00:00
A twenty five year old. I used to work in banking and M and A. I made, like, low six figures, and it was a cool job, but I recently quit after listening to you guys. And now I own a a bunch of vending machines, and it's allowed me to make ten grand a month and,
00:12
do a bunch of running. And he said, quote, do memorable things, which is what you guys talked about at the end of the pod. This is pretty amazing.
00:22
Alright. I
00:26
think we're good. We're good? Dude, Sean, thanks for dressing up. You look nice.
00:31
Alright. So for those who can't see the YouTube video right now,
00:35
Sam is, like, in some kind of, like,
00:39
I don't even know where he's at. He's in some kind of, like, LA
00:43
some kind of playboy mansion, podcast studio. I don't even know what's going on. Not a single wall is normal. One of them's like a three d texture. One of them's got, like, plant from, you know, the the Amazon jungle.
00:56
And he's got, like, five people there. He's got, like, a movie crew. Somebody just came and powdered his nose. I don't know what's going on. I'm still in my bedroom,
01:03
and I recently woke up. So, you know, we got a little yin and yang going thunder and light. Tell me what you're wearing, Sean.
01:11
I'll say a sleeve health, a sleeveless hoodie.
01:15
No. A Sam's shirtless
01:19
If Sam sees a shoulder, he has like a minor panic attack. It just, you know, I've you
01:27
It's something We can't all dress like Arthur. So
01:34
I was hoping that if I came here so I came here the other day to record a podcast with this guy named Danny, and I came here. I go I called Ben, like, right when I was there. I FaceTime. I go, Ben. Booked this for, like, in three days. This is where we're gonna record from now on. And I was like, if if we do this here, maybe it would inspire Sean to, like, record with more than just one airpod in his iPhone and a plant in the background, and maybe we can make something happen. So hopefully, I'm gonna wear off on you and we'll you'll do it right on your end because I think we'll get more views on YouTube finally.
02:05
Yeah. The last time I felt this much peer pressure, I ended up, you know, on shrooms. And so, hopefully, this just ends better, but I do feel the pressure now. I will find
02:15
you know, I don't even what is this place that you're at? You give him a shout out. What is the name of a it's called w their name, but What's it called w f media?
02:22
W t w w t f media. I can't that guy you know what guys that guy, Danny, you were on his thing too. He'd been emailed me to work for me. Oh, really? Okay. Cool. Well, I came on his thing, and I came here and it was awesome. I think we paid a couple hundred bucks. I don't remember. To be here. And I think this is the actually the same studio that Andrew Schultz and Charlemagne, I think record their thing. Right? Yeah. And it's, like, pretty easy. So I just to, you know, rode my scooter here
02:47
and and did it.
02:49
Just like Charlemagne the god does. Yeah. Alright. Let's
02:55
Let's let's jump into some stuff. You have some topics. I got some topics.
02:59
Where do you wanna start? We got a bunch of different ways we can go. Wait. We gotta do this, did you see this email that I got from this,
03:06
listener?
03:08
No. Where? Okay. So I forwarded it to you. So, basically,
03:11
were talking about, like, adventurous shit last time, and this guy emailed me, and let me pull it up. So, basically, he said,
03:19
He goes, alright.
03:20
You you wrote you guys talked about, like, living an adventurous life. I wanted to write you and and fill you in on what's going on. I used to be two hundred thirty pounds and, like, pretty overweight But then I started running and I, started listening to you guys the whole entire time while I'd run. In fact, I did a fifty mile race, and I only listened to MFM the entire time. And I've lost a ton of weight. And now next week, I'm doing a hundred mile race, and I intend to listen to you guys the whole time as well. And I'm a twenty five year old. I used to work in banking and M and A. I made, like, low six figures, and it was a cool job, but I recently quit after listening to you guys. And now I own a a bunch of vending machines, and it's allowed me to make ten grand a month and,
03:57
do a bunch of running. And he said, quote, do memorable things, which is what you guys talked about at the end of the pod. This is pretty amazing. I forward it to you. It's that's that's a good story. Right?
04:07
Yeah. Dude, that's my my version of torture, though. Like, having to run fifty miles while listening to my voice in my head, that would be, like, that would be, like, you know, worse than waterboarding for me, personally. But, dude, props to this guy. This is amazing.
04:21
You know, fitness.
04:22
Got influenced by you. Listen into the pod. Got influenced by both of us. You know, did the vending machine side hustle that we had talked about got to the ten k a month, and now he has the freedom. He's thinking about doing short term rentals. I think this might be your best friend. I think you might have just found an adult best friend. Yeah. This is my little brother, man. I like this guy. His name's Jack. So I I saw that email and I was like, we gotta bring that up. That's a good one. But, this is he ended it with hashtag do things. And I like that. I like do things. That's the serious version of no small boy stuff, which is the official motto of my first million. No. It's good. I like that. Alright. Where do you wanna go? Which is John Jack? Jack. Yeah. Good job. Jack Jack Neurmer. Good job.
05:05
I wanna tell you about an idea that I saw recently. I I'm thinking I'm gonna invest in this.
05:09
But it's kind of just like one of these really
05:13
low key. It doesn't even seem like a business things, but I think it's gonna be kinda big. So
05:18
Have you ever been on YouTube
05:21
and seen this thumbnail of, like, this kinda anime character wearing headphones, and it says, low fi,
05:27
chill beats, study music. Have you ever seen that? They kill it. They have they run it on live, like YouTube live, and there'll be hundreds of thousands of people on it. And I think, like, the other day, it, like, was paused for, like, a few minutes or something like that, and it was in the news, right?
05:43
It got banned, and then it got unbanned after a hundred and thirty three thousand people, like, signed a petition to be, like, unbanned this right now.
05:50
That's crazy. But oh, okay. And what about it? So let me tell you about it. So Lofi, basically, the channel has ten million subscribers. It's one of the most like, sort of longest watch time things on Egypt because people would just sit there for hour, hours studying and just having this as background music.
06:06
They have a discord of seven hundred thousand people. They have their own
06:12
Well, it's just people that are chilling. It's people that want us people are trying to study, they're trying to focus, and they just wanna be in a group of other people doing the same thing. It's like a virtual study hall. So this is kind of like an emergent
06:23
behavior. It's just a thing that started happening. It's not what YouTube was trying to do. It wasn't, you know, some company that started right away. It's just kind of like this thing that people wanted. Like, oh, you know, like, I had this when I was in college. My buddy would it's like, oh, hand him the ox plug because his music is good for us to just chill, do nothing to. It's not gonna be distracting, that sort of thing. And he would kinda be the DJ. So
06:47
This is like a thing now. And I found, but but it's still like kind of informal. It's on YouTube. It's not really like easy to use in that sense. Like, you know, you know, you don't know who these other people are, you can't do a private room, that sort of stuff. So there's a startup called Studyverse
07:01
that is trying to do this. And what they did was they basically turned this into, like, its own experience. So me and me and Ben use this now when we work. We basically go into study verse,
07:11
and you go in and there's, like, a jukebox, basically. So you can just put on Yeah. Like chill hip hop style music or chill electronic style music or whatever. And both people are hearing the same thing at the same time. You could turn your camera on or off if you wanna just be there microphone on or off. And, you can, like, put your to do list there and other people can see it. And as you knock them out, it makes a little sound. So you can see other people knocking off their to do list. There's a little chat. And so and you could just set the background. So you could be like, let's just give them yeah. We're working remote. We're, you know, like, I'm in this little home office here. Nothing two grand. But you can just set the scene like, now what if we were by the beach or what if we were, you know, in space or wherever you want? So it's just a cool little product,
07:50
and they're going after this use case of
07:53
virtual study hall. People getting together
07:55
to study, hangout, or work, but it's really around studying, I believe. And This is like a big deal. There are millions of students every day who do this, and they do it with strangers. They're not they're not necessarily hanging out with their friends. They some do. But a lot of people just wanna feel like they don't wanna feel kind of alone and bored when they study. And so just having any other people chatting or they see the screen names, they see their profile pictures, it just makes them feel less alone when they're doing it. How does this make money? I think this is gonna be big.
