00:00
There's like stories where she's raising funding
00:02
and, a guy leans over the table and was like, so why should I trust you to be the CEO of this company? And she leans back over. She goes, because I'm a complete and total animal.
00:12
And the guy leans back and he's like, alright,
00:15
I'm in.
00:27
Okay. What's up? We are here and I got two little special announcements for you.
00:33
First one,
00:34
we got merch. The boys got merch. We're a little late to the game. We're a little slow.
00:40
Most people start selling merch as soon as they get a following. It took us four years, but Sam, we figured it out. You gotta sell t shirts on the internet. And hoodies, but that's I think that's all we have. We'll we'll we'll add we'll add more stuff, but we have a few stuff. It's pretty stupid that neither of us are wearing it today. Mine's in the in the dryer at the moment. Again,
01:00
slow and stupid. Yeah.
01:02
But yeah, it's pretty cool. We have stuff that has some of our favorite sayings and,
01:07
dude, there's no small boy stuff shockingly.
01:10
Caught on. Caught caught on in a big way. I'll tell you something. I don't know if you listen, but I did an episode with Samir from Colin and Samir, and they basically are like, they're YouTubers that study other YouTubers. So they're like, always studying creators.
01:22
And he handed me two things when he came to the interview. He handed me a newspaper.
01:27
Does that tell you about this? No. He he handed me a newspaper that was they made their own
01:33
newspaper edition, like one one edition, special edition for their, like, they hit some milestone. So they printed a a newspaper, and it was, like,
01:41
all of the, like, kind of content or interviews from their show were, like, It's like, here's the here's the monthly magazine or whatever. Here's the thing for for our stuff. Dude, let's do that. That's a great idea. It's a great idea. It looked like a normal thing, but they made it using their content. And I was like, I love this. He gave me one. He's like, this is the last one we have. I don't know if that's true or not, but man, you know, how to make a boy feel special when you say that. The second thing he handed me this hat, that was a dope hat that says, press published. It's like this blue hat that has super high quality. And I was like, oh, this is like much higher quality than normal merch. And he goes, oh, yeah. Yeah. Here's how I think about merch.
02:16
He goes, if you're Logan Paul or you're mister Beast,
02:20
you make consumables.
02:22
Think Prime Energy drink. It's a consumable. I'm selling this to you. You're gonna drink it. Use it. Whatever.
02:27
And he goes, mister Beast, chocolate. He's gonna or even mister b's merch, just t shirts. These are all just consumables.
02:33
And he goes,
02:34
we don't make consumables. We make collectibles. He goes, you know, if you're a creator, you should pick one of the two paths.
02:39
And I love this collectibles ID. He's like, because what you want is you want a way you're look, you don't need to make a you're not gonna make a fortune. You don't need to make a fortune through your merch. And which is why we've never done merch because it's like, I don't know, do we we don't really care about making a couple thousand bucks on on t shirt sales. Never been the never been a motivator for us.
03:00
Because we're rich if you missed that part. Alright. So the
03:03
but the reason is
03:05
Oh my god. What did should we play it, like,
03:09
Is that the our new collectible? Like douchebags are us? Is there go to a store near you.
03:15
But the collectibles thing made total sense to me where he's like, you want the people who are, like, kind of your your thousand most
03:22
most, like, kind of devoted people. People who actually give a shit about what you do, they're all about what you're all about. They think the way you think. They act the way you act. They're very similar to you. They're like, for them, this is like collectible badge of honor. So make a limited edition number of units.
03:40
And when it's gone, it's gone. It never comes back.
03:43
And on top of that, you,
03:45
it's a signal. So that anytime anybody else sees them with that, they know They know you're part of the tribe. They know you're part of the tribe. Like, if I meet somebody, Ben said this to me the other day, he goes, oh, you know what I like? Cause he he'll do often is he'll talk to people who come through my DMs or email us or whatever. He loves to go meet them and talk to them. And I'm like, they're great. You get a lot of energy from that. I'm more introverted. Don't like doing that as much.
04:09
But he goes, no. It's he goes, the reason I like it is, like, normally, I don't like just talking to strangers.
04:14
He's like, if you like MFM, there's like a ninety five percent chance we're gonna be friends. He's like, because it filters in people who think the way we think and act the way we act and, like, got a sense of humor that's like, you're not gonna like this content. If you don't if you're not a biz total business junkie and nerd, you don't like to nerd. If you if you like, don't like to learn nerd about business, you're not gonna like this podcast. And if you
04:34
like everything buttoned up and serious, you're also not gonna like this podcast. And so it's a great filter. It's sort of like when I see another grown man drinking glass of whole milk for dinner, you know what I mean? Like a dinner. Like, oh, hey, we probably have similar values.
04:51
Good. Good Catholic. What's up?
04:53
So, yeah, I I feel that. If you got a favor flavor of skittles. Sam Sam knows you're his guy.
05:01
What's the second thing you have? So Okay. That's the first price. Second surprise is eclipse channel. So this one actually we should have done a long time ago.
05:11
If you go to clip m f m dot com, so this is our new clips channel, which is basically
05:18
you we do these podcasts are about an hour each. Clid clip f m f m does is it's a YouTube channel for only the clips of the best bits from the pod. Clipped out for you so that you can watch them in sort of like three, four minute burst. And for every episode, we're only pulling out the one to three
05:34
moments that actually mattered. So where somebody told a great story had an amazing idea or shared something about the the way their business works or broke something down
05:44
in a level of satisfying detail.
05:46
And, At first, I wanted to outsource this. And then I was like, no. Fuck that. I'm gonna hand curate these clips myself because I'm like, I want the channel that I would wanna watch. Because this is how I consume a lot of podcasts. Like, if you're like, oh, do you like leg streaming? Yeah. Like it. Love the pod. Great pod.
06:02
I never actually watched the full one What do you search to find it? If you just go to clip m f m dot com, that'll take you there, or
06:08
the you're gonna search my first mailing clips. And, tweeted it out. It's got like seven hundred subscribers now, but I need this to get into the tens of thousands of subscribers because if you listen to this podcast, you're gonna want to like, why would you not want to just
06:21
get the best stuff faster,
06:23
or, like, in a more simple way.
06:25
So, yeah, anyways, that's my that's my sales pitch for both the merch and the, the merch's collectibles
06:30
limited number of units, and it's, it's just a way for our tribe to kind of signal to each other. Hey, this is what, you know, I'm in the I'm in the club. And, on the other side, we have the clips channel. How did I do with my sales pitch? That was a great pitch. And the skittles joke was very funny, and you made me feel very guilty because
06:47
my wife listen,
06:49
Listen. My wife has her birthday is this Sunday, and I was gonna surprise her with a pinata. Hopefully, she doesn't listen to this episode. And I have a closet here in the studio room that is where I've hidden the pinata and I've also hidden tons of bags of candy that I went and bought from party city.
07:05
Lots of skittles
07:07
on
07:08
unfortunately,
07:09
I've gotta go back to party city today because I've eaten all of the bags.
07:13
Skittles.
07:15
So
07:15
you nailed that one. It's all they're all empty. There's a there's a a a whole bunch of empty skittle bags over here. Went through that bag. That's not even like a small hole. You why did you need a face size hole in that bag? Because when I do nighttime eating, I go into bear mode. And I'm, like, I'm, like, a bear getting, like, a, like, a, like, a beehive. You know, I'm just, like, I'm just, like, imagine just, like, using fists instead of your fingers. That's like what I am at night. My sister says this thing to her girls. Like, she wanted them to, like, just go to their room and take put themselves to bed. So she invented something called nighttime sister playtime so that they would feel excited about, like, oh, do you guys wanna do nighttime sister playtime? And they're like, oh my god. Yeah. Nighttime sister playtime. So they go to their room by themselves. Play and they fall asleep. And so
07:57
I created nighttime daddy playtime, which is just when my kids are gone, and I get to just eat and be on the internet. And that's nighttime daddy playtime, and I celebrated every single night. Dude, I, like, am, like, putting my fist in a in a jar of peanut butter at night. Like, I wake up, and there's, like, bear claws all all over the place. So listen, I wanna break up a topic. You put it on your list. And it's so funny you put it on your list. Don't say what it is yet, but you put it on your list and I did a ton of research on this topic and it's incredibly fascinating. I wanna tell you about that. Sorry. We gotta give credit. The reason we both have it on our list. Someone tweeted at it. They did. They go, you should do it. They just said you should break down this particular company. And I was like, one of the very few times where I go. That's a great idea, sir. That's a that's a good one. We're gonna do that. So
08:41
let me tell you how I got started. Super fascinating. So there's this guy named Steven Broill. You have no idea who he is, but I bet you know Court TV. He started Court TV. One of my all time favorites, you know, predecessor of cops, my favorite show of all time. And, it turns it to a huge success. And then he also starts American lawyer media, which is like a six or eight hundred million dollar lawyer media company that he sells. So his next company, it's called verify identity pass. It started in o three after nine eleven,
09:10
and he wants to come up with an interesting way to make getting onto a plane easier and safer. He comes up with this thing where it's like a credit card and you could swipe it,
09:19
in in order to, like, prove that you're, I guess, not a terrorist, something like that.
