Encarta | Meet The Farmer Who's Making $50M/Year With a Newsletter

00:00

So the background is this this guy named Kevin Van Trump. He

00:04

is probably in his fifties late mid to late fifties.

00:09

And he basically I think he worked in Chicago on, like, the commodities, like, trading floor. So he, like, traded commodities, but he's got a relatively fixed southern accent.

00:19

Right.

00:20

So it goes to Chicago. It probably makes

00:23

eight figures trading commodities

00:25

he, like, sounds like this country, pumpkin farmer, but, like, you know, he's trading like corn features and shit like that. It makes a lot of money. Then maybe ten years ago, he starts this daily newsletter where he writes the whole thing by himself every single day

00:40

at this point? Or, like, seventeen years. He's done that. Is it seventeen years? Some something like that. It's, like, some almost twenty years. He's been doing this every day. And

00:48

it makes like something, like, in the world of twenty million dollars a year in subscription revenue just to read

00:56

more. I I think it's like thirty, forty million a year now. So I've done calls with him. And I'm just and and this guy, he's like, oh, hey, check this phone bitch out. That's a whole state.

01:19

Okay. So, I haven't talked to you in like two weeks. You had COVID. You know? I had

01:23

I I can't even explain what I had. I would apologize because I missed so many recordings, but in a way, you gave me COVID because

01:31

I got COVID because I went to this conference, which is,

01:36

you know, a decision I made. I didn't really honestly, I wasn't really thinking about it. COVID's just been so present that I wasn't really, like,

01:43

I didn't do the math of, like, you know, if I go on a plane and I go to a conference with two thousand people, what's gonna happen?

01:49

And so sure enough, I go to this conference as Sam hooks me up with. He's like, Sam's like, hey.

01:53

This conference is amazing. It's called Farmcon. These guys who run it, there's super cool story.

02:00

You know, it's awesome. And I was like, oh, I'm in. And I was gonna go. And I land. And I'm like, yo, I'm here, baby. Let's do this. And Sam's like, oh, I didn't go, dude. I'm I don't wanna get COVID.

02:11

Well, I can't I canceled, like, last minute. I I dude, like, I thought that you knew that I canceled.

02:17

But, like, how would I know that?

02:19

Because we we had talked about you going, and we hadn't said, I don't know. We had not very much of that. I'll see there. Yeah. Sure. And, I thought you knew I canceled. So I felt horrible, but, like, a week or two prior

02:32

to to to that's, like, when Omni Chrome and all this stuff happened, And it's a it's a farmer's conference in Kansas City. My home, you know, I'm from Missouri.

02:40

And I was like, oh, I think that,

02:43

like, that COVID will be there. Yeah. I don't know if I was COVID was for sure there. It was the, you know, the the the main attendee, the main keynote speaker.

02:52

Do the we walked in. So I walk in. Me Ben went with me. And so,

02:57

we go in, and me and Ben are literally the only two people in the room with a mask. And there's, like, two thousand people in there. And I was, like, oh, shit. I didn't even really think about it. And I was, like, oh, fuck. It's here.

03:09

And I was like, well, the odds of me getting are pretty high, but I'm now here. So I gotta, I guess, make the most of it. So anyways, basically, I go to this conference

03:17

and everything that could happen to get COVID happened, meaning, like, it's like,

03:22

conferences in this ballroom. Great. It's two thousand people in one room. Alright. That's no so good. They're not math on. Okay. Because next thing to happen, I go to the gym in between, like, the sessions. We were meeting Ben Wanna get a workout in. We go we meet this guy. We're making small talk, and we're like, you're here for the conference. He's like, no, I'm just quarantining here.

03:40

My girlfriend has COVID, so I'm here. Oh my gosh.

03:43

I just took your hand. And we were, oh, what am I doing? And so then this guy my gym buddies got COVID. I was, like, oh, great. And then again, on the plane, finally, to come back. I'm like, alright. I think I might have made it out unscathed. I don't know. I'm feeling okay.

03:57

Plain gets stuck on the runway for three hours. I'm on a on a plane in a closed tube with a bunch of other people for three hours. I was like, alright. It's it's over. I got COVID. And sure enough, I get home

04:07

And,

04:08

two days later, I get COVID. That the dumb thing I didn't do was I didn't quarantine right away, which I should have just done. I should have just said, hey, even if I'm not feeling anything,

04:17

I've been around a bunch of people. I should just, like, leave. But I was, like, look, I just left my wife at home with the two babies for, like, you know, four days.

04:25

Should come back and help. And in trying to help, I ended up giving my wife COVID, then we gave both our babies COVID. And so for the last ten days, it's just been Someone in my house has COVID at any given time.

04:37

And I've just been literally I haven't gone to a computer. I haven't done anything. I've just Did Ben get it? Taking care of it. Ben did not get it. I think Ben had it, like, a month ago.

04:47

So he somehow came out unscathed. Did truly get it?

04:51

He didn't go. He didn't end up going. He flaked the night of,

04:55

and was like, actually, like, it's super inconvenient to get there. I have to, like, change my my flight has, like, stop over fuck this. I'm not going. We'll do something else. So was it and you but you were even though you're vaccinated, you got sick.

05:06

I got pretty I got really sick. Yeah. I got sick really sick for three days. So let me tell you about my COVID experience. I,

05:12

I got really sick for three days, but it's just the flu with a side dose of paranoia because it's like, oh, that's ain't the flu. This is this is COVID. And so,

05:21

definitely, you know, fever, all that good stuff, whatever. Then the baby's everybody had kinda the same thing. But the bad thing is, like, I don't know how you are, but I'm, like, a huge baby when I get sick. Me too. And my wife is, like, you know, never gets sick. She's, like, one of those people just, like, never gets a cold, never has a runny nose, nothing. And so even with COVID, she was, like, She fought it off pretty good. It was, like, pretty mild. You know, she was still doing, like, all day. I think women are generally tougher, particularly moms are tougher when it comes to that stuff. Totally. But the hard part is when we both get the same thing and I go down, like, a, you know, bag of bricks, and she's just complaint.

05:56

Yeah. She's just like, what is this? Why are you why do you need so much sleep right now? And I'm like, I just can't explain.

06:02

In fact, I saw this meme that was so perfect. It goes, this is guy.

06:06

He goes

06:07

he goes,

06:08

you know, it's so good that women have to give birth, and go through labor because they understand what happens when a man gets a cold.

06:19

And that's how it is. I'm a huge baby about it, and she, like, toughed it out. No problem. So that was kind of embarrassing. Did, so how many people how many full time employees work at your,

06:31

your company?

06:34

The, the the the DTC company. Maybe, like,

06:37

seven, eight full time. And and these in Americans Americans full time and you and you, like, are running meetings and Not all Americans, but but, you know, people who this is their main job. They work full time. And when you Not accounting the warehouse staff.

06:52

And do you, like, do weekly meetings with them and run it, like, a a company, or is it really Yeah. Sean, if it's run, like, Sean, like, very autonomous.

07:00

Everything done via Slack. Very autonomous. Everything done via Slack. We have one meeting a week that's in Slack.

07:06

And I just say, hey, get in this channel right now, but we just did it. It was at ten thirty. It's like, alright. Get in this channel right now, and I just say, alright. You everybody here, and then they just, like, emoji react. And then I'm like, cool.

07:16

This is like a real meeting, meaning, like, don't go open ten other tabs. Like, when I say something, I want a response within, like, a second because it's, like, a live chat. I was like, but calls are annoying. We all agree calls are annoying. So let's just, like, do the like, just humor me. Let's try this meeting style. So we do it. I kinda like it. And, basically, I just say, Alright. Once everybody's main priority this week, like, what matters?

07:36

Everyone's like, oh, we gotta do this, this, this, this. I said, then I'll be like, that doesn't really sound that matters that much. Can we punt that? They're like, yeah, I guess so. And, like, we disagree on, here's the three or four things that matter this week. You're doing this. You're doing this. You're doing this. And then it's like, cool. I'll

07:50

I tell one guy, I say, hey, check-in on Wednesday, and everybody just say, how they're going on their things for the week, and then check-in on Friday. And say, how how did we do for the week? That's That's how much time does your wife spend on the company?

08:01

She spends a good amount of time. Like, she's, she, you know, she's a stay at home mom, I guess, like, first job because, like, So during the day, she doesn't really work on it too much. Just kinda like on her phone in between, you know, just like watching the baby. But then at night, she basically works from ten PM when the babies are finally

08:17

knocked out

08:18

to two or three AM. Pretty much every night, she does that, and she works on the business and does the designs and all that So when you guys are both sick, how bad? Like, who's We didn't know work. You just like, you just have a a a a person who you trust and you say just handle it. Yeah.

08:33

We're like, you know, just you do what you can do and then whatever doesn't get done doesn't get done. Like, we're not gonna worry about it. We're not gonna add a stress to our life that, like, since this week, we also have to, you know, work. It's just impossible. So let's talk about this conference for a second because I have been telling you about this guy for a long time. And I think that you you humored me, and the audience has humored me. And they're like, oh, that sounds neat. But when you

08:58

got to meet him. Did you understand what I was saying? Dude, this guy is amazing. This guy is amazing and what he's built is amazing. So I wanna go through

09:07

I have a bunch of thoughts, but let's start with with them. Okay. So the conference called Farmcon,

09:12

and the family's called the the Van Trump family is that's their that's their names. It's Kevin Van Trump and Jordan Van Trump. That's like the the two kinda like core principles. That's the father and son.