08:26
So the the Lofi,
08:27
the Lofi
08:28
on YouTube. I don't know if they just run ads. They just monetize that way. I'm not a hundred percent sure. I know they also have, like, the music is their own music. They have lo fi records. So it's all copyright free, which is kinda cool. Because that would be the other problem if you try to do this commercially.
08:42
And,
08:43
but for these guys, I think they'll probably have some premium version or some, upsell or some, I don't know what they'll do to make money. Like, The main thing right now is can they get to, like, a million students a day who are studying with this thing, which is, like, at that point, it's pretty pretty valuable
08:57
to be the hub where a million students today are spending, like, multiple hours. Basically, they raised money
09:03
now. Yeah.
09:04
So so I'm investing this thing.
09:07
You're doing it? A lot of time. Yeah. I'm gonna do it. This right it gives me heavy, like, twitch vibes in a in a way where I'm like, It's kind of a behavior that doesn't really make sense until you start to think about the use case and, like, yeah, that would be fun, actually. But there's thousands of them. I just googled it. There's so many of them.
09:24
What? Like, virtual study halls? Yeah.
09:28
Yeah. There there are I don't think there's thousands of them. There's one serious competitor that's, like, been around for a little while.
09:34
It's called, but they have like They're close to that point. Yeah. I think it's studied together. I think that's the one.
09:40
They have a million people in their community
09:43
And,
09:44
and so, you know, these guys are trying to build, like, a better user experience than that.
09:48
So this this I think this could be great. It's on study together. It says that there's, thirty thirty four thousand people concurrently online. So at the hustle, we are getting let's say that we are getting two or three million monthly uniques,
10:01
Basically, that means that which is, like, two to three million a month is pretty good. If it's the right niche, you can make, like, you know, a million a month off two to three million people a month, if it's the right one. And at any given point, we would have
10:14
two thousand people online. Like, it it really would never get Maybe occasionally, you would get to three thousand and four thousand, but virtually never. And the fact that this has thirty three thousand, that's pretty insane.
10:27
Yeah. That's right now. I mean, I don't even know if school I think it's, like, still summer for for people that are they're not even, like, in school right now. And if you are in high school, or or anything else, like, you're you're,
10:38
you know, it's the middle of the day. You can't be doing this while you're at school. So there's only gonna be, like, college or summer school right now. I bet this number could be three times as high for them during, like, kind of peak seasons,
10:50
you know, definitely. So so I think that's kind of amazing. And, you know, like,
10:54
you know, whether they sell, you know, like little emotes, like Discord did, like, Discord makes millions and millions of dollars off of just their and, like, they're super emoji that you can have. Or,
11:05
you know, you yeah. That's Discord's business model is
11:08
you pay six dollars a month or that for Discord nitro. And all it gives you is, like, your your little your group can have its own emoji. Like, you can upload your own emoji and you could use the premium of emoji that they have. And, same thing with Twitch. Like, people subscribe
11:22
for five or six bucks a month to a,
11:25
a Twitch channel And, like, it's not like they couldn't just watch it for free. They can watch it for free too. They do it to get a little badge that says I'm I'm a paid, like, patron of this person's channel And secondly, they get to use the custom emoji of that channel. That's the Right. Really, the only perks. Like, sometimes it's a subscriber only chat, but but that's not usually the case. And so, so, yeah, I think you could get pretty big with something like this. But I think it's one of those, like,
11:51
Under the radar and niches, most people don't even really recognize that this is a niche. So I think this is a cool idea. That's cool. We talked about it before.
11:58
Alright. Let me run something by you because you you just actually have been talking about this. So check this out. So you know who Scott Galloway is?
12:06
Of course. The Right. So Professor g.
12:10
Yeah. For those who don't know, there's a dude named Scott Galloway, popular on Twitter for making all these, like, tech takes, and
12:16
he gets made fun of for being wrong a lot, but he takes a lot of swings. So he's gonna be wrong a lot. But, basically, he started this company called l two, which I think he sold for, like, two hundred million bucks. So he's, like, really successful already, whatever. And he's got this new thing called section four, which I think is just like courses. But you check this out. So New York Times, it said mister Galloway, who is already wealthy from selling two and taking a third public also makes more than five million dollars a year from speaking gigs. He said largely from corporations and in groups that pay him fifty thousand dollars a year or fifty thousand for a virtual event and two hundred fifty thousand dollars for an international event I should be broken up. He joked, which is pretty funny. But that's that's a ridiculous amount of money for speaking. That is huge. How
12:57
How
12:58
how does that work? Because I know that you were talking about, like, it it has to all be it has to all work from,
13:03
book sales. Right? Or for, you know, just like me, a New York Times best seller?
13:08
Yeah. I think it's like a combination. It's like you just you're in people's face enough.
13:13
With, like, you know, you you sound polish. He because, you know, they have a podcast. They have, he's got his blog, which is pretty famous. He's got he's been he's been doing this for, like he didn't do this forever, dude. I feel like this guy's been publishing content for, like, ten, fifteen years, at least, something like that. Did isn't isn't that right? He's not, like, some some new No. He's not he's not just a guy. I mean, he's he's he's he's great. You know, he's good. And he's hilarious. I listened. I was at, when I was in Germany, he spoke, He was very good. And, like, I've hung out with him. He's a really nice guy. And his schtick on mine, I don't always agree with a lot of his takes, and I think that sometimes he's unnecessarily a a hater. But Without a doubt, incredibly entertaining. When he when he does talks, like, he's got a little bit of, like, a comedy stick on there. He's kinda, like, a little f u, and he, like, says, like, hilarious jokes about him being, old and, like, bald and stuff. He's hilarious. He's good.
14:02
And this is that but that's so much five million dollars a year from speaking, is, like, the equivalent of having, like, fifty million dollars. Five million dollars a year of income is is is astronomical.
14:12
You know what I mean? Why is that? It it
14:15
really is. Well, just it's true. It's, like, it's funny that it's,
14:20
it, like, it's funny that you're absolutely right. That is an absurd number. To be making and speaking fees. You're like a pretty good NBA player at that point. Yeah. Exactly. But you're just like giving it a presentation
14:32
on you're using PowerPoint.
14:35
And often, by the way, it's the same presentation. It's the same one. You can do it for fifteen years. You know what I mean? It's like in your free time a little bit.
14:43
This is crazy.
14:45
It I just I heard that number, and I was like, I I couldn't believe it at first because it is it's it's an astronomical number.
14:52
How much does, like, David Blaine make? Because Prophe is basically, like, inviting a magician to your conference. It's like, oh, yeah. Here's the entertainment.
15:00
We all know and love. This guy, Scott Galloway, he comes on. He kind of does this little routine and he entertains you. And, like, that's the that's what he's getting paid for is to be kind of like a name people recognize,
15:11
adds legitimacy to the event,
15:14
And,
15:15
and, you know, provide some entertainment that's not, like, completely off the wall circus stuff. It's like, well, this'll be entertaining, but it's still relatively good. But here's the thing. Here's the rub.
15:24
His pod, it it it gets it's two times the size of ours. So we get, like, between we get, like, in the hundred thousand, sometimes more sometimes a little less,
15:33
range per episode. Download's per episode. He's at two hundred fifty thousand.
15:38
So in my head for sure in him? Or who is Yeah.
