data data detection, fraud detection,
51:08
and, like, fight the bad guys. He's like, and then when I'd started Paleting here, I was like, what if we took all that fight the bad guys stuff and we made it available to the government? Be able to fight the bad guys for counter terrorism and stuff because this was after nine eleven. And so he was given that example of, like, anytime you see the homebrewed tool that spins out becomes a product, that's a successful business.
51:26
Well, today's sponsor is exactly that, and that is Beyhive. So Beyhive was based on a great org. Great plug. Great plug. The show. I guarantee you that nobody does Adreeds. Like, I do Adreeds. Right? I'm a teach you something. Tell you a story, and then I'm gonna give you the value too. That's a great thrill. Don't give me the shill. Now the show part is these guys were inside of Morning Brew, which is probably would you say it's probably the most successful newsletter business outside of Agora? Right? Like, the most successful mainstream newsletter business? Nearly a hundred million dollars a year business. Hundred million dollar business grew really fast. A, you know, And both of us have tried building newsletter businesses, and these guys built, like, grew faster than both of both of us. We we were successful. They were even more successful. They grew their newsletter about five million subscribers, and And the secret sauce of how they grew their newsletter, their growth engine
52:10
was this internal tool that they built, which let them write a write a newsletter easily, like format it, get it all ready to go.
52:17
Baked in the growth stuff. So, like, referrals and, you know, like, recommendation things at the bottom of an email when it's like, hey, send this to a friend, and you can get sticker, a free mug, a free t shirt, or whatever. That all of those little tools that they built internally,
52:30
this guy Tyler basically spun out and created Beehive to do that independently. Now anybody, like me, when I built the milk road, I didn't have to build any of that shit. Milk,
52:39
morning brew has, like, you know, I don't know how many hundreds of employees. We didn't need any of that shit. Literally, it was me, Ben, and one other guy.
52:46
And, like, the three of us built a newsletter that we sold for millions of dollars because we could just use Behigh off the shelf. And so if you're looking to build a newsletter, either personally, or you wanna start a newsletter business like me and Sam did, Behive is the way to go. They basically took all the secret sauce that was inside morning brew, turned it into a product that you can use off the shelf on day one. Ten out of ten. I was I was thrilled. I just imagined Joe Lonsdale just holding up his finger to your lips and say, shh, shh, shh, just shut up. Just shut the fuck up.
53:16
Behave.
53:18
It's hilarious too because,
53:20
I'm trying to connect with Joe, and he's, like, this billionaire who's created, like, you know,
53:25
spy technology for the government, fifty billion dollar company, you know, tools that all the asset wealth managers use at a par, a three billion dollar company. Opengov, which sold to governments and basically sold for one point eight billion. He's he's got a, a, like, weapons company that builds, like, EMP pulses that will you know, knock drones out of the sky war tools.
53:44
And I'm like, yay. Yeah. Me too, man. I'm an entrepreneur too, just like you me and you same same.
53:48
Yeah, I built the newsletter company.
53:50
Yeah. I did it, like, kinda part time for a year and then sold it.
53:54
Not for a billion dollars. Just like a few million. It was great though. Yeah. Then, what else do we got? I got podcast.
54:00
Talked to my buddy, Sam. A couple times a week. That's pretty dope. Working hard out here, man.
54:06
All while you're aware you can't apologize to that pin.
54:10
You and I are the same. While we were at a cold plunge together, and I was just like also hyperventilating
54:15
and being like, How long do guys like this stand the cold plunge? I think it's longer than I'm used to, but I cannot, I cannot get out of this sponge until he does. I die an icicle
54:25
or I live, you know, with all the glory of this. And you're like, oh, you did a multi multiple billion dollar companies. I got sixty nine on Uhot.
54:36
So
54:40
what you get?
54:42
So are you with the look maxing? No. No. I didn't think so. I just curious if that was a priority for you. That's a that's a typical forty nine percent answer, bro.
54:52
So check it out, beehive. That's with two i's, by the way. B e h I I
54:58
v. Their oh, yeah. That's weird. That's a way.
55:02
They they give a they post their revenue. I don't know what let me see. Did Tyler the CEO for the next time we give this shout out. We'll we'll focus on Tyler. Tyler's a great CEO. I thought he was a loose cannon, and I think he's sort of is. No. He's just good looking. That's you thought? You were like, nobody this good looking and cool is gonna be a good operator. He actually is. He's just he I thought he was just too loose of a cannon, and then I realized that his aggressiveness is actually awesome.
55:27
And I
55:28
I did not invest in them. And it's one of the things that I'm like, oh, I should have done that. It's it is So I almost didn't invest. So I did I did end up investing.
55:36
Actually, I think I passed the first time. And so I what I did was I passed the first time because I was like, ah, I don't know how big this can get. Then we started using it for the Millcroed and I used it for my personal newsletter. So I became a customer first. And then I would just see, like, anytime we'd have a problem, they so fast to fix it, and they kept releasing stuff. I was like, oh, okay. I called him back. I was like, I wanna invest. He's like, well, you changed my mind. You think the market's bigger? I was like, no. Actually, I think the market's the same size, but
56:00
you guys are, like, relentlessly shipping. And
56:03
I'd rather just bet on somebody like that than not bet on them and, You know, I'm often wrong about market size. Markets can trick you. Markets can look small and be bigger. But founders or teams that operate like this, that's, like, always a good signal. And so I'm, like, let me just bet on the known versus
56:18
not bet because of this hypothetical unknown thing.
56:21
But what but I almost didn't because, you know, I did the call. He had a surfboard behind him. And I was like, ain't a way I'm gonna invest in a CEO who surfs regularly in for the surfboards behind him in, in his room. But I was wrong. Next time we talk about him, we have, like, four or five more stories about Tyler. Tyler's an interesting guy, and,
56:39
I I I respect the hell out of him. He's a good entrepreneur. I wanna see what their revenue is at right now. So they,
56:46
I think it's at, like, twelve million in it. Dude, look at this graph. Seven million in ARR was February first, so two months ago. And this graph is literally like shaped like this. It's pretty crazy. And he goes, this doesn't include some of some revenue from the ad network. Oh, no. March nineteenth, quickly approaching ten million ARR. So they're probably just under ten mill ten million ARR now. Yeah. They're it it's an amazing company. They've taken off. Is it just beehive dot com or is it like a beehive dot com slash? No. It's just beehive dot com. Go there if you wanna start a newsletter. Alright. Is that the pod? That's the pod. Alright, that's the pod.
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