00:00
So age eighteen, him and his brother get on a plane, they go to Hong Kong, and they're like, we are going to start our toy factory here in Hong Kong. They get there first night. He literally sleeps in a bush because they didn't have, like, you know, a place to stay that night. So he sleeps in a bush right outside. Why wouldn't he just do a sidewalk? Too hard, bro. He, you know, you don't wanna sleep on the ground. You know? So when he sleep on on a bush? So he sleeps on a bush outside of the air. He normal. He's a bench.
00:35
Alright. We live I got something good for you. I got a crazy story. In fact, this is a billy of the week.
00:45
Million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars.
00:51
You know, sometimes we get a little fast and lose billion a week where it's not a real billionaire. This guy is a real billionaire. Okay. So have you ever heard the name Nick Mobray?
01:00
No.
01:01
Okay. So Nick Mowbray, here's the here's my headline for this.
01:06
University dropout from New Zealand becomes a billionaire with zero dollars invested.
01:11
Okay. So what what happened?
01:14
I'll I I'll click. Yeah. You clicked. Alright. Here's here's the next bit.
01:19
Two brothers,
01:20
when they were in, I think, middle school, they enter a science fair. And in the science fair, they create a hot air balloon modeling kit, and they end up winning the science here. So here's Nick, twelve years old, wins the science fair. And he decides, alright.
01:33
People really likes my hot air balloon kit that my, like, model hot air balloon kit, I'm gonna go selvey. So he goes to start selling them door to door. And he opens up a farm, a little, like, factory in his his family's farm, to to, like, build the kits,
01:47
as he's going, but, like, he's having trouble scaling up because he's trying to do production himself. And,
01:52
and he's doing the sales himself, and it's like, okay, this is tough.
01:55
So age eighteen,
01:56
him and his brother
01:58
get on a plane, they go to Hong Kong, and they're like, we are going to start our toy factory here in Hong Kong. They get there first night. He literally sleeps in a bush because they didn't have, like, you know, a place to stay that night. So he sleeps in a bush. When he just do a sidewalk?
02:14
Too hard, bro. He, you know, he don't wanna sleep on the ground. You know? So when he sleep on on a bush, So he sleeps on a bush outside of the yard. Very normal. Use the bench.
02:25
They end up getting a apartment that I think was eight dollars a month.
02:29
And that was their their apartment. What year? They they start a factory. This was now maybe,
02:35
fifteen years ago ish, something like that. And so the and they're in a very small city in China. And so that they're not in Hong Kong anymore. So they they end up creating a a factory. And so here's the factory. So they they create a factory. Nick ends up sleeping in the factory for eight years.
02:48
And, they had thirteen thousand dollars to their name. That was what their parents loaned them. To start this business. And so they're like,
02:57
they're like, how do we make this work? And so they they want to create,
03:01
this, like, kind of toy company
03:03
And so they're like, alright. And so they do they started doing two things. Number one, they're like, alright. We only have this much money, and now we're living in China. We gotta, like, make this stretch.
03:12
So these guys are, like, doing all the, like, you know, the hustle porn stories you hear for entrepreneurship, they're doing it where he's, like, We used to eat only off the dollar menu at McDonald's in China. And he's like, every day, he's like, for the Christmas, we would go get the big mac, and it was like two dollars and change. And that was our celebration.
03:30
He's like, I would eat half my fries, and then I would go back to the counter and be like, hey, this is, like, not even full. Can I get my full full container of fries? He's like, that's how we did it. And he's like, we had the thirteen thousand dollars from our our parents, and then we had to make this work. And so
03:44
they end up creating a bunch of
03:47
you know, fast forward till today. They have,
03:51
they have basically, like,
03:53
the, like, They do a billion dollars a year in sales on their toy company. This guy is personally a self made billionaire.
04:00
That's a big created toys
04:03
z
04:03
u r u.
04:05
And so they've created a bunch of toys that you've heard of, like, robo fish. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. It's like a, like, a little fake. It's a toy fish that'll swim around in a in a jar,
04:14
or like a fishbowl.
04:15
They've created a bunch of balloons, which I bought this a bunch of times. It's like you could you put the hose in, and it'll fill up bunch of water balloons all at once.
04:23
And so they they, you know, the dark blaster, they've sold thirty nine million of these or whatever.
04:28
And so they basically built all these,
04:32
like, hit viral toys. And so and early on, what they did the beginning, what they did was they would basically just knock off other good toys, like, gimmick toys, and they would just make them themselves and try to, like, out execute them. So they were, like, trying to out manufacture them or out distribute them. So there'd be, like, a light up frisbee that was, like, hot. So he they would, like, clone the light up frisbee, and then they would go and they would, like, Like, to get into retail stores, they crashed the, like, the buyer's dinner for Dick's Sporting Goods. And then his sister just, like, showed up and kinda, like, smoothed her way in and got the account. And they just did that over and over and over again. They, you know, they and they they would get sued by the companies like, hey, you're copying our toys. They're like, oh, yeah. Okay. We're gonna create original toys. And so they they kinda knocked it off. They they brute forced their way into retail, and then they started creating their original toys, like, bunch of balloons, and robo fish, and the stuff. And so, basically,
05:24
They, you know, they they would basically
05:26
sell these at Walmart wherever.
05:28
And, their big thing was, like, how do we manufacture this with no people. So they're like,
05:34
can we do this where it's automated and ten times cheaper than everybody else? And so they claim
05:40
They claim that their factories that have the robots that produce these have, like, no humans on the line. I don't know if this is true because, like, even, like, Tesla, which tried to do this with the factories was not able to do this, but, like, maybe maybe it's true or maybe it's, like, pretty much true. Like, there's very minimal human intervention. How did you find this guy?
05:58
Someone d m ed it. Remember I talked about being known well? Somebody was like, you're gonna love this. This is a perfect billy of the week. So by the way, whoever it is, I forgot your name. And it looks like him and his brother co founded it and their sisters, the COO.
06:11
Yes. So there it's all in the family. Family owned, they own the whole thing, I think, still.
06:17
And it did basically they have, eight thousand employees
06:21
twenty six offices around the world. Last year, they tripled sales to one point one billion,
06:26
in twenty in twenty twenty one. And, you know, they're still not as big as Hasbro or Mattel or, like, you know, Pock Procter and Gamble, which are like Hasbro's six billion. Matel's five billion. P and G's, like, you know, eighty billion.
06:38
But now they're, like, launching new new products and new new brands. So so they do the toy business. They they conquer that becomes a billionaire there. And then he's like, alright. What can we do next? So they go into other products. And now they're like, alright. We're gonna create, what does Procter and Gamble do? They have products in every category. We're gonna do diapers. And so they go into the diapers thing with this brand called Rascal and Friends.
