00:00
Alright. What's happening, everyone? Today's podcast is with Kevin Espiritu. So Kevin has this company called Epic gardening. Epic gardening started as a blog where Kevin would just blog about his hobby as a gardener. He started it in two thousand sixteen. And in this podcast, he's gonna tell us the revenue for every year that he's been doing it. But this year, they're gonna do something like forty five million dollars a year in revenue. And Kevin walks through how they got traffic, how he's built the company, how he bought other companies to make Epic gardening a big business. It's incredibly fascinating. He's super transparent with all the numbers so he goes through. Deal by deal, all the companies that they bought, how much they paid for it, how they found the company, how they found other companies that they didn't end up buying, and why they didn't buy it, It's a really fascinating story. This guy is really, really cool. I think in about five years, this guy's gonna be a really, really big deal. He's already a pretty big deal, but I think five years. He's gonna be like Chip and Joanna. You guys have to listen to this podcast. He's a really fascinating guy. Let me know what you think. Alright. Check it out.
01:00
Dude,
01:01
so
01:02
it's
01:08
finally, nice to talk to you. You, I didn't know who you were, and then on the podcast, Sean, like, told your story.
01:15
And I'm like, oh, I recognize this guy from for everywhere. And I didn't realize how big of a business that you'd build. So congratulations. That's insane. Right? Yeah. Yeah. No. It's been a it's been a crazy ride. It's been a crazy ride. I just watched one of your YouTube videos where one of your videos had just gotten. I I think you've had seventy million views. And it's just, like, you kneeling
01:34
on,
01:35
like, a little kneeling, like, device so you can garden on your knees more easily. And you're, like, I've been getting notice in the streets because of the silly kneeling video. Yeah. That video
01:46
might haunt me. I I think it's the most viral thing I've ever made. It's a short form video. So I'd seen this little kneeling device. It was like a Instagram reel of a German trade show, and it was just this little kneeling device where kinda popped down. I think it's made for bricklayers. So I saw it and I was like, you know what? I kinda wanna try it out just to see. And so I I had my team grab one. There was, like, one in San Diego where I live. And I made that piece of content in, like,
02:12
maybe maybe ten minutes maximum.
02:14
And and then edited it up, tossed it out, put it on, I think TikTok first, and it just started ripping. So I I was like, okay. I know this thing. It has some legs. So then I threw it on Instagram and Facebook, and I threw it on YouTube. I think it's at, like, a hundred fifty million views platform. And the whole logic of doing it was let me put this product in front of our gardening audience and see if they like it So then we can either hit up the manufacturer and carry it on our store, or we can maybe make some modifications to it that make it a little better suited for gardening. And
02:42
then that is basically just market validation. Right? By by the time we went that viral, we hit up the manufacturer, which is a German company, and they're like, We would love to sell you some, but our entire stock in America is gone. So every distributor we already have has sold out. So we can't we can't get it to you. How much
02:59
re missed revenue. What's that? I have no idea. What's your guess? Over or under ten million.
03:05
Oh, it's gotta I think it's under for sure. Okay. I think these things are, like, fifty bucks maybe. I don't know how many we would have sold, but I don't think there was some crazy supply in the US.
03:15
But, yeah, it was kind of a bummer. So the my only the only thing I've ever gotten out of it is just being memed to to death about it. Dude, so you the reason you're sort of interesting to me is, did you start with, like, an internet marketing background because I know that you're interested in search and SEO and stuff. Was it, like, to be an agency? And then, I mean, were you even into gardening and plants and all that stuff? Or did you were you like, I'm the plant daddy now because I've got this website. And so, like, which came first?
03:40
What came first was
03:43
Yeah. I guess I guess designing websites did come first because I came out of college with an accounting degree, but I played online poker to pay for school. And so that kinda, like, put me off the path of wanting to be an accountant right out of the gate. And you were making money. Yeah. I made, like, hundred, two hundred fifty thousand dollars probably playing poker in college. So I I used that to pay for school, and then I had some money to, like, sit on. Was it all online?
04:04
Yeah. It was all online. I hated playing in person. I because it's so slow. Because when you're playing online, you're playing
04:10
faster, but you're also playing, like, more tables. What makes a good online poker player? Because I would think I don't play poker really. I've only played, like, ten or twenty times. It's just, like, it seems like reading body language and things like that is part of the game, but what makes a good online player just straight math? Straight math
04:27
is a big part of it. So, like, understanding
04:30
probability theory and understanding the types of hands that someone could or couldn't have in a particular situation.
04:37
But you're you're kinda right, like, eventually, when you play enough online ochre, it gets down to the point where you know the people's screen names you're playing with, and you probably have played with these people, like, over days, weeks, or months depending on how often they play. And you can even get down to the point where, you know, in this particular position, like, I'm sitting on the button, they're sitting in this position,
04:56
and they
04:57
they wait three seconds longer than they normally do, and it's this person's screen name. A lot of the times, you can develop some sort of weird six sense and you you're, like, I'm, I'm, like, nearly sure that's a bluff, and you'll call them. And you made two hundred fifty thousand dollars over four years doing that? It's something like that. I didn't track it super well. It was, like, two hundred two hundred fifty thousand. That's insane. That is insane. Yeah. Yeah. So it threw me off the path of wanting to be an accountant for sure.
05:21
And then when I got out of school. I played poker for, like, six more months or something, and then quit, but I had nothing to to do. So I started playing video games, and then I was designing websites
05:31
to just pay some bills.
05:33
And then I got into the marketing thing because I was like, well, once you sell a website, it's sold. So you make your fifteen hundred bucks or two grand or whatever the hell I was charging at that time. So then I got into SEO stuff, and I built the gardening blog at the same time because I was getting into gardening. I was doing it with my brother over a summer,
05:50
But I was like, I need a I need, like, a digital business card. Like, I need a little calling card. So I built the gardening blog as a way to show the website design clients like, hey, look, look what I can build. What year was that?
06:00
That would have been twenty thirteen.
06:03
Dude, I think in the same year, I did the same thing as you. Were you reading, like, smart passive income?
06:08
Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm. Okay. So
06:10
for those young listeners,
06:12
I think you and I were on the young side probably at the time of his blog I think you and I are the same age. I'm thirty four. Yeah. Thirty six. And, smart passive income was, like, one this guy pat flynn He's still quite popular. He's one of the early bloggers of, like, making money on the internet. And he had a
06:30
what did he do? He did, like, he wrote, like, a blog and an ebook on how to, like, get your building, like, green or lead certified or something like that, and he was making money doing and he would display all of his income and revenue online, which at the time was, like, insane.
06:45
And then he did, like, a food truck
06:49
a food truck, like, a book on how to create a food truck or something like that. And he, like, was like, I'm gonna rank high on search, and I'm gonna blog throughout the way. So you guys can see how I did do it. I read that, and I created a poison poison Ivy, like, how to treat poison Ivy website.
07:05
At the same time, and it was making, like, a thousand dollars a day. And I was, like, copying everything he was doing. And I have a feeling that you were reading that same blog at the same time. I have a even more
07:16
cringe story around that time. So I was reading Pat like crazy. Yeah. Call me cringe. Mean, we all that that first site that you make, it's always kinda weird. Like, come on, boy, somebody's site. Yeah. It's so good. I have one worse than that. For sure. So hat to me was, like, a god back in the day because he's a half Filipino, half white guy living in San Diego building businesses. Are you half Filipino? I'm half Filipino halfway. And we've become a good friends now, which is awesome.
07:41
But
07:42
when I read it, I was like, okay. Cool. I see the blueprint. Pat's got this, like, green certification thing. And so my choice was to I created a a website called cocoa buttercream dot org And so I go cocoa butter cream dot gov and I start reviewing every cocoa butter cream that's on Amazon.
07:59
And I was
08:00
using an alias and, like, come on. Like, I was, like, early twenties. I was doing some dumb stuff. And I I was Susie Michaels a
08:08
mother of two who was, like, reviewing how all these different cocoa butters worked on me. And and then I, you know, you hook into Amazon affiliates. And I remember it took me like a month. I made, like, two bucks on that site. And I was like, oh my god. I made money in a way that's not like someone just paying me. You know?