09:23

And,

09:24

I'm just gonna describe what happened when I got there because it wasn't like a normal conference. So a couple unusual things. I go in.

09:31

And there's a normal stage, like, a conference. You know, like, they got that freaking wallpaper behind it. That's, like, every sponsor's logo on step and repeat banner. Okay. Cool. That everything's normal. But the main speaker,

09:43

Kevin Vander Trump, is sitting

09:45

not at, not in a chair. He's got this, like, Mahogany

09:50

desk that was put onto the town to the stage.

09:54

And he's sitting in a he's he looks like a judge of a courtroom, So he's got this humongous,

09:58

like, oak wood

10:00

table

10:01

that he's sitting behind in his thing, and he's got a gavel, literally,

10:05

And he's talking into the mic, and he it's like a free form agenda. So he'll be like, like,

10:10

he would he would just say something. Like, I walked in and he's like, Yeah. That's why I don't hire any Ivy Leegers. You know, Ivy Leegers. Here's a problem with Ivy Leegers, and he'll just go on a rant. There's, like, five panelists that are sitting there, and that he was just, like, dude, tell this story, and the crowd loves him. I loved him. He is an amazing charismatic speaker who is

10:30

smart

10:31

and very real. And he's very he's just a very good speaker. Like, his style was so

10:39

likable. I couldn't I can't explain. The background is this, this guy named Kevin Van Trump. This is all from memory. I met him five years ago at a conference. And since then, we I've kinda brought him into our circle of friends. He

10:50

is probably in his fifties,

10:52

late mid to late fifties.

10:55

And he basically, I think he worked in Chicago on, like, the commodities, like, trading floor. So he like traded commodities, but he's got a relatively fixed southern accent. Kansas City, Missouri isn't really considered the south, but it can be pretty country. So I but I don't know where he's from. So he goes to Chicago. He probably makes

11:13

eight figures trading commodities. So he, like, sounds like this country pumpkin farmer, but, like, you know, he's trading like corn features and shit like that. It makes a lot of money. Then maybe ten years ago, he starts this daily newsletter where he writes the whole thing by himself every single day at this point. For, like, seventeen years, he's done that. Is it seventeen years? Some something like that. It's, like, some almost twenty years, he's been doing this every day. And

11:38

it makes like something, like, in the world of twenty million dollars a year in subscription revenue just to read.

11:45

Is it? I I think it's like thirty, forty million a year now. So I've done calls with him. And I'm just and and this guy, he's like, oh, hey, check this song bitch out. Like, that's what he'll say. And he's like, he he's like pointing at his new picasso.

11:58

So I've done video calls with him and he's got like this like beautiful, like, chopper in the background, like a fancy customized motorcycle. He goes Oh, we just picked up this home bitch. We just got this home bitch here today. We really love the picasso's. And he, like, that's how he talks And he's he now his family,

12:15

Kevin, or, Jordan, his younger son runs like this other business, but in this, the commodities world, this like farming world, they are gods. And I've met a bunch of people who like them, and they're like New York ish type folks who have like fifty

12:29

a hundred million dollars and are, like, traders and they, like, revere him and they love him. Dude, so so have you read any of his newsletters? They're so good. Yeah. I must pay subscribers.

12:38

First, they're, like, you know, it's like it's like a twenty page PDF. So it's, like, not even, like, a a short thing. It's, like, a long thing, and it's, like, he basically is writing about what he thinks is going on. So

12:47

in the market. So he'll be like, you know,

12:50

bean futures or, you know, rice, corn, these different commodities.

12:55

He's talking about what's going on. It's really important for people in agriculture because if you're a farmer and you're making co you're growing corn, you gotta decide.

13:04

Do I hold this corn and try to sell it myself?

13:07

Do I need to take on some insurance in case the price of corn drops?

13:12

And,

13:13

Should I sell, you know, all of my corn, you know, in these futures in this futures market, or should I, you know, should I hedge, but should I take a hedged position against what I'm produced

13:24

and so you have to decide what you're gonna do with your crop. That is your, like, for most people, investing is this, like, side thing. It's like, you do your job that earns you your money. Your business energy, your money, and then you invest in the stock market, whatever. They're two separated things.

13:37

For a farmer, these are not separated. This is part of the, like, core

13:42

thing of what you do is basically managing your risk. And these aren't guys that have like a farm that, like, they just, like, get by. These are, like, folks that, like, supply the corn to, like, McDonald's. And we're talking, like, they have turnover of twenty, thirty, fifty million dollars a year. Like, there here's that. Yeah. He's like, you know, you'll meet the guy who makes all the rice for Chipotle.

14:02

He's like, whoa, that's crazy. That's crazy volume. And then I would meet people who were, like, what you call gentlemen farmers. They're basically people who don't need to farm. They just grew up that way and they're like, yeah, my family, I like living on a farm. I want my family to have a farm. I farm on my weekends and nights. Like, there was one guy. He's a CEO of a large company,

14:19

and he was just farming for fun, you know, nights and weekends. And that's why he was you know, like, there. And it was, like, such a bad use of, like, time, but it's not it's a it's not a bad use of time because it's a hobby. It's a pleasurable thing for him. What this manual work is, like, how he relaxes. How many people are there? So it's about fifteen hundred people.

14:38

And, so let me explain this guy to their business. Okay. So they have what I'll call three separate components. Maybe four. Okay. So there's the newsletter. The paid newsletter that basically you subscribe to, you pay a thousand dollars a year And I think I believe, I, my guess, based on some triangulation, is that that's making about thirty to forty million dollars a year now in annual subscription revenue. He's writing that. He, you know, like, we'd be hanging out. It was, like, maybe midnight.

15:02

He's at the hotel bar or whatever. We're hanging out. And he's and I was, like, so

15:06

Like, you know, who on your team writes the letter? He's like, he's like, I wish. You know, I I write the letter. He's like, I I gotta go right up to my room right after go write that some bitch. And he's like, you know That's how he talks. Yeah. He's like, he's like, I don't know what the fuck I did this. And he's like, I created a job for myself. He's like, I told my kid, my son. They say, you You need to the best job in the world is investing. You should invest. Don't do what I did. I created a job for myself, and I have to write this thing every day. Bye. You know, you know, I love it. Whatever. And it's really ugly. Have you seen it? It's, like, it's not mobile friendly. It's just a PDF, and it's, like, three thousand words with, like, PowerPoint

15:39

It's all substance over style. There's a few memes in there, which I like. It it's like, you know, just some here's some jokes.

15:47

And I think that's very on-site. But it is good. The writing's great. The writing is really great. And the the insights obviously matter. Otherwise, people wouldn't be paying for this thing. Right? They're genuinely getting value at the conference, he's a god, dude. People people love this guy. They've they respect his kind of like knowledge and his content.

16:04

And then they just really like him because, again, he would say I I literally wrote down verbatim things that he was saying because I was like, this is just, like, This is so entertaining.

16:15

Like, for example,

16:18

I'm just gonna read you a couple of quotes on, that he was saying. So he's like, I hate hire hiring IV leaguers because, they're too afraid of failure. He's like, they're done well. They've done so well their whole life. They're not they're not used to looking wrong or looking silly. You know, go try NFTs. Go go go put your hands on the wheel. Go get go go fall. Go scrape your knee. He's like, that's how I grew up. I'm not he's like, My dad would take us to the car. He said, no no seat belts, baby. That's how we roll. And he's like, he's like, we're gonna take some risks. We're gonna get skinned up. We're gonna break some bones. We're gonna fall off the bike. He's like, that's how you gotta treat your kids. Even if they're smart kids, you gotta he's like, because I'll one of the big concerns is how do you get your kid your your sixty, maybe now, and you got your farm, your kids thirty, they don't wanna take over the farm, or they don't maybe they want to, but they don't know how to do anything, whether so. And so he's like and he's like, you gotta segment off a portion of the farm, let him fail, but let him have the skin in the game.

17:04

He's like, you know, I wanna have kids that don't melt down when the rug gets pulled. I wanna be able to go to him and say, hey, things things have changed. We're changing tonight. And he's just like going on this rant. And dude, I'm sitting there in the crowd, and I'm like, world star. I'm like, this is this is such a hype monologue had nothing to do with whatever they're talking about, like, being being the future is five seconds before that, but he would frequently go on these. And every time I'm just nodding my head, I'm like, preach.

17:30

Like, we I was at this dinner with him,

17:32

and people were, like, it was kinda like these guys organized this dinner they're paying for, but then they you know, like sort of what's what's the what's the catch? It was we're gonna pitch our idea to to Kevin and a couple other guys who we want to invest in And they pitched their idea and he's like, cool. So who's the, who's the who's the audience? Who's who's the customer for this? And,

17:53

they're like, well, you know, we've done extensive psychographic research. Here's a they slid over this thing. He's like, psychograph I I don't know what that means, man. What the fuck are you saying? Who is the customer?