09:23
And
09:24
it gets, you know, a little bit of traction. He raises a hundred million dollars to start this business. He gets, two hundred thousand p people to sign up.
09:32
It flops. Doesn't work out.
09:35
So,
09:36
there's this woman. Her name's Karen. I forget Karen's last name actually, but she's got this
09:41
hedge fund, very successful hedge fund. What are you laughing at? Her name's Karen. Anyone named Karen, I just always think, Jam.
09:48
What a what a sideswipe they got in life by,
09:51
by this this trend that just started into, whatever, twenty twenty two. And all of a sudden, their name was never the same again. She spells it, c a r y n, which somehow makes it better to be honest. I would too. Yeah. It it it does I would It does make it better. If I was, I
10:08
just have to make that slight,
10:09
like, you know, pronunciation change.
10:12
Yeah. Like, how I call, like, La Quinta Hotel's Laquita.
10:16
It's just a slight ray brand.
10:19
So anyway, she has this hedge fund. It's successful and all, but she hears about this company going out of business. And she's, like, know, this is actually interesting and I think they made a a a mistake. They didn't brand it correctly. I think this should be more of a luxury good company. And so she buys the business out of bankruptcy for six million dollars, then she goes on and raises fifty million dollars, and she renames the company and she calls it clear.
10:39
Clears that thing that a lot of you folks see at the airport. They, are at around fifty three airports, I think. It's kind of confusing at first when you see it because you're like, oh, there's two lines. There's a TSA line. There's a clear line. What the hell is going on? Turns out this company is crazy successful, and it actually has a lot more implications than I ever imagined. So Clear does something like six hundred million dollars a year in revenue market cap of three billion dollars. And what they do is they built this technology at that stand where it looks at your eye and it uses biometrics. So it looks at your eye to to, figure out who you are. It looks at your fingerprint and they, like, fast track you in that line.
11:15
But have you ever wondered how they, like, get these contracts at these airports? It's like a monopoly. Yeah. I don't know how they do it. So they give away ten to thirteen percent of their revenue.
11:24
To the airport. So what that comes out to be is something like of their, revenue in two thousand nineteen. They're doing, like, three hundred fifty million revenue that gave thirty five million dollars to airports. The most popular airport was LAX
11:37
that made them around twenty five million dollars in subscriptions of which they gave three million back to LAX. And so they're kind of, like, in bed with the government a little bit. And they have all these people on their board who are,
11:48
they took funding from Delta and have Delta employees on their board. So, like, the head of Delta, they have, like, the former head of TSA security on their board. And it's crazy fascinating because what they're doing now Wait. But tip, I was doing bad listening because I was looking it up while you were talking. What how did they get in the how what like, what was the thing that got them in? Cause it's like seems like Once you're into the airport and you're the you're the one,
12:09
of course, this is an amazing business. But what did they do? Because What did she what was the miracle that they pulled off there? They promised airports that they would give them a percentage of the revenue. So they would open up a new revenue stream and also what they did was they took funding from a couple airlines. And they on their board, they added, like, former head of TSA and things like that. And so, like, they like some old fashioned gentleman's agreement.
12:34
Yeah.
12:36
Yeah. So it's pretty fascinating what they did. But what's even crazier
12:41
Hey, Karen's actually pretty amazing. There's, like, stories where she's raising funding
12:45
and,
12:46
a guy leans over the table and was, like, So why should I trust you to be the CEO of this company? And she leans back over. She goes, because I'm a complete and total animal.
12:55
And the guy leans back and he's like, Alright. I'm in.
13:02
And so they're but they're killing it now. They have seventeen million users here's where it gets really interesting. What they're doing and I went and read a bunch of their like annual reports. It's it's super fascinating
13:11
and also scary. What they're doing is you can now sign in to LinkedIn.
13:15
Using clear. So you can create an account verifying your identity. You can also go to certain stadiums and buy beer using just your your eyes. And so her whole theory is like, look, we're gonna start with the airport, but eventually you're not gonna use a wallet anymore. You might use Apple Pay for some stuff for but for something that involves your identity, you don't need to pull out your license anymore. We're just gonna look at your eyes. And it's super fascinating what these guys have pulled off. And I didn't realize kinda thought it was like a douchey company because I'm like,
13:44
this is fifty dollars for TSA for five years. This other thing is like a hundred and fifty bucks for one year. Why do I need this thing,
13:52
but people still buy it. I I think I was with you one time and you bought it. You didn't even know what it was. Right? Well, we were late. We were about to me and you were about to miss a flight to Miami. And so I was like, alright.
14:02
Maguiver this line, how do we do this? Okay. Let me just sign up for CLEAR real quick and see if we could jump the line, and it it worked. You had TSA. I didn't have it. And so, I cleared my way and we we got on the plane. It totally worked. And so it saves you just a little bit of time But, like, what's crazy is that,
14:19
their vision is huge. And it actually is, like, a super interesting
14:23
vision that they have on how this business can be. Can be much bigger than it is now. And it just, like, goes way more in-depth than I ever thought. Yeah. I'm not sure I'm a believer in the rest of that vision because, like, I don't care,
14:34
like,
14:35
the amount of effort it would take for the
14:38
you're at a ball game and you wanna buy a beer. And now each beer vendor is gonna buy hardware.
14:44
To,
14:45
scan my retinas, and I have to stand still for seven seconds while it scans my eyes just to verify my age. Like, it feels like that's not the right payoff. Like, airport one makes sense because it's like, hey. Look, airport security. It's a big deal. Okay. You can skip this line. And if you're a business traveler, you're gonna miss a flight. Those are high stakes. That's important. And so it seems like the right payoff to kinda like work ratio. I wonder where else that really exists where you actually need to on the spot verify your identity. So last summer,
15:14
a new law was enacted. And so right now, if you live in, I believe it's Virginia
15:19
and you go to pornhub dot com,
15:22
or a bunch of other porn sites. Yeah. Go for it.
15:25
I see you type in.
15:27
You have two. Interesting website. You referred me to. I'll bookmark this one.
15:31
So there's a new law enacted that for people in Virginia, you have to verify
15:36
your identity in order to go to certain porn websites to prove that you're over eighteen. And so
15:42
it, like, brings up, like, a camera where it wants to take your picture from your computer lens
15:47
to, like, check your identity. Shame you? It just starts shamed. It starts with your headphones.
15:53
It's like game of thrones. Shame.
15:55
Yeah. Shame. Yeah. Like, the Avatar is like a it's like a nun. Holding a rosary and she's like, are you sure?
16:03
But, but, like, there's, like, a a few instances where this actually is interesting. By the way, those porn companies,
16:09
some of the thing that they're doing is they're putting
16:12
it on they're they're making it so if even if you're outside of Virginia, some porn sites are still making you register in order to, like, make you pissed off at the Virginia congressmen who approved this. So you, like,
16:24
ingram in Virginia is forcing you to open your eyes and get scanned before you watch porn.