15:41
Yeah. The I don't I don't know what it's called, but it's like him and Kara swisher. It's on
15:45
I don't even fucking know what it is. Rico. It was like recode or whatever. Now something else. And
15:51
in my head, I'm thinking
15:54
I'll take half that. Right? I mean, we gotta be doing this.
15:59
I'll do you one better.
16:02
I'll take a third of that.
16:05
I'll undercut Sam.
16:08
It's been terrible. I will
16:10
How often do you get asked to do it? The hell you want. How often do you get asked to do it? I don't get asked that often. Don't get asked that often. The number is always good whenever I do get asked that. I don't get asked that often.
16:21
And also, I'm not really that interested in doing this because, like, you know, for this, you gotta travel a bunch. To do it. I think to do it well, you gotta travel a bunch. I don't think people are gonna pay that thing. I don't think you wanna take your kids with you on, like, a trip somewhere.
16:33
Not right. You don't wanna see Kansas City browser.
16:38
Exactly.
16:39
No. I do not wanna I don't know how to take the the the first take my kids somewhere is, like, already, you know, the prices went up.
16:47
So so no. I wouldn't wanna do that now. But, yeah, later in life, yeah, that'd be great. So by the way, funny you mentioned, Scott Galloway,
16:54
there's a couple things people should know. Number one, he's very entertaining, great at content, Number two, his business takes are pretty awful for the most part. He's been wrong famously wrong many, many times. In fact, somebody created the the anti
17:10
professor Galloway index or something. What's that website called? Or it's literally just says Anytime he says to buy or sell something, if you just did the exact opposite,
17:19
here's how you'd be doing. It's like he's down x percent. You know, S and P five hundred is up y percent. And this is up, like, double the S and P five hundred, so you can outperform the market.
17:30
It's the websites bet against the professor introducing the anti Galloway index.
17:34
And what is the stats? What does it say? How does he done? Or how is the thing done against him?
17:39
So his worst prediction was that he said that may
17:42
I think he said that, like, Macy's was gonna, like, outperform Amazon So, like, not that good. And then he also said that, he also said that,
17:51
Tesla was a bad bet. So, like, I I don't know, even know how to use it. So let's see.
17:56
Since October tells the nineteen tech companies that have that the professor has predicted would fail have outperformed
18:02
the S and P and seen a whopping sixty one percent return. So you would have made sixty one percent. Exactly.
18:10
So that's really funny. Whoever did that. I I I do appreciate that.
18:14
Last thing is so so I just talked to a guy yesterday
18:18
about
18:19
this course business. So he so he's got this thing section four.
18:22
And I was like, dude, how much money does that make? He goes, actually, I kind of, like, I've been, you know, I'm in that same niche, so I've been doing research on it. Here's what I think. So here's what he thinks. He goes, he's gotta think section four does, like, fourteen million a year.
18:35
In revenue.
18:36
They've raised, like, thirty seven million dollars. Too much. They just did some layoffs because, you know, yeah.
18:44
And he's basically like, you know, that's an average of a thousand dollars a year per learner.
18:49
You know, thirty percent discount. Let's say it's seven hundred dollars, and he has twenty one thousand people
18:54
you know, paying paying to learn,
18:58
or something like that. Maybe two point one is what that was supposed to be. I'm not sure. But,
19:02
but, yeah, that's kind of, like, kinda crazy. Then he was, like, you know, also reforged. You, you know, reforged, it was like the Yeah. If I think four is basically like some marketing school.
19:13
Dude, I would guess that reforged is in, like, the eighteen to twenty range.
19:19
For revenue?
19:20
Yeah.
19:23
Do you know how much money reforges raised
19:26
How much? I have no idea.
19:29
If this guy is right, reforges raised a total of eighty one million dollars.
19:34
I'm just kind of absurd for
19:37
for what they're doing, but they did acquire
19:39
some other marketing training company. So maybe they've raised a bunch of money just to buy something they had, like, established revenue and EBITDA.
19:47
So anyways, these little, like, marketing schools that people have created, like, these can be kind of big. Like, we should have if we if we wanted to monetize MFM, this would have been the way to do it. It's to just me and you create, like, our own marketing school. I'm pretty sure with our audience and, like, what we actually like, We've actually done this. Like, we we've actually done marketing to grow our businesses successfully
20:06
owned and exited multiple businesses now.
20:09
Brought multiple businesses to this to this, like, you know, seven, eight figure in revenue,
20:13
point. Like, if anybody should be doing this, this should be us, not not these guys.
20:18
But, you know, who wants to go do that? I don't know. So let me talk tell you about something that I question if I actually wanna go do that, but I hear the numbers and they're amazing.
20:27
So,
20:29
b to b media, so media companies that make content for other businesses. I was talking to this guy the other day, and check this out. He's got this company called aging Media. Okay?
20:39
They make newsletters
20:41
for nursing homes. So I guess people who own nursing homes and people who own hospice
20:47
hospice care businesses.
20:49
And it's, like, I think only three years old. It's or four years old. It's not a very old company. But he was telling me that this year, they'd they'll do around ten million in revenue and, like, three or four million in EBITDA.
21:01
And completely bootstrapped, and they have got forty employees.
21:04
And if you go go to it's called aging media. Go to the website and look at their shit. It is so simple.
21:11
It's such a straightforward business.
21:14
And I see this stuff, and I'm like, oh, man. I could totally do this for x, y, and z. And that's a small example. There's a bigger example. There's this company called Industry Dive. Industry Dive was just acquired like
21:26
a week ago, I think, or two weeks ago. They were acquired for five hundred million dollars. They do,
21:31
a hundred and let's see. They were doing
21:34
Where is it? They're doing a hundred and ten million dollars in revenue.
21:38
They're doing a hundred and ten million revenue with thirty percent profit. Three hundred eighty employees fifty three newsletters across those fifty three newsletters, two point five million,
21:46
subs. And pretty straightforward. Like, not
21:51
Not complicated, not necessarily easy, but not complicated and straightforward. Their content, I think it's okay. It's just like It's basically just bullet points. It's an email with bullet points of what's happening in, like, the restaurant industry or whatever. But these companies,
22:05
the bar, I think, to be good, is so low for b to b media
22:10
because it just, like, you know, like, it just mostly all sucks. They, like, think that, like, you have to write a certain way But in the way they monetize and make money is so much better than a consumer media company because if you are a person who's selling software or whatever to a hospice care,
22:26
owner,
22:27
like, you you only have a couple places to go to and one sale gets you, you know, hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions in revenue, like a pretty huge
22:35
number. And so, like, these guys, basically, what they do, they have ads on their site, but they do webinars with a sponsor and, like, fifteen people sign up for the webinar or the talk. It's basically like a podcast just like this, but you gotta enter your email to get in. They give that email to the sponsor, and that sponsor hopes to go and email the ten people that signed up. And,
22:55
like, hopefully they buy their shit. And it's, like, twenty or thirty or forty thousand dollars to charge for, like, getting those ten, thirty, fifty leads. It's crazy. If the bar's so low,
23:04
Yeah. This this thing is crazy. They have, they're big, like, verticals or it's like they have waste dive. Waste dive is for the waste management industry.
23:13
Then they'll have, like, pharmaceuticals,
23:15
and then they'll have finance, and then they'll have, like, you know, these different,
23:19
things. I think their biggest one. So marketing dive is five hundred and ten five hundred ten thousand subscribers.
23:25
Biopharma dive, two hundred seventy five thousand subscribers, construction dive, three hundred thousand subscribers,
23:31
HR dive, four hundred fifty five, four hundred fifty thousand subscribers. And then they have just a bunch of others. Yeah. Right. Utility dive, restaurant dive, retail dives, their apps, their their biggest one, seven hundred thousand subscribers.