18:03

And they're like, it's it's not a Democrat. He's like, it's a psychographic profile. He's like, no, like, name them Do you know five people who want this product? Like, would this guy want this product? Hey, you over there at the table. Would you want this product? And the guy's like, no, I wouldn't wanna And then he's just like

18:19

and the and the guys are like, Tammy, you're not, like, being open minded. He's like, I'm trying to help y'all. He's like, I've heard this idea ten times.

18:27

And it failed. I invested in this one. It failed. Invested this one. And why did it fail? Because there was no customer for this product.

18:33

And he he's like trying to give him real talk And it was so good.

18:37

And the whole time, I'm just like, wow, this guy's

18:40

core business instincts

18:42

are very strong in his delivery method.

18:45

Is fearless. I just I I'm trying to do the impression because I want people to feel like what it felt like to hear this guy off the top of his head. It's so different than corporate America. Is so different than New York SF where everybody's hedging every word and packaging everything and trying to deliver it and trying to make these fucking you know, like, criticism sandwiches where you say a positive thing, then a negative thing, then a positive thing to, like, you know, deliver the blow whereas

19:09

he would just say the thing.

19:12

And he did it in a way that came off great. I loved it. What alright. So you have a list of a bunch of shit that you've learned here. Let's just write them off quick on that to be all all wildly interesting let's do a couple things. So the rest of his business, so he tells me so he goes, I'm doing I I know for sure his business was doing in the twenty five million dollar range years ago. Right. So that's so there's the newsletter component. Yeah. Then he's like, well Two employees, by the way. I think he's Right. And he he's like, you know, I don't,

19:39

there's never been a sponsor

19:41

fifteen years, John Deere comes to me. They say, we would love to sponsor. No. Trust for the he he had these principles. He was like, these people are gonna trust me because I'm not gonna be selling them to somebody. And so, he was like, you know, I'm gonna do it this way and I'm gonna stick to my guns. And so and he's never done a never, like, run ads to advertise this thing it's all organic word-of-mouth. One person sharing it with another saying you gotta check this thing out. Forwarding it to somebody else saying, hey, you see what he's saying about where the market's going? And then that person's like, shit. I need these insights. And so

20:11

that's an amazing, you know, that's probably ninety percent profit, ninety five percent profit, like, on that on that thirty million. Right? Like, I I think it uses I like what so I was talking about which email, sir. Like, it's so raw. I think it uses Salesforce to send it out. Right. Like, that's his email service provider. Like, it's pretty raw.

20:29

So then the second piece of the business is I I think that there's now a secondary thing that's happened many, many years in, which is, like, a big company will come to them and say, hey, you know, let's just I'm just gonna for for argument sake. Chipotle is like, hey, we need,

20:42

we need somebody who's gonna grow soy in this region. He's just like, hey. I know, like, they're like, you know everybody. And so he's like, cool. Yeah. I can find you people who could produce what you need. And they were like, cool. If we pay them, let's call it five dollar five dollars a bushel,

20:57

you know, we'll make it five fifty and you keep your fifty cents as the as a broker fee. So I think that now produces as much the newsletter. So so let's double it, basically. Let's tack that on. Now the third thing

21:09

is investing. So they basically had this you know, they're like, well, everybody keeps coming to pitch us ag tech.

21:16

They know they don't know what the fuck they're talking about. We know everybody in this space. So they then started investing. And I think they just had their biggest hit to something called Benson Hill or Benson Hill or something like that that went public.

21:26

So, you know, like the first kind of, like, you know, public unicorn that they seated.

21:30

And the last one is the most interesting one of all. This is what the sun is doing. So

21:36

Yeah. Ag swag. So here's the backstory that he tells about this. And I I'm not sharing anything private. Like, he told us on stage. He goes,

21:44

met a guy

21:45

who, he, like, moved into my neighborhood type of thing. And he used to be, you know, big shot exec at some company

21:52

And he's like, cool. Like, what are you doing now? He's like, oh, I'm

21:55

I'm doing this kinda like either this buyout, like leverage buyout or I'm gonna become a CEO of

22:01

this company called American Identity. We make t shirts and hats, and he's like, alright.

22:05

Kinda lame. Like, you're selling t shirts now? Like, you've done some big shit. Why are you doing that? Few years later, fast forward that company, American identity, identity sells to Staples for eight billion dollars.

22:15

And he he looks at it. He's like, what the hell? He's a that t shirt company? Well, the hats, custom hats? Like, what what do you what the fuck? And he's basically like, yeah.

22:25

He's like, who are your biggest customers? He was like, oh, yeah. My three biggest customers are Cargill, ADM, and John Deere. And he's like What's that?

22:34

Is that are they making uniforms? Or they're just making license merchandise? So, like, if I had John, John Deere, they're just printing it for a form. They're they're making it for John Deere. John Deere might have employee that I they have you know, two thousand employees, they wanna send Oh, John Deere, Scott. Or a vest with a John a green, John Deere vest or whatever. And so he's like, those are your top those those are your biggest accounts. Like, those are my buddies.

22:54

Like, I know all those guys. And so after they sell it, whatever, is him and his son, they create ag swag, agricultural swag.

23:01

It's the same idea, but now they go to all those accounts and they say, hey, you want, like, vests and and fleece and hats and whatever, and you got, you know, hundred employees in your office in Brazil, you need to send some stuff too. Cool. We got you. And I think this is gonna be a really big business also. And so they are doing very well. He was saying they're outgrew their their warehouse. They're they're trying to, you know, expand on all this.

23:24

He was telling me I wanna say any of the numbers for that pork. He was telling me something that just square footage they need in the warehouse, and I know from the DDC space. I know if you need that much square footage, you are putting out pretty crazy volume. So

23:36

I thought that was amazing as well. But what an example of

23:40

just being a big fish in a and and not even a really small pond. Right? It seems like it's a niche, but it's like agriculture. Yeah. I agree.

23:46

You know, agri like, the my parents are working this industry, and that's why I like this guys because I got to know him is But, like, the thing that that people, like, guys like you and me, and people listening to us were these tech folks, and we dismiss this. But, like, Literally, everyone in America has an onion in their home or a product that made of an onion. Right. And you're you're you're gonna buy it multiple times a week. But that's what my dad does. My dad sells onions. And I remember people, I would make fun of him, and he's like, go look in your cabinet. You have stuff that I have owned at one point at that. And, and so it's not as small as we think. Oh, yeah. I mean, obviously, it's not like, for example, the, the founder of Square. Guy Jim Mcavir. I wanna talk about him too. He's he was the keynote speaker. So he comes on the stage.

24:29

He was also a very good speaker. I'm I'm I I kind of have a high bar for that kind of thing, but he's he was very impressive.

24:35

And he gets on stage. The very first thing he says is,

24:38

just wanna say Thank you to everybody in this room for feeding my family.

24:42

You know, it's like but it's just it's like such an obvious thing. But I say, yeah. Of course. Where All the shit we eat comes from somewhere. And in my mind, this is gonna sound super dumb and ignorant, but it's true, which is like Before this conference,

24:55

I really spent zero percent of my time thinking about where the heck the food comes where heck food comes. And if you thought of a farmer, you probably had stupid stereotypes of, like, dumb idiots. For sure. For sure. I was, like, oh, and in going into this, I was, like, oh, I'm gonna go meet a bunch of hillbilly, like, rednecks, basically was And they do talk like that. I'm from there. They definitely will talk like that, but they, like, are wearing, like, a fifty thousand dollar Rolex.

25:15

And when I get there, they're like, you know, yeah, you know, put options on being futures and, you know, with Brazil coming on board with, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna take this hedge position against corn. And I was like, oh, wait. Y'all are like,

25:28

fucking Wall Street traders. Wait. What? And I was like, okay. Maybe it's just a couple of these guys. And I was like, and then I would meet guys in the hallway and I'd be like, what do you do? We have my own family on his own to farm in South Dakota for for forty years. Okay. Cool. So I was like, do you do this? Like, kind of like fucking

25:43

soy soybean oil futures?

25:45

And they're like, yeah. You got to.

25:47

I was like, what? I was like, how do you know that? He said, well, we got a broker, but, like, you know, it's key to the business. You gotta you gotta be doing it. And I was like, holy shit. Like, you guys are more sophisticated financially than anybody I know. Like, I could go to in Silicon Valley. I could go to talk to engineers or in or angel investors, VCs,

26:04

And I could be like, hey, explain to me how a derivatives contract works or explain to me how a, how the corn futures market looks.

26:11

Nobody would know what the fuck they're talking about. Nobody would know what to say. Dude, now now okay. So you've you've not made fun of me, but tease me a little bit about, like, loving trucks and farmers

26:21

Now do you understand why? I think it's so cool. Like, these guys are sophisticated and everything, but, like, the people you and I hang out with in our in our coastal coastal cities

26:31

they don't give a fuck about these folks. And I'm like, man, if if you

26:35

gotta make those collide, it'd be awesome. Right. And so a couple couple things, like, on that note, So when I was at one of the dinners, they were talking about, it was the who who's the customer dinner. They were they're talking about something. They and something came up, they go,

26:49

you know, how long he's like, how long we've been here about whole foods?