08:25
And it kinda blew my mind. Like, I did the whole like, everyone remembers your first dollar in the internet. I wish it wasn't cocoa buttercream, but And then and and and that's when you got into, like, internet marketing. But then you do, like, a Kendrick LaMar website too. Yeah. That was that was, man, that was probably, like, a couple of years later. So the story on that one is my cousin. I was living with my cousin at the time. He was like a biomechanical
08:46
engineer, and I'm over here doing all this weird stuff on the internet, like building sites and stuff. And he's kinda getting intrigued by it, and a friend hits me up. And he was like, hey, I have all these blogs that I need to sell. I just need some money. I have Kendrick Lamar,
08:59
Rita Oras, schoolboy q, like, all these sort of up and coming artists, and this would have been, like, twenty fourteen, I think. Because you wanna buy one and I go, I I'm kinda doing my own thing, but maybe I'll have my cousin buy it, and we'll do it together. So my cousin Johnny actually puts up the money for it, and I think I had, like, ten percent equity in this kendrick lamar website. And we start like, scouring the internet. And we actually become, like, the biggest source of Kensa Kumar news on the internet before he drops his first album, good kid, Matt City, And so no one really knows Kendrick. Like, the only super fans know him. And there was a point where, like, I think Kendrick's manager even called my cousin, was like, like, we really appreciate what you're doing for Kendrick. Like, putting his name out there.
09:40
And the way we monetize that is we were just selling shirts, just like print on demand shirts, I think we probably made, like, thirty or forty grand doing that. And then after the album dropped and he blew up, all of a sudden, he, like, trademarked his name, and we had to shut the site down and stuff. But was another, like, weirdo internet thing that we did. Alright. Look, the question that Sean and I get asked constantly is what skill set did we develop early on in our careers that kinda changed our business career, and that's an easy answer. It's copywriting. We've talked about copywriting and how it's changed our lives constantly on this podcast. And we give a ton of tips, a ton of techniques, a ton of frameworks, and throughout all the podcast, well, we decided to aggregate all of that into one simple document. So you can read all of it. You can see we've learned copywriting, but you can see the resources that we turn to on a daily basis. You can see the frameworks, the techniques we use. It's in a simple document. You can check it out in the link below. Are right now back to the show. What was the main thing though? Was it the gardening, like, gardening websites the whole time? No. The the gardening thing didn't really start until
10:38
for real. Like, it was a hobby that I love doing, and I've I've done it every every year in my life since twenty thirteen.
10:43
But it was just like a a hobby blog until twenty sixteen.
10:47
When I went full time on it. And hobby blog and that you were actually, like, into gardening, and you're like, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna create content around but did you see any numbers where you're like,
10:58
this could be a big company or
11:01
was it straight joy?
11:03
No. I mean, it was a mix. Right? Like, I was gardening for fun, and then I would just document whatever whatever I was doing and, like, make a YouTube video or make a blog post And I would try to monetize it. Like, I'd make some ad revenue or I'd make some affiliate revenue, but I never thought it could be
11:19
huge. Like, I remember talking to friends that were all kinda doing the same thing at the time. And I was like, man, if this thing could just make two grand a month or if it could make five grand a month, like, that'd be amazing that I wouldn't have to go get a job. Because I think my mind didn't understand
11:32
the scale that any any business could really become at that point in time. So, yeah, took took a while for me to realize the potential of it.
11:39
And then
11:41
you you kind of, like, had this
11:44
It's a it's a it's not like a cliche to most people, but for the media world, it's like a cliche at this point. But at the time when you were doing it, it was like content in commerce. Was actually like a pretty innovative idea, which is I'm gonna build this huge blog. And instead of just making money on advertising, I'm going to sell my own products. Which is, like,
12:03
it sounds silly that that that I'm calling that innovative, but, like, when you were getting going, that was a thing. I mean, I had a blog and I was, like, I don't think that you can, like, your own products. I'd rather just stick to, like, what I know, which is content and ads.
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And I was, like, totally against selling stuff, but
12:20
You made the right decision for sure. That's a significantly better business. It's a it's a way better business. And, yeah, the the brief story of that is twenty sixteen, I I go full time on epic gardening. I was, at scribe Media or booked in a box. It was called before that. It was, like, second employee there. So I quit that. Go full time with Epic. It was just a blog and YouTube channel. Did you have any revenue when you quit? Yeah. I was making four hundred fifty dollars a month. I have this spreadsheet of, like, what it was making at the time. So at that time, I actually thought I was going to farm, like, legit farm in people's front yards, and
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like, aggregate all their square footage and, like, sell that produce to restaurants and stuff like that. Right. I mean, that sounds like really hard.
13:00
Yeah. It's it's a really hard way to make a
13:03
smallish amount of money, which there's people that do it and actually respect it a lot, It's cool. It's cool. Yeah. It's just not scale.
13:11
So so I go, okay. How about I just make this blog make a couple grand a month because it was making four fifty. So if I could make four fifty, I could probably make two. If I could make two, I could make five. And so I started growing it And I think that year, the blog made seventeen grand total,
13:26
about six months of the year. And then the next year, it was seventy two thousand revenue. And this is all media because I haven't done any product yet. Right? Twenty eighteen, it was two hundred and twenty five. And then twenty nineteen is where I had that realization that you mentioned where I was like, wait, why am I just making money from ads
13:46
and like, brand sponsorships, like, what do the brands want from you when they do a brand deal? They wanna access to your audience. Well, I have complete access to my own audience. So why don't I just be the brand selling to my own my own audience.
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And so what I did is
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I realized, like, well, every piece of content I put out is basically
14:03
a search for validating demand for whatever is in that content. And so in all these photos, I'm putting out because I'm I'm at this
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point, I'm gardening in Hillcrest San Diego in, like, a very small front yard in in a pretty urban part of downtown San Diego.
14:17
And so I'm like filling my content there. I have these little raised beds in the front yard, which is just a way to grow plants, and they're made out of metal. And every time I took a photo of these, everyone's like, what are those? What are those things in the photo? Like, where'd you get those? So I was like, I actually don't know. Like, a brand just sent these to me, and I put them in the front yard, And so I started emailing this company, they're from Australia. I emailed them, like, maybe once or twice a quarter
14:41
for, like, a year saying like, hey, can I get these? Can I just, like, somehow get these to America
14:46
and sell them? And they're like, no. No. We already we already have someone we're working with. Like, we don't need to do that. And then the beginning of twenty nineteen, they emailed back and said, like, hey, are are you still interested in in carrying our products?
14:57
We a distributor just isn't working with us anymore. I'm like, yeah, sure. Let's do it. And I think I probably had, like, seventy, eighty grand in the business bank account at that point in time. Alright. So it's, like, It's like promising. You're not rolling in it yet, but it's media. So it's mostly profit. Yeah. It's mostly profit, and it's a small business with with nearly zero employees. So to me, I'm like, I'm making, like, a,
15:19
like, a mid level doctor's salary out of this business now. You know? So I'm I'm chilling. I'm I'm gardening. I'm liking my life.
15:26
So I hit these guys up and they're like, yeah. Sure. Like, here's how it works. And I'm like, holy shit. I don't know how my product works because I'm I'm used to media. And so
15:34
Much like, like, the sort of cringe early days, the way I tried to do it was
15:39
sort of sort of noob. Like, I was like, okay. Do I buy the product? And they're like, well, you have to pay us. You know, here's all these different, like, shipping terms. So I bought a twenty foot container of these raised beds for, I think, thirty five thousand dollars, which was, like, half the money that I had.
15:54
And I go, okay. Well, what what what happens when they get to America? Like, what am I supposed to do? Like, well, you gotta receive it at the port, and then you that container has to, like, go somewhere, and then you have to unpack it, and then you have to ship it. I'm like, okay. Cool. Like, thanks for that information. So what I tried to do is I tried to rent a, storage facility out of a Costco. And, like, just one of the ones that you, like, go to if you're gonna move for a year, you know, and you put all your furniture in there. So I tried to do that and was, like, trying to figure out how to get it from the port to the storage facility, and then I was trying to look up, like, well, how do you get internet in the storage facility so you can so I can print the labels?