16:30
If you feel any kind of way about that, push this button. Well, They even have, like, a Gmail login for some of these porn it's it's it's weird. It's weird is what it is. But, like, I,
16:42
it's it's crazy. But there are a few instances, but the most crazy thing about Clear is, like, this is a total monopoly,
16:48
that they have in airports, and I'm shocked that they've had this I don't know anything about public valuations.
16:54
It seems potentially like an undervalued company. But what is it valued at and what was the revenue again? It's in the five or six hundred million dollar range.
17:01
They claim they have ninety percent retention, so it's not like as good retention as software, but it looks like
17:07
their market cap as of today is three billion dollars. I mean, well, that's kind of an amazing,
17:13
like, a three billion dollar company that does such a simple thing And you said they're only in, like, sixty three airports or something like that? That's that's crazy that it's so so big with such a small footprint and a such a simple
17:25
product. Very impressive. Yeah. They're in, fifty three airports in,
17:29
their their the trailing twelve months, they've done five hundred and thirty million dollars in revenue.
17:35
Wow. That's impressive.
17:36
Here's our random related, startup. Do you ever see this company called Evolve?
17:40
They, they make metal detectors
17:43
No. So their big thing was they're like, it's one of these businesses, like, one of the meta takeaways of of this podcast is All the businesses are hidden in plain sight. They're right in front of you. And if you just start once you start paying attention, you're like, oh, this didn't just get here. Who put this metal detector here? This is a company that does this. How do they work? Is this the same company at all of these places? How did they get that contract? And so metal detectors are at every big venue. Right?
18:09
You know, stadiums, concert for, whether it's for concerts or sports, airports, that sort of thing. So there's a company that had raised money from Lex,
18:17
Lex Capital, like a a VC firm that does, like, whatever,
18:21
slightly hard tech or or hard tech.
18:24
And what these guys did was they're made of metal detector?
18:26
Good pitch for them.
18:28
They do. I don't know. Whatever. Well, I was gonna say, like, cutting edge hard tech. And then I was trying to tell you about this metal detector. It was like,
18:36
I mean,
18:38
those guys those guys the beach for Nuts or holes or hold metals. I just can't really call this cutting edge.
18:44
Yeah.
18:46
We do slightly hard stuff.
18:49
Yeah.
18:50
Or or to the e commerce. So they
18:53
but they're in a their actual demo is pretty cool. So what they're doing is It's a metal detector that can let you just walk straight through much faster. So, like, you don't need to I think it's like you don't need to, like,
19:05
take you don't need to take out everything for your pockets and you don't need to,
19:10
like, you know, like, I guess, like, it could just detect it faster. So the flow of traffic is faster than a traditional metal detector.
19:19
And that's kinda just crazy to me that that's, like, such a simple idea that I'm, like, oh, yeah. I guess, like,
19:24
I guess that's true. Like, if somebody just made a better metal detector,
19:27
going forward, they're gonna win a bunch of contracts. Alright. I gotta tell you about one thing that's one of the great joys of my And I'm not a car's guy, and I'm not a watch guy, but there's one thing that gives me a lot of joy, and that is having a virtual assistant.
19:40
You know, here's the scenario. I'm running my companies And even though I'm supposed to be this, CEO, we all know. I spend twenty, thirty percent of my time just doing random bullshit
19:49
stuff that is not high value, but it's just tedious the stuff that has to get done, but it's not creativity. It doesn't require me. And it doesn't add a bunch of value to the business. It's just stuff. Just stuff that has to get done. And so that stuff is what a virtual assistant does. Like, just this week alone, you know, I lose my wallet. So she goes to the DMV website, fills out a bunch of forms, gets me a new license. Or, you know, every morning. People have their morning coffee. I have my morning metrics. And my morning metrics are basically all the business metrics that I care about compiled.
20:17
She goes, she finds it for all the different sources, puts it in Excel. She takes a screenshot, texts it to me so that when I wake up in the morning, I don't go on Twitter or check my email, I'm looking at what are what are the metrics at and what do I need to do? I'm just focused on the right things. So having a virtual assistant is a no brainer, whether it's travel booking, email inbox, or just knocking stuff off your personal to do list that would have just lingered there forever.
20:39
I think it's a no brainer. If you're a business owner, you should definitely do it. I I think one of the best ways to find it, assistant is sheppard. So go to support shepherd dot com. You know, I pay my assistant, I think, eight dollars an hour like that. That's double what she was making in her previous job. So it's a win for her. And for me, it's super affordable. It's something that, you know, you don't need to have the biggest business ever be the biggest big shot in order to afford it. So it's amazing. I now do this for my COO and my CMO too. Like, I just give them assistance without them even asking because I know it makes them more productive. That's it does that for me. So of course, it's gonna do that for them too. So go to support shepherd dot com, check them out, get an assistant and tell them I sent you. They'll take good care of you if you do that. So supportchever dot com. Check it out. I have this thing called Cricket. I wanna tell you about. They spelled this funny. Do you know what this is? By the way, have Have you ever have you ever heard of a cricket machine? No. So it's c r I c u t no. What is that? Okay. Yeah.
21:32
Ari, a new producer, Ari is here, by the way. First episode. So if you,
21:36
if you like how this produce this episode's going, if you like how it's edited,
21:40
Credit to Ari. If you hate this episode,
21:42
blame on Ari. Alright. So, alright. Have you ever heard of this machine, the Cricket machine?
21:47
I have not.
21:49
Okay. This is it's a DIY,
21:51
like, home crafting machine. It's twenty years old.
21:56
This company makes
21:57
a billion dollars a year in revenue.
21:59
Hundred million dollars of free cash flow a year, Sam. How does that sound? I like the sound of that. And what it is is it's basically a cutter. So you put in some material. It could be plastic, could be a sticker, like paper,
22:11
And then it'll cut the shape for you. So you could do, like, dye cuts, like, stickers or whatever.
22:16
By the way, I barely understand how this I'm gonna butcher Yeah. I'm I'm I'm looking at it now. It's it's it looks like a printer, but I guess it's like a printer, but it's it's more for cutting than for printing. Yeah. So it's basically a way to cut different shapes of things. So you wanna put something on a water bottle, you wanna make a label, you can cut it using your cricut home home credit. Is this an invention that they made, or is this a style on is this like a Kleenex tissue type of thing? No. It's more like,
22:43
when Steve Jobs, like, I want, you know, every bill gates or whoever was, know, every home was gonna have a personal computer. He's like, you know, a computer on every desk. And that that's basically what these guys did. So there was, like, these machines were there before for for, you know, for people for industrial application.
23:00
And then they what the the company that started it was called like Provocraft or something like that. They were making these machines for craft shops. So you would take your design to a craft shop and you'd say, Hey, I'd like you guys to cut this for me this way. And they would have the machine on the on the countertop to cut it for you because you're not gonna have your own machine. These are expensive. What these guys did was they made it smaller and made it more affordable so that people could just have these at home.
23:22
And,
23:24
and so, you know, if you go look at Etsy, you go look at things like this, a lot of those people know all about the Cricket machine because they have them at home and they use it to make their goods. So how do they cut your name out in this cool looking font? They don't do it by hand. They have a Cricket machine that will cut it for you. And so just an incredible business. And,
23:41
I saw I heard about this because we were looking at an investment. So we're looking at investment from some of the original guys who were early there.
23:48
And they've spun off and they're doing, like, a new, a new, like, better version of of the Cricket machine.
23:53
And I'm, like, yeah, I'm just how big the space can be. He's like, well, I think it's gonna be bigger than cricket, which does a billion dollars a year and is spinning off a hundred million of free cash flow. And, you know, as a public company, And I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So,
24:06
my bad. And he's he was telling me some pretty incredible things about the crafting community. So he's like, You know, stores like Michaels.
24:14
They he goes, Michaels, if you go read their kind of like, talk to their leadership or read their earning statements or whatever, He's like, Michael's believes that every single person who walks through their door is an Etsy seller. Their default assumption is that if you come to a Michaels,
24:28
you are gonna sell on Etsy.
24:30
Because it's like more the majority than the minority, which is kind of amazing. And Etsy is this, obviously, this marketplace to go sell your goods But if you look, okay, if that's how you sell your goods, well then how do you make them underneath that? And so I am very tempted to invest in this space because it is such a big space. What's their product do?