06:59
And I think in the first year, the Rascal and Friends is gonna do two hundred million.
07:04
Or that's not the first year, but last year, they're they're gonna do two hundred million. This the next year, they're projecting it to be four hundred million. And so,
07:11
highly profitable, just prints cash. And, the toy business basically prints cash. They use it to invest in these. So how did the diaper business take off? Well, they saw that Huggies is partnered with Disney,
07:21
and Procter and Gamble's partnered with Warner Brothers. That's why they could do, like, you know, Disney or like Batman or things like that. And so these guys went partner with Cocamelon, which is the YouTube, like, kid sensation.
07:31
And so,
07:33
Rasklin Friends, sorry. Last year was a hundred million this year, a hundred fifty million next year projecting two hundred million.
07:39
Then they also did this with hair care They have a brand called Monday hair, and they did pet food with brand called nude. They did a collagen brand called dose. And they're just trying to replicate this with each thing. So the hair care brand is gonna do sixty million this year. And so there's stacking these on top of each other. But then
07:57
the coup de grace, the biggest one they're trying to do of all of them. Nice work. This thing called Zuru tech.
08:03
So what do they try to do with Zuru tech? They're basically trying to create a factory
08:08
that can just build you houses, robots
08:11
that build houses is the the big idea.
08:13
And so they're trying to create
08:15
the biggest factory,
08:17
on earth, the period,
08:20
bigger than Tesla's gigafactory, bigger than all of it.
08:23
So let me let me give you the stats on this thing.
08:26
Where is it? So
08:28
they're trying to scale it up to one point six million square meters, two kilometers long. I can't even okay. So two so that's a that's about a mile and a quarter long.
08:37
Yeah.
08:38
Two two thousand two thousand k?
08:40
Yeah. And two thousand meters. Yeah. They're trying to yeah. They're trying to,
08:45
they're trying to hire two thousand more people in the next twenty four months.
08:49
Which is just insane.
08:51
And so the their idea with this,
08:53
with this factory for the for the Zuru tech thing is basically, like, you can design a home They basically took a gaming engine, like, unreal or, like, unity or whatever, and they're like, okay. If you go into a game like the sims,
09:07
you can, like, create a house, and you could paint the wall, and you could put a couch there, and then you could put make the floors different. Like, in the sims, you can basically design a house, you could design a whole neighborhood, you could design a large house, small house, whatever. So they're like, why don't we do that? Except it's real. Like, when you're done, you click print.
09:23
And then the robots basically just make that house And so this is what they're trying to do with this thing, which honestly just sounds like, you know, frankly bizarre.
09:33
But that's what they're doing. And so that's the that's the new venture that they're spinning out of this called Zuru Tech. And it's basically a way to to use robots to build homes, which is just kind of insane. That is crazy. Architecture software using a gaming engine. What do you think made them so special?
09:49
I mean, this guy, like, I'm looking at him and he he just seems like a have you ever met any New Zealand guys?
09:56
Yeah. Like, they're like the same, like, the stereotype of, like, Australian guys, like, fun loving, loves to get drunk,
10:02
bad with money. We'll spend all their money because they're, like, they just wanna, like, be care like, a lot of Australians don't have a lot of saving because they just don't mind spending at the bar. They're fun loving. There are always a blast to be around.
10:15
That's and that's what this guy I had to, like, just look at him and, like, oh, this guy seems like he goes all in on things. Well, I think the key to he's a red head key to success. So, you know, Redhead's they they have a chip on their shoulder from day one that they're they they got something to prove. So I think that's, like, a,
10:31
that's a big deal. That's I would say eighty percent. For real, though. Twenty another twenty percent is hard work.
10:38
This is a great find. This guy's cool, and he's only thirty five, I think. Yeah. So I'm gonna read you some of his, tips for success. Okay? You can give me a,
10:47
thumbs up, thumbs down, or or or meh, whatever, you know, if it's if it's just okay. So the first one, rethink your vocabulary.
10:54
I never use the word employee because we're high performing team and we're playing different positions. I'm coaching the team. I'm trying to get the best players in all the positions. We have team members, not employees in our business. What do you think? Cool. I I do the same thing. I I I hate calling them employees. Sometimes I use the word staff, but I hate using employees.
11:12
But yeah. I thought you just say the help.
11:18
The, I would do the same thing. Also, I'll never so, like, when somebody,
11:22
Let's say it work for for you. I'm like, no. You work with me. That was exactly what I was gonna say. I always correct people on that. Oh, yeah. You know, I work for Sean. No. You don't work for Sean. You work with me. And I never say I work for anybody. I work with them, and it's an it's an engrangement. It's a partnership.
11:37
I do x and I get y and you do x and you get y. And that's it. You know, hold yourself to that. Okay. Next one. Bullets before cannonballs. Because the first thing I learned, one of the things I learned early on was to fire bullets before cannonballs. We're always firing lots of little bullets everywhere to see if those work. If they work, then we fire a cannonball behind it.
11:56
Love it. That that's a good analogy.
11:59
Alright. Break the rule I went to university. I studied law and commerce, but I didn't like it to like it, to be honest. And there was a big big hill I had to walk up every day to get to law school. I didn't like that hill either. I did it for a year, and I thought, oh, why not have a why not have a crack at just doing this work thing? So I moved to China. I didn't even make it to my second year of law. I missed out, which is probably a good thing, a blessing guys.
12:19
Okay. Yeah. I don't really get the the the jump really fast. It's a move to China, but Good. Like a hill. Yeah. D different strokes for different folks, but I appreciate it. Alright. Don't be shaken by competition. So he says, in the early days, we had this tiny production lab. We spent half our money on an injection motor machine. We started to produce a hot air balloon, which didn't sell many of because it didn't meet regulations globally. So we went online and copied a couple products. One was a frisbee. We got sued after it. We went to a toy fair And we got through day one, but the companies we copied came to our booth and yelled at us. Then we started innovating, and it was our journey that took us six or seven years to get successful at product. We lived off very, very, very little. We scrapped,
12:56
we scrapped and scraped to find something that would work.
13:00
Awesome. K. Yeah. Let me skip these. Let me see if there's another good one.
13:04
Okay. Don't lose sight. He says, I remember when we made our first million. Hey, fan of the show.
13:11
We did we did a big deal with David Beckham, where we made a David Beckham Tomagotchi at Walmart. I was twenty one at the time. We got a twenty eight million dollar order from Walmart, but we couldn't finance it. Walmart ended up canceling the whole order. We was stuck with half of the tamagotchis.
13:26
We were so excited because it was this because there's awful amount of money at the time. We had no money, but we got a little bit complacent. We were always checking how we were doing every month, and we ended up losing, I think, two hundred thousand that month. We lost a bunch of money. We sat down, and we thought from this day forward, we are never ever gonna have a month where we lose money. We took that approach and we never lost money again. We were always profitable.