16:31
Oh, and you were gonna literally mail these things out yourself. Because I didn't know anything about commerce. I didn't know you could, like, send it to a three p l. Or you could send to a warehouse. How many, like, units
16:42
of stuff did you have? I think it was five hundred and fifty beds at that time. So, like, that's
16:48
That's a ton, but it's like, alright. I'm just gonna go to the post office four times a week, and I'll just I'll figure it out. I mean, that's a lot of work, but I guess it's kind of reasonable.
16:57
I thought it was reasonable. And the reason why I was trying to do it like that is because when I when I ordered it and they packed the container in Australia,
17:05
was like, okay. Cool, guys, like, to my audience. I was like, hey, you guys asked where these things were from. I figured it out. I put up a really crappy Shopify store, and I was like, here they are. And then I sold them out in, like, four or five days Oh, no. While they were still getting to America. So I knew I I knew it was working. Right? And so then what I did is I used that money to buy another container, and then that was on the way, and then that sold out. And then I was like, oh my god. Like, I think there's something really going on here. What was your revenue in nineteen the year you started selling stuff? So nineteen was, like, five fifty
17:36
and half of it was the product.
17:38
So in the year one, like, immediately half was was product. So I was like, oh my god. I think what I've been building this whole time is the top of a business and not the bottom of it. Like, I thought media was the whole thing. It was like, oh, actually media is right here, and it monetizes, but the bottom is actually where
17:54
where,
17:55
the business lies. The weird, innovative idea. I remember,
17:59
so, like,
18:01
my friend Nathan Barry has this awesome blog post called, like, billion dollar blogs.
18:05
And it's, like, basically the story of a handful of people who started out blogging and then built companies around the blogs.
18:12
And the most famous example is probably glossier or I think that's what it's called glossier. It's the the women's makeup,
18:19
brand that started as Emily Weiss, I think her name is. She had, like, a fashion blog. And then she was, like, oh, this selling stuff is way better than selling ads and it became a a billion dollar company, and he has a few more examples of that. And that that's when I first read about that idea, but I still thought this is way too intimidating
18:37
in, like, to challenging. And particularly for me, at the time, I ran a business website. And I was like, I can't what am I gonna possibly sell? Yeah. Like, what product Yeah. So, like, it didn't really make sense for me. But even still, I was like, this is too intimidating, but you were living it and doing it, which is pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, not frankly, like, it was quite intimidating to me, but I just was who either dumb or smart to, like, realize that and just went ahead and did it. But anyways, like, to to wrap that up, like, I ended up talking to a friend of mine who was in commerce, and he's like, what the hell are you doing, dude? Just get, like, a three p l and get a freight forwarder and send the container to there hook the Shopify to there, and then they'll ship it all out for you. And that's what I ended up doing. And so that that was kinda the genesis of selling products at epic gardening. And didn't you grow that like, seven million in revenue with, like, four people.
19:25
Yeah. So, yeah. I mean,
19:27
I think twenty twenty would have been two point eight in revenue. So almost a six x thing year on year. And then twenty twenty one was seven point three, seven point four or so. And most of it was product at that point in time. And that would have been on a team of me my garden assistant, my actual assistant, a video editor, and and a writer. And that was it. That's all we had. On seven point three in revenue, what could your profit be?
19:51
Oh, man. It was probably, like, fifty percent or something like that. So you're rolling in
19:58
it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, because because the thing about it is you if you run it like that,
20:03
and that was with zero dollars or paid spent. Right? And so I have no acquisition cost. My acquisition cost is equal to my media because that's the only way I was getting the word out, but my media is not a cost. It's a it's a profit driver. And so it's that term negative CAC. Like, I had negative CAC on the business. Why raised money then? I know you raised, I think, seventeen million dollars. Why? Because Like, if you the cool thing about bootstrapping a company is you could do whatever the hell you want. Yeah. And there's, like, freedom in that. And that's
20:32
frankly, my favorite part about business is, like, the freedom of, like, you're creating your own empire. You could do whatever the hell you want. If you wanna grow it, you can. If you don't wanna grow it, you don't have to.
20:41
You get all the money. You don't have to answer to anyone. I assume at this point you own you still own one hundred percent of the company. At least if I'm you, I'm not giving equity to my employees because it's like,
20:51
I've been doing this by myself for a long time. I'll I'd rather just pay you a high salary. Why even take seventeen million
20:57
dollars?
20:58
Yeah. I I wrestled with it for a long time. Like, maybe
21:02
that deal took like six months to close, I would say. And at least for the TriNet group, it's not some massive deal for them. Like, that's not that's not a ton of money for them. It's it was huge amount for me. The the logic ended up being
21:15
I was like, do I know what I'm gonna do in the next couple years? Like, do I understand the
21:21
plexity of the business I I had built because it's a that's a really lean team to be at seven point three with, like, a commerce business shipping product. Yeah. There's, like, a bunch of redundancy issues, like, at that
21:31
like, anything north of five million, it's like, alright. We've got something here. We've got a seed. Of something working here. It potentially could be huge. Like, I should have some I should actually, like, shift to being a proper CEO. And, like, with begin for being a proper CEO is, like, hiring extra employees, even if, like, you know, like, at that point, it's, like,
21:50
with with the size that you or everyone was working a hundred and ten percent. And at that point, it's you kinda, like, almost purposely become a slightly more inefficient because you're like, if I get seventy percent of effort from ten people, that's better than a hundred and ten percent effort five people, and I'll have some redundancies so people can, like, chill a little bit or someone gets sick or quits. Like, there's actually, like, some proper CEO work you have to do at that stage, I would think. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Totally. I mean, and the operational side, like, the hiring, etcetera side. Like, I had no clue because I was on a team of me and and four contractors. Like, I didn't I didn't really have hiring experience.
22:24
And then on the commerce side, it's not like we got to seven point three selling like an online course, which would be a lot simpler to fulfill.
22:31
Like, there's there's inventory planning, there's, like, sales tax nexus that you hit in all these different states that you have to file for. So there was a lot of complexity. I was, like, staring down the barrel of that I I knew that I didn't know about. I was at least smart enough to know I didn't know what was coming.
22:47
And then frankly, like, that was just a crazy period in the market. Like, two thousand twenty one was probably still the last best time to do any kind of raising.
22:55
And, and then at the same time, I was like, look, I'm already ahead in in my space. Like, no one no creator in gardening is is doing what I'm doing.
23:03
And so why don't I just make sure that I stay ahead
23:06
and partner with people who actually understand how these media to commerce businesses are built? And that's what ended up making me do the deal. Were you able to take any money off the table, or did the seventeen go straight to the balance sheet? I was able to take some off, which was great. Yeah, that's like life changing. Right? Yeah. It was it was life changing, and then, like, I had bought a warehouse,
23:27
to to start fulfilling. Because eventually, like, I moved off the three P. L. I was like, you know what? I'm paying these guys, like, thirty, forty k a month in fulfillment fees. Why don't I just, like, start a separate company buy a warehouse and then become my own tenant
23:38
and then build equity in the real estate side? And so when we raised, I I actually didn't that the warehouse didn't go with it. And so I I had the warehouse too. So, like, the way the whole personal financial math worked out, I was like, the way I live, I'm good now, and I can just, like, fully focus on trying to win this space. So that was another part of it. Do you have family?
23:58
Yeah, I have a I have a girlfriend. Yeah. And then a lot of my family lives in San Diego.
24:02
What's it feel like to,
24:04
be I don't know if you're single time or not. But what's it feel like to be a young guy,
24:08
and you're like, I'm good. I'm good for potentially forever.
24:12
Yeah. I mean,
24:13
It's kind of,
24:14
underwhelming, I guess. I don't know. Was it, like, one for you? I don't know. For for me, I'd I'd already made quite a bit of money running up through two thousand twenty one just sort of solo.
24:24
And so it was a huge change, but it wasn't
24:27
it wasn't like, you know, one million to two hundred million dollar net worth or something like that. Like, the the way I live, I just don't I just don't need it. I guess.
24:37
And so all it did was eliminate
24:39
worry about, like, I don't know what if something medical goes wrong or I couldn't even figure out if I wanted to buy anything for a while. Like, I didn't I didn't buy anything like fancy to celebrate or whatever.