24:48
I don't wanna give it up, just because it's, like, kind of proprietary, but it's, like, something like Cricket something like cricket but better and does more things. So the cricket just cuts this does other things in addition to cut. Got it. So,
24:59
now this came, by the way, through our buddy Aldone. So If you go back and listen to the episode with Big Aldone,
25:05
Al and his mom start a company in the quilting space.
25:11
And the little bread crumb trailers, we have Patrick Campbell on the podcast. Patrick Campbell runs a payments company called Profitwell And we were like, hey, you see the payments of, like, lots of companies, like, any cool trends in the payment space that we wouldn't have thought of. He's like quilting. And we're like, what? He's like quilting is enormous.
25:29
It's like quilting like the grandma hobby. He said, yes. Enormous. There are companies that do blah blah blah. So he told us about that. Afterwards, I get a DM from Aldone. He's like, hey, I'm one of those companies that we make hundred, you know, hundred million plus a year.
25:43
My mom, you know, Jenny Jenny Don or whatever started this business. And I joined her and, like, yeah, we still
25:50
like, kinda crafts for quilters. Like quilters. Right? It's, like, the squares. The squares, the the fabrics.
25:57
And they do, like, a daily flash deals. Like, oh, here's the quilting thing of the day and, like, that's how they do it. And so they built this huge thing. To the point where he now
26:05
bought a small town and he turned it into, like, the mecca
26:08
of quilting. The Disney land for quilting. The Disney land for quilters. It's like if you're a quilter and you wanna take a trip to, like, indulge in your hobby, this is where you go. And I'm like, wow, this guy is thinking big. I love this guy. He's a funny guy. And so he was talking about quilting, and then he introduced us this deal. He's like, yeah. I'm investing in this thing because I'm in this craft space and I, you know, this is like one of the best kind of concepts we could do here.
26:30
So I'm just getting I'm just scratching the surface on like this space I know nothing about, but I'm very fascinated by this. I wanted to share that with you. Dude, the Etsy platform is wild. Have you looked into, like, how big some of these sellers are. My mother-in-law started in Etsy store, and she's making hundreds of thousands of dollars,
26:47
selling pillows on Etsy. Right. And One of the cool things about Etsy is you can go to the store and they'll show you how many lifetime sales, how many transactions have happened to that store. It's visible on every profile. Yeah. And you'll, like, look up something very obscure and you'll see that they've sold fifty thousand versions of whatever their whatever they have. It it's wild. How powerful Etsy is. By the way, I believe this is how Moi started native deodorant. So I think the, like, public story is, like, my sister got pregnant, and I was concerned for her health and I wanted her to have aluminum and paraben free children. I interviewed him about this. The real story is what? Basically, he was just looking I think he was like, Maybe I'll do mattresses. A lot of people are buying mattresses. This is right when Casper was getting going, and and he called that. So he's like, yeah, mattresses. But then he's like, Shit. These are heavy. This is hard to ship. I don't know if there's like a lot of repeat buying on this. And then he randomly came across a lady selling,
27:40
chemical free deodorant on Etsy. He ordered that, and then he ordered, like, five or ten other ones. And he asked everyone in the office, like, put this under your arms. How does this feel? And it, like, some of it was good, and he's, like, some of it was was bad, but he found one that was great. And he goes, hey, lady, can I, slap a native label on this and we just resell your stuff and that's how it starts? And then eventually he gets big and gets traction. He's like, alright, now we're gonna make our own. Thank you very much. And I think I think she helped him, like, formulate it and and Well, she couldn't keep up with the demand. She was like, dude, I don't want I'm not trying to scale this to this level. Like,
28:15
I'm, you know, my fingers hurt, Sarah. Like, you know, can I can I take a break here? And, she was like, how about this? How about I buy the formula? He's like, how about I buy the formula off you? And you help me figure this out, then we'll we'll bring this to a manufacturer because we've outgrown your scale now, like, a thousand dollars in cash. And he and then after two years, he sells the business for a hundred million dollars in cash. And he that was like, you know, I think the business probably does, like, two hundred million a year in sales. So you could argue it was early, but I think he turned out alright. But he, like, sold the business, like, right before, maybe two years, three years before, like, the whole DDC thing was like, alright, this is more challenging than we thought. But but one of the insights was, this is I think it may I think natural deodorant was one of the top selling products on Etsy, and that's why he he had market validation that there's something here. Illum free deodorant. I think This is not him and many other people do this where, like, you know, the business has this,
29:04
you know, touching
29:06
origin story. This is this wonderful backstory, but, like, these are often, you know, reverse engineered later. You know, the that's not how a lot of these business work. One of my fun things is like, let's just be honest on this podcast and, like, say what it is. You know, like, I started it, like, started the milk road because I was interested in crypto, I saw what you did with the hustle, and I was like, oh, I get it. I could do that. And I just did that with,
29:29
with milk road. It hustle for crypto, and I'm just, like, went down that road and did it And my goal was to make a business, I made a bunch of money. Right? Like, that's the that's the thing. And I thought, oh, cool. Doing this, I'll learn about a bunch about crypto. That's my that's the transparent story. There wasn't, like, some some origin story where, you know, my cousin needed help. And then it hit me and then it hit me. I should just write this email for my cousin, you know, and And I didn't stop there. I decided to, you know, let's just open up for friends. You're all my cousins. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
29:57
And so, like, I think you could do that again on Etsy. I think you could always go back to and look for top selling products and use that as inspiration for,
30:04
for the thing. And, you know, for Mooys, I'm sure I don't know this, but, like, I'll I'll put a guest out there, which is that like an arranged marriage, he had a checklist. He's like, what is under one pound for shipping? What is a recurring purchase? That's consumable.
30:17
What is something that has a, you know, differentiation against a big market but has a unique differentiator, like natural deodorant that's chemical free versus what old spice and these other guys were doing. And, like, yeah, I had a checklist and he's like, oh, good. Deodorant. Lightweight,
30:32
you know,
30:33
review purchase with a clear differentiator. Got it. By the way, these cricket machines are awesome. I'm I think I might get one of these.
30:41
These are sick. They're they're expensive. They're, like, a grand. These promo code Sean Craft at checkout for,
30:48
you know, ten cents off. These are awesome. Does a good find I mean, it's not like it was, like, some, like, rare thing, but it's rare to us, I guess. But it's a good find. Yeah. This is out of our bubble.
30:58
For sure.
31:00
I invested at this company
31:02
that does this for,
31:04
for bathrooms. And so they they make, women's, like, hygiene products, like tampons,
31:10
pads that go in,
31:13
that go into,
31:14
like the vending machine. It's installed on the wall. And so, it's just like a better,
31:20
a better version of,
31:22
of what used to be there. There's always something there. And it was just like kinda it looked like a something a janitor designed, and then they just made like a really beautiful version of one that was, like, easier to use, more friendly, just look cleaner,
31:34
like, looked more hygienic.
31:36
And then what happened is that every state started enacting laws saying that, hey, yeah, every woman's restroom needs to carry products just like you, you know, you have toilet paper, whatever you need to carry these products. And so state by state, this is rolling out. And what they're doing is they're going
31:51
state by state into,
31:55
into these,
31:56
stadiums or schools, universities,
31:59
and they're getting these multi, you know, multi million dollar contracts
32:03
for installing their thing. And once they're installed, they're not gonna take them out. Sort of like clear. It's like these little monopolies that you can you can get. If you're the right product in the right place at the right time with the right sales pitch, because once it's installed, I don't think they're ever gonna go uninstall these things and change vendors because somebody has a slightly nicer design. Is that company working? Yeah. Like, I mean, I haven't seen I can't share their, like, numbers right away.
32:26
It's like those disgusting baby changing stations. What are those called kangaroo
32:30
jacket or something. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Those are filthy.
32:34
Yeah. Her her name's Claire Coder. She's very, like,
32:37
She's a very strong,
32:39
like, leader kind of personality type person. And so she she does a great job. Like, she's on LinkedIn. She's, like, super active with it.