23:43
It's pretty crazy. This is not a media company, really. Like, you know, yes, they're a media company, but, like,
23:49
The game isn't are you good at making content? The game is are you really good at acquiring users
23:54
and, like, acquiring subscribers in this industry? I don't think you have money that good. If you're if you're, like, a DDC dork like you, like, you don't have to be that good at this. Like, because you're already pretty good at, like, trying to acquire user for two dollars so you can make eight bucks. Like, you're probably better more skilled. You're just choosing, like, a less lucrative game. And here's why this is interesting. The guy who started industry divers named Sean, he previously was the president of another company called fierce Markets, and they did this exact same thing, but they did it starting in two thousand and five or, like, two thousand two. And it was literally the same thing but they just did a different, like, slightly different industries. It had one point two million subs, and it sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. The reason why this is industry industry Interesting is it it's the same shit over and over and over again. They just, like, kinda, like, have, like, a dart board of, like, boring shit. And they just, like, throw a couple darts and, like, yeah. Yeah. Let's do that one.
24:50
Yeah. Like, that's I mean, obviously, I'm oversimplifying
24:53
this, but it it's incredibly fascinating to me because the bar is so low to be
24:58
successful.
25:00
Yeah. One thing I have noticed though, like, so I I agree with you. This is, one of those blueprints. That's like a good blue really good blueprint. Doesn't take, like, genius doesn't take,
25:10
ton of luck.
25:11
And so, you know, in that sense, it's a good good blueprint to go after.
25:15
The downside
25:16
is now that this is, like this game, I think, was really awesome, like, over the last ten years. I think over the next ten years that window is closing. The same thing happened at D to C. The same thing happened at drop shipping. The same thing
25:30
And then the blueprint is easy. I think that when this company sells for five hundred million dollars doing something, there's a bunch of sharp sharks like you and I who hear about this. Go study their their blueprint, and you get fifteen new, like, aggressive people who now know how big the prize is for some like this and now have a blueprint to follow, all doing the same thing. I still think you could win, and some somebody will win, but it is I would say ten times harder than it was over the last ten years, in my opinion, because you're gonna have that set of people. This is exactly what's going on in in D to C, which is that
26:02
cost of acquiring customers are going up. Why? Because people realized, oh, you could just do this with, like, you know, pick a product, run this run this Facebook ad blueprint, use Shopify, use Clavio. It's like this stack of like, I just need to do these six things. There's so many more people doing that than this. There's so many more people starting deodorant and, like,
26:21
jewelry brands, then there are this boring shit. But but for those, there's high they they're you can have way more. Right? You can have many jewelry brands can the market hold? It can hold a ton because people are gonna have a bunch. Now if let's say that
26:33
the industry newsletter, a way to find out what's going on in your industry
26:38
how many is somebody if I'm in the waste management industry, how many of those am I gonna read every week?
26:43
I don't know. Two. One or two. Right? Probably one or two.
26:47
Okay. Industry Drive is one. Now everybody else is gonna fight for two. And then if you're not gonna go for waste management, you're gonna go for the next best niche and the next bet. Now industry drive's already done twenty of these niches, thirty of these niches themselves.
27:00
Other people are gonna keep going for more and more of these niches. So you're gonna get to the less valuable niches. Or the ones that are harder to acquire subscribers for because you're all fighting for that same one or two slots.
27:10
And so, I think that
27:13
Still, somebody will win, but it is way harder than it was. When this when the word wasn't leaked, that, oh, this all of these industry newsletters can be that big. That's crazy. Right?
27:23
I think you're I think you're you you you're giving people too much credit. I think that, not that many people are gonna get involved in this. It's just so cooler when you're twenty two to, like, you know, like, what's that one kid who sells, like, sex chocolate? Like, that's just so much more fascinating
27:38
What's that called? Tabs.
27:40
Tabs. Chocolate, that makes you horny. That's so much cooler to, like, everyone in LA than any of this.
27:46
Yeah. Do you get some of that included when you rent the podcast through your space you're in? Because it seems like it should just be on the desktop for you.
27:53
Alright. Let's do another thing.
27:56
Okay. So I have one. So here's another kind of, like,
27:59
what I'll call boring idea hidden in plain sight.
28:03
Aunt flow. Have you ever heard of this company, aunt flow?
28:07
Wait. Is it aunt or aunt? Wait. You say aunt?
28:11
I see. But it's also Okay. Whatever. Alright. But I understand.
28:14
Yeah. Yeah. Your mom's sister. Yeah. Mom's yeah. Exactly. That time of the month is is the slang for that time of the month. So what these guys are doing or these gals are doing, I don't know who's behind it. What they do is they go to a school or a company, and they say, hey,
28:30
you know, your restrooms need to be a little bit more female friendly here. So why don't we install this little, like, case
28:37
that's gonna dispense tampons,
28:40
and, you know, other kind of like female menstrual cycle products, any anything that you could think of that goes in that that that category.
28:48
We're gonna install this dispenser,
28:50
and now you're just your place is gonna be more welcoming for,
28:53
you know, for for females that that are attending your space. So maybe girls at school or university or in your company, whatever it is. And, they just made it sexy. So they this these kind of hygiene products already exist in bathrooms, but they're all, like we all know what they look like. They're that boring,
29:10
you know, silver box that looks like, you know, if I open this up, am I gonna get tools or a circuit breaker or, like, you know, and, what am I gonna get out of this thing? It's hard to hard to really say. They just made it look good and feel good and, like, really nice packaging and design. And it's, like, it's like the Tesla of these things that are in the bathroom wall. And
29:29
They're doing great. So, let me pull up their numbers. So they have, I think, nine hundred.
29:35
I don't know if I have all these numbers correct, but They have nine hundred,
29:40
orgs that are that are working with them. And, basically, you pay three hundred bucks to install the thing, and then you pay, like, a thirteen hundred dollars a year for tampound refills or pad refills.
29:51
And so that's basically, like, nine thousand dollars for a school with twenty bathrooms.
29:56
And and think about that. There's just a lot of high schools. Like, there there are, like, you know, I don't know, fifteen thousand high schools in the country That's just high schools in the US. Then you have colleges, then you have companies.
30:06
And, they just made it like a sexy DDC product. Like, the the logo looks cool. The box looks cool.
30:12
And now states are requiring some schools like in California, Colorado, Michigan, that you have to offer products for this.
30:20
And they do this, like, you know, for every ten that we sell, we donate one to a menstruator in need. Like, they have, like, a whole thing around it. It's, like, kinda crazy.
30:31
Our software is the worst. Have you heard of HubSpot?
30:34
See, most CRMs are a cobbled together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous. Think I love our new CRM. Our software is the best. HubSpot.
30:45
Girlbetter.
30:47
I, last year, I was pitched, like, three different of these. When we ever we did that vending machine pod, I had so many people reach out. Like, I'm doing, like, smart
30:56
vending machine things or something like that. And and a lot of them were or, like, either tampons or, like, hygiene things, or, or then they were, like, healthy
31:04
food. Right. And I looked at all the numbers and most all of them were horrible. And the ones that were the best, they just sold Coke and M and M's. Like, just like normal like, everyone wanted to do this, like, one particular thing, but it's like, man, America just wants Coke and M and that, like, crushed it. What what are the numbers on this one? On track for ten million in twenty twenty two. When it's in revenue.
31:28
So tripled from last year when they started.
31:32
But they, you know, now they're doing Princeton University. Every Apple retail store offices like Google, Netflix, Disney, Twitter, Quicken Loans, a four year contract for all k through twelve girls bathrooms in Utah. Like, why am I not investing in this? This is such a defensible business. Like, Once you get the contract, they're not gonna have, again, they're not gonna have two of these at the bathroom. And so, like, if you're the brand that, like, looks good and you can, like, sprint into market.
31:57
Something like this will get, I think, to, like, thirty, forty, fifty million in revenue For sure. Quickly. Did they raise money? Need to chase this down.