13:46
This guy's awesome. What's his name? Nick
13:48
Maubrey?
13:50
Yeah. Moubrey, I think. Hey. If anyone knows Nick or can do the introduction to him, This guy, I would love to have him on the pot. This guy's awesome. Right. This guy's dope. This is not defined. The red head, Joe.
14:03
Love red head.
14:05
My friend said something really funny. He goes, yeah, my wife, he, he goes,
14:10
we're I'm doing this deal and, like, we were dealing with some people that I was like, I just can't tell if this person's, like, all hype or they're just gonna go, like, a, like, a, a, a, or what.
14:19
And,
14:20
I was like, for some reason, they're just not getting along with this other person, and I don't know what to make of it. And he goes, oh, he goes, I've seen this many times of business.
14:28
Two charlatans can't be in a room at the same time together. They just combust. They can't stand it. He was he goes, it's like my girlfriend. She's a red head. She can't she told me once. I can't stand being in the room with another red head. And I was like, is she it's the same thing with charlatans. And he goes, you know, one one is a Charlotte, one per of Charlerton, you put him in the room with another known Charlotte, they'll hate each other. That's so
14:52
funny.
14:54
This data is wrong every freaking time.
14:57
Have you heard of HubSpot?
15:00
HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated. Well, I can see the client's hold history, calls, support tickets, emails. And here's a test from three days ago, I totally missed
15:12
HubSpot, roll better.
15:14
Our buddy Julian has this company called DemandCur. He's like, Hey. Will you speak at this, like, demand curve conference thing? And I'm like, know, you know the rule. The rule is hell no. We don't do nothing for nobody except if it's our friends that we do it for free. Right? So it's either a big money or a big friend, Julian's a big friend. I did it for free. The,
15:32
so we go in there, and I'm like,
15:34
I don't know what this is. Oh, it's a it's a conference
15:38
talk about audience building or content or something. That. You get that all the time. I know. And so you go up there and you're like, alright, I'm gonna do my spiel. But something really interesting happened. So it was me and this other guy,
15:49
sawger from
15:50
the show called breaking points.
15:52
I bet you're familiar with it. Have you heard of this or been you have to know about breaking points. You know what this thing
15:58
No. You guys don't know about this. Okay. This is basically like a, like, a, like, a TV show, like a podcast show. You know you know the young turks that that channel on YouTube that was, like, they did their own breaking point of the show. Yeah. The breaking points, which is, like, sager and crystal,
16:12
They do their own version of, like, a political correspondence show or whatever, like, I don't even know what you call it. Political talk show, basically. And they do it they started off just doing it on YouTube or whatever.
16:23
And,
16:24
and it's kinda blown up. And so this he was the guy was on the panel with me, And there was a few things he said that I was, like, really taking notes on. I was, like, oh, that's really smart. And also this what this guy is doing is actually pretty awesome. And I think
16:37
could get huge. Like, it looks on the surface
16:41
sorta goofy. It looks like kids playing dress up because it's, like, They they made it look like a talk show, so they're, like, at a desk. He wears a suit and tie.
16:50
You know, so it's, like, but it's, like, you know,
16:53
Is it like a live a liberal news? It's like a liberal, a young turks thing, or is it like conservative?
16:59
I don't know how they would call it. I'm not very political, so I don't really even wanna say. I wanna classify it, but it's the their schtick is like they,
17:07
they cover the things. They say the things that the mainstream media is not covering or is either under covering these stories, or they're just, like, spinning it for their own agenda. And they're like, we'll just try to say the truth. Like, what we think the doctor did is. And, like, we'll just call it like we see it.
17:22
Which, again, everybody says with the question is, like, how close are you to actually doing that? It's like company values. Every company says, integrity is our core value as they, like, you know, destroy the earth. And so,
17:33
and and so that's what these guys do. And so they they have this set, and it, like, looks like you you went to know, when you go to, like, KFC in, like, China,
17:41
and it's like, I I don't know when I do that. KFC. Well, you you've even been somewhere. Right? Like, you know,
17:47
I don't know. Canada?
17:49
Where where have you gone, Sam? Yeah. You know, like, on Friday nights when you're, like, hired a Domino's in Tokyo. You know, like, you know that feeling
17:59
Sorry. I had to big dog you there with my international
18:02
experience,
18:02
but,
18:03
But, yeah, basically, they had this, like, I lived in China and they had this phrase MQR. Like, I'd be like, yeah, I go to McDonald's here, but I don't I don't really like it. I don't know why. They're like, oh, it's MQR.
18:12
Well, well, thank you are. Not quite right. And it's the perfect description, which is it's almost exactly right, but it's not quite right. And I know all my
18:21
All my Asian friends say it's same same, but different.
18:25
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Same same, but different. Like, this this knock off Nike shoe. It's Same same. I'm just different.
18:32
Exactly.
18:33
So so anyways, that's like what these guys show looks like. It looks almost like a knockoff respond to show. That's kind of the, you know, my initial judgment. Then they started watching it. And they got on Joe rogan, and I was like, wow, this real and Joe loves the show. Joe's like, Joe basically he was telling me just now. He goes, I go, how'd you get on rogan? And he's like, rogan was just a fan of the show, and he just reached out. Was like, hey, I love the show guys. And they're like, wow.
18:57
We kinda didn't think we were, like, you know, we had, like, most people, like, early on, you kinda feel like am I doing the right thing? I quit my job to do this.
19:06
It's not big, huge. And something's it's on YouTube?
19:10
It was on YouTube. And How many views an episode? They'll have, like, I don't know, they have, like, eight hundred thousand subscribers, something like that. So they're gonna go So, like, media now. But this was, like, before that. Joe got on it. Well, Joe was, like, into it when it was pretty early. And he's, like, they're like, wow. Joe rogan, Amazing. If the number one podcaster in the world thinks this is, like, awesome, maybe we're on to something. So they just kept going. And then,
19:31
Joe invited them on the show. And then they're they they have launched like a paid subscription because they're like, hey, look. Like, if you go to their website, it just says help us,
19:40
what is it? It's a breaking point that kinda order what does the the title say? It goes,
19:45
like, help us beat,
19:48
mainstream media or something like that. Like, help us defeat mainstream media or, like, cover the stories that they don't cover. Some, like, it it painted them as an enemy, which is great. Like, just a smart smart, like, marketing tactic, basically.
20:00
But but, basically, they so so Joe, their first show, the first page show, Joe Hogan came on.