32:46
It's called the company by the way is called Antflow.
32:49
And so, has like a more more, you know, friendly name versus, like, what was there before. And when she described kinda like what the process was four versus after,
32:58
you're like, oh, I get it. And I get why other people haven't attacked this space because
33:03
If, you know,
33:05
most of the VC funding is going towards men, a lot of,
33:09
founders who are trying to start these venture skill companies are men, not even aware of this issue. Never even been in the bathroom. No. You can't you wouldn't even know that this problem exists.
33:17
But she's done an amazing job of, like, identifying the problem and then building a, like, super
33:22
like,
33:24
just a likable brand and a likable story where it's like if you could choose between a default alternative or this, like, you'd obviously pick this. That's cool. I got pitched on a bunch of those. I passed on all of them because
33:34
I don't know. But, like, that that sounds good. That it's working. Hopefully, it it makes up money. I mean, getting those. When I saw, I was like, I don't know, man selling, like, two dollar things in the bathroom. It cannot be a big thing, but you said they're getting million dollar contracts who pays for it? The facility. The facility has to has to do that. Wow. The facility needs to stock
33:54
this product, and it's a recurring thing. Right? They install the dispenser for let's just call it, like, five hundred dollars. So it's five hundred dollars to install the dispenser. And then you're every, you know, every month or every quarter, you're gonna, like, have to do refills. And again, that thing's gonna sit on the wall forever. But it's not gonna go anywhere. And so to me, this is, like, owning
34:12
a piece of real estate in all these that's gonna pay your rent. And, I think that that's just like I don't know if this becomes like a ten billion dollar company, you know, that that's, like, different neck next level stuff. But it's clear that this is a defensible business. It's clear that it's gonna have recurring revenue. It's clear that,
34:27
well, there's a lot of facilities out there, and they're all gonna have as restrooms, multiple of them per building, and each one of those is gonna need to have this in it. So you starts to add up pretty quick.
34:39
Our software is the worst. Have you heard of HubSpot?
34:42
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,
34:52
grow better.
34:54
Okay. So let me tell this story. You know, actually, these guys much better than I do. I only know it's secondhand, but I'm a I'm a fan of this. So
35:02
Back in the day, when you were doing the hustle, one of the very first things before I knew you, one of the very first things you created was this infographic
35:09
about a business that I found fascinating.
35:11
And it was a business called I cracked. And I think what you were doing was you were trying to sell tickets
35:17
to your conference. He was a speaker.
35:19
And
35:20
in your genius, you were like, okay. Instead of saying come to my conference, buy tickets, you said,
35:25
look at this incredible story of I cracked.
35:28
These guys were in their, you know, whatever college dorm room,
35:32
AJ and Tony, and they realized that smartphones are taken off And so they decide, hey, everyone else is building apps.
35:39
Let's just try to fix people's cracked phones because there's the more cell phones there are, there's more cracked phones there's gonna be. And they made this, like,
35:46
on demand service. So if you crack your phone same day, they know that's a big problem for most people same day. They'll come to you, grab your phone and fix your phone. And it had this crazy NPS score and it starts scaling. They get to, like, I think in the first,
36:00
you know, they only raise five hundred k and they get to seven and a half million
36:04
in, revenue. And you write this, you make this great infographic
36:07
And I'm like This was in the infographic hating. Infographics
36:11
were, like, the thing back then. Were they you were the only one I saw do with them, but they were you and, what's his name? John. I think he was their design he was the design guy. You guys did an amazing job. It was just YouTube doing the hustle.
36:21
And so
36:22
And then you what you did was you're like, love the story. Wanna hear more stories at this. In fact, wanna hear AJ tell the story himself. He's speaking in the Houseagon in three weeks, buy your ticket. And then, you know, I didn't one, I'm not just gonna buy a ticket, but you would release one every what, like, week or so. Yeah, one a week. One a week. And By the third week, I was like, damn, I love these stories. I don't I'll alright. I'll go to this conference. Like, sounds like it sounds like these are great stories.
36:46
And so I went to Halselkom.
36:48
When I met you in the, you know, the story, you know, happy has a happy ending. So
36:52
these guys okay. So so let me finish their story now because they're what they're doing is pretty interesting. So they go they
36:57
What they realized is, okay. We think people are gonna have crack phones. We need to scale and they scale through colleges.
37:03
So they're like, they looked at this business, like,
37:06
iTech, I guess, which is like, you know, sort of like a geek squad type thing. And they were like, alright.
37:13
Basically, we just need to copy paste what we're doing to, like, actually, I don't know if IT was the company they're copying or that's what they called their people, but, like, they looked at, like, how to scale this. They figured it on one college campus. It's like, okay. We need these runners were gonna be able to cover this radius and repair these phones this way. And they just copy pasted across college campuses. And they basically they they taught college kids how to repair phones, an eye crack would send them the leads. And they're like, alright, you gotta go show up at this guy's house. You're gonna charge him three hundred dollars. It's all done on the phone. You get a hundred get two hundred or whatever it was. It's just so to scale, they blitzed. And in thirty days, they're on twenty eight college campuses,
37:48
which is amazing. They had booted up twenty eight campuses in thirty days, which I love.
37:53
They get into YC. They're one of the only nontechnical teams to even get into YC. And it's because this hustle was, like, obviously, very appealing.
38:00
And,
38:02
and so
38:04
at one point, they even buy, like,
38:07
two hundred smart cars that they, like, wrap in their eye cracked logo, and they give to their eye text. And they're so they're all running around San Francisco fixing iPhones and shit. It was pretty cool. Is like, okay. So how did you scale from there? They go, well, we started using SEO and press. And they're like, we've realized that the press loves to talk about the following headline.
38:25
Twenty four year old making millions doing relatable thing. And it's, like, he's, like, started out of his call Call started on his caller's dorm room. And they're just doing something all of us need repairing your cracked phone. And these twenty four year olds say they're making
38:40
millions.
38:41
And so they just took that story and they did it at the local level. So these Cincinnati,
38:46
you know, these Cincinnati,
38:48
this guy grew up in Cincinnati. He's making millions. Other guy grew up in wherever. He's making millions. Whatever college they went to, they did it locally there.
38:56
And oh, they just booted up at this college campus. So they did it locally, then they did it nationally. And they started stacking so that when you searched fixed cracked iPhone,
39:06
they could show up organically at the top through SEO from these high authority publications that were writing,
39:12
puff pieces about them. Love it. So these guys are great. Now here comes the problem. They're they've only raised five hundred k. They're at seven and a half million. It's profitable business growing fast.
39:23
They never announce this, but they go and they raise fifty million dollars to scale the business.
39:28
And that fifty million gets them to go international.
39:31
And at peak, they get to thirty six million in run rate, but it's just getting harder and harder to keep to keep up with the growth monster.
39:38
And the growth monster's demanding that they get to a hundred million in revenue because you raised fifty million. That means you gotta go huge. You've You've cut off your options.
39:46
And so they just couldn't do it. And they just could not scale the business beyond that.
39:51
And, they end up selling it to Allstate Yeah. Insurance company. And so they the one of the guys, he stays there for three years. He earns out,
39:59
his deal, and he decides are out. After year three, I'm gonna quit, start my next company. And that takes us to cloud poker night. I used it. Oh, you did it or what'd you do? Yeah. Well, we tested it. I was a a beta user, and it didn't quite work out when we start when You would be a beta user.
40:15
I am beta.
40:17
They called the right guy. We need a beta Yeah. Just stay on the phone.
40:21
It it was a little rough when we first started because he was only a few weeks in, but I think now he, like, nailed it. And it was actually really fun. So I wanna do two things. I wanna show the home page because
40:31
I love what they wrote as the landing page. The copy on this home page. Have you been to it? It's so good. Read it. Read it off. So it says,
40:39
poker is the new sport for business minds. Golf is yesterday's news, request access. And then there's a photo
40:46
It's a cute dealer dealing to
40:49
That's Anthony's wife. That's the founder's wife doing. Okay. Great. By the way. Duke dealer.