32:04
Yeah, they're they're raising money or they're they've already raised somebody.
32:07
Did you, you ever seen those Dick pills at, like, the counter at seven eleven?
32:12
Can't say I had.
32:13
Yeah. Surely, you have. Like, it's like, goat.
32:16
It's like toad I forget what it's called. I don't go into seven. I don't leave the house. I definitely don't walk into seven elevens. Well, they're in vending machines. They, like, it's like Viagra or something like that. It's, like, some type of, like,
32:28
I I actually have no idea what it is, but it's like a it's like a herbal supplement. And it's like Yeah. Your wife was telling me about this. Got it. Keep on.
32:38
You you can have that one. And,
32:41
and,
32:43
you ever think Who makes those? And what are their business meetings like?
32:48
You know what I mean? Is it just like, a bunch of dudes? Like, serving monster energy drink, like, sitting around, like, you know what I mean? Have you seen that, have you seen that meme? Is just done over Xbox live.
33:02
It's just like Yeah.
33:04
It's just like we'll be, serving Mountain Dew and and monster in order to, like, get this meeting started. I've always wondered what those things are like and how you could be proud making that crap.
33:14
This is way better than that. It's not the same thing, but I I've been thinking a lot about that.
33:20
Define a lot. How much am you even thinking about this? Well, like,
33:24
like, you you know these,
33:27
so we talked about,
33:28
milk boys and, like, the send it thing? Or what's it called? Full send? Full send it. And so many people reached out to me after that. And they go they make money because they're sponsored by this Crypto poker thing called ro what's it called roblit? You know what I'm talking about? Rubett and Jake. Yeah. And I saw this video where they're talking about it, and it does, like, tens of millions,
33:47
a month in sales. Like, it's just, like, astronomical. It's just huge. And I was thinking I was like, that's pretty cool. But I think that gambling like, I'm okay that it exists, but it's just not for me, you know? It's like, what do I always say? Like, corn rows and sleeve tattoos. It's cool that other people have it, not for me. And
34:04
By the way, that's catching on. I did a meeting with somebody. And they the I was like, oh, nice hat. They go, yeah. You know what Sam says.
34:12
Cornrose, it's leaf tattoos. It's not for him, but I'm glad some Yeah. It's like, wow.
34:17
I I I respect it's right to exist, but, you know, it it ain't for me. But these, like, these these businesses that do, like, let's say gambling. I'm like, that's kinda, like,
34:27
it's most likely a little bit shady. It's definitely not legal in America, but there's definitely it's related to shadiness. Like, it's on the same family. And I just wouldn't be proud doing that on a I wouldn't be proud doing that on a daily basis. You know what I mean?
34:40
Right. And that's why I was thinking about this.
34:43
As somebody who spends a lot of time gambling,
34:46
and has, you know,
34:48
ever tell you in college how we used to drive from North Carolina where I went to school down to South Carolina, a three hour drive that we would board a riverboat casino
34:57
that would that would sail into international waters, turn off the engines, and then let us gamble for four hours, and then it would drive back. And that's what I was doing as, like, a twenty year old.
35:09
I
35:10
was playing poker once and the guy next to me
35:14
either fell asleep or died. And I was like, oh my god. Like, what am I doing here? Why am I hanging out with these lowlifes?
35:20
Who are this guy's like, This guy, you know, like, those people whose nails go so long, they start to, like, corkscrew. Like, this guy looked like that. And I was, like, this guy hasn't moved off this boat in, like, a century,
35:30
and I shouldn't be here, but, which wasn't couldn't resist.
35:35
Sleep or death? I don't know. I just left the table. I was like, I don't I'm not gonna tap this guy and find out. It's like Schrodinger's box as the cat dead or not. I I didn't wanna know. So so I just left, but,
35:45
lost a bunch of money doing that. So I don't know. I like gambling. I think it's cool, but also for sure, like, it's not a business I would start because I feel like I don't wanna start things where the end is me in a Netflix documentary. It's like, what is the percent chance I have to, like, be on the run? At some point in this business venture. I don't really wanna flee the country.
36:04
I'm not looking to, like, you know, find out that, like, you know, we have a huge amount of, like, you know, child pornography or, you know, you know, money laundering in my my app. It's like, dude, I'm not here for the stress. Like, I'm not I'm not trying to do all that. And I don't need to make, like, a trillion dollars in a year doing this. Like, the state guys, I I I told the story about them on the pod. They need, like, forty million a week in revenue. No way. We issued. I I think a But how much is that?
36:29
What's that like net revenue versus gross?
36:33
This is their take.
36:35
They Forty a week. Did a eight I heard they did a eight hundred million dollar dividend.
36:40
To their because they can't sell the business. So I heard that they distributed, like, eight hundred million dollars.
36:46
This could be this could be wrong, but I don't think it's wrong by, like,
36:50
more than thirty percent.
36:52
So so that's pretty crazy. These these things, these guys, these guys are printed cash. These are the guys who bought that, like, They didn't know who was behind it until some guy A forty million dollar home. Like a thirty six million dollar home. Yeah. And they were like, how did this twenty six year old afford this? And they're like, oh, what how where's the source of your wealth? He's like, I own steak dot com. Did people just be correct. Did people just message you? About what?
37:15
And they told you that number.
37:17
Whenever we talk about any of this crap, I have so many messages. My same friend who told me
37:22
Yeah. My same friend who told me about them in the first place when I featured them on here, he was telling me about, like, you know, their dividend and and stuff like that. Rubett is also big. Yeah. These these things are really big. Basically it's an online casino.
37:33
And so, like, you take one of the best business models in the world, a casino, and you strip away the biggest costs of it, which are, like, you know, the the building the giant building and having all this labor, because all the games are digital, and there's the the casino is digital. And now all you have left is the marketing cost to acquire customers. And you could acquire customers from around the globe in their bedroom, and they don't have to, like, fly to Vegas to do it. Right? It's a kind of an amazing model.
37:57
And, like, pretty obvious why it's why it's huge, but, yeah, you know, it's not for everybody.
38:02
Alright. What do you got? Okay. I got I got another one.
38:07
I got a framework, and then I have actually, I got two frameworks. I got one framework for I got a quick one and a long one. I'll do this quick one first.
38:14
I realized this the other day. I was like,
38:18
so yeah. Brian Brian Armstrong, the founder of coinbase went on, Lex Freeman's podcast. Yeah. That's good. Like, what is what is your startup advice?
38:26
What is your advice for starting a startup? It's like it's one of those questions that as, you know, as an entrepreneur, you kinda hate because you're like, well, it's like saying, you know, like, what is a good life?
38:37
So but he gave an answer. He's he kinda broke it down. He said, well, there's, like,
38:41
there's like two separate eras, pre product market fit, and post.
38:44
And I was like, that's I agree with that a hundred percent. Like, the things the way life is pre and post is, like, important. But, like, they need okay. So for Lex, you gotta define, like, what does product market fit? And, like,
38:56
it's kinda hard to define product market fit. I don't know how you felt it for the hustle because you kind of went from events to, like
39:02
I feel like we never had flashy blog posts. To the newsletter. You don't think the newsletter had it? I mean, we got to
39:09
we have two point five million people a day reading. So, like, I guess that there there's definitely something there. But, like, people
39:17
when my friends talk about it, they're like, oh, man. It just started working. Like, it never felt like it it felt like a flogged the whole time. It never felt like things were just working. I mean, do you feel that way at the milk road? It just seems like, like, it I guess maybe technically there's exponential growth because it's growing, like, two or three hundred percent a year, but it it wasn't like I can't keep up.
39:38
You know what I mean? Right.