20:06
And so, you know, they, like, had this, like, amazing way to, like, kinda kick off. But that's because they had put in a few years of, like, hard work before that. It's like four years old now. And,
20:16
and so he said a couple things. I thought were really smart. I'm gonna share them here. In fact, I actually think we should just run the whole,
20:22
interview we just did with him, like, as a my first million episode, if they're those guys are down to that because I thought there's a bunch of interesting things. One thing he go they go you get started? Like, how what's how'd you get your first thousand customers and the and the or or, like, subscribers or whatever?
20:34
And I we all get asked this a bunch. I rarely do you hear something that interesting? But he said a pretty interesting answer. He goes, well, here's what I did.
20:42
I saw that in my niche, there were these people that were already, like, popular accounts. And so I was like, I just went and looked at who are the top one percent of of, like, popular accounts already.
20:52
And then I just decided, okay, the first content I create is just gonna be
20:57
content that they love.
20:59
Because if they love it, they'll share it. They'll kind of endorse it, and that'll drive a bunch of growth right away of the right audience. And so what he did was he's like, okay. These they have this. They need data. They need visualizations. They need charts. Cool. So I'm just gonna or they need transcripts, like, quick transcripts of, like, what Trump just said They need to have, like, the edited, well formatted transcript. So he's like, we weren't doing our own opinions and analysis.
21:21
No. I would just sit there and I would
21:23
live when Trump was talking. I'm transcribing it. I clean it up. I format it. I have the first to post. Trump said this. And then those guys would retweet it. Is, like, and that's how I got my first, like, ten thousand subscribers. He's, like, and after you get ten thousand,
21:35
there's psychologically this thing where you'll just start growing faster because people wanna follow popular accounts. What what have been Well, what was your advice though to these people on growing an audience?
21:46
My advice was pretty simple. I go
21:49
I don't think you should grow an audience for the sake of growing an audience, like, the audience is basically a byproduct of you doing something else you really wanna do. Like, if you just got that itch, you wanna scratch. Like, I I wanna create content. Like, I I've I've seen YouTubers, I think I could do it. That's actually a better reason to go do it than
22:08
If I can get to a million subscribers, then I'll upsell my merch to this percentage of them, and I can make this much money. It's like, don't do the calculating way to do it. Just be like, I'm doing this because either, like, in my case, it was, I'm super curious about these topics.
22:21
And, like, how am I gonna justify spending nine hours reading about this bullshit topic that, like, I had I have no agenda for. Well, if I had a podcast or a YouTube channel, then I could just, like, make the content out of that. Then it has, like, a kind of like a purpose to my curiosity. I have, like, an endpoint to it. I have a justification for my curiosity. I get to be professionally curious. Or, like, when I when I originally started the pod, I literally wrote this in a doc. I've shared this before. I wrote most likely nobody's gonna listen to this, but there's a hack.
22:52
Really smart and interesting, successful people are willing to go on a podcast, even if it has they don't know how many listeners it has. And so At the very like, my main goal is to just have an excuse
23:03
to meet with fifty awesome people that live in San Francisco. Like, I'm in the tech hub of the unit, the the world, San Francisco.
23:09
And I don't drink coffee. So I don't wanna just invite these guys to coffee. I'll invite them on my podcast instead. That was my whole,
23:15
like, number one success criteria, and, like, number one agenda with, like, this podcast was, oh, it's a great excuse to hang out with these people that are like, they're nearby. They're in my orbit and don't do it. And, like, I don't I don't know. It's better than saying, let me just get lunch please, please, please. And so that was why I started the pod. Dude, I have,
23:33
like, people asking me all the time as well how to build an audience. And I used to have, like, an somewhat academic answer where I'm like, well, you just kinda like find content that, like, ranks all other places and you repurpose do all this, this, this, and lately, I've just, like, quit saying that, and I just go, well,
23:47
just, like, be an interesting person, live an interesting life, and just be at least kind of okay at talking about it publicly.
23:56
Because The thing you just said, like, if you're interesting,
23:59
if you lead an interesting life, then all you have to do is share ten percent of it. And you only have to be okay at talking about it. Give give people a a peek into ten percent of your life.
24:09
Yeah. And you don't even need to be that great. And so people like over optimized for like this, like, the, like, you know, it's kinda like when people talk about search. They're like, well, you need all those keywords and do this, do this, and I'm like, or I just do dope shit and write about it, and people just gonna go straight to the website and look it up. And that's harder. And, I still think you need that other stuff. But, like, I I still think that it's mostly a game of just be interesting, learn interesting stuff and be kind of good at talking about it so everyone else can consume.
24:36
And, like, there are people that do it otherwise, like, Trung who used to work for you at the hustle. You kinda discovered him. You set up, I think his Twitter account. Now he's got, like, whatever, I don't know, a million Twitter followers. Something crazy.
24:47
And
24:47
I don't think Trung took that advice. Like, I don't think Trung lives a interesting life or has this interesting business experience that that's what he's sharing. Well, he's he he learns about interesting. He but yes. That is true. And so he didn't exactly I you could make the remit.
25:02
Right? You could make the argument. Yeah. But you could also make the argument that he's leaving lee leading an interesting life in that he's learning and discovering cool stuff.
25:10
So that's like, you you could make the argument both ways. But I remember
25:14
I'm not I I hate saying this because I'm definitely not like a ladies man, but I've come a long way from being like a Napoleon died in my life. Malesman.
25:22
Yeah. More of a malesman.
25:27
I'm a guy's guy, but not the way that you think it's not the way that it's usually meant.
25:33
Like, our many guys' guy. And,
25:38
but I've come a long way from looking like Napoleon died of And I remember, like, I had some, like, eighteen year old ask me about, like, meeting girls. And I was, like, shocked. I was, like, your your your bar for advice is quite low here, but let me give you some advice. Could give anything,
25:52
which was basically, I'm like, you'll meet more women if you just focus on yourself and have cool, bad ass hobbies, and just invite people to come and do those hobbies with you. And I was like, that's the that's the coolest hack ever for a young man. You just do dope shit, and then you just bring along people. And that's kinda like that with content.
26:08
Yeah. That's exactly right. I think there are a bunch of different ways to win. You could be,
26:13
like, Ben for how to take over the world. I would say He's curious about these, you know, great men in history or, like, these, you know, these sort of, like, biographies or whatever. And then what he does, he does a service. He says, I'll save you time. So I call him a time saver because he packages it down into something concise. The hustle's newsletter and Milk Road's newsletter is exactly that. It's a time saver.
26:34
So what do you do? You curate, you package, you deliver.
26:38
Then you have, like, you know, sort of like a remixer. A remixer basically takes maybe one or two unrelated things, spins them together, puts them together, and and and puts that out there. You have an original content creator. That's like a Navell or apology
26:51
they're coming up with, like, independent thesis about the world and opinions and analyses that that really just originate from them and they put that out in the world.