40:54
So so and then there's, like, whatever. People playing and you get you get a demo of the product. So super strong landing landing page. Then you scroll down. This is business minds who love poker. So just thinking about the positioning. So almost everybody would be like,
41:05
online poker night. Right?
41:08
Cloud based poker for, you know, poker software. Right? Like, this is, like, the generic shitty way to market this, but instead they not only say the benefit of it. They go even bigger. They just say big picture,
41:19
Gulf is the old way. Poker's the new sport
41:23
for business people. That's the, that's the we don't sell saddle, Zio,
41:27
We don't sell saddles here here, mantra. Like, when Stewart Butterfield created Slack, he wrote this great memo. If you've never read it, go read it. It's called, we don't sell saddles here. And he's like, Look,
41:38
guys, we made Slack. We know it's awesome.
41:41
Now our job is to teach the world that this is awesome. Here's the problem.
41:45
Most people you talk to that run a company are not in the business for chat software. They're not looking for a team chat tool. It's just not a thing they even do. They're not even looking for even if we say we're the best team chat software, doesn't matter. They don't care. They're not into it. He's like, lululemon
42:00
made you want to do yoga, to live the yoga lifestyle.
42:04
And he's like, we need to do the same thing. We need to we need to sell instead of selling saddles and saying we make the best saddles, we need to sell the joy of horseback riding. And then when they're once they fall in love with the idea of horseback riding, they're gonna say, where do I get a saddle? Or we're gonna say we provide yeah. We sell the best saddles. And so same thing here. I love what he's doing by saying poker is the new sport for business people.
42:26
That's the that's the selling the dream. And then, okay, how are we gonna go play poker? Use our soft. Any all day, they have all these, like, quotes about, you know, successful people who have played poker.
42:37
And I I recognize a few of these people. There's Warren Buffett. There's Sam Altman. There's Paul Graham, Peter Teal. And look at that. There's
42:45
the chairman of the milk road is on the right side. Oh, wow.
42:49
That's You're on there. That's insane. I had no idea.
42:54
I did not I did not know that.
42:56
Mom, the page two of the carousel if he swipes. I never got that far, but what they did was they go, business mindset vulgar, then it's a quote, and it says, which leader said this? Warren Buffett, Chamath, a Paul gram, and you're like, oh, that sounds like Chamath.
43:07
Nope. It was Paul Graham. Okay. Cool. And then it asks and it shows you another one. So again,
43:13
using sort of the the people you already trust to say that poker they're not saying cloud poker night is great, but they're saying poker is the bet is the sport for business people.
43:22
And then it's why poker's so great. Blah blah blah. And then it says, why you should use our software, which I love. So I think this landing page is amazing. You have to explain how it works. So, basically,
43:32
I mean, I've used it. So what it is is you, we're gonna use it for Hampton and and we're still going to, but we did it for a team night. And the way it is it's almost like zoom meets poker. So they have like a professional setup. In in my case, when I use it, it was Anthony, the founder. He's got this like home setup that's a that's a card table and then there's a camera on him and you see him dealing the cards and you see him talking to you and interacting with you and you could see all your other teammates also playing but he puts the cards over another camera of which only you, your, you know, the user, you see your own card. So it's really like live poker.
44:05
And there's even a dealer who's like shooting the shit with you and like asking if you wanna hit it. It's it's really fun. It's very interactive. It's awesome. I think it's a great business idea, for a bootstrap business. I I love this idea.
44:17
Yeah. I I love poker. I played poker my whole. I I I really I think this is Claudia. I would love to do an MFM version of this. So, like, that's a great idea. Give me a hold on. I think they did make one for. So I asked the guy this morning. I go, hey, this would be amazing. I don't like, like, the live shows we did were cool because we got to meet people who listen to the pod. That's awesome.
44:36
But I don't like travel. I don't like leaving my house. And so this is great because we get to play poker we get to be on camera, meet other people who are,
44:43
listeners to the show, and we could just host our own tournament. And so I think he's gonna do,
44:48
cloud poker night dot com slash m f m. So there will be a
44:52
uh-uh something there he says to to
44:55
RCP for this. So if anyone wants to play in a poker night, we should do that with people who listen to the pod. I think that'll be that'll be kind of amazing. By the way, the other founder so you talked about Anthony Anthony Martin. He's one of the co founders of Icracked. The other co founder a j is one of my great friends. He's a crazy person. He's one of the wildest people I've hung out with. His other company or his new company that he started, it's a
45:15
They call it, like what headline called it the Tesla for chicken coops. So if you go to coop dot farm,
45:21
it's a smart chicken coop. And he, like, keys into, like, beekeeping, and he's always had chickens and animals and shit like that. So he made a smart chicken coop that, like, opens the doors automatically and feeds the chickens automatically. It's pretty funny.
45:36
I almost invested in it, but I'll explain. One of the reasons that got made me nervous is
45:41
the, like, the day
45:43
or a few weeks or something like that before the round closed when the Ukraine thing happened,
45:48
AJ went to Poland
45:50
for, like, a month and was a volunteer helping, like, Ukrainian refugees.
45:55
And,
45:56
the guy's crazy. Is he Ukrainian? No. He just is into that shit. He just does wild shit all the time. Like, I'll be hanging out with him. And he's like He used to boat to work? Yeah. He he lived right near,
46:08
Oracle, and the office, his I cracked office was in Redwood City, but it was across this little bay, and he would take this little boat to work But every once in a while, they had offices at Soma and he would ride his this is like a small boat, literally fit two people. He would ride this little boat twenty miles up the bay to Soma, and Doc is both there.
46:26
The guy's crazy. He he would do no. And when I say boat I remember you told me that, like, a decade ago, and still remember you're like, yeah. My friend, he's kayaking to work. By the way, boat's not the best word. It's better to describe it as a a jet ski that you stand up on. So, like, he would jet ski to work basically. That's how small this thing was.
46:46
So was he paddling or it was a motor? No. It had a motor. It had a motor. And he would, like, motor It was, like, a jet ski. He was, like, he was, like, Kenny Powers. He was, like, jet jet ski to work.
46:56
He's the AJ is crazy. He's a he's a crazy person. Didn't this raise a bunch of money from Peter Till? Yes. Yeah. They raise money from Peter Till. Like He's like Peter. I see you're crazy, and I raise you.
47:10
It's like saying with me, Peter, chicken.
47:16
It's a it's a it's a it's a weird business, but I think it could work.
47:20
Yeah. That's amazing.
47:21
So I think this is a really cool business. I wanna see,
47:24
how this I actually wanna invest in this. I wanna I wish I could own a piece of this and,
47:29
just host poker nights. Because one of the great things about businesses like this is
47:34
the virality. So I'm very interested in products that can grow virally, and most people get this wrong. Products that grow virally are not products that succeed through word-of-mouth. Like if you talk to a normal person, oh, yeah. It's spread virally. People used to go tell their friends because they loved it so much. No. No. No. That's called word-of-mouth.
47:50
Viral
47:51
is literally like the word sounds. It's like a virus. You you're not even trying
47:55
to get it on other people, but it gets on them. They they catch it from you. So, like, the classic example of this was Hotmail.
48:02
At the end of every email, it was signed, like, you know, sent through Hotmail. You know, sent with love through Hotmail or something like that. You weren't trying to tell somebody, hey, you should start a Hotmail account, but it was added to every email
48:13
as almost like, you know, a little little virus that was attached to the email that basically said,
48:18
sent through Hotmail, get your free account today. And so people started signing up and had this crazy viral coefficient.
48:24
And products like cloud poker night have a different kind of virality.
48:28
Which I think I don't know what what it's called, but group virality or something.
48:31
Similar to how Eventbrite grows or meetup dot com grows, which is an attendee
48:37
becomes a host. So a host creates an event. Naturally, they need to invite a bunch of other people because that's how an event works. And then you might be in the hundred people that have attend some event. And if you liked that experience, the next time you're thinking about hosting an event, you'll go use that same product because you got sort of it was incepted to your brain through somebody else. So I think the same thing will happen here. What I would wanna do is I would wanna host a bunch of these for fun using the MFM community, but then guess what? The MFM community
49:02
when they have a good experience as a player would then host their team bonding night or their corporate events or sales sales events or whatever,
49:10
for for their businesses. And I think that's how these businesses can grow. Yeah. I think it's cool. What's, what what do you wanna do? Cricket? Crit Cut or gamer dating idea? I'll I'll do the gamer dating. Okay. So,
49:24
Sam, here's why you should date a gamer. I know you're married, but if you could go back,
49:28
Here's why you should have dated a gamer. And me too, I've my my wife, she doesn't play any games.