39:39
Yeah. So I'll I'll tell you the frameworks I've heard about this. So one is,
39:44
Emmett, who's the founder of Fisher said this once and I asked, like, oh, that sounds right. He goes, In a startup, there's a big period where it just feels like you're pushing a giant boulder up a hill, and you're pushing and you're pushing and you're pushing. He's like and then there is a point if it works, where all of a sudden you're not pushing anymore, the bowler starts to roll down the other side of the hill. And now you have the opposite problem. You're running, chasing, to try to catch up with it. Because it's rolling faster than you can keep up with.
40:09
And, this is what other people say too. Like, you know, your customers are, like, demanding you know, you can't you basically you run out of inventory. People are it's flying off the shelves. Like, these are the phrases people use to describe this feeling. It's where it starts to feel like the market is pulling you rather than pushing.
40:25
And so I've never came for that.
40:29
I've experienced a little bit with our D2C brand. Where we would but it's not like it's not like this magical eden where it never feels that way. It never feels hard again. Like, that's kind of how it sounds in my head. It's like, oh, At some point, I'll stop pushing, and it'll start, like, rolling by itself, and I'll have to run and chase it. It's like, it's kinda like starts and stops of that. It's more like like, a mountain range where the hit you go up and then down, and then you climb the next mountain. It's a little higher than down. Then the next mountain down, like, that's how it feels like. So for example, with the with the with their e commerce company.
40:59
Okay. Getting the product made and getting it to market and getting people to first hear about our brand. That was pushing the boulder up. But then literally, as soon as they, like, I remember it went viral in, like, a Facebook group. People started sharing it in, like, the enthusiasts of that category. They started sharing it. So we all so I remember, like, the third day, we did, like, three thousand dollars in sales without, like, spending anything on marketing. And I was, like, where did that come from? That was awesome. I didn't do anything. And Like, people started buying it, and by our second month, we ran out of inventory.
41:28
And we had a we had a full our third month, our sales sucked because we just had no inventory. So that was, like, what it felt like to pull. But then
41:35
to get the business to grow even more, well, that's, you know, like, that magic, you know, sort of slowed down. And people were still telling their friends, but I wanted to hit a bigger goal. So now I had to push again. So it's been kind of starts and stops. With milk road, I I feel like the growth is pushing the boulder up a hill. But then I look at some numbers like the number of organic
41:52
people who, people who've joined because they got referred, the thing. It's like a really healthy percentage. I'm like, okay. So that means people are liking if they're sharing with friends.
42:01
And,
42:02
the feedback, like, the replies we get are not just like, oh, that was a good one today. It's like, They, like, they're using our own language and sense of humor. It's like they wanna be friends with us. They're like, they're like, I'll, you know, the milk was so hot this morning. It turned into butter. And, like, you know, it's, like, who set who, like, goes into a product uses it that day? And it comes up with a funny review. Just because you kinda wanna be boys with the people who are making it. Like, that's that shows that they really care in some way, and we get like hundreds of those a day. So so that shows me it's working. But still to grow and fill the revenue slots. Like, that feels like a slog. Like, that doesn't feel easy. That feels like very, very difficult.
42:37
And so,
42:38
so yeah, I I don't have a good answer. I've seen it firsthand with two different people. So the first is I used to share this office,
42:46
called founders dojo. You know, you it was a Dave Growsblad and a bunch of us when I was starting the company, the hustle. And
42:53
there was these two guys that were, like, the most stereotypical, like, look at Valley nerds. It was like a skinny Indian dude, and then this white guy that looked like this jock. He was like really good looking jock, but he was like the dorkiest dude ever. And they were partners, and it was a hilarious combination.
43:08
And
43:08
they created this technology
43:10
that would basically I have no idea why they wanted to create this technologies honestly kind of pointless, but basically, it would crawl the internet,
43:17
and it would find the
43:19
most shared and most popular
43:22
HD gifts, GIFs, whatever, on the internet that day.
43:26
And
43:27
they built this thing, and then they would spend hours
43:30
making the search. So if you just typed in one letter,
43:33
it would autofill with, like, things that you could search, like, GIFs. Like, if you typed in, like, the word c, it would autofill it cats, And then, like, the search would just pop up. And I remember we'd be, like, staring at the computer with them just so I'm, like, look how much faster it is. And it was like, you can't even tell, like, know, how much faster it was from the previous time, but they were nerdy out over this. And they launched this thing, and it did okay. It did okay. It did okay. And then one day we get into the office, And they've stayed there all night,
43:58
and they, like, slept underneath the table that their desk. I remember. And I remember, like, Dave had bought them pizza because, like, they were working the whole time. And we're like, what's going on, Raj? Like, why is this why is this happening?
44:08
And their website was called the worst drug, which is pretty hilarious. It's called the worst drug dot tv, I think.
44:13
Basically,
44:15
some porn guys got a hold of it, and the it, like, they he they somehow I don't know how it worked, but the most shared gifts on the web
44:23
are almost all porn. And so they, like, disabled, like, the not safe for work feature, and it was all porn. And we get to the office, and they had this fancy setup, like, this the a huge monitor,
44:34
and it was the highest death porn you I've ever seen. And you click, like, space and it would autofill with, like, a new porn gif. And and, like, at birth certificate. I used this, by the way. I remember seeing it. It went viral, like, in two thousand fourteen or something. It was like, somebody shared it in our IRC. They're like, this is a crazy website.
44:52
And it was, like, full screen HD immediate,
44:56
like, porn. And then you're, like, whoa. And you touch any key, and it just reloads another one instantaneously.
45:00
It was like, woah, what's going on? It was like, I remember for TikTok.
45:04
So, basically, there was, like, eight of us. Got eight eight guys
45:07
And, like, we were gathered around this computer. And at first, we were, like, shocked. It was, like, hardcore porn. Like, shock shocking porn that would go viral or, like, like, people, like, click on And, like, the whole porn thing, we got past it. And then we were like, wow. That's really high def. Look at that. Like, oh, if you click space, like, it really it loads so fast, and there were just eight of us, like, gathered around us, and Tim Westridge in the fountain of hair on his thigh.
45:30
Yeah. It was crazy. It was disgusting.
45:32
And Tim Westergen and his assistant. I forget her name, but they I was supposed to interview them in preparation because they were speaking at Husslkon, and I told him to come to the office And they walk into the office.
45:43
Pandora.
45:44
Yeah. The founder of Pandora. They walk into the office
45:48
and there's eight of us gathered around this screen just, like, staring intensely at this point, like, wow. Good good job Raj. Like, when you type in c, it really autofills, like, really quickly. Like, you know, like, this is amazing.
46:01
And they walk in and they're, like, oh, hey. What's going on? You guys wanna see something? Check out this technology. Like, it was
46:07
and they had
46:08
like, millions of people a day coming to the website overnight, and they slept there at the office for weeks trying to, like, you know, do something with the server to keep up with the traffic and, like, increase the speed just a little bit. And eventually, something happened where, like, someone in Romania offered to buy it. They flew there. And it turns out that it was, like, some gangsters, and then they, like, all had, like, guns on them, and they came back. And was like a whole whole ordeal, but that's the one time that I really saw product market fit work.
46:36
So I've heard stories like that. Like, when Instagram launched, it was kind of the same thing. They, like, they launched it. They put it out in the wild. You know, first hour is pretty slow. Whatever. The guys kinda go to sleep, they wake up and, like or, like, not even they go to sleep. It was, like, late at night, and it was early in the morning in Japan.
46:53
And the app had started to go viral in Japan.
46:56
And so they were like, dude, what are all these, like, why are there only pictures of tea? And it's like, oh, this is in Japan. People are having tea in the morning, and they're taking Instagram pictures of it, and they had like twenty five thousand people downloaded that first or second day.