27:00
And then you have what I'll call, like a lifestyle influencer. That's what you're talking about, which was lead an interesting life, share ten percent of it. So there's all these different play styles that you can use. It's like in a video game. Is that you wanna play tank? You wanna play DPS? You wanna play healer? You could play all these different roles, and they'll all they're all winning. You just have to know which play style you're trying to play. So I see that with with content.
27:21
But the one you you recommended, which is live an interesting life and then share ten percent of it, I think that that is the most fun play style to play -- And the most valuable. -- and the most valuable and the most unique because anybody,
27:34
honestly, no no offense to trump, but, many people do, and anybody can
27:38
go read fucking Reddit and wicker Wikipedia and, like, create a threat of, you know, Here's the story of how whatever the dude created Starbucks. And it's like The guy, the the one that repeatedly died is is the hot sauce guy. What's the hot sauce guy? That's the rocket guy. Yeah. Everyone talks about that guy. That guy is the king of the threat of boys.
27:58
Yeah.
28:00
Every thread boy at home has, like, a small bottle of sriracha on a shrine.
28:04
And they're like, I'll always remember the day I could tell people that sriracha started in Thailand.
28:11
Or the peppers were so bad that the neighbors at the factory hated him. And they don't even advertise, and it's the same bottle since day one.
28:19
The classical hot dog is still a dollar and fifty cents. Yeah. Like, this this is, like, you know, classic
28:25
But, the one you said was the most, I think, the most rewarding play style. And,
28:30
my trainer had a great phrase for this because I was, like,
28:33
I was asking about his business. I was like, I was trying to help him with his business, and he ended up dropping, like, like, I thought I'm I'm the business guy. I'm gonna share with him this great knowledge. I was like, you gotta think about your niche, your audience. Who's your, I, you know, who's your customer persona? And I was like, just looking back, you know, just cringe city about, like, trying to help him with these things. And he just said, I was like, you don't have a website. You don't have a business card blah blah blah. And he just, I was like, so who's your, you know, you gotta know who's your customer? He goes, My customers are people that love what I do. And I was
29:02
like, okay. That sounds like some smooth ass r and b lyric, but does that mean? What are you gonna do with that? He's like and and I didn't understand at that time, but he just let he's like, that's it. He's like, my customers are gonna be the people that love what I do. What do and he's like, okay. Well, what do you do? He's like, I'll train you on your fitness. And during that during that session, I'll train your mind as much as your body. Right? It's mindset. And because the mindset's totally aligned with this stuff, and that's what I'm into. And I'll just share with you stuff I'm doing with my own training, with my own mindset training or my personal training, I'll work out with you together sometimes, and I'll come to your house, and we'll just kick it for hours. I don't I don't watch the clock. Right? Like, That's how I wanna live. And people my customers are gonna be people who want that.
29:40
And I'm not gonna try to go backwards and say, what does the market want? I'm gonna conform myself to it. And so there was this real artist streak to it. And I thought, alright. Well, that sounds cool, but, like, that shit done work in the real world. Sure enough,
29:53
How did it work?
29:54
I was his only client, I think, at the time.
29:57
And
29:58
he and we work out, like, in my garage, but we just leave the garage open. And then people walk by and they walk by and he never he never he just super friendly with him, but never says like, hey, by the way, you know, if you ever interested in my services, here's my card. Never. Like, would walk by. He would joke around with them, sort of, like, just flirt with people, and then he would just, like, you know, go back and keep doing our thing. He's just a happy guy.
30:17
But, like, the seventh day, people are like, man, it looks like y'all are having fun. The music looked fun, the home gym. They saw us, like, setting it up each day. It would get better.
30:26
They saw us joking around. They would see my, you know, I'm breaking a sweat. They would see how we're using, like, we'd use our tree. We'd use all this stuff that was just around us because I didn't have all this equipment. And it just looked like two people having a lot of fun. And so my neighbor signs There's a bunch of there's a bunch of sweaty shirtless guys hugging. You know what I mean? Hanging off the trees and just Yeah.
30:44
Be. And so
30:46
guess what? People wanted some of that. And so my neighbor signs up. Then her husband signs up. Then the other neighbor signs up. Then my sister's visiting. She doesn't work out. She signs up. My mom signs up. My brother-in-law signs up. She their niece my niece and nephew sign up. Everybody starts signing up. This guy now is a full roster still never had a website.
31:03
Never had a business card.
31:05
Never went and knocked on a door, tried to do a sales pitch. All these people, like, confirm their schedules to him. He's not even a trainer. He just, the guy just comes in, hangs out talk.
31:15
The best part is.
31:16
He's me.
31:19
He's in the prostitute who won't have sex with you. I don't even know what to call. He'll just hang out with you.
31:25
I got a guy. You you need a guy to come hang out with you. I got a guy.
31:28
But long story short, this phrase of who are my customers, the people that love what I do, that is like playing, in my opinion, business at the highest level. Because it is the most freeing. Imagine if that was true, that's the most freeing thing you could do. Right? Same thing with contact creation. Who am I who am I gonna get subscribers? How am I gonna grow my audience? I'm just gonna do the most interesting things. I'm a share it as I go. And the people who follow, we're gonna be gonna be the people who love what I do. And, like, That is just, I think, a much better way to go than, like, this, frankly, a sort of desperate approach that I think most people take to building a business, getting customers, getting subscribers, all that stuff. Dude, let me show you an example of, I think, might be the exact opposite of what we're talking about. So I've been researching, and I think someone's beyond me on this on Twitter, but I found this thing called strong land, like the the word strong and then the word land, strong land, publishing.
32:20
His main thing is called
32:22
life math money. Alright. Check this out.
32:25
So this guy, he owns
32:28
maybe half a dozen to a dozen. I've I've found, like, four or five so far, different Twitter handles. One is is called the forty eight laws of power,
32:37
bot, or quote bot, I believe. Another one is called the book of POOk, p o o k, and the forty eight laws of power bought quote, or quote bot is just like he's got a ton of quotes loaded into this, and it has maybe two or three hundred thousand followers. Another one is called the book of Pook. I think that's how you pronounced Pook, p o o k, and he's just like quoting like this pickup artist from the early two thousand that no longer writes And then he owns a handful of more of these, like, just Twitter handles that are just, like, generic. And they're all basically focused for men. And it's about getting laid, meeting girls, making money, getting fit. And he owns, like, six or twelve of these handles, which is obviously, like,
33:20
Not the hardest thing to grow because it's like these cool taboo topics. So, like, it's one of those things where you don't talk about your friends, but everyone wants to be better at all those things so you follow these these guys. And he,
33:31
like, has like a circular thing where he, like, retweets each one. And each handle
33:37
links off to a gumroad page that sells a document related to that. So, like, the forty eight laws of power one, it's like, here's how you get more powerful power here's how you get more power and influence at your job, which, like, who doesn't wanna learn that? And he sells it for eighty nine dollars. And then another one is, like, here's a bunch of lines to pick up girls. Here's, like, a workout plan to get abs in eight weeks, or here's, like, the perfect way to eat healthy and feel good.