26:53

And, you know, plant based this and oat milk, that He's like, this is still tiny fringe shit. He goes, America eats corn bread and milk at scale.

27:02

This is what America wants. They need how much how much volume is the whole food? And then I'm thinking, dude, in my bubble,

27:09

everybody eats like that. Everybody eats the fringe shit. So I'll it was just awareness of, like, two things. One is, like, in the future, maybe what we're doing ends up becoming more mainstream. I I do believe that.

27:20

But how not it is is crazy. The scale

27:24

The difference in scale of just, like, you know, corn versus, you know, the the non whole foods versus whole foods is, like, To them, Whole Foods was this rounding error. And I thought that was hilarious because to me, it's like, you know, I that's like, I don't know where I shop every day. It's it's it's the main thing. And again, all this is gonna sound really like

27:43

dumb,

27:44

but,

27:45

I'm dumb. That's, I guess, the answer. When I was there, I was learning how dumb I was about everything.

27:51

There was so many different things like that that I was learning. Can I just rattle off a couple other things? Okay.

27:57

Jonathan, write us in the chat. Is this is this I I could talk about this all day. I think this is the coolest shit ever. So I'm gonna give you a couple of pain points and or business ideas that I saw her when I was there or just and making up because, like, oh, maybe this.

28:13

So one thing is

28:15

even though I'm like, oh, these guys are really sophisticated,

28:17

there's no way that they want to be that sophisticated about this. All these, like, kind of financial,

28:22

products that they have to use for hedging their crops they produced and the insurance and all that good stuff. So I think that some kind of wealth front type of robo advisor

28:31

that basically just does all the work for them to manage their risk That's it. Is,

28:36

is gonna be, like, important because every single one of them is, like, yeah, we have a broker. We call, and we talk to him, and he tells us x y z. And, he tells us what he what he thinks we should be doing and we come up with a position we wanna take and then we take it. So that to me felt very old. And I feel like if somebody does a real supervisor thing, that's Kevin, man, Trump had an idea he goes, I wanna make a rally road, and I think we've talked about rally road on here, which is basically, rally road is like this app. You open up, and you can by a fraction of cool memorabilia. So it'd be like a a sweet old car or first edition Harry Potter

29:08

signed book set. It's awesome. It's in in my opinion, Raleigh Road has one of the best apps I've seen in, like, the last two or three years. Super nice app.

29:16

Company, I wish I invested in. Honestly, I've been I feel like I've been saying that for a year. Probably should've just done it at this point, but really cool product, really cool app. He was saying that he's like, I feel like he's like, I think we could do rally road just for our stuff. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, you know, just like, the the original,

29:33

you know, motorcycle from dukes and hazards or, you know, and again, I'm all the references flew over my head. He said them really fast, but, like, It was hard. Just cool hick shit.

29:42

And, and I was like, oh, that's probably actually a really good idea because these guys got money.

29:47

And they care about this stuff. And there's a, like, a network effect of just speaking to that audience. Dude, didn't didn't I tell you? So, you know, how I used to work for the show American pickers. Right. Do you do do you I don't you were not in the market for that because you were in

30:03

were you in Australia at the time? Whatever. But you if it if the show was around now, you wouldn't watch that. You don't fit that that bill. But you know that that show American so for those listening, I used to work for the show American pickers and it's basically like pawn stars. We'd go out. What did you do for them? So the main guy in the show, his name is Mike Wall. He's the main character. He owned this store and it was called picking. And so you go and you just knock on doors and you go to barns and you find old memorabilia

30:29

and you either sell it in your own stores or you sell it to antique shops or you sell it on eBay.

30:34

And like the antique shops, they have to get it from somewhere, they get it from pickers. This guy, like, would buy old bike, bicycles. That's a big market, or he would buy like a old nineteen thirty six Harley for ten grand and sell for thirty grand, that type of stuff. And he owned the store and he started filming himself pre YouTube for like five years to make the show popular pitching it to the history channel year after year after year getting declined Finally, they said, alright, this is cool. He's a good looking guy, charismatic guy. They pick up the show. He gets he was not rich off the picking stuff, but he was like making a living gets rich because he

31:08

licenses the show. He owned he's the producer. He owned all the rights. I work at the store where we would sell the stuff that he bought the the his picks, but

31:18

so many people would come to the store that basically we sold thirty grand a day of t shirts and shot glasses.

31:23

Wow. And because he was like eventually he wouldn't even sell the pics anymore because he was like, I need I need stuff for people to look at when they're in the store. Right. And he probably made

31:32

mean his business was probably doing thirty, forty million dollars a year off all of his all of his stuff. And when the show was on when the show was live, it's still live now, but it's past his heyday. When it was live, We were the second or third most popular show on TV,

31:45

on all of TV, and we would have people flying from all over the world just to come and look at the stuff that I mean, I would

31:51

I helped run the store, but like half the time I was just holding the door and making sure that we were weren't at capacity.

31:57

And

31:58

The reason I'm bringing this up is this whole rally road for middle America shit. This is the real stuff. And, like, buying, like, these rare baseball cars or whatever it is, that the fringe. And Raleigh Road has built a great business on top of that. Exactly. And and by the way, if you were gonna start this, I would,

32:15

a at email Sam and CC me just so I didn't get to know. But b, I would go to these guys like my wolf, I would go find these kind of like all American influencers

32:23

And I would use them to help promote the app and help get them all get them on board to to grow this thing. And I think this is kind of like

32:31

you go where nobody else is fishing. I think there's just not much competition to build technology products

32:36

in that space.

32:38

Let me tell you a couple other ideas that were that were in there. So,

32:43

any kind of fintech for farmers, so part of it is like this well front idea, but also just like I've invested in six companies that are all just variations of, like, you know, Brex or Mercury Bank. So, basically, like, So there's two startups that got big that were in the that were serving entrepreneur, serving tech startups.

33:01

One is Mercury, which is just saying instead of going and using Bank of America, Wells Fargo, just use Mercury as your bank. Right? We have a slick interface. It's a mobile app. You never gotta talk to a banker. You know, free wire transfer. But it's not really a bank. It's, they're partnering with another bank, and they just layer their branding on top of that bank. They're they're on top. Exactly.

33:20

But they've done really well. They're now valued over a billion dollars. You know, this guy who built it, Ahmad, he's kind of in our in our friends group. It's awesome. And,

33:28

you know, he's great. He came on the pot. So, you know, so so Mercury is bank for tech startups. And then Brex was

33:36

Visa for tech startups. And same thing, not, you know, they are built on top of the visa rails or the Mastercard rails or whatever, but it's just a credit card for startups and it was taken advantage of the Hey, we understand startups. So, like, for example,

33:49

you might be a startup that's raised ten million dollars of venture capital, But your credit card limit is five thousand dollars because the bank's like, dude, you have no income, no history, no nothing, no credit, like, you know, we can't give you money. And there's, like, dude, they just raised ten million dollars to have the money in the bank, like, in this big deal. They won't cap point on ad ad spend because they know that startups spend most of their money on ad spend. Exactly. Or things like, you know, just the fact, like, hey, you can fill out the application online. You don't have to talk to human, and it'll be sent to you in two days. Or, like, you know, you want this to, like, easily auto fill online. Like, there's just little stuff that it makes it, like, work well for that. So Mercury for farmers, on board. So Brex became a multi billion dollar thing. Mercury did. And I've been I've now invested in versions of either Mercury or Brex for teenagers for teens in India or business as an India for Canadians. For creators is the one that everyone For creators. I did that one. That creators make this for food creators.

34:42

This it'll be it'd be so much better to do this.

34:45

Yeah. It'd be yeah. It's gonna be crazy. That's what we call farmers. That's what we call farmers. We're gonna rebrand farming as the creator economy. They're just creating food. Yeah. Yeah. Seed creators.

34:55

Dude, it's so much that would be such a better company.

34:58

And they're spending a lot of money. Right? Because, like, the all of it, the equipment, the, like, you know, this the the fertilizers.

35:05

These are, like, huge bulk purchases. My cousins

35:08

I have an aunt and cousin who it's a mom and son.

35:12

They have fifteen hundred acres with like a thousand cattle or so. And I've gone out and hung out with them and so they basically raised bulls to it's called bucking bulls, so like at a rodeo, the bowl that is like it's called that that bowl is bucking.

35:26

And at a rodeo,

35:28

the guy, the cowboy who stays on wins money in the bowl that bucks the hardest wins money and you can also make money by if you have a really good bucking bolt, you get money by getting it semen out there. And all the females, they kill and turn into beef. And they make a living doing this. They're I don't they're probably millionaires, but, they are fucking hard workers. And when they walk around places, like, during a work day because, like, when you're a farmer, you're constantly driving to get feed, whatever, they'll have twenty gs on them in cash.