47:08
And, the servers, like, you know, basically melting. And, like, pretty quickly, the only problem became how do we get more server capacity? It's like, oh, you you stop thinking about features. You stop thinking about the logo. You stop thinking about names. You stop thinking about hiring. It's like, All I think about is, like, how do I add more servers? And so, actually, I started to realize that there's a there's a test
47:30
the simplest test of product market fit, because people have tried to come up with these tests before. In fact,
47:36
there's a kind of famous Silicon Valley one, which is you survey your users,
47:41
This thing, which is if our product went away, if you could no longer use our product, how would you feel very disappointed,
47:47
somewhat disappointed, or not disappointed?
47:49
And the idea was if forty percent or more, say, very disappointed, you have product market fit. Sounds good in theory. It's sort of like Yeah. It's like a strategy. It's like giving you a way to have this answer to this, like, mystical question.
48:01
And, Mark Andreessen said this thing he goes, product market fit is like sex. If you if you're asking, if you have it, you're not having it. And, like, you know, I think that's more
48:10
real,
48:11
which is, like, there isn't this forty percent survey number. You can't survey your way to finding out You'll know because it kinda hits you like a punch in the face. And so what I've seen is that the people who really haven't, like,
48:22
their thing is going to go supernova.
48:25
They only care about two things.
48:27
Those two things are if it's a tech product, hiring more servers,
48:31
And if it's any kind of product, hiring customer customer support people.
48:36
And if anytime I meet a founder now who's like, yeah, dude, I just really need, you know, any good, like, customer support people, like, where do I find more support people are like, hey. Do you know how I can get, like, AWS credits? I'm, like, running up a crazy bill. I'm, like,
48:47
let me invest first. And then also, yes. Let me help you with that because I know when that happens,
48:52
that is the almost the truest sign of product market fit. It is the survey you don't need to go do with your customers when a founder stops thinking about features, stops thinking about, like, future plans and marketing and, you know, company culture and everything else, and they're like, Dude, the shit is melting. So I asked Michael Birch who was my my former boss and then became my investor at my, ideal admin. You know, Michael had basically sold Bebo for eight hundred fifty million dollars. And I wanted to know, like and he he had struggled before that for three, three and a half years to, like, make something work. And so I asked him, I was like, you know, what was it like kind of be before and, like, you know, when the turning point happened? Like, did you were you just feeling like so good? Once it's once it clearly started to work, He was like,
49:34
well, he kinda described the boulder pushing up the hill thing. He's like, well, before when I was like, I quit my job. We had two kids and a third on the way. We had mortgaged our house. And, like, I had told my wife, give me six months to try this. And now I was three years in, and I still hadn't figured out anything that worked. But I felt like I was getting closer and closer. He's like, that was hard. I felt like I was pushing the boulder up the hill.
49:58
Then with Bebo, we, like, I finally put together all the pieces. I knew that social networking was a good product, like, a good category. Like, this was before Facebook. Like, I knew that social networking was gonna be big. People were gonna talk to other people on the internet. They were gonna have profiles and comment on each other's pages. I just felt like that was true. And then I knew how to grow it, which was like these viral, like, kind of fill in your profile quizzes and share it with your friends. I knew how to grow it. And, like, So I I I launched the thing. He was in nine days. We had a million users. And he's like, back then, a million users was like so huge on the internet.
50:31
He's like, He's like, you know, nine days later, none of them came back. I had a retention problem, but he's like, I knew that I had, like, something that could light fire. So I turned it off. I started working on the retention to, like, give you a reason to come back every day. He's like, I knew this is gonna work. He's like, and I don't then when it worked, he's like, I didn't feel like this immense joy. Like, yay. I finally overcame it. He's like, I felt even more pressure. He's like, dude, now this is act like, you finally did it. Don't f this up. Like, this can actually be valuable.
51:00
Don't mess this up. He's like, that became a whole new level of pressure and, like, burden that I felt. And he's like, I worked so hard. And I think after
51:08
they sold, like, what are four years in or something like that, I think he had, like, major heart surgery, like, five months later because he had been, like, so
51:15
working so hard and under so much stress and pressure that whole time. I'm sure that could contribute to something like that. But when he described that, I was like, Oh, okay. So I've never felt that. Like, I've never felt anything that you just described. That means I've never felt the, like, the violent version of product market fit when that, like, a billion dollar company feels. What did Brian also say?
51:34
He didn't say what it feels. He didn't define it as much. He was just he had said basically some something along the lines of You know,
51:42
you know, you're making something that people want and,
51:45
you know, the, you know, there's, like, you know, whatever true demand for. He says something sort of general like that. But I've been thinking about how do you know? Because that's so general that you're going to be optimistic
51:54
and think you have it when you don't because, god, it would feel so good to have it. And man, it really sucks to not have it. So you're always kind of like squinting and looking for these, like, this evidence. And what Brian said was he goes, act he goes, my lucky thing was that I wasn't a big analyzer or a big thinker. I was just, like, action produces information.
52:13
So I would just do a thing. And I'd they'd produce some information, like, oh, people want this or they don't want this, or they want it, but there's something wrong with it,
52:21
like the the the bebo thing where it's, oh, they it grew, but they didn't stick around. Okay. But that produced information.
52:26
That first nine days produced a lot of information. And so he's like,
52:29
Okay. I built this wrong, but now I know what's wrong with it. So let me do another round and, like, he's like, action produces information. So as a founder, like, just focus on the action part and, like,
52:38
it'll either hit for you or or it won't, but, like, action is really the only way you're gonna get to it. And, like, you know, smart action, meaning you take action, then you sort of, like, accurately assess.
52:48
What's working and what's not so that you're not taking blind action. Have you ever thought about the logistics of that, though? So
52:55
coinbase
52:56
there was this article a couple years ago written about them. And when they were when, I think, in
53:01
eighteen or nineteen, when, like, the first cycle was happening, And they're saying how, like, they've torn down walls at their office, like,
53:09
just because they don't have enough space and, like, they they people needed to be in the same room to, like, shout at one another. And then they're, like, we're also just taking meetings,
53:17
in the park. I I I forget where their office was, but it was where near where you and I lived in San Francisco. And they'll be like, yeah, we're taking meetings in the park because they're just physically not enough space. And if you think about the logistics of it, you basically have this idea in the small thing in two thousand fifteen or sixteen or whatever. And so right now, they're at, I think, four thousand employees, which means they've probably hired
53:37
six or seven thousand if you count for turnover. And if there's, you know, three hundred and sixty days in a year, whatever it is, three hundred and fifty days a year, that's, like, bay you're basically adding ten to twenty people a day in head count every single day for three years.
53:51
It's pretty wild. That's wild. Right? In order to add ten or thirty people a day or whatever. You and that's not even, like, that much compared to, like, a Facebook or a Google. But,
54:00
like, does it that means that you gotta talk to Yeah. You're not charging people away. Five times ten times more. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's he says that he he goes, we have I think he said three thousand people now. He goes, but And I he's like, I personally, I think, was involved in the hiring of maybe the first, like, I forgot what he said, like, three hundred or five hundred. He's like, but then to hire the three hundred five hundred, I had to talk to
54:21
maybe three or five thousand people. So he's like, because I've done a lot of interviewing now, and I have a good experience. Like, if you think about, like, interviews, like, I got totally burnt out from it. If you just think like, alright, how are we gonna get everyone a laptop? Or,
54:33
how do we, like, make sure everything breaks?
54:35
Everything breaks. It's crazy. Have you ever experienced that firsthand?
54:39
Not that. But I I've heard story again, I've heard stories and that's how I know I didn't have Prada Murphy. Even when I thought I had it, and growth is happening. I've only ever felt it one time with Blab when our servers kept melting down.
54:51
And it was during a period where we went from about zero to two million users
54:55
in, like, a six month period.