24:48
Not having money is
24:51
the the period of my life where I didn't have as, money was more stressful than the period of my life where I did have breathing room.
24:58
That, that I completely agree with. That I I always think, like, it mitigates all your downsides, but it doesn't at least I haven't found that it makes you some massively
25:09
happier person.
25:11
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you remember that that study where it was, like, seventy thousand dollars a year?
25:16
Right.
25:17
That's bullshit. That is absolute bullshit. That I agree is bullshit. That I agree. Why do you agree that that's bullshit? Okay. So first of all, I think inflation adjusted, isn't it, like, a hundred six K now or something like that? Yeah. Even I think that numbers might be bullshit too. Yeah. A hundred and sixty grand in in a in a one of the top five cities
25:34
shockingly doesn't go very far. Doesn't go far. Yeah. I think I think that's bullshit because
25:39
the things let's say you're making, like, two hundred a year,
25:42
you can get, like, you can have someone come and clean the house, or you can have, like, meal support or these sorts of things that
25:49
that help you free your time up from things you, like, genuinely don't like to do.
25:53
There's things, like, I love to do that, of course, I could pay for. Like, I, obviously, I grow my own food and I, like, cooked meals and and bake my own bread and stuff like that. I I don't have to do that. But, like, I I don't clean my house anymore. Right? And so, like, things like that, I think, gives me I don't know if, like, positive joy would be the way I would phrase it though. It's just, like, I don't have to do an annoying thing is the way I think about it. Yeah. It's like, you remember that book? Like, five languages of of love. And it's like, oh, your girlfriend's like an active service woman. So, like, if I do something nice for her, she'll feel loved. Yeah. There's, like, the five languages of love, but for money, where it's like, for me, it's not nice things. But for some people, it could be they love cars. For me, it's the same thing where I've got a cleaner who comes often, and I just, like, genuinely feel happier not having to do my laundry and clean. Yeah. And so and those, like, small things, which frankly aren't expensive.
26:43
It it it it definitely makes you happier. Like, those little small things. I learned that all from Ramit.
26:50
Same. I learned that all from Ramit is is just He has, like, a surgical team on every single part of his life that he hates,
26:57
to do. And I was, like, oh, you know what? That's actually pretty smart. And so And he spends big on stuff. I was with Ramin on Saturday. He he, like, always asked these, like, crazy questions where sometimes I'm, I'm just wanting to chill and have fun. And he's, like, saying, let me ask you a question.
27:11
What what's what's your rich life? And I'm like,
27:14
I don't know, man. Like,
27:17
let's just drink our coffee. He's like, no. No. No. Tell me your rich life. And I'm like, okay.
27:21
It's not stuff. It's, services. He goes, What would happen if you ten x your spending on your services?
27:27
And I was like coffee with him. We had the same conversation
27:30
with his exact he goes, he goes, he goes, he goes,
27:33
How how how big would your staff be if it could be as big as you wanted it to be for your house? And I was like, I don't know. Like, I I think I have, like, a cleaner and maybe, like, a cook every so often or something.
27:44
He's like, oh, man. Like, what kind of cook? You know, he gets into the details. He gets into the details. He loves it. He loves it. And when he asked those questions, frankly, it does make me start thinking, a, like, maybe I should do this. And, b, like, am I thinking too small? Like, if I love something, why don't I, like, get
27:59
ten x more of of that thing. And so
28:02
it is, like, cool to think about. He he does do a good job with that, of, like, make of, like, pressuring me to think beyond, like, how I'm thinking. And
28:11
and Remit's stuff has actually been life changing for me. Same. How big is the business now? Can you say? Yeah. Yeah. We're we're about ninety ish people,
28:20
and
28:21
were hoping to hit somewhere around, like, forty, forty five million this year in revenue.
28:25
That's insane. Right? Did you ever think that and are you doing it profit profitably still? Not even though you've raised money? Yeah. We're we're profitable. We're profitable. Well, the first year after, I think we were not because, you know, we hired quite a bit ahead of of growth because we were, like, way under hired with me and four contractors.
28:42
And then,
28:43
this year this year we are. You think, how big how big do you think it's gonna get in, like, five years? I mean, I think it's, like, a foregone conclusion to get above a hundred million,
28:53
because we have We've made a couple acquisitions. We made two small ones and one large one,
28:58
and even just sort of growing those. I think has a shot at at getting us past a hundred. I don't know much bigger than that. Why acquire something instead of building it on your own?
29:09
It's really just speed. And if you have the competency internally to do you I mean, you're you you studied accounting, but did you know anything about acquiring a company, or did churn and kinda hold your hand?
29:19
So the big the big acquisition where we bought the seed company
29:23
that was churn and led a lot of the diligence on that because it's, like, way too complex a thirty year old business. Like, I there's no way I could do the diligence on that. But the two small acquisitions,
29:33
I led those, and they sort of just helped with the legalities of of getting it all done. So the very first one was a
29:41
seed tray. So, like, when you when you're gardening, you usually start seeds in, like, a little tray. And a lot of these trays are made out of pretty flimsy plastic and they're just, like, throw away things. And so a friend of mine who is in the space on the media side of gardening, it's like an educator,
29:55
He he was developing these trays and he hit me up and he's like, hey, can I come down to the house and just show you this new tray that I made to start seeds in? And this was early two thousand twenty one. And I was like, yeah. Sure. Come on down.
30:06
He comes down. He shows me this tray, and it's like this very super sturdy durable tray to start seeds in. Which solves, like, some of the problems of them being flimsy, then he had, like, cut all these little slits in it. There's, like, a big hole in the bottom, which if you're a gardener, you know, it's, like, that makes it easier to, like, pop the seed out and put it out in the garden. So I hold the tray. And the second I hold it, because I've been gardening for, like, eight years now. I'm, like, Holy shit. This is, like, the best seat starting tray I've ever seen in my life. Like, for sure. And he's like, you can stand on it if you want to. So I, like, I'm, like, two hundred twenty pounds. So I stand on it with one foot. It doesn't budge. And I'm like, okay. Like, that thing's durable. And so I go, well, what do you wanna do? Like, I think this is a cool product. Do you wanna, like, I can put it on my Shopify store and, like, see if the audience wants it? And he's like, yeah. Sure. What do you think? Like, we'll just split the profit fifty fifty, you have you have the audience. I have the product, and and let's go. So I started teasing it in, like, Instagram or YouTube videos, and it's an injection molded product. So you we can only make so many in a day. You have to, like, press the mold and, like, accumulate inventory.
31:07
So we we'd built up, like, maybe a week or two of inventory or what we thought was, then I just put an Instagram reel out and I was like, hey, this is the coolest tray I've ever seen, and there's a link in my bio to go grab it. And we sold it out, like, Shopify has this live analytics. You could look at it. It's awesome. It's like it's like it's like,
31:24
just the biggest dopamine rush when you start seeing that So I remember I I was screen recording,
31:29
just to see,
31:30
just to kind of flex and and record the live screen. And we sold out, like, couple of weeks inventory, like, twenty five sec How much revenue was that? It was, like, twenty five or thirty grand, I think. So now that's, that's an entire line of products we own. It's on our shop. It's called our our epic tray line. So if you go to our shop and you go to seed starting supplies, you'll you'll see all the trays there.
31:50
So over the next, like, Over the next, like, three, four weeks, we just, like, built up inventory, dropped it, sold it out, built up inventory, dropped it, sold it out, and we were just splitting the profits. And then I go to him and I was, like, hey, look,
32:02
Not only is this working, like, really well, better than I thought,
32:05
but there's definitely more trays that we could make. There's, like, different form factors and different ideas like, little domes you could put on top to keep humidity in or whatever.
32:14
And I was like, but I can't make them because that's what you do. And I'm, like, ninety five percent of your sales.
32:21
So what if you just joined Epic? You know, way to raise some money. I was like, well, you could be our product lead.