35:58

Wow. Like, they just have just like fat loads. Like, you just need or like when they go to the rodeo. Repers and farmers did. When, dude, when they go to the rodeo, I've seen them, they'd have like a they've had like ten grand on because they gotta like buy this while they're there, they gotta do this. They gotta make their bet anyway. These farmers have fuckloads of cash because they are they're still doing stuff with cash. So like

36:19

this is a interesting. It's a great market. Yeah. With the other one, if, automation. So I think the the number one thing that was on everybody's mind is automation. How do we do we get more automation? So I think from the beginning, technology has helped farms, which is like, you know, before there was tractors, everything was like, you know, horse pulled, you know, and or whatever. And then tractors come out. It becomes a big deal. And John Deers trying to do self driving tractors and everybody's trying to do automation. And so I think if you're sitting at MIT,

36:46

or you're at Carnegie Mellon and you're in some robotics lab, and you're like, okay. I can keep making, like, you know,

36:52

things that I understand that are from, you know, this gadget that, like, turns off my light switch in my room because I don't like to get up once I lay down. Yeah. So that's what I'm gonna do. It's like dude instead.

37:03

Go to a farm for like three weeks

37:06

and just watch what's going on. And then from there, come up with the automations and stuff you wanna pull.

37:12

I've invested in a few companies in that space.

37:15

So it's automations and precision agriculture, they call it. So, how to which

37:21

I I think automation falls under precision agriculture. That's like the the term, I believe.

37:25

And it's incredibly interesting. So, like, you talk about like automated car or autonomous cars

37:30

autonomous tractors is incredibly in intriguing.

37:33

Right. And there's also, like, sensors such as, like, soil quality is like the soil health is, like, one of the most important things if your soil health is bad, your crop is fucked. And so

37:43

just being able to come up with models where you can go put sensors in the ground and get real time soil health data

37:49

and alert people. Hey, this plot in this area is not gonna grow very well because of this. That also seemed like a big deal So those are some ideas. Last one is family succession planning. So one of the biggest things was like, how do you pass down your farm?

38:03

Because if your kids don't wanna do it and increasingly, you know, kids don't wanna do it, what the heck are you gonna do with this farm? And so there is, like, places that you can sell farms. So I think that was one opportunity. There's creating your estate, your will, and all that stuff. There's renting it out to other people. There was just a whole bunch of stuff around

38:20

Okay. If billions of dollars of farms is gonna trade hands in the next, like, ten ten years,

38:27

Who's gonna be in the middle of that? I think working with remember, one we had one episode where we talked about picking your customer and we talking about this company user voice or user testing. Which one does your mom work for? User testing. And I was like, I think that's so cool because it gives people, like, your mom, like, moms who raise kids, don't can't have full time jobs. It gives them work. That's admirable. That's exciting. That's incredibly motivating. I think you could I would easily put farmers in that same situation.

38:53

Or in that same category where it would be really exciting and fun to work with those guys. Right. Right. Totally.

38:59

There was a couple of startups that I liked one was called Acortrader.

39:03

So these guys, now they've raised, like, sixty million bucks. I think Peter Teel invested in them. And basically, it's just fractional land ownership of farms. So the idea is you can buy I could go on there today and I could put down a thousand dollars and buy a piece of a farm in North Dakota. And I can make eight to eleven percent a year

39:20

on that thing. And I could diversify. I could own pieces of five farms in five different states that do five different things. And then there's a farmer on the farm that does the work. That's leasing the farm from you. You're just owning the land. And these guys, I think the average farm that they were doing was like two million dollars in size.

39:35

And they did, like, eighty farms last year or something like that. So I was, like, okay, that's actually pretty good. Like, they buy they basically buy the land and then fractionally sell it off. And they they take a broker fee plus they take a like management fee of point seven five percent a year on top of that just to manage the the just to be the property manager of the land. So it sounds like this conference is badass. You you changed your perspective on some stuff. For sure. In fact, I actually just wanna say,

40:01

conferences in general, I think that the general wrap is conferences waste of time. You'll see that a lot on Twitter, especially from smart people. People say

40:09

Either the exact opposite view. I think conferences are pure

40:13

fucking alpha. Meaning, I think there's so much gains to be had at conferences.

40:18

Number one, you leave your routine.

40:20

And that's just freeze the mind to just, like, get out of the, like, get yourself out of the weeds and get somewhere else.

40:28

Then when you meet somebody at a conference,

40:31

there's, like,

40:32

just meeting people in person, like, it's so it's so crazy. You don't have to do anything with it.

40:36

Kevin, I spoke at a conference and I was just hanging out in the lobby and Kevin van Trump came up to me and he was wearing cowboy boots and a Ramones t shirt. And I thought that he was, like, a weirdo. Like, I did think that he was legit, but he was, like,

40:50

talking like a big game, not like bragging, but kinda. Like, he told me his business he had I could he had like a hundred thousand dollar watch on. And I was like, wait. You're telling me he's like, yeah. I got twenty thousand subscribers. I was like, oh, it's sick. You guys make money through ads. He goes, oh, no. Paid subscription. I was like, Wait. Who are you?

41:05

So I, By the way, he remembered you. He gave a great intro when he was introducing me. He's like, I met this guy Sam. He used to work for American pickers, and, oh, and he just gave he told the whole conference about you and how great you were. It was awesome. And so anyway, I met Kevin at a conference, which now you've been brought into the fold. This is gonna influence you in some capacity. You're gonna bring other people of the fold. That's why conferences are cool. Conferences are cool. Secondly, go to weird conference. So if you just keep going to the same insular, if you, like, I actually think that going to conferences that are not your industry

41:34

41:35

something that nobody really does. And I've always done. Like, I went to I remember, like, a restaurant trade show conference And I've been to a gym equipment gym owners conference. And I've been to and when you go, you just meet a whole bunch of people from a different totally different walk of life. You see what are they thinking about? What are they what are their,

41:53

what are the problems these guys are worried about? Who are and and you, you know, I'm sure out of this, I'll get some investors for my fund. I'll get some new ideas. I'll get I'll get some new perspective.

42:03

And it just makes you a more person. And so I I would highly recommend going to trade shows specifically, but like,

42:10

just different industry niches that are not yours.

42:13

And just go go to a sneaker conference and just be like, oh, what the hell are these sneaker heads doing? Like, who are these people? What do they do? Yeah. Right. I know it's like a luxury if you if you have the time, but

42:23

If you work remotely anyways, go to one of these things, spend four hours on the floor, and then spend the other five hours or whatever at night, you know, working and just work from there for the week.

42:33

Or if you're young and you don't know what to what to do, don't just take a job. Like, go dabble, go travel around to three of these. And you'll just have like a totally different lens of things. So so I think that's like a hack,

42:44

that's, you know, I wanted to bring up,

42:47

Yeah. It's crazy. And by the way, these guys, the farmers, the best thing I got from them, was their little one liners. Like,

42:52

they were one guy was telling the story about this investment. He lost a bunny bunch of money on. People were like, damn, like, that, like, holy shit. You must have lost a lot. He goes, it was a sad day, but, you know, that's why Johnny Walker makes a blue. And, you know, he and then he just, like, move on. I was just, like, I'm writing these down. Like, these are bars, dude. These guys are these guys are amazing.

43:12

Can we,

43:13

are we allowed to talk about

43:16

I think so. Why not? Alright. Let's talk about So do you wanna give the bat We might wanna bleep out his name. So let's let's bleep out his name. Just send a sour friend.

43:25

Well, let's let we'll ask him after this. But we

43:29

He there's this guy named I didn't really know much about him.

43:33

Somehow, I got brought into this group chat that you're in and a weird way, I feel like I'm good friends with them now even though we've only texted. Yeah. He,

43:41

how does he talk about what happened over the weekend about this app? Okay. So,

43:47

so basically,

43:48

here's his his short story. He's built a couple of, like, products. Honestly never really had a big hit.

43:54

Him and his friends have been working on, and they were working on a startup, or they're working as a startup for a number of years, and they were just grinding, running test after test, and they really building a lot of stuff in the social space. So he learned a lot of, like, kind of the he, like, cut his teeth in trying to build the next Twitter, next TikTok, next whatever. Right?

44:13

And the the they were about to fail. The last thing they built, the hail Mary was they were like, oh, let's just create this, like, kinda like quiz app, this, like, superlatives app where it's like, oh, who at your high school is most likely to, you know, become a professional dancer or, like, you know, go go to jail or whatever.

44:30

And,

44:31

it goes viral, and it's called T. B. H.

44:34

And it goes viral. It hits, like, number one in the app store because this the flow is basically you you open the app, you start answering these questions about your friends, then it would text your friends being like, hey, Sean said you're most likely to x. Click here to see what else he said. Dude, I'm gonna click that. And then you click that and then it would go on something something along those lines. So TBH goes viral. Facebook ends up buying it. Smart move by kinda knew this thing doesn't have, like, you know, legs to actually be the next hit social app. But It made him, like, you know, a good not, like, I I don't think it's sold for what it was report as Yes. Reporting is like a hundred million dollars, I think. But it made, you know, a lifetime of money. Yeah. Exactly. So these guys, they pull it off, and they Right? So they went from, like, literally they were about to shut it down. He's like, oh, fuck it. Let's just launch this last thing. And,

45:16

and that thing hits. So Then he goes to Facebook. He stays there for, like, fuck it for full four years. So he hits the full vest,

45:23

and he's he the whole time, I don't know. He's probably bored. And he's just on Twitter, and he's like,

45:28

is what people call shit posting, which is basically like, you know, just posting jokes on Twitter.