34:02
And if I had to guess, I would say that he's doing between five hundred and a million dollars a year in sales just off of these gum road things. Because you can see the sales. So, basically,
34:12
not the sales, the reviews, I think. No. No. It's a sales. So, like, for example, this live intentionally ninety day self improvement program. It's I think it costs eighty nine dollars, and it says nine thousand five hundred and six sales. How much is that? Is that nine hundred thousand? That's half a million. That's half a million bucks.
34:28
I don't know how long. Right? So maybe this has been out for years. I'm not sure. I think he's only been doing it for two years.
34:33
And then there's, like, you know, his crypto one, there's his, like,
34:38
you know, build your Twitter audience and How much is that? How many how many did that sell? That has five thousand four hundred,
34:44
sales. So Oh, how much dollars?
34:47
Let's see. I want Like a hundred bucks. How much is it? Hundred seventy nine dollars. So
34:53
Golly. So his Twitter one has generated a million dollars His next one has generated five hundred thousand dollars. So I think pretty safe to say he's doing at least half a million a year, probably closer to a million.
35:05
Is that funny? Is this is this hilarious? This little guy, and his name is harsh,
35:10
strong man. I believe his name is. So it's like an anonymous name.
35:13
And his blog is called life math money dot com. And if you go to and look up who is harsh Strongman,
35:22
And he says, I'm a finance certified financial planner in India.
35:27
And I guess he
35:29
He just has this blog, and he talks about this stuff. And I and I think it's cool. I think it's this anonymous
35:35
blogger who only uses a some type of, like, free ish looking website builder and,
35:41
gum road. It's just killing it. And I think it's awesome. That's amazing. That is This is hilarious.
35:47
It's awesome. Right? When I think about
35:50
a harsh strong man,
35:51
a man who just embodies
35:53
life, math, and money,
35:55
I think of, like, of an Indian A mid twenties independent, a Indian
36:00
certified financial planner.
36:03
No. It's like, the a, alva.
36:07
Like, you know, this is my cousin, Vikram. I just found out what Vikram does for a living. There's a reason Alpha and accountant both start with a.
36:15
This guy's this guy's alpha as they can get the alpha accountant is gonna be his new and he's gonna have a he's gonna have a Twitter and on, like, Excel courses.
36:24
It make taxes your bitch.
36:29
That's hilarious.
36:30
The Andrew Tate of Excel.
36:36
Alright.
36:39
Dude, I, on air, I need you to help me make a decision. Alright. Alright.
36:44
So I am in the process of I'm I stopped in Saint Louis, so I'm recording this from Saint Louis, but I'm driving from New York to Austin. I always stop in Saint Louis for five days to see family. I'm gonna drive back to Austin.
36:56
I miss New York. I miss Brooklyn already.
36:59
I absolutely
37:00
You missed the energy?
37:02
Yeah. There's something about this city.
37:06
The city.
37:08
You have to go romantic. When you're talking to New York for some reason. That's why I refused to go there.
37:14
I love it. I love it. I, like, I'm in grind mode. I love being there. But there's one thing that I'm currently doing that is it is it is something that I told myself I'm not gonna do it. And that is bitch about taxes and let taxes decide where I live. I'm one hundred percent doing that right now. So I wanna tell you some numbers.
37:35
So
37:36
I currently live in Texas, which has no state income. I think the federal
37:41
what what's the the federal,
37:42
tax
37:43
tax rate for the highest income. It's what's it? Thirty six percent or thirty seven? Thirty six ish. Yeah. Alright. So I think it's a little above a thirty thirty six percent. So hypothetically,
37:53
on a million dollars of income, I'm spending three hundred and seventy thousand dollars a year on taxes or around thirty
38:00
thirty one thou yeah. Federal because Texas doesn't have income. So thirty one thousand dollars a month in tech. Sorry. Thirty one thousand a month. Yeah. Which adds up to about thirty, three hundred and seventy a a year. In New York, if I move there,
38:14
I would basically be giving away fifty one to fifty two percent of my income
38:20
because,
38:21
the city of New York has, like, a three point eight percent tax rate and then the state of New York has a nine point seven percent tax rate. And so that means I'm I would have to be spending an additional
38:33
eleven thousand five hundred dollars a month in income taxes.
38:38
Plus, if I was to live there New York rent. That's the New York State rent. That's not gonna be there. Of your place. Yeah. Yes. Plus,
38:46
the to rent of a place, my current mortgage right now in Austin is around four thousand to five thousand dollars a month. I would not wanna purchase a place in Brooklyn. I would wanna rent a place. And my budget to renting to have a family there would be around
38:59
nine thousand to fourteen thousand dollars a month in rent, probably thirteen, probably
39:04
probably
39:05
eleven to twelve. I could probably get a a place that I would want, and that's what I would spend. So I'd be spending just and then let's say my income this is all hypothetical. I'm not saying what I do or don't make. If my income is two million, gonna be spending around two hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year in extra income taxes
39:22
plus an additional hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year in
39:26
rent,
39:27
meaning
39:28
my costs are gonna be, like, four hundred to five hundred thousand dollars a year, and additional costs just to live there. Not including the fact that, like, I'm in Saint Louis right now. I just went out to eat for three people's fifty one dollars. If I'm in New York for three people for breakfast, it's gonna be, you know, like, you know, a hundred bucks two times the cost. So how would you justify making the move or not move?
39:51
Well, I kinda did myself, right, because I live in California,
39:55
and California has the same problems that New York has.
39:58
High cost of living, high state tax, that sort of deal. And now, and and I, you know, I work remote. I could live anywhere at this point.
40:07
And so, you know, it is very tempting, especially when you hear, like, you meet people who who live in Texas. Then you meet people who live in Puerto Rico. They're, like, You pay federal thirty seven percent. I pay four percent.
40:19
I pay zero percent on capital gains. It's like, wow.
40:23
Alright. I guess that's also an option. So there's sort of like no end to it. And I, you know, I used to live in Indonesia.
40:29
And, you know, two grand a month or three grand a month. Like, you know, you're living large,
40:33
out there. So, like, you know, you could have a I I had a cook and a maid that lived in my house, I had a driver that drove me everywhere, and, like, you know, didn't have to think about anything. So there really is no end to this idea of, like,
40:45
optimizing
40:46
cost of living,
40:48
versus, you know, like, what you wanna do. There is no end to it, but maybe there are thresholds.
40:54
Yeah. There's there's more rungs to the ladder than even what you presented. That's, I guess, what I'm trying to say. You could do. You can go take it even further.