32:27
Will will I can't really, like, buy the business based on revenue because that that is we are your revenue. Right? And so how do how how do we structure a deal And so the deal we came up with without getting into, like, crazy specifics is we basically pay them for all of the assets, like the the the molds themselves and and the research and development time and a premium on that,
32:48
gave him some equity and hired him as our product lead. And then we've built that line
32:52
out to, like, I think, like, twelve or fifteen SKUs
32:56
going D2C and wholesale now.
32:59
And it's, like, I think I think we're, like, up seven x probably on the acquisition price as far as, like, revenue after the fact. So and and that wasn't, like, a big acquisition. It was sub five hundred thousand. So
33:11
to me, I'm like,
33:12
that's why you would that's why you would buy because I Yeah. And that's a great that's a great deal for everyone involved. Yeah. Exactly. It was a total win win.
33:20
What are the other two?
33:22
So the second
33:23
biggest one we did, we was actually a media acquisition. So that was a blog. So a friend of
33:28
mine
33:30
From from, like, the old SEO days had built a gardening blog, and we were hiring for a director of editorial, like just someone to run our blog And our blog was doing well, like, maybe, like, eight, ten million sessions a year. And that was monetizing off of display ads, but then hopefully, like, people will go through and, like, buy some stuff on our store too. All from search or mostly from search? Yeah. It's like mostly search. I said, like, eighty percent search.
33:53
And so This guy emails me and he's like, hey, look, I saw that that had a editorial position. I'm working in SEO right now, but I've also been building a gardening blog.
34:03
On the side. It was called all about gardening dot com, which is now redirecting to Epic gardening. And he's like,
34:09
I'd like the job. Like, I'd like to put my hat in the ring for the job, but
34:13
I kinda have, like, a competing blog.
34:15
So to me, I go, look, you've built that blog really fast, way faster than our we're currently building ours, But you kinda can't work for us and run that blog. So what if we bought your blog and hired you to run our blog? And he goes, okay.
34:30
And so what we did is we bought the blog
34:34
and we migrated his blog into our blog. Which was, like, call them both, like, ten million sessions a year, something like that. So you'd think, like, ten plus ten is twenty, but our blog from an SEO perspective was, like, super strong. So by migrating his into ours,
34:49
our blog went to, like, we probably got, like, a twenty, thirty percent premium on the traffic. So, like,
34:54
ten plus ten equals twenty five. Right?
34:57
So then you're monetizing better off of the display ads there. But then we also just made more from the ads themselves.
35:04
And so effectively, the acquisition financed itself
35:08
by the increased revenue, like month one.
35:11
So that was another, like, sort of weird acquisition. What did you can you say? Was that more or less than five hundred? It was yeah. It was it was in between five hundred and a million. And the way we structured that one is we paid some upfront in some over a period of time. Job plus equity. So is it And this was this was post churning? This was post churning. Yeah. So the way that one has ended up working out is we have a awesome leader running our blog at a higher level than ours was before. Our traffic has over doubled and we're monetizing at over double the rate on the traffic. So you know, like, like, YouTube RPMs. Right? It's the same with blogs. Like, our our blog RPM doubled after doing the acquisition.
35:50
And so, basically, we just created, like, a cash flow that that finances the thing that we bought that created the cash flow. Did you read a book about this? I mean, how did you learn about acquisitions like this? I mean, that's a pretty good one. I just thought I don't know. I just thought about it. I was like, if I do that, I feel like all these things will happen and then
36:07
they did.
36:08
I don't know. Like, that my my old You're like, you're like, look, I don't make up the rules. I just think them up and write them down. Yeah. Like, I I I don't know. I just I I I I Well, you know, how I just don't say, like, there needs to be one re one, like, core reason to do something.
36:22
Like, a acquisition or a business move or whatever. I I agree with that. But to me,
36:28
I, the way I mentally underwrote Both of those things is I was like, well, the core reason is pretty obvious. Like, I don't have a product. Now I do. Or, like, I don't have the traffic and a leader. And now I do. But then I just go, how many other ways could this benefit us and how many other ways could it
36:43
hurt us? And if the ways it could benefit us outweigh the ways it could hurt us, I go, like, feel like it'll just figure those just work then. And this probably holds true for, like, acquisitions that are smaller where it's maybe a less efficient market or something like that. I don't know how it would work if if you have some sort of big big deal. What was the third one? Because you're two for two. You're two for two now. That sounds pretty good. Those those ones were those ones have worked out. Yeah. Yeah. So the the third one was almost like kind of a condition of doing the churning deal in the first place because they're like, look, like, this is is not a big amount of money for us, but
37:16
we wanna do some follow on
37:19
and
37:19
see if we can, like, purchase a really awesome company in space and help power up epic gardening. I was like, okay. Cool. That sounds good. Which is I think what they did with, like, meat eater,
37:29
a few others where they bought, like, they buy the or they invest in the the media company, and then immediately,
37:35
they're like, let's go acquire a company to sell to the audience. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And so
37:41
we were looking man, we looked at so many different companies, like, maybe a hundred fifty, a hundred sixty different companies in the space. I was, like, out at,
37:49
fruit tree farm in Missouri at one point in time. When you say look at a hundred and fifty, does that mean just, like,
37:56
put, like, ideas on paper, or does that mean actually contacting a hundred and fifty people? Oh, it's it means contacting more than a hundred fifty. It means, like, talking or, like, looking at a deck or inspecting in some way somewhere around a hundred fifty, something like that. I mean, that's a shit ton of work. Yeah. This is why this is why having them has has been helpful or having an investor on your side has been helpful because, like, I'm out here running the business. And I'll I might mention a company, and they'll they'll diligence and say, like, yeah, this makes sense. This doesn't make sense. And then they'll they'll cold email them or cold call them and be like, hey, who we are. I know this is out of the blue, but would this ever entertain you? And then if they say yes, then, like, look, why don't you, like, put together some high level numbers and then,
38:37
send something over, and we could talk about it with our team. And then you get some type of, like, Docs and or powerful
38:44
you get something and you're like,
38:46
yay or nay. Like, if you go to the next step, let's actually have a real discussion about this. Is that is that how the due diligence looks like? Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. Like, I I remember we look we were looking at, like, the top six hundred gardening apps at one point in time. And so we I got, like, a sheet from
39:02
one of the people on the investment team, and they were, like, yeah, here are, like, the seven we think make any sense whatsoever. And here's, like, the five hundred ninety three that don't make any sense at all. So these guys are doing a lot of the work then. They're helping you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They're pulling their weight. Oh, I think so. Yeah. Absolutely.
39:19
So so, anyway, so the seed company, this is like the big
39:23
the big acquisition.
39:24
This was a company that without me knowing it, It was the first pack of seeds I had ever grown when I first started gardening. So I went into some random nursery with my brother and just picked up, like, a beautiful packet of seeds, just cucumber seeds,
39:35
And lo and behold turns out to be the seed company we end up buying in the story I'm about to share.
39:41
So we go out to Colorado. It's this company called Potanical interests. And they they're really well known for having high germination rates. So the seeds sprout really well when you buy them, but also the packet is just beautifully designed. What are they growing? You know, I'm a noob. I'm a total noob when it comes to this stuff. What are they what's the out output? There's six I think we we stock about six hundred fifty varieties of vegetables, flours herbs. So pretty much any anything under the sun. Anything that you would, like, reasonably wanna grow. We we have it. And it's a it's a husband and wife They've been running it for, like, twenty eight years. They were married. I think they had divorced, like, a few years prior to that, and they were sort of ready to hand the business off to whoever wants to run it next.
40:20
But it you know, it's so it's like one of those, like, quote, boring businesses that people talk about all the time who's who's actually gonna be able to buy it. And the seed business is actually fairly complex. There's a lot that goes into it that you have to understand.
40:31
And so we go out there. I meet I meet the guy, the husband, and he's like, hey, can I grab a selfie? Like, actually I have a friend who's, like, a big fan of your YouTube, be amazing if if I could show her that we met. And immediately, I'm like, okay. Like, maybe I've got a little edge in this in this process. Like, maybe I'm gonna be able to get this company. You can go either way. It could be like, you have an you have an edge or shit. They know that they're that we have money behind us or something like that. Could be that too. Yeah. Could be that too. But
41:00
we go through the whole like, the diligence happens. We go on a tour of the place where we're talking through pricing and all this sort of stuff. And so I told my investors, I was like, They gave me all this swag. They gave me, like, a hat. So I go, I'm just gonna wear this hat in every piece of content we make until we either win or don't win this deal. Because I know the guy watches it. Right? And I know, like, probably his team watches it too. So for the next, like, this was maybe May. For the next six months, which is a great time. Like, May, that spring through summer.