45:32

And oftentimes, making fun of the tech industry. So making fun of the stuff that people in the tech industry are doing.

45:39

And,

45:40

so anyways, he you know, people like to follow him because he's funny. So the over the weekend so he he basically he tweeted something out last week that was like,

45:49

hey. I'm working on I'm gonna work on a new project I finally, like, left for Facebook or whatever.

45:54

I'm working on a new project. I wanna work with a designer.

45:58

If, like, I'm looking for a founding designer. If you wanna, like, you know, build something amazing, work with a team that's built, you know, built apps blah blah blah,

46:06

you know, DM me. Some something along those. And when he quit and announced that he was quitting at Facebook, it said I've been at Facebook. They bought my app. I've been there for four years.

46:15

It really was just

46:17

there was a lot happened, and I wanna give a thread on everything that I learned. Any and and it pointed down down, like the down emote and there was no other threat. That was nothing there. Yeah. And it was hilarious. Here's here's what I learned before he was a Facebook. Nothing.

46:31

And so, yeah, that was hilarious. And so people were like, oh, people generally are excited about next. You think, especially all the kind of like venture investors, angel investors,

46:40

this is kind of the entrepreneurial you will you like to back, which is somebody who you think is smart, who,

46:46

is a serial entrepreneur, so not their first rodeo, but also hasn't had the big win, so they still have a huge chip on their shoulder and wanna wanna make it big. So that's like a great entrepreneur to invest in, and he's pretty well networked and pretty well respected, so people wanna invest in it. So he tweets that thing out looking for a designer.

47:01

And then somebody else said, somebody, two days later, just tweets, like,

47:06

I saw,

47:08

you know, a mock up of new app, like, holy shit. It's gonna, like, change everything. And this guy also is, like, a shit poster. This this guy,

47:16

I think it's in his hand. It's like another coen or something.

47:19

And, and by the way, you've seen the the the image that he's talking about. He's posted in our in our text thread before, but, like, you know, here's an idea. Like, I might make this thing. And it It's and if I put it correctly, it wasn't even like It's not a business. It's like, oh, it's it's like a it's just like a silly idea. It's a high level idea. Still he's still ideating.

47:37

Yeah. So, anyways, people then start memeing that guy. They're like,

47:42

I just saw a new app.

47:45

New new app for the first time and, you know, this work that I've had on my toe for years just went away. And, like, you know, the next person would be like, you know, I showed it to eight children who were starving, and now they're, you know, they're not hungry anymore.

47:56

And so

47:57

this goes viral as a,

48:00

as, like, a meme on to it. I'm gonna read you some of them that were there. The good ones. They were great. They were great. Let's see.

48:09

There was guys saying, like, we're happy to announce that. It was Andrew Chen. We're happy to announce that we just led

48:15

And, a hundred million dollar round, it the app. Right. I can't believe they're extending.

48:21

I just got to a session with my therapist. She ended asking me for tips on how to get allocation into new company.

48:26

And so it just became this, like, meme in the tech industry. And then a lot of people who were seeing it, like, what's this app? And so

48:32

and by the way, this this idea, this, like, kinda like what quote unquote growth hack, it was accidental,

48:38

a, but b, really effective, and it drummed up a bunch of interest and a bunch of hype around what this new app could be. And so what he did was he created an NFT with, like, I think he's still Sixty nine. He's got oh my god. He's got this really stupid, like, image for his Twitter picture, but it's kinda like funny.

48:56

And he made different twitter images based off of his and sixty nine of them and in if you bought one, you get early access as a beta user to his app, right?

49:07

I don't know. Was that the promise? I didn't know. Yeah. That's the promise. Look at the floor price of the what those are.

49:12

So he goes, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce, you know, shit posting club. Collection of sixty nine

49:17

owners will get access to, quote,

49:19

app, parenthesis. There is no app. It is now available on Embassy.

49:25

And so he he likes it, and it sells out,

49:28

as as NFTs

49:30

do. And I I think he made what did he make off this Or the floor has dropped. So anybody who bought this, I think, is probably not doing so hot.

49:37

The floor is now only zero point three six e. Oh. So that's not great. But, anyway, it's still a thousand dollars. So sixty nine pictures for a thousand dollars. Okay. Not bad.

49:46

So here's what I wanna ask you. Okay. I mean,

49:49

I wanna ask you a question because you have done something similar.

49:53

I didn't know before you and I, you introduced me to him I knew him as, like, a guy he built an app, but

50:01

it seems like people revere him. Like, they consider him an expert on consumer

50:05

apps.

50:07

Which not saying that he isn't. He he certainly is is pretty successful. It seems But also what the But but also, like, his reputation, like, is so big where it's like, is anyone that good? That's kinda what I'm gonna get. Yeah. And

50:21

You've done a good job of that as well of creating this, like, mystique,

50:25

almost out of nothing. Right? Not that, like, you weren't successful ahead of time, but, like, you've done a really good job of building a brand. Call it. What

50:33

I sold my startup for less than what my investors have put in. Now, you know, the way it worked, you know,

50:40

the team still did well, and I made good money off of it. But, like, that's not that's the that's not the definition of a successful business. Like Because there's a lot of people that have sold the companies for a lot of money. We have a we have a a handful of buddies that are like Uber Rich. No one fucking knows who they are. And, like, even if they told you that what they did, you'd have to, like, they'd have to beg to speak conference. Whereas guys like you, you've got like the Daily Show reaching out to you. You've got celebrities reaching out to you who wanna like get on board with you and then in the same thing. Yeah. Because you can make it sound good. I could say I sold my sold my last startup to Amazon.

51:11

Yeah. Technically, I did. Technically, I made money, but, like Oh, that's not it. That doesn't make it a like, a huge success. You know, it doesn't make me, like, an a thought leader. I don't think that's the right way to say it because that you you're you're acting like you're tricking people because you've never tricked anyone ever and I don't think has either. But what you've done is you've you've both done this really good job of creating a little bit of mystique about and what I wanna know is you can use the example and then you how does someone I guess I'm asking for myself because how do you create so much of this

51:40

like brand equity,

51:43

like you guys have.

51:44

Well, I think in both cases, it's basically you put out you put your thoughts on blast. So, you know, there's a re the real answer. And by the way, I I say that not to make fun of the

51:52

up. I think it did sell for a profit. So good good good for them. I'm saying I know that I've gotten disproportionate

51:58

credit for my track record of success

52:02

when in reality. Like, the best thing I've built is this DTC company that I don't tell anybody the name of, That's the profitable business that's doing eight figures a year, but, like, that's not actually why people

52:11

my reputation came before that. So, you know, that's kinda weird. Right? Where does the reputation actually come from? It comes from two things. One is you meet people in real life. So, like, you go meet

52:22

you know, the investors at these different big funds or,

52:25

CEOs at different companies.

52:27

And when they're talking to you, they're making an independent assessment

52:30

of your your caliber, your based on your thoughts. Alright? So, so first, it's like a hand to hand combat thing. You meet a bunch of people. You earn their respect one on one.

52:40

By by, you know, when they're talking about some deal they're doing or a company they're building, you you actually contribute by adding value by pointing out things or or giving them criticism or or giving them feedback on what's really great,

52:51

or identifying to them other things that are really cool, and they say, wow, this got really, you know, I I got a lot out of this conversation.

52:57

So you do that with, like, three hundred people. And those people matter. Right? Because they have themselves influence and trust. So for example,

53:07

You know,

53:08

like Josh Elman is a is a good example. This guy was

53:12

He was early on at LinkedIn at Facebook at Twitter at Robinhood.

53:17

Like, early as Sean, meaning he was, and he was, like, head of growth at a bunch of these companies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A big deal. He's been on our podcast. And so he's got, you know, tremendous people have a tremendous amount of respect for him because he's had a tremendous career.

53:27

Well, both and I have, you know, on separate occasions met, you know, met met with Josh, if we when we're talking about our startup, and whether our startup succeeded or failed, Josh knows, look, you're playing in the sort of, like, the startup lottery, startup Olympics, a startup could fail, and an entrepreneur can still be really great.

53:44

And if out of that conversation Josh Josh walks away thinking, oh, this person's really smart. And then they connect you to some other people that they they know, and and those people say, well, Josh, thanks for the intro. Sean was really great.

53:54

You develop a reputation amongst people who have a reputation. So that's the first step.

53:59

Through real life interactions, you develop a reputation with people who already have a reputation so that they will retweet your stuff so that they will vouch for you when you have a project or you're doing something. And that that goes a long way in the marketplace.

54:12

So, like, for example, I've had Josh or Biology or different people who have

54:17

their own big following and their own respect. If they share me or they they they say this person's great, then a whole bunch of other people just inherit that reputation. They just say, oh, okay. If Josh says he's great, he's great. If topology says he's great. It's such a unique way of it's almost like

54:33

credibility hacking or something like that. But but but that's the thing I think is important is, like, I'm telling you how the mechanic works, but there's this the thing you can't just the the reason it's not a hack is because

54:45

your your thoughts actually have to be interesting. You have to act like you're

54:49

you're a hack. I just mean like you're you're you're

54:52

the, getting the desired the the process of getting to the desired outcome. Right. The second thing is we both created content. So now tweets are mostly making fun of people who create content and threads and teach courses.