49:33
I just bought a PS five hoping that maybe that would sway her. She it's that just got upset. So here's why you should date a gamer. You're not a gamer, are you?
49:42
I'm like the
49:43
least gamer gamer. I'm in the club. Put just barely. I'll buy the door. I'll buy the exit door.
49:49
I played call of duty last night for, like, the first time in the year. It's just impossible. These kids are too good. It's so difficult. Unbelievably. And so it sucks. Also,
49:58
all the popular games now, they're like, PubG. It's like, yeah. You jump out of a airplane. I'm like, Oh, wow. That sounds exciting. And then it's like you land. And now you just sort of walk around. Like, you live for twenty minutes. And then You're not gonna see anybody during that whole time. You're just gonna be collecting supplies. I'm like, okay. Cool. But for what? It's like, because then when you do see someone, I'm like, but I never see anyone, like, yeah. That's the problem. You're just gonna get shot in the head and then it's gonna start again. And it's like these games where nothing happens. This is crazy.
50:27
Anyways, here's why you should Dude, by the way, I I I played I played called Judy last night, and I played this thing where it's three guys. We're on a team and we have to do shit together. And it was two guys that must have been friends, and they were talking to each other in Spanish, and I was so I was so bad
50:41
that I couldn't see or hear or understand their writing. I couldn't understand any of the words that they were saying other than by. This is a bot. He's so bad. It's a bot Baminos, and they quit on me because I was so bad. This bot Baminos. Like, that's all. That's not terrible. I remember I got called a bot, and I thought it was a good thing because I was like, oh, aim bot. I must be on, like, unlocked that they're calling me a bot. And then I was like, no. This is what they're they're saying. This gives, like, a NPC.
51:07
Alright. So here let me do my bit here. Here's what I used to date a gamer. They're smart.
51:11
They,
51:12
you'll never have to worry about where they are on a Friday night. You know, they're just gonna be in the room. Plain. You know, they're not at the club. They're not not doing anything scandalous.
51:20
They'll fight for you. She's a gamer. They'll they'll stand up for you. They're used to going to war on these things.
51:26
They're easy to trick into doing things because you just give them a badge or a level or some sort of, you know, medallion and they'll just grind for that for that prize.
51:36
They're tech savvy. They can set up your internet and fix stuff whenever anything's broken.
51:40
And they'll always give you space. If you're here for the tempers that need space, they'll give you space. But here's the problem. You may wanna date a gamer after that great sales pitch, but the problem is
51:50
there's no gamer dating app, and that's my idea. I think there should be an app for gamers to meet other gamers. Here's why this matters.
51:58
Wouldn't it be a sausage fest? I mean, how many gamers are women? All dating after sausage fest. That's the trick. They the guys only see the girls, the girls only see the guys unless you switch to settings. Right? So it's like,
52:09
Yes. Like all dating apps, the ratio will be thirty to one.
52:13
That that's that's expected.
52:16
But that's that's normal for a dating app. Here's why I think it's cool.
52:20
I think gamers have a lot in common. I think gamers are a pretty big market. Hundreds and hundreds of millions of gamers out there. Like, gaming, the gaming industry makes more money than Hollywood. Right? So it's like if you think people like movies, people like games more.
52:32
But there's no easy way to meet a gamer. And if you meet a gamer, you actually have a lot of comment, and you might have things to do in common. And so I think one of the hard parts about dating apps is that they're all profiles,
52:42
and flirts and not not really dates. And then a bunch of companies came in and were like, we're gonna get you on a date
52:48
but then the reality was, like, getting people out into the real world to go on a date is kinda like really, really high friction. And matching them was a pain in the ass. I did a bunch of those. I think that gamer dating would work because you could be like, cool. You matched. You guys are both interested in each other. And you might put you have some games in common because that's part of your profile. What games you guys both like already play,
53:07
go squad up, play game, go play call of duty together. And in doing so, you're gonna be talking, you're gonna be doing something together. It's like going bowling, going Papa golf. But just more fun. And so I think somebody could I this is a legit idea. At first, I was gonna save this for a drunk ideas episode.
53:21
And then it kinda grew on me. I was like, no. No. No. This could actually work. Like,
53:25
if you think this can't work, let me remind you that there is a dating app called Farmers only.
53:30
Right? There's there's dating apps called Black People Meet And those those that work. If you think those can work and gay redating can't work, you're nuts. Gay redating could definitely work, and it could definitely be big. Definitely go sell it a match for, like, seventy five million dollars in three years. Is farmers only still a thing?
53:47
You haven't checked in on it a little while, but they used to run, like, TV commercials.
53:52
You haven't been keeping tabs? They're wet that looks very old.
53:56
Still paying the the hosting beep beep. Alright. They're doing seven hundred k in monthly visit. So not bad. That's so funny.
54:04
What's your name for it?
54:06
I don't have one just yet, you know, working title, TBD.
54:10
Open to suggestions. Yeah. I think it's a pretty
54:13
bad idea.
54:14
Well, I sold it pretty hard, so
54:21
I mean, maybe. You're dating dating apps suck. That that's the worst business there is, man. Cause only, like, three or four of them, a winner take all market. You know what I mean? I don't wanna take all of it. There's tons of dating apps. It it it I mean, who's the winner that took all? Tinder? Nope. What bumble? Nope.
54:37
Batch, eharmony? No. Okay. Keep it. No. It's like social media where it's, like, there could be, you know, there's hundreds of social media platforms, but there's, like, four that matter. Do you know what I mean? I remember when I was at monkeyinferno,
54:49
a guy came to the office getting KJ. And he's like, I'm gonna make it Indian,
54:53
like, you know, there's Jewish dating apps. There's farmer dating apps, there's black people dating apps. I'm gonna make an Indian dating app. I was like, alright. That's you got a good idea, I guess. And I was like, do you have any background on this? He's like, I'm in the end, and I'm trying to date. And he's like, you know, that's my background. And I was like, okay, I guess super qualified.
55:10
And then he's like,
55:12
He's like, here's what we're gonna do differently. He's like,
55:15
I was like, so what are the features? Like, what what do you have to do to to differentiate? He's like, I told you it's a Indian dating app. So the app's gonna say, this is for Indians. Try to meet other Indians.
55:25
I was like, oh, he's right. That is actually the main feature is that you're gonna curate the people and sort of filter for people who wanna meet other Indians. For farmers, wanna meet other farmers, whatever. For Jewish people, one might meet other Jewish people. And so I was like, okay. I guess that is already better than Tinder. If you're an any person who wants to beat an Indian because you're gonna get a hundred percent hit rate here versus maybe a five percent hit rate on a on a generic dating And I was like, okay. So how you make money? He's like, do you know how much people pay for dating apps? Like, to is it I'll do the same business model. I was like, alright. I'm trying to poke holes, but he's just got it covered. I was like, but how are you gonna like I was like, what do we need to care about more than others? He goes, oh, that's where I'm gonna do something different. I go, okay. Here it is. What's the big feature? What's the big tech breakthrough? He's like, Like, your mom is your, like, co user? You log in with LinkedIn.
56:08
And I go, what? And he goes, yeah. And he's, like, because I don't know if people know this, like, Indian culture. It's like a big deal of, like, There's like a check. Indian people date on, like, a checklist. It kinda stems from, like, the arranged marriage background where literally you marry on a checklist, you know what the pickup line is for, like, I have most of my friends are Indian because you and Neville, my best friend's Indian, the pickup line when you're around other Indians is So what do you do? That's basically, like,
56:34
that's, like, what they do. Yeah.
56:38
Basically, he's like, you're gonna log in with LinkedIn. So we know that you have, like, a legit job. And,
56:43
I was like, okay. And then he's like, That's like the main thing that, you know, helps separate people. You know, I was like, whoa.