41:27
I'm cranking YouTube videos out. I'm cranking Instagram reels out, short form, whatever.
41:33
Hat hats on twenty four seven every single piece of content.
41:36
And we go through the bidding process. We win the deal. We were not the highest bid by, like, quite a bit, I would say.
41:43
A material amount for the sellers to, like, not have in their pocket if they went with us. And we go out to celebrate
41:49
And I go, hey, you know, I really appreciate you guys. Like, it's it's truly an honor to be able to carry on the legacy of this company. Like, this is the first seat packet I ever grew. And I'm I'm just being very gracious because I I did feel that way. And he goes, you don't know how much wearing that hat helped.
42:04
And I go, I knew it.
42:07
Got them. Yeah. Got them. Not in, like, a malicious way. Just like Sure. Sure. Sure. I'm using the angle that I have, which is my Everyone won. Everyone won. Everyone won. Did you, what were some of the red flags and and, I guess, green flags or whatever it is, the for that deal along with a few other deals when you're looking through the financials and the business?
42:26
So that the seed companies
42:28
red flags are that it basically, that it is a seed company. Like, that's just a hard it's a difficult business. Like, there's a Why? Because Oh, many different skews?
42:37
Tons of different skews.
42:38
There's you have to do, like, a non GMO certification. You have to do germination
42:43
you have to do pesticide or herbicide testing,
42:45
you're you're physically purchasing
42:47
or contracting a grower to to grow seeds that you then receive,
42:52
test,
42:53
repack, etcetera.
42:55
And so there's just, like, a lot of com it's not like you're you're selling, like, a rug or something like that and you can just buy rugs from China and then sell the rugs to other people in America.
43:03
So that was complex.
43:05
But the part that I think was really green about it is he was far and away one of the best brands in the space. Like, I'd I loved it for ten years.
43:12
And
43:13
on top of that, they were mostly a wholesale business and the online business they they sort of hadn't done a whole lot with. And I was like, okay. Well, we're we're definitely an online first company, media and product. So why don't we just plug plug those two together? I think the first year after we we did the deal, the online part of the business for the seed company is up like seventy, sixty or seventy percent year over year. Without really doing much. Like, all we did was move it to Shopify and tell people we own the company now, and that's pretty much it. What what what payback cycle were you looking for? And what type of multiple do businesses like this sell for?
43:46
Man, I I don't remember offhand the multiple, but I wanna say
43:50
It was probably six to eight x, somewhere like that. Income.
43:54
Yeah. I think so. And how long till you could pay back the acquisition?
43:59
That's a good question.
44:01
I don't know. Maybe if hopefully, like,
44:04
hopefully, like,
44:06
I mean, I I I think that's pretty fast. Yeah. It's like five. I would say like five, hopefully.
44:11
Yeah. I mean, or, I mean, if you only if they only sell for five to seven times, I would think that you'd you'd actually grow it or get that money back significantly faster, I would think, because of kind of, like, the audience that you have. The audience and then, like, just the opportunity because we're we're we're carried in, I would say forty five hundred stores around the country. And so to me, I'm like, well, it's just seats that are carried. Like, just our seed brands there because they were a seed company, but we're making these trays that I told you about. We're making these other new products. We now we have a distribution network. So why don't we tell all those retailers, hey, look, we're, like, making better product that your customers will want to stock our product in your store And so that was that was another, like, big lever, I think. We're still testing it out and trying to prove if if that's right or not, but we're like, yeah, why wouldn't We just offer a ton of our products now to wholesale in a network that we couldn't have built. Have you ever been to, Chip and Joanne's, like,
45:06
they're, like, it's like a show for them, in twenty twenty. Like, you were on their show?
45:12
I filmed the show for Magnolia
45:14
back then.
45:15
They have, it's basically like Disneyland for, like, four year old white chicks.
45:20
It's like you could, like, buy anything in the world, that you're, like, for your home or living from, I went to it once and, like, my, mother-in-law and her sisters, like, wanted to go and, like, take pictures of, like, they just wanted to, like, anything with Chip and Joanne's name on it. They just wanted to see it. And I was, like, doing math around, like, how I mean, it's like a it's it's like a it's like a campus. And so they've got, like, food and
45:44
many, many different stores. And I was doing math, and I'm like, these guys are gonna be billionaires. Like, this is gonna be this is gonna be the greatest thing ever. And that's gonna happen to you because you've got the same shtick where
45:56
you're you're in a good
45:58
niche of of I imagine it's mostly women, and they probably have they probably spend a lot or just for the hobby they spend a lot. But, b, you got the charisma. You got the look. Like, like, it's gonna happen. Do do you get crazy, like, stalker messages or, like, fans who are obsessed with
46:18
you?
46:19
It it's definitely happened. Yeah. It's definitely People make fun of me on this podcast all the time, particularly everyone thinks I'm gay because they, like, I comment on, like, a man all the times. Yeah. But You know? I I'm not embarrassed to say. You're charismatic, good looking dude. I I imagine you've got you've got a lot of fans. Back at you, dude. We So everyone thinks I'm gay too, actually. Just because I'm a just because I'm a guy. I think it's because I'm a a younger guy in gardening and gardening is seen as a more feminine hobby.
46:46
People just think I'm a gay guy, which is just it's just an interesting phenomenon to experience on the internet all the time.
46:53
But, yeah, no. I mean, I would say It it happens for sure.
46:57
I I've done the whole, like, delete all your info from the internet process,
47:02
but it's kinda hard. It's never good enough. It's never good enough. Especially when you film at your home. Right? Like, my set is my outdoors, and so I can't, like, not show the street, etcetera, because it's it's just the shot. There's nothing I could really do about it. Dude, I've had time for, like, I took a picture of my house, and I didn't think you could see it. And then, like, the next couple days, I'll get gifts sent to my home. And, like, people will find it on, like, street view. And I'm, like, oh, shit. And, like, I'm not a famous person. I'm a mildly popular person in small subset of the internet. And so I can't imagine if you're like real famous or if I'm like you and my videos get millions and millions and millions of views. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, it's it's it hasn't been as bad as, I think, like, legitimate celebrity type people, but I've definitely had, like, I had an experience earlier this year where this woman
47:47
we're all in the backyard because that's where we film most of the time, but there's a garden in the front yard too. And I have security cameras on now. That record, like, locally to my house so I can pull up footage of whatever I want. And this woman, like, comes up the front door, knocks on it, says, you, who, and then, like, looks in the house, and then goes out into the front gate, walks, opens it, like, kinda messes around with some plants, tries to walk around the backyard,
48:11
and my assistant was in the backyard. She's, like, coming around the the back to the front. So they kinda, like, butted heads. And my assistant just freaked out. She's, like, who is this woman? And this woman saw nothing wrong with what she was doing. She was like, oh, yeah. I just wanted to see if you guys were filming, like, wanted to come say hi. And we're like, we don't know who you are. And she, like, there's nothing we could have said to her that would have made her understand her behavior was, like, completely out of the norm. And so every so often, it's like the law of large numbers, man. Like, If you have an audience of many millions, all you need is point o one percent, and that's still like fourteen people, you know, that'll come mess mess with you.
48:45
You were telling Ari before,
48:47
about something that I wanted to ask you about, and this is something that I've been crazy interested in.
48:52
It's a business I don't really know much about other than to, like, two or three podcasts and reading a couple articles.