55:04

But before that, he was doing it himself. Right? He was he himself was saying, know, when you're building a social app, blah, blah, blah, or here's how we grew inside high schools for TBH.

55:14

And I why did I respect him? Because he released this this memo actually got leaked from inside Facebook.

55:20

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the memo basically said he was like, hey, guys at Facebook. Here's some of the stuff we did to grow amongst teenagers, and I know Facebook wants to grow amongst teens. Here's some stuff we did with TBH. For example, for every high school, we would create an Instagram account. For it branded to the high schools. It'd be like, you know, McKinley High,

55:38

you know, secrets.

55:40

And that's the Instagram account. And it would be locked And we would follow anybody who had McKinley High in their profile, then they would follow it. You know, forty percent of people would follow us back. They would request to follow, but we were private. We wouldn't approve anybody's request.

55:52

Then at four PM, when everybody got out of school one day, we would accept all the requests. So everybody simultaneously would get a notification

55:58

about our account. So they would all go check it out. And then they would all see the link to download the app. And then they would download the app. And then we and then as they're downloading the app, they'd be getting notifications that their friends are all downloading the app today. And it felt like a big deal. And that's how we hacked distribution into high school.

56:14

I similarly have told, actually, a very similar story about how we would go get Our goal was always to get half of a high school to download our app in one day. We did it a completely different way, but I've shared that on podcasts, different places, or on Twitter threads. And people read that and they're like, oh, fuck. This guy's smart. That's a really smart growth tactic. This guy really understands growth. This guy really understands teens. This guy really understands social. And if so if you just If I, like, is that, quote my my buddy, Jason Hitchcock, told me once he goes, you say one interesting thing? I say, that's interesting.

56:45

You say two interesting things and say, oh, those are interesting. You say three interesting things. I say, fuck. This guy's interesting.

56:51

And, that's really what you gotta do with content is you have to if you say three original interesting things around one topic, whether it's Bitcoin

56:58

or media

56:59

57:00

robotics or whatever,

57:02

If I get three interesting things from you, I will in my brain, I will assign that tag to you. This guy's interesting. Worth watching. And then if other people endorse it and say, this is interesting, it it goes even faster.

57:13

So this is this is exciting to me. I think this is a fire episode. I'm not gonna I don't wanna talk about it entirely right now.

57:20

Because I think we should wrap here.

57:22

But

57:24

57:25

so last weekend, you when you were sick, so you probably didn't see this. I tweeted out about SDRs, so short term rental stuff.

57:33

Did you happen to see that? I saw it, and I followed what you were talking about, look, super interesting in your Facebook group. I wanna hear more about that. Save it for another rep if you want. We'll save it, but did you join the group?

57:43

Didn't join the group at night. I didn't know the name. It's called Sam's SDRs or something. Yeah. I just made it in the car. Like, Sarah was driving. I just made it in the car. Such a smart way to do things, by the way. Like, it's gonna sound super simple. Like, oh, I just made this thing because you were curious and wanted to learn about it. Right? Like, you hadn't decided to do it here. But it's Well, I have now, but I'm still looking for a property though. But I,

58:04

so I have SDR crew. Yeah. I'll let you in. And there's, like, a thousand or fifteen hundred It's mostly all tech guys. Dude, I've met some guys. Where did you get these people? You you tweeted it out? Just the tweet. That's it. Only that.

58:15

It's all tech guys. Like, it's that guy AJ,

58:18

who owns, the, the, the pet. Yep. Business. And then it's Nathan Berry. It's Marshall Hawz,

58:24

there's there's guys in there that I've met guys that are like billionaires,

58:28

like who have sold or rather they've sold company for a billion dollars. I met one guy who's making half a million a month in profit.

58:35

He's paying himself six million dollars a year off of his,

58:38

handful of,

58:41

Yeah. There's another guy in there who owns fifty million dollars worth of them. It's crazy. I'm learning all this in this fucking group. Amazing. So you're gonna have to browse through that, and I'll tell you some more interesting stuff about it. We'll start with that one next time. Does that interest you?

58:56

Yeah. That's great. It's crazy. Who would have thought about about short term rentals and how they're crushing? It hits the highest level of interesting me, which is where you say am I doing with my life? Why don't I do that? Alright. You basically

59:08

question your own life is the highest form of interest.

59:11

The thing is the thing is is that, like, you

59:15

You you don't need to quote be doing it. You just need to have done it and there is a world where you not quite set it and forget it, but like you just, like, it's not like you need to do shit all the time to it. Right. And so I would say, like, one of the criticisms, not a criticism, but the one of my feedback for Sean and how Sean should, like, evolve maybe is to sometimes invest in some of these a little bit more boring, stable things, at least just a tiny portion of your of your money. And, like, this is like a really interesting asset

59:40

class. Have I told you about steady?

59:42

No. This is sweet. I think you'll like it. So I, actually, I think the website is cool, steady.

59:49

I wanna say it's steady dot capital or steady capital dot com. One second. Let me pull it up. If I just type in study capital. Okay. Do steady dot capital, s t e a d y dot com. How do most

01:00:00

tell me what you see. It's a it's a black screen and it says how do most millionaires build their wealth? Ninety percent of millionaires invest in real estate. Study lets you earn passive income from real estate for one hundred dollars. Okay?

01:00:12

And then And you invest in okay. So Studies is a web dashboard for retail investors to buy shares of income generating commercial real estate

01:00:21

commercial real estate, make investments in senior financial reports in our dashboard and get monthly deposits from your investments directly to your bank account.

01:00:31

We do not offer high addressing. This is the part I wanted to create. Yeah. We do not offer high this is this is really good copy. We do not offer high adrenaline investment. We don't have an app designed to keep your eyes glued to your phone. We pursue steady returns over hype. We are the tortoise in a race full of hairs. So good. Wonderful. Wonderful.

01:00:50

So I read this. So this guy I used to play pick up basketball with her. He was on my, like, intramural basketball team. He this guy Dylan. He created this company. I just kinda saw his Twitter and I was like, oh, what's the guy Dylan up to? Like and and I didn't even know he's a startup guy. Like, he he's just some dude we used to play ball with. And,

01:01:06

it has like steady capital. What's that? And I read this landing page. I was like, dude, what is this? I gotta invest literally. So I invested in both his company as well as I started putting my money into steady. This is why. Invested in steady? Yeah. Because I was like, dude, this this this is what I want. I was like, I want to own I want to have real estate, income coming in,

01:01:25

but I don't wanna do the work of, like, going and finding a property, diligence in it underwriting it, taking out a loan for myself, buying the property, managing the property, all that good stuff. So what these guys do is

01:01:36

they basically handpick

01:01:39

sponsors. So they'll have like,

01:01:41

guys who have a good track record in commercial real estate. Commercial real estate. They'll be like, oh, this guy buys warehouses in the middle of Texas.

01:01:49

And they basically diligence the properties for you. And then all you do is a lot I do it. I just had to auto invest. So it's a I just say five thousand dollars a month just as as a starting point. I was like, I'm gonna give it five grand a month into commercial real estate. Cool. Over the this year, I'll have sixty grand put into this. And then it just shows me it's like, cool. You're gonna be you're gonna break even and eighteen months, but you're gonna get your first check next month.

01:02:08

And,

01:02:10

the, you know, the basically, what they do is they go to that sponsor. They say, hey, you know, you're gonna raise money for this deal anyways. Give us half a million bucks. We have this cadre of investors. We come in as one line item on your thing. And we become an investor. And then you just, like, we our investors want passive income

01:02:28

through real estate investing. And he's, like, he's trying to do, like, the Robinhood model where it's, like, Robinhood made it where there was no fee. You could invest for a very small amount of money. So it's like, normally, real estate has pretty high barriers to entry for knowledge as well as the amount of money you have to put in. So his mission is, like, I wanna make real estate as, you know, investible for even a hundred dollar. And even a hundred dollars, if you're earning eight percent, great. You'll earn eight dollars passive income. And if this isn't gonna be big, you think? It looks cool. I think it's a really hard business to do because, you know, you have to it's like a two sided market. You have to have really, you know, quality deals. But honestly, like, these aren't like like, for example, with start up investing, I don't just give my money to anybody for start up investing because I'm like, dude, are your deals any good? Or are they all dog shit? With real estate, it's like these are, like, the property like, there's so much data about the property. It's collateralized by the property. The the guy's got a track record. You're not looking for the next Uber, the thousand x return. You're looking for something that's gonna generate eight to ten percent a year or eight to fifteen percent a year. And,

01:03:27

Cool. Like, that's doable. That's not that doesn't take a miracle. So I really like steady.

01:03:33

I think there's currently a wait list or whatever. People have to like Dude, I just signed up for it. It looks sick. I'll email they gotta get you in. If people wanna do it, they should they should get it. I think it's I think it's really good for people.