41:00
I think
41:02
that
41:03
I've always thought as it sort of, like, goes back to that. What would, you know, what advice would my eighteen year old self give me my eighteen year old self, which is, like, a more simple minded version of myself, would say this. Doesn't mean they're right, but they would say this.
41:15
Wait. I thought you're rich.
41:17
Like,
41:17
oh, you wait. You're wait. So you're moving to where you don't wanna live to save money. That sounds not very rich. Right? So If it's all the same, if you if it's all the same in terms of where you enjoy living, cool, then obviously pick the pick the difference.
41:31
If you enjoy one more,
41:34
I would go to it. Now it's the hard part is how do you price that enjoyment? How do you price that energy of New York?
41:40
How do you put a dollar number on it? We're we're gonna put a dollar
41:43
we're gonna price it. We're gonna say it's around four or five hundred thousand. But, dude, for the same price, I can live in Texas six months and in New York six months and fly private back and forth
41:55
twice, actually,
41:56
like, two round trips, and it'd still be cheaper.
42:00
But that's Yeah. But it would also add hassle to your life. Right? So there's there's some situations where the variety adds what you want. Right? It's like a win win. It's like, oh, yeah. I don't wanna be in one place all year anyways, or I like the weather this time of year in one place and this time in another place. So I'm just gonna move around the weather, and that happens to coincide well with my tax situation. But, basically, my thought my my simple thought process is this, if you're rich,
42:23
you can do tax optimizations,
42:25
but
42:26
make sure it's not driving the car. Right? So it gets to be in the car, but it doesn't drive the car. So I would do some things that that are no sweat that are gonna save you tax money. Oh, great. I would do that. I would not move, which is like one of the biggest things that changes your, like, day to day quality of life. I would not move to a different place just based on taxes as the primary reason. I would have to have another primary reason. So for example, my reason for being in California is that me and my wife's family is all here, and I just wanna see them more often and have that be, like, I prefer that lifestyle. I don't know how many years we all have left. We're all healthy. Or my kids are little and they get to have this experience with the grandparents around, but that matters more to me than than anything on the tax side. So that's my decisive reason. I made that one reason the priority, and then I'll live with the rest. So I think that's what you should do. You should come up with your one decisive reason about where you're gonna live. And I would guess if you're rich, that reason should not be taxes.
43:18
I gotta do it, unfortunately, but golly, it sucks. In the back of my head, it's that famous Michael Jordan quote,
43:27
You
43:28
know what I mean? That's something great. The great for the great quote from Jordan is Republicans buy shoes too. That
43:35
that is a in my first million, worthy
43:38
quote.
43:40
You know, but but I also, you know, you also gotta factor in much more are you gonna make? How much more is maybe the connections you'll make in in New York. One investment you make.
43:50
You know, you can make more
43:52
it's easier to make more, for a guy like, you guys like us than it is to, adjust your lifestyle to try to save more. I I find it
44:00
I would rather work harder to make more money than change my lifestyle in a in a way that I feel like I'm I'm
44:07
making some compromise in order to save money. Well, I think I'm gonna do it. I if I could do this again, for some reason, I think Miami is just like hell on earth.
44:17
It's not for some reason. I could name fifty reasons why I think that. I think Miami is horrible. But at the same time, if I could do it again, I almost wish I would have done. So right now, I live in Austin, Texas. It's because I got a bunch of friends there. My best friends are there. And we had an office there. If I could have done it again, I would have done Florida, though, and New York because Texas doesn't have nice enough
44:36
weather I'm just going just for the weather during winter time. Whereas Florida, like, you know, you could I feel like I'm in the Caribbean sometimes in certain parts of it. I wish I would have done Florida and New York. If I could do it again, that's what I wish I would have done. I'm surprised the best friends being an awesome thing is not a bigger pull for you. I feel like that's huge.
44:52
It is. And that's why I'm I'm
44:54
I don't actually mean if I could do it again. I wish the stars would have aligned so that could have happened. It's kinda what I mean. What is slapping the face? I'm just glad I'm not your friend. I'm not Neville who lives right next door to you at Austin. He was like, oh, the energy in New York, that's what's gonna get you. And you're gonna move away from me for the The energy?
45:13
Mom, bro.
45:16
Dude, New York's happening, man. It is quite fun. It is fun. Whenever I walk around there, I get pumped. I do get pumped.
45:22
But I also, like, also, I also wanna kill. Like, I I wanna kill someone
45:27
half the time.
45:29
Dude, like, every time I'm in line at whole foods or some grocery store, there I see a fight. It just there's always a como there's always commotions. It's all something's always happening. It always raises my blood pressure and I wanna, like, I get in, like, protector mode. That's hilarious.
45:44
Alright. What else we got? Wanna do some more? Yeah.
45:47
I have one thing.
45:49
So
45:51
I think we've talked about this, and we've just, you and I have hired this guy, but go to dream studio course dot com.
45:59
His name's Kevin Chen, and I went and looked at his landing page. This guy's landing page for a course,
46:06
a is awesome. And, b, he's selling a course that I never in a million years would have thought would work, but then I look at it and I think one hundred percent you've nailed it I understand how you could potentially make a million dollars a year. So it's called Dream Studio course, and it's a fifteen hundred dollar course don't know why he didn't just go two thousand, but it's a fifteen hundred dollar course all on setting up your your zoom setup, basically, because I don't even think it's for a podcaster,
46:32
but crazy cool looking landing page. And whenever I when I saw his landing page, I thought, wow, I really want this.
46:39
But how sick is that landing page? It's a great landing
46:43
page for a bunch of different reasons, like, first to start with headlines. So headline is not
46:48
a course about, setting up your Zoom. It says, make your home video setup look like Hollywood.
46:54
Right? Dream outcome. So it sells the dream outcome right away.
46:57
Then there's a picture of him that's, you know, that shows a really awesome video setup. So, you know, show don't tell.
47:04
And then he basically says build your studio with expert help. It's a six week course. That'll do whatever.
47:10
Okay. Enroll here. So good call to action, and then he's got a bunch of before and afters. Right? Here's Tiago forte. Look, he looked like shit before, and now he looks great. Right? You know, look here is this person. Now they look great. And he just keeps showing, you know, basically, success stories of transformations.
47:24
Because fundamentally, when people buy a course, they're buying transformation of some kind They wanna walk in one way and walk out another.
47:31
And, most courses, I I've struggled with this myself. Most courses struggle
47:36
to even understand that you're selling change, you're selling a transformation, not content, not information.
47:43
And secondly,
47:44
they don't know how to show that I can actually provide this for you. And with something that, like, the visual like this, you're gonna get a before and after, which is, like, before and after is my favorite sales pitch of all time.