48:57
But, the, like, licensing of,
49:00
fruits or vegetables or different type of seeds. So, like, I was reading about the history of honeycrisp
49:06
apples. And I believe it was started in either I
49:11
it was Minnesota. Like, University of Minnesota,
49:14
what they did was I think they, like, took two plants and they breadham. However, that people even do that. I don't even know how you do that. But it took, like,
49:23
many decades because I guess it takes a year to get a new plan or I guess it takes, like, ten years to get apple tree in the first place or five years, something like that. And then you screw up a bunch, and then it so it ultimately will take many years sometimes decades to get, like, a good apple And then they come up with a really cute name, like, honeycrisp. Or, like, I think I had one the other day that was called, like, a cotton, a cotton candy apple. Like, he, like, branded with some, like, cute name
49:46
and then you license it out to other
49:50
other farmers. And you build this massive business that has this moat that will take thirty years to disrupt.
49:57
Is that how it work? Is am I do I have that right with this plan? That's pretty much right. That's pretty much right. So
50:03
We're gonna go into, like, garden nerd territory for a sec just so I could explain how it works. So when you're making a new tree,
50:10
it's it's really difficult. Like you mentioned, like, actually, when you're making new varieties of most plants, it's it it's super painful to get the variety
50:18
that you actually want. Like, I met a guy at a far once. He'd been working on a potato for, like, twenty years. And what was his goal outcome for that potato? So the goal outcome, potatoes are are grown from what are called seed potatoes, which is basically just just a potato that you throw on the ground. So you don't plant, like, a little seed. You could just throw potato on the ground. So this guy was trying to make a potato that you could grow from an actual potato seed because when a potato is in the ground, it throws
50:43
like leaves up, and it actually makes a potato flower, which produces a potato berry, and that berry has seeds in it. And if you plant those seeds, The problem is that you don't get the potato that you planted. You get So his outcome was, like, a more efficient way for a farmer. It wasn't necessarily a certain taste. Yeah. Was it wasn't it I mean, it definitely was a taste, but you're right. Like, the idea was instead of buying a ton of potatoes and planting them by hand, you could just plant a bunch of seeds. That took him that took him twenty years. Right? Did he get his out? Did did did he do it? He got it. Yeah. It's called the clancy potato. We actually sell it on our our it's an awesome potato. Did he get wealthy from it? I hope so. I didn't ask, but I hope so. I think he did it under a seed company, so probably they got wealthy. I'm not sure.
51:25
But, either way, he's an interesting guy. So with fruit trees though, it's kind of the same thing where, like,
51:31
you have to
51:33
You have to keep developing tons and tons of trees and then figure out, let's say, okay, this is the apple out of the hundreds that I grew out, that I actually like. It's that's my next honey crisp. Right? And what you then do is you you have to graft. You have to take a piece of that tree and put it on what's called the root stock of of an apple. So, like, the roots and below.
51:56
Because you can't use the seed of that because it'll be a different apple, and it will take a long time. So let's say you you get this magical new Honey Chris.
52:04
What you do is you take a bunch of those those little branches off and you put them on other Apple rootstock, and then grow those out. And then those are genetic clones of that new honeycrisp, and then you do that again. And then you do that again. And so that's how And is each time one year or how long does it take to grow a tree?
52:20
It's probably like
52:22
it's a it would really depend on that type of fruit, but it it it's probably
52:25
it I'll say this. It'll shorten from growing from seed by, like, seventy, eighty percent. It's, like, way faster than growing it from seed. Not only that. It you you have to do it that way because you won't get the same genetic apple. And so what what guys, like, the Honey Christ guy you mentioned, or there's there's a guy named Floyd Zager who's who's sort of known as, like, the godfather
52:44
of stone fruit, which is like peaches, nectarines,
52:47
all those types of trees,
52:49
What they do is they have tens of thousands, I think, of trees that they're
52:53
cross pollinating,
52:55
growing out grafting, tasting, testing, and then when maybe
52:59
point one percent of those actually become a variety,
53:02
they now have a patent on that because they've developed that what's called a cultivar. They have that cultivar.
53:07
And then they can license that out for other people that put into production. They take, like, a licensing fee on all those. So you're right. Like, once they actually create the next honey crisp or the next, like, killer peach,
53:17
they can make a cash flow off of that thing for, like, who knows how long until the next one comes around? I'm looking at this guy Floyd. So he's ninety four years old. It looks like he's he's still doing it. I think he passed away, like, a couple years ago, but he's, like, a total legend in the space. Oh, yeah. You're right. He he passed away, but it looked like based off the photos up until, like, when he passed away. It looks like he was still Yeah.
53:39
Planting or or involved.
53:41
Did he build a big what his name of his company was,
53:44
Zegar's genetics. Is that right? Yeah. Zegar genetics. And then what What there's a nursery called Dave Wilson nursery, which I think they sell the most fruit trees in the US. They use a lot of Zegers
53:55
stuff.
53:56
And so they'll they'll be the people who grow out a lot of Floyd Zager's actual trees.
54:02
So it's a it's a crazy model because you're right. Like, good luck competing. You, you have to spend, like, twenty years to even get started. Does it make, does it make, is it, like, a good business, or is it something that looks awesome, but day to day, it's quite challenging. I mean, I don't think it's the easiest business. You have to know a lot about plant botany and genetics and all that, but, like, the people who like this type of stuff, like, there's nothing you could pay them to make them stop doing it. So they might as well have a business based on it, you know. Yeah. My parents are in the agriculture industry. So my,
54:32
father, his first business was a fruit stand on the he started as a stock boy and, like, the produce section of a grocery store, then he opened up a fruit stand,
54:41
and then he created a produce brokerage, which is, like, basically
54:46
you
54:46
have relationships with farmers in Idaho or
54:50
Bakersfield, California, and you buy, let's say, five hundred thousand dollars of onions and then you go and find a trucker to pick it up, and then you sell that five hundred thousand dollars of onions to Walmart for five
55:01
five thousand, fifty thousand dollars, and you make, like, ten grand of profit or something like that off organizing that that
55:09
deal. And you have to sell at this point, he's sold over a hundred million dollars of of onions over the course of twenty years, but the margins are, like, three percent or, like, like, like,
55:20
you know, it'll be basically him by himself selling
55:24
twenty million a year worth of produce and, like, you make, I don't know, what you make, but, like, three hundred thousand dollars a year. So good living, but, like, you gotta sell a shit ton product in order because the the the margins are so small.
55:36
And so I've grown up talking to some of these farmers. And it's it's it's
55:42
it's more of a vocation than anything because it's just what they know. It's, you know, they've been born and raised doing that. And it's like, I I am a farmer
55:51
no matter what. And it's not like
55:53
maybe traditional businesses where it's like, I see an opportunity. I'm gonna do this. It's like, no. This is just what I was bred to be.
56:00
That's what I've noticed in our in our space because there's a lot of, like, smaller product companies or small seed companies, etcetera. Like, no one's
56:08
that was trying to get super rich doing it. Like, even even me, like, back in the earlier days, I was like, I I just I'm very happy making that two fifty that I made gross revenue and pulling out whatever I made. It just so happened that I also like business, and so
56:24
they combined really well. Can I, I know we're we'll wrap up here in a second, but I wanna ask you a quick question about, diet?
56:31
I'm I'm a little I recently moved to a new place just mostly because it was across the street from a farmer's market. And I've been obsessed with the idea of buying produce in, meat
56:42
that only comes within, like, a twenty or fifty mile radius of where I am,
56:47
because,
56:48
like, even if you buy food at Whole Foods, I still think, like, whole foods is supposed to be, like, some type of standard,
56:55
which I don't think it is a standard anymore. But for a long time, it was, like, that was the standard of healthy eating.
57:01
But I still feel crappy after I eat that because I don't, you know, like, I don't even know what organic actually means, and I don't actually bind to the height necessarily that that makes that is the right way to do things.
57:13
Are you
57:14
eating all of your own food? And do you think that makes you feel different than grocery store food?
57:21
I think
57:22
I think for sure it does because
57:25
I don't know that I believe you know that book blue zones that one that came out? So I think
57:30
that that that book is awesome, but I think it's bullshit. Like I think a good part of it is bullshit. Yeah. You know why it's bullshit? So here, well, I'll tell the audience did a little research on it. It's like what they all have in common is that,
57:43
like, in Osaka, Japan or, like, they lie about their age. And so, like, they noticed that, like, wow, this in this town, there's a shit ton of people born on January first. Like, what's going on? And turns out a lot of them lie about their age. I guess so they get social security at a certain time or something like that. Oh, wow.