01:03:42

Like, I've had I've had multiple people ask to invest in my startup fund. And I just say no. I'm like, if you're not already wealthy, don't do this because this don't use this as the way to get wealthy. You have much smarter paths to get there. If you're already if you're already, you know, multi millionaire, cool. I you should do this then to get some exposure to startups. But I think for most people, getting exposure to passive income real estate is a much better

01:04:04

place to to build wealth if you're not already wealthy through your business or what

01:04:09

It is the this is a good episode.

01:04:12

Cool. I'm I'm interested in study. I have a whole bunch of other topics still, so I'll I'll save those for Wednesday. Appreciate you holding down the fort while I was,

01:04:19

It was hard. It was hard. I think, like, I had to do it with Ben and Ben's great. And but I had and then I did it with Noah and Noah's great. But

01:04:27

you and I are

01:04:29

I mean, you're talented, which I talk about all the time. You and I together are talented, and it was very hard with it was way harder without it was work.

01:04:37

I love to hear it. I love to be needed. It it was work. Yeah. It was work. And, like, I thought there's been times where I'm like, oh, fuck. I can just I can handle this. It was work. It was it like, I felt like I was working. By the way, if people haven't listened to the episode you did with Ben on the Silk Road, it's on our feed. It's a special I think it's called special silk road. I don't know what it's called. Go listen to that. I listen to that while I was sick. I fucking loved it. Because I've been meaning to read American kingpin for so long. You told me it was so good. And I'm just, like, backed up. I'm just not reading it. And,

01:05:06

so listening to that gave me my fix, and it it's, like, you know, the best kind of Netflix shows where after it's done, you then go down the rabbit hole and research more for, like, an hour on your phone in the middle of the night under the covers. Like, that's what I was doing about So, dude, that one I think we were prepared for forty five minutes. It wasn't a lot. But we were both so fascinated by that topic, and I think you something happened where you weren't able come and we found last minute and we're like, let's just do this, Ben. And so we're gonna do another one on,

01:05:35

a guy called, I forget the there's another version. There's another, like, juicy one. But, I just bought the book. I'm gonna go read it and, like, do it. That's those episodes were fun, and Ben's really good at that stuff. Yeah. Exactly. And you guys play off each other really well. The one thing I really wanted to know because while you're here, I'll get you.

01:05:52

How did they catch them? So you you had said, like, basically, they traced his,

01:05:56

you had said, okay. He had he he had originally posted on this forum saying, yes. Hey, has anybody seen this thing? And then also

01:06:03

that,

01:06:05

that they, you know, caught him in the library right down the street from you. So I got those bits, but I wanted to know, like It was him.

01:06:11

Yeah. And,

01:06:12

yeah, like, I think there was a bunch of details about, like, the investigation, like, the the, like, cop chase, basically,

01:06:19

yeah. So basically when was there more there? You know, it's so funny. There's this episode of South Park where they're trying to, like, track this terrace and the boys are like, dude, just, like, do a reverse Google search and, like, like just use Google and that's what they did. And so the very first post ever about the silk road was written from a username

01:06:35

and that same username

01:06:37

posted a few weeks prior to stack overflow saying I'm building a website that is trying to do this.

01:06:44

Yeah. Can you please email me ross ulbrite at gmail dot com? And then they, like, did a they, like, used a web archive because once they once he once Ross caught his air, he changed his username from like Altoid to like frosty or something like that. But it was on the web where like he was asking

01:07:01

He he used a username to post about, I've created a website or no. Sorry. He created a username. It says, has anyone heard about this new thing called silk road? And that was the first time anyone ever mentioned But just weeks prior, that same username asked about, like, how to build an exchange or something like that. Gotcha. And then they found out who this Ross guy was and then they realized that

01:07:19

Oh, we just like went to this guy's house recently as Holland Security, because he ordered like eighteen IDs with his picture, but for like different states with different names, Let's keep an eye on him and they found out basically it was like,

01:07:32

alright, whenever and so they had a fake f they had an FBI guy become an employee of the Silk Road. Right. And Ross or Redpirate Roberts, the owner would say, alright, I gotta log off to go blank. They noticed that Ross would walk out of his house and go for a walk. Right. Like, they they just tracked them. Or they're like, alright, I gotta go to Dominican Republic to do blank, and they're like, oh, Ross is in Dominican Republic on vacation according to his Facebook. Right. And so they knew the the the FBI

01:07:59

the day he was arrested. He got arrested in the library right down the street from my house in Glen Park. And they said basically the FBI was do not arrest him. We gotta get a SWAT team and they're like, dog, he's on his computer right now. We're chatting with him. They tackled him. Right? Like, he logged in this second. We know we're having a conversation with them. And so they had two FBI agents. He was sitting at a chair

01:08:20

in the science of this library that I used to go to, he was sitting at a desk in a chair,

01:08:24

and

01:08:25

they go they had two FBI agents dressed as kinda homeless people go right behind him and get into a fight where the guy was like, bitch, what are you doing here? And the lady was like, fuck you, man. You don't know. Like, you know, like, they got like a domestic and so he turns his back and when he turns his back, the other FBI agents, one tackles him and the other one swipes his computer from his desk and runs it straight to the van and they plug it. They already had the they knew that he was using a PC. They had the outlet right there. They turned the video camera on they start filming them, they go, look, here's the fucking he's on the dashboard right now as we speak. Here's us. We were literally just talking to him And then they plug a USB in and they, like, they get a lot of the stuff out before the computer goes to sleep and is locked. And so that How is there no movie? Like, I know there's, like, a kind of it.

01:09:12

Why isn't there an amazing movie about that? There needs to be. It's such a good story. The the the book American Kingpin is the best book I've read in years and years. It is such a new story. And it's also as we said in the podcast, it's the incredibly challenging story for someone like me because this guy Ross looks like me. Right? Like when you hear about gangsters and shit, they're usually like poor oftentimes minorities and like, well, that's like the other. That person's not, you know, I I don't I don't relate to that person. Ross was from a good family a white guy, a good looking dude who lived in San Francisco, played on computers, had these ideals of, like, I wanna help the world. And you're like, oh, he's just like me. Right. But He's a fucking criminal who tried to like supposedly

01:09:51

wanted to kill people and sold more drugs than al capone. And so it makes you question like what's right and what's wrong.

01:09:57

Yeah. It is so good. Go listen to the episode if you if you liked that a little bit, but it it was really good. So that that definitely got me through one of the one of the COVID fever nights. I mean, I'm in I got my fever going. I'm listening to the silk road. I got all kinds of crazy ideas in my head. It was awesome.

01:10:12

Alright. That's the episode. Oh, we have to do one thing before we before we go. So we,

01:10:18

two or three weeks

01:10:19

four weeks ago at this point, we did a contest on TikTok where we were gonna give five thousand dollars to at least one

01:10:26

person who created videos about using our YouTube videos and chopped them up and posted them on whatever platform and used our clips. So the end result on TikTok alone

01:10:37

our hashtags

01:10:39

in, like, the first two weeks got something like thirty million views. Do you know that? Damn.

01:10:44

And we're giving Jonathan confirming the chat. Are we giving it two to the people that I think is the cartoon? Let me know. But the first guy that were yeah. Okay. And it's the, the first guy we're giving it to. His name on TikTok, I believe, was MFM Minnis. I think his name is Michael, and he posted a bunch of videos a few of them got more than a million views. No. No. I think I have cuts. Right? M sorry. And,

01:11:07

yeah, I can't get that wrong because there was an MFM minis as well. Jonathan Tell me exactly who the winner is in the chat. I can't get that wrong. M m f m cuts is the winner.

01:11:16

And this person got something like So MFM cuts. That's the winner. MFM cuts. That's the winner. This person got like thirty thousand followers on their TikTok channel in like ten or fifteen days. Millions of use they won. And then the second place person who also gets five thousand dollars, I think they're called,

01:11:34

tune pods. Is that what they're called?

01:11:36

Say it again? Pod tune. Mister Pod tune. So they turned podcasts into cartoons like South Park style. We've retweeted a couple of them because they're awesome. And they are hilarious. They are really good. So the best one was where I was making fun of you for not wearing a shirt. Holarious.

01:11:51

Really good. I have a feeling both of these guys are gonna end up making a lot of money by, turning this into a business. And I bet they already have. Yeah. Exactly.

01:12:00

Good job. Good job by them. By the way, MFM Cuts, the guy, he is in university still. When I I emailed him, he he's nineteen.

01:12:10

I love it. Good job by them. And I am so can are is this still going? Can people still end, like, when next month a different, like, a different person could win or no? Yeah. We're gonna keep doing it. We gotta wait. I gotta wait till Jonathan tells me we're allowed to announce it, but we are going to continue doing it because we saw in December, our podcast basically in November, we were like just shy of a million in December. We basically skipped over a million and went straight to two million. And I think that that TikTok thing was one of the reasons why it happened. One of a couple of reasons. Yeah. And did we bring this other one or two, the sixty minute thing?

01:12:42

We'll announce that next time. Okay. Sounds good. Alright. I gotta go. Good stuff. Good seeing you again. Alright. I'll type this thing good up, sir.

00:00 01:13:06