56:51
So he builds this app It's called Dill Mill, and he, which means like hearts meet.
56:56
How do you spell it? D I l m I l.
56:59
He builds this app, and I'm keeping track of the this guy. And he,
57:03
Ed, sure enough, he just starts going into, like, all the niche communities,
57:06
newsletters,
57:07
blogs,
57:08
youtubers, just promoting it, running ads, basically saying, hey, if you're an in any person, you're tired of striking out on dating apps because any people have, like, terrible success rates on Indian apps on a on normal dating apps. I think Okay. Cubid said that, like, the worst, like, in the in the free market of dating, I think the absolute worst was an Indian male, second of close second was like Chinese mail.
57:29
They were, like, the two least desirable,
57:32
according to the OkCupid match data that they've released. And I you know what the highest was? I think the highest the most liked person, I think, was an Asian woman. Yeah. Exactly. I think it was a Asian woman was was number one.
57:45
They were getting all these attention from the agent guys and the white guys, I think. I was, like, the the data what it what it showed is, like, they get, like, it's, like, top preference amongst two big user groups or something. And there's this, like, weird stereotype that, like,
57:56
Asia women are supposed to be more submissive and dumb shit like that. And I think that there's, like, some weird, like, kinks out there of, spoken like a true white guy.
58:05
Like, no, it's like men who have had oppressive, like, mothers.
58:12
It's on the it's on Christian Rudder wrote that blog post, the founder of Okitupid. I think that's like the whole thing. Their blog posts were great. That was a great strategy to the head. Anyway, so he whatever. Five years later, He he sells the thing. I think he sold it for seventy five or a hundred million dollars to, to the match. No way. And they were like, yeah. We match group is a collection of dating apps. We have our our generic catch all mass market apps, Tinder,
58:36
and,
58:37
what's the other one? Match dot com? And then they have, like, all the niche apps. And so they own, like, twenty dating apps or something like that. And so if you just fill one of those verticals that they don't have a winner in,
58:49
they'll buy you at, like, a preset multiple. And I was like, wow, that's pretty impressive. They paid fifty million dollars for it. I don't know, man. This guy, KJ. He's pretty good looking. And now he's rich. I think he I think he he he's probably doing a single, but I dated met up with him the other day. And he was like, you didn't believe. And I was like, I was like, well, you're right. I didn't believe. And,
59:10
actually sort of, you know,
59:12
when I didn't believe I really wanted to be right. I'm sorry about that. It was kinda rude to get you in a way, but then you proved me wrong, and you were absolutely right. Congratulations.
59:20
You did a great job. Have have you seen the Indian
59:23
Netflix show where it's like your parents are setting you up with, like, this matchmaker
59:28
dude. So at first, I thought that shit's the worst where,
59:31
you know, I'm like your parents are just telling you what to do.
59:34
But when you think about it, It's kinda, like, it's kind of, like, the, paradox of choice, right, where they're just, like, this is it. This is the one you are doing this.
59:45
You kinda are forced to find happiness in that. Right. And it doesn't seem actually. Maybe the worst arranged marriages. Are they? I have no idea.
59:52
Are are they bad? Or is it kinda they can be and they can't be? I think the stats show, it's about the same divorce rate as in America,
59:59
but what that doesn't show is that any people don't get divorced. They, like, you know, they're like, we will suffer in this unhappy marriage rather than get divorced and be happy. And but have society know that we failed at our marriage or whatever. So I I don't think there's a way to really know how successful or unsuccessful it is.
01:00:16
Me and, me and, by the way, a quick and needs story. Me and Neville were out to dinner with Dharmesh at HubSpot.
01:00:23
And Neville was saying how he doesn't he's like, man, India, like, that's where I'm from, and I go back there and it makes you grateful to be in America because, like, these guys got nothing. And, like, it's not very nice over there. This and that and Darmer and he was like not insulting,
01:00:38
like poor Indians, but like saying like it's like a a pain in the butt to be in that situation and Darmesh was like, yeah. That was me. I was that guy. I had nothing, and I came here. We were I was like, one of those guys, like, we, you know, we had nothing. And, they were all just talking about India. India sounds like a wild place, man.
01:00:56
It just seems wild. People describe things like that because How do you,
01:01:00
you know, you can only agree with that. You can't really disagree with.
01:01:04
X is a wild place. It's the same thing as our business pitch of, like, it's this just beautifully done. We're just gonna do it beautifully. It's the same thing. It's like, dude, that's a wild place. It's like,
01:01:15
what? The food, the the the crime. What are we talking about here? Here's the story you told. The story you told is that when your mom came to America, I don't know if you were joking or not. You said tooth exactly my mind. You said the first thing you said, she
01:01:28
she had never used utensils.
01:01:30
You said that. I do remember saying that.
01:01:33
You this is all on record. You're like, she didn't use utensils. That's what you told us. That's what you said on last pod. Mom, if you listen, I know you never said that. I didn't say that. I'm being bullied by Sam.
01:01:44
You no. I am not I'm not putting any judgment here. I am repeating what you said. The second thing you said, you go, wait, when she went to hang up the phone, She didn't know how to hang up the phone. She just let it, like, hang on the very phone. And it was wild to hear that story. That that was it was like it made me love your mom is what it is. She told me the story. It was unbelievable. She's like, I got on the plane. I'd never been on a plane before. My parents just dropped me off at the airport. I'm seventeen years old. I've never been on a plane before. Don't even know what a plane is, really.
01:02:14
I just get shuffled along. I show somebody my ticket. They send me here. Send me there. Okay. I get on a plane. And she's like, I think it's like a train. That's all I've ever seen. It's a train. And so I'm just thinking this is gonna be like a train ride. And she's flying, like, fourteen hours. Tell her that it goes in the air. Her parents didn't know either. They never been on a train a plane either. They were just like, this is how you get to America. She was like, okay, didn't ask don't ask too many questions. That's insane. And so she she's like, you know, plain seatbelts are kinda funky. She's like, I did it. I just, like, pushed it, pushed it, and it went in on the first try somehow miraculously. And the person next to me looked at me was, like, Oh, you've flown before. And she was like,
01:02:48
I was like, oh my god. Well, I don't even know what I'm getting myself into. No. I have no idea what I just did. I have no idea how I'll get this off.
01:02:55
And,
01:02:56
whatever. I guess I have a few hours to figure out how to unbuckle this by the time I need to get off to at my stop. So then for fourteen hours, she's flying, and she's stays awake because she's, like,
01:03:05
I don't wanna miss my stop. And she's like, this thing's not stopping. What's going on? She's like, doesn't know how planes work? It was crazy. The whole thing was insane. Doesn't that make you feel soft? Your mom your mother is so much more brave than we are.
01:03:17
It makes me feel, incredibly lucky
01:03:20
that,
01:03:21
you know, she did all the hard stuff so that I don't have to do it. Yeah. Shout out. It's like, you know, shout out, mom. Bird moms, like, chew food and then just spit it in their baby's mouth so they don't have to chew. What I feel like she did with life. She's just like chewed life for me and then spit it in my mouth and I just have like the easy life.
01:03:37
On that visual. Yeah. Alright. Well, thank you. That's the pod. What is it? MFM
01:03:41
pod
01:03:46
com. We got the merch. And then, what what's the clip website?
01:03:51
Clip clip m f m dot com or just go to YouTube and search my first million clips. And please subscribe. That way, we'll have the like, when there's five hundred subscribers, we don't have a lot of incentive to do the work of cutting, you know, picking the perfect parts, trimming them down, cutting them, and titling them and making them like available to you if you don't have time to watch the full episode or you wanna share just the best bit with somebody because, you know, sharing an hour long podcast with somebody is like assigning some, you know, asking somebody to help you move on Saturday. Like, it's just a tough ask, but sharing a clip is like doing somebody a favor. And so
01:04:21
go subscribe to that thing so that we,
01:04:24
but, yeah, we're we're, like, motivated to get to do that. Wanna see that thing grow. Alright. Check it out. That's the pod.
00:00 01:04:50