58:02
And so there was a lot, like, the the the the Although maybe he there was some bit of truth in there, the commonality between the five blue zones is that they have a huge amount of, like, age fraud. I also saw something about I can't imagine, like, lying to be older.
58:17
I saw something about, like, it also maps to when we started accurately tracking birth certificates.
58:23
Like, a lot of these people are old enough that they're from before when we did that. And so how can you really know how old they are? The thing I do that's the nicer way to put it when I maybe said. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think the thing that is somewhat true there is, like,
58:38
it does seem to just make logical sense that the fresher food you eat, the better off you'll be. And so to me, I go, well, it doesn't get fresher than that of my own backyard. Right? Like, we just had amazing carrot salad we made yesterday.
58:50
I've even grown my own wheat to make my own sourdough bread, which is definitely extreme. Like, I don't think that's practical.
58:56
But, yeah, I mean, I think you do feel better, and I think the best, the next best thing to grow your own food would be going to, like, a farmer's market. As long as you know, like, the farmer is actually growing things the way that they say they are. Because now there's, like, farmers market fraud. Because down here in San Diego, people will drive up from Mexico. With, like, monocroped
59:14
food and just pretend like it's a farmer's market. What questions do I have to ask them? You would have to ask, like, But what where is your farm, which they could definitely have out of there. Show me pictures. Yeah. Yeah. They they should have pictures of it. And you could ask, like, you know, do you spray
59:29
pesticide herbicide fungicide? If so, like, which ones? You don't even have to know what their answers mean, but if they can't fire the answers off quickly, that's your signal that they kinda don't know what they're talking about.
59:40
What do you do for meat?
59:42
Meet, I tend to just buy
59:45
at, I'll I'll go to, like, a whole foods or there's, like, a local fish market, called Point loba seafoods down here in San Diego. I'll try to go to And sometimes,
59:53
so I'm trying to get, like, some friends to do that, like, quarter cow thing with me. Yeah. Me too. So far, no one's down. So if you're out there, all around me. I've been trying to do that as well. You need like a huge garage fridge, which is how you know you made it by having a garage fridge to, like, store all this meat,
01:00:10
but I've been doing it too. Have you seen,
01:00:14
it's called,
01:00:15
what, it's called Coop. But if you Google, like, Coop Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We chat them on our podcast.
01:00:21
A. J. Smart Farm. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. AJ's a good buddy of mine. A. J.'s awesome.
01:00:25
I what's his URL? I wanna give him a shout out. Cooked off farm. Coop dot farm. So coupe is like
01:00:31
it's like the, like, the tag line that I saw in the article was, like, it's like the Tesla for a chicken coupe.
01:00:37
And it's, so coupe dot farm. It's like a smart chicken coop.
01:00:41
And it looks pretty cool. I think I might get one.
01:00:45
I think it'd be awesome to have your own chickens, because that's, like, a pretty low maintenance,
01:00:50
way to just kinda get into the habit. Or get a hobby. The other thing that I've done for years is, beekeeping.
01:00:57
So I've raised my own bees, in order to get honey
01:01:00
which is, like, awesome hobby. And beekeeping is a cool thing because
01:01:04
it requires, like,
01:01:06
not much maintenance as a at all. And from a business perspective,
01:01:11
you remember that flow hive or whatever that went viral at Kickstarter and it raised, like, twenty million dollars? I do think that
01:01:18
beekeeping,
01:01:19
like, the the supplies could actually be a legitimately good business.
01:01:23
And you could create, like, because you can create, like, a, a lifestyle brand around it because the content
01:01:29
to around that is, like, inherently quite viral. Like, I used to create these, like, just videos of me, like,
01:01:36
scraping off the honey or the,
01:01:39
what's it called? The,
01:01:40
Honeycomb. From the comb. Yeah. Like, scraping the comb off of my,
01:01:46
my trays or whatever that's in the hive. I don't know anything about it even though I've had b's for years. But, like, that's how little you have to know about this in order to, like, successfully do it. Like, I would, like, scrape off the comb and, like, make these awesome videos, and then just, like, give it to my friends, and they loved it. And it it's, like, such a fun hobby.
01:02:03
And so There's some really big on that. Named, I think her name was like Texas B Works. I don't know if you've seen her stuff on the internet, but she has this, like, very soft, pleasing voice.
01:02:12
And she'll be, like, there'll be music, and there'll be some crazy scenario where there's a hive. And she's, like, called out and she goes, I've been called out to take this hive out of a manhole. Dude, she has a mill a one point six million subs on YouTube. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She's huge. And so I I always look because know what I did with Hepic, and I look at all these other people and I go, like, don't you realize, like, you could have a thriving
01:02:33
beekeeping, like, goods company?
01:02:36
But then, you know, the the sort of paradox of the whole creator world is that most creators just don't wanna do that, and that's why they don't do it. To choose on Joe Rogen, I'm looking at it now. Erica Thompson, She was on Joe rogan. She goes, I did my first podcast,
01:02:50
and it's it's Joe rogan. It's Joe rogan. She goes, I did my first podcast. Link is in the bio. Thank you so much Joe rogan and team. This was such a wonderful experience for me and my bs. Damn. That's a flex right there. That's a flex. Awesome. This this is a this is a gem. This woman she's got it.
01:03:08
Yeah, bam, b keeping is a good, is an interesting hobby. You you should try it out. You like, it requires no work, and I'm pretty sure it makes your plan. Way better. I noticed that whenever I get b whenever I get bs, you start seeing, like, all different types of flowers,
01:03:20
in the backyard.
01:03:21
That's the last
01:03:22
thing I haven't done. Like, I've got the chickens. I've got all the pond. You know, I I don't have bees yet, so I might have to get some bees. Dude, it cost, like, two hundred dollars to start. Like, like, my hives are from Amazon for two hundred bucks, and then you go on Craigslist and you find, like, a b delivery person.
01:03:37
The lady that I used was just, like, beautiful like, Easter European woman, she shows up in her Lexus. She pops out with an hive. She's not wearing any mask. She's got, like, a fancy watch on and, like, beautiful blonde hair and nice clothes, and she just goes, like, you know, I've got your b's. And I was like, yes, ma'am, please, come, put them over here. And,
01:03:57
I paid her two hundred dollars for the bees and then two hundred dollars for the hive that I got on Amazon, and that's all you that's all I needed. Do you know how I write out?
01:04:04
I recently moved but up until recently. Yeah. I had them on the I had them in San Francisco,
01:04:10
and I had them in Texas. But in San Francisco, I had them at my small little house
01:04:14
I had a backyard. And then I also had them on the roof of my office in downtown San Francisco. And I had about ten thousand bees, and you wouldn't even you could your hive could be, like, thirty feet away and you wouldn't even know that it's there. Yeah. It's like a pretty self contained thing. It's it's an awesome hobby. Got a spot for my hive, then I've perfect spot in my backyard for my house. Yeah. And, like, I think I, like, I don't even know what I'm talking about, and I have them. And, like, I got I got stung. I've been stung, like, twice. Like, it's not, like, not like that big of a deal. Like, it's, like, people think it's a very intimidating, unapproachable hobby, but I got into it because I, like, made a list of, like, I was, like, I need a hobby that doesn't require a ton of work.
01:04:52
I it can't a ton of money because if it costs a ton of money, I'm gonna break rule number three, which is I can't turn it into a business to make money. And so, like, I, like, and I was like, What's a good hobby? And then I saw a bird speed documentary.
01:05:04
And I was like, that's a good hobby. Let's do it. There you go. So that's in, AJ's a buddy of mine. And,
01:05:10
he got the end of decapping as well. Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited to see how that coup that smart coup business does. It's a really cool design.
01:05:17
Well, thanks for doing this, dude. You're the man.
01:05:20
You're,
01:05:21
you, you're gonna be fun to watch over the next, like, five years. This is a very exciting journey. I, we take pride on having people on before they, like, right the beginning of their, like, take off. And even though you you're already incredibly successful, I have a feeling that this is still gonna be early in your journey, and and we're gonna brag about having you on early in your career. That's awesome, dude. Well, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Alright. That's the pod.
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