54:58
And, like, we just kept, like, our vendors' servers were going down. Then we're like, shit. What do we do? Like, dude, you
55:04
how was TokBox going down? How was Cloudflare, you know, going down? What's what's going on here? Like, it was like and we were also getting DDoS attack initially that. But but Basically, yeah, it was that's the only time I've sort of felt it, but that was, like, you know, a very brief window of time.
55:18
The there's this guy, Dan Rose. I don't know if you follow him on Twitter. He was, like, a very he was, like, number three, number three guy at the hospital or something. Yeah. He was very early at Amazon, maybe, like, first fifty or a hundred people.
55:30
I was, I guess, something like that, but it was early early days. Like, he was around when the dot com bust happened. Right? So ninety nine two thousand two thousand one time period. Then he went to Facebook and he was he ended up being, like, the number three guy at Facebook behind Zuck and Cheryl. And,
55:44
anyways, he shares these war stories from the from back then, he says these things that again, you don't feel unless you're building one of these, like, you know, thunder lizard type companies that are just like this godzilla
55:53
And he's like, yeah, Amazon. He's like, we used to just do meetings in the stairwell because there was just no like, we ran out of desk space. We were we started putting two people at every desk. That didn't even work. Was just working out of a stairwell for, like, a three month period. I was like, just imagine, like, he's like, yeah, I just took my laptop and just sat there on the top stair. And I was just, like, somebody would be walking by and be like, hey. Hey. For that thing, we're launching tomorrow. Like, it can wait. And then I just walk with them down the stairs while we talk, and that was our meeting. So he shares these stories about, like, what it was like. His Twitter file his Twitter is a is a good file for sure. Did I ever tell you, did I ever tell you about the Airbnb cafeteria?
56:26
No.
56:27
So,
56:29
when Sarah my wife works there, and I used to go to the office, because my office was right next door to it for dinner time all the time, Basically,
56:36
they had this beautiful office. And every office or meeting room is made to look like a popular Airbnb, like, you know, think you could rent. And it's like this beautiful office. You know, Brian and Joe, they're, like, designers. So every and everything, like, in their office looks exactly like that. And they're cateria
56:53
can, you know, seat three or feed, three thousand people or whatever, however many people they have there. And their whole shtick was every single item
57:00
was made there at the office. So Right. The red bull, they had, like, Airbnb bowl. The ketchup, the mayonnaise, made right there. The trail mix Like, they may they they made everything. One hundred percent, except for the beer, I think. That's the only thing that they didn't make. But besides that, if you consumed it, it's like they didn't have doritos. You couldn't get a coke in that office. It was all made right there on the spot. And I remember thinking, like, this company, just that in itself is, like, a pretty amazing feat And that's not even close to being, like, their thing. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly. That's like That's not there's that's like their thing. This is a logistic.
57:34
You know, that's their version of of lunch. Yeah. It just table stakes to get people to work there. And I remember, like, thinking, like, how on earth
57:42
do you pull that off? Because, like, just, literally five years ago or maybe three years ago, I had interviewed there, and it was
57:49
two hundred people,
57:51
and it was, like, an okay office. But it it it that that alone I remember seeing that, and I was, like, this is just amazing. This is this is absolutely ridiculous. Dude,
57:59
I had the same experience. I went to,
58:03
Zinga's office back when Zingo was, like, you know, still Airbnb used to share an office with them, I believe, by the way. I went to that ZING office as well. And that office is crazy. First, you walk in and there's, like, tunnel to enter.
58:15
Like, you remember that tunnel, the light the lit up tunnel, so it's like you walk in. It's a LED tunnel. So you feel like you're entering a special you feel like you're entering a spaceship of some kind or, like, you know, you're walking out into a stadium.
58:26
And, then there's just dogs everywhere. I was like, oh, well, do people have allergies here? How is this allowed to say, oh, yeah. No. We're just is is like this free free land. And I met, we met the chef. This guy, Matt,
58:37
Matthew, I think it's a Du Trumbull was his was his name? Sounds like a chef name. And so he was like, yeah, let me give you a tour. And so he was the one who brought us into the office. I was like, okay. He's like, yeah. I'll give you, like, the kitchen tour. And I was like, okay. Cool. This will take, like, you know, two minutes, and then we'll go see the other thing. And, like, the kitchen tour took an hour because it was the exact same thing. He goes,
58:55
He goes, so this is our staff. He goes, everything that you eat here is made on premise. And I was like, okay. He's like, see that? Like, I was like, you guys have, like, he's like, you wanted to drink? I was like, yeah, I'll take, like, a sparkling or whatever. He's like, cool. So I'm tap here. And it was their fizzy water. I was like, you make your own fizzy water? He's like, yeah, we make your own seltzer, ciders, beers. They made everything. He's like,
59:14
yeah, this, like, you know, the salad here, like, we grow all the the, like, we have a micro farm on the root. That's crazy. And so, like, this mushroom was grown here. This like arugula is grown here. It's all a circular system. I was like, what? And then he's like,
59:28
I was like, but what about them? You don't have like animals for like, you know, he's like, no. No. No. We do get animals, and we get the full animals. So he opens up the walk in fridge, and there's just cows. Cows hanging upside down. Full cows. And I was like, what is this? And he's like, yeah. We break down the entire carcass and we like, you know, use every bit of it for our things. I was like, you and what army, dude? He's like, oh, we have forty five people and our chef is crazy. Executive. I'm the executive chef, and we have forty five people on our team.
59:55
I was like, you have I don't have forty five people in my company. You have forty five people on the lunch team. And I was like, this is just absurd. It was insane. And I was like, wow, the arms race for, like, you know, pampering tech tech things and, like, building this, like, culture of your building something special was,
01:00:11
you know, kind of amazing, to be honest. It was it was really amazing. I I I was blown away by that. I have cows on my at my ranch on my Airbnb property.
01:00:19
And I've we have, like,
01:00:21
eighteen of them or something like that. And I've And, you know, they butcher them. So they, like, every year they send away, like, four or five. And then I see the new ones being born.
01:00:30
And
01:00:31
I thought it'd be cool to get a freezer out there and you, like, paid twenty bucks and you could get a steak. And it'd be like, yeah, this cow is, you know, like, the mother of the one that you see, right, in front of the off, like, you know, because you could sit on the porch and, like, watch the cows would come up to. That's too sad for me. And,
01:00:46
it was too sad for me. I couldn't do it. I need, like, distance from it. I need to, like, ignorance is bliss for me when it when it comes to eating meat. Yeah. I didn't end up doing it because I was like, this TMI, I can't handle it because I, like, I see these guys playing and, like, get to know them, and they get to know me. I was like, oh, fuck. Right. I'm not nearly as tough as I thought.
01:01:04
I know. Should alright. Should we wrap it or, cause they're, like, are you, paying by the minute now, your surcharge here, your your studio? Because I'm free here in my studio.
01:01:14
Yeah.
01:01:15
Well,
01:01:16
you know, Ben's still getting used to, like, the logistics of this. So, I'll just leave it at that, but I think I think our our time is up. What do you think? You are are you inspired now to look better or you still don't give a shit?
01:01:28
I am very inspired. The inspiration isn't the problem. The
01:01:32
the skill to do it is the problem to, like, upgrade my own space. It's not gonna give it's gonna, like, do it. Do you use that room for anything?
01:01:42
I use it for for this, and my wife works out of here too. So but but we can use it for how are we? It's an office, though. Right? It's like Yeah. It's an
01:01:49
Well, like, just like it'll look like a CNN newsroom, just have her in the background, like, working.
01:01:54
Like, it'll look fine. They just make it look a little pretty. They'll put some of this crap on there. Dude, send them. I'm open to it. The door's open. Read the doorbell.
01:02:02
Alright. Well, I guess that's the pod. We'll see if this, actually
01:02:06
changes anything, but it might
00:00 01:02:26