47:54
I think a before and after is the most compelling sales pitch. Do you have, like, a file or something that has all your your your saying this as if you have, like, a, like, categories
48:03
of headlines.
48:06
Of headlines or of Well, you're like, you're like, oh, he's doing the before and after it. Style headline. I love that style.
48:13
Yeah. I have the the and so in my course, I teach these. I'm like, here's a bunch of frames you can use.
48:18
To, like, sell your product. If you can Did resend that to me? It's a visual like this? Yeah. Yeah. Well, if it's a visual like this.
48:24
You use before and after. If it's not visual, there's another one I call, stop the struggle.
48:29
So stop the struggle. You sent me this landing page, actually. Abstract ops used to have this landing page. I think you invest in those guys. They it was, like, a stick figure running away from a tornado,
48:38
and it just said, stop putting off your back office task, your back back office task. Or, like, stop running away from your your your your to do list or whatever. And that's what I call a stop the struggle pitch, which is basically saying,
48:52
Instead of saying what we do for you, we'll say, we can put you out of your pain. Is that pain hurting you? I can stop the pain for you. I could stop the struggle that you're having. Right? He could do the same thing. So he does dream outcome before and after. Right? Like, make your home video setup look like Hollywood. He could also have a stop to struggle, which is like
49:11
You know,
49:12
you know, basically, a a stop showing up to work looking like this. And it's, like, the up the nose camera
49:18
shot blah blah blah. And it's like instead, you could look like this
49:21
after.
49:22
And so, you know, so, basically, I have these different frames that I'm like, This is a way that you can present your product, your information. And so, because I have a one of my sessions in my course is a landing page one. So that's where I'm like, you this is where you need to use this as on your landing page, because your landing page is your
49:38
twenty four seven salesman
49:40
that will always deliver the pitch exactly as they were trained to do twenty four seven, anywhere in the world, never have a sick day and take no commission on sales. And so, like, landing page is the greatest salesman ever, and so I think you should train your salesman to, like, be able to sell your product effectively, essentially.
49:56
I, I'm writing a a new landing page now.
50:00
For my thing, and it is daunting.
50:03
Like, it no matter how many landing pages I've written, it is always hard. Well, because your bar keeps going up, because you're like, oh,
50:10
I know what great looks like. I know I want it to be great. And so what would have otherwise been sufficient five years ago? Now you look at that, you're like, no. I'm sure it could be better. Know it can be better. Right? Because you're already really you're really good. If I was gonna get somebody to my landing page, I would hire you. And so you're already very good at it.
50:28
So the fact that you're feeling daunted is, like, I don't know, like, a musician going back into the studio to record their new album. And it's, like,
50:36
They know that they're good, but it's, like, I gotta do it hard. I gotta make magic again. I gotta make a hit again. That's exactly how I feel. Staring at this landing page and I'm like, no. This is lame. This isn't up to my standard. This sucks. This sucks. And I'm just like looking for you know what I what I usually do is, what I like to do is find the way that I've been getting perspiration now is I find,
50:55
competitors that exist now or that used to offer a similar service. And I go to, newspapers
51:01
dot com, and I find old articles written about them, and I see how reporters
51:05
used to explain this. And if I see a catchy sentence, I go, boom. Got it.
51:10
I'm still in that angle. And so that's what I that's how I've been using, that's how I've been getting inspiration is I just used newspapers dot com to find old just articles in New York Times written about a certain company that's
51:21
in the same space. There was this guy I rehired once.
51:24
And I actually don't think it was a smart hire
51:27
I've made a bunch of mistakes now that I think about looking back at my business where I'm like, man, we hired a firm to do that. Like, yeah, we hired this person to do this. We paid this Like, I remember,
51:38
the indie five hundreds, like, was doing their race or whatever. And it was like, hey, you there's free billboard space. We can give it to you for your app.
51:45
And then
51:46
I was like, oh, wow. That's cool. Indi five hundred, I've heard of that. They're giving us free space. And I we spent the next forty eight hours, like, filming this fucking video that was gonna go on this billboard, this, like, video billboard.
51:57
And I was like, I'm looking back, I'm like, oh my god. I how cheap was my attention that I let this random cold email
52:03
divert me and my marketing teams, like, focus for forty eight hours to do what? Like, did we really think this billboard was going to, like, ND five hundred. I'll be five hundred. Drive downloads. It was a bigger app. So, yeah, there's it was on point, but, like, they're just not trying to download apps in that moment. And, like, we had there was no way to track it. It was It was awful. And so, like and that's happened to me a thousand times. I made a thousand dumb decisions like that. I'm like, wow. We really, like,
52:28
spent time and energy doing that. That's, like, kind of embarrassing now that I know what I know now.
52:33
So similarly, we had hired a naming agency.
52:36
Like, I hired an agency.
52:38
I don't think that's a horrible idea. I don't think that's the worst idea. I think it was fifteen or twenty five grand. It was a lot of money.
52:46
And,
52:47
it took, like, six weeks, which was also more expensive. It was, like, if you just had the name, we would have just moved faster.
52:54
What was the name that they came up with?
52:56
I don't even remember. It was, like, there's dating app that we were building.
53:01
Is that?
53:01
Like, what? Came back with, like, Jersey Shore characters. Your app is called the situation.
53:08
So we were thinking what
53:10
sophisticated,
53:11
but also fun.
53:14
Party is the front. Yeah. So so basically And Paul
53:19
d.
53:20
Say it with me. Paulie d, the latest and greatest lady. It
53:26
was like,
53:27
so so anyways, it wasn't even that they did a bad job. They actually did a good job with their thing, but it was just unnecessary. It was a necessary thing to do. But I I do respect the craft because I remember I went to this to the to the meeting room. It's got Eli was sitting there. I think Eli Altman is his name, I think.
53:42
And he was like, okay. So tell me about it. And I was like, so here's the screenshot. And he's like, no. No. Just like, tell me about it. I'm like, so it's an app that lets you do this. It has these features. He's like, no. No. No. Like, why'd you make that? And it's like, oh, because I'm at the time I was single. I was like, so I'm single. I've used dating apps. And
53:58
and he's like, was like, they just they all sucked. And so that's why we wanted to make this great one. And I, like, I was kept rushing into the here's my answer. Here's my solution. He's like, like, you said it sucked. What sucked? Like, what sucked about him? I was like, well, they're just, like, too hard to use, again, generic. And he's like,
54:14
so, like, what did you, like, remember just getting really frustrated about it one time? And so he's asking me these good questions to, like, actually unfold the unpack the customer stories, the words, the phrases that actually mean something? He got beyond the jargon.
54:26
And
54:27
then I was like, okay. So what happens now? Now you guys, you know, have this crazy brainstorming exercise or you come up with the name? He's like, No. Just, like, give me some time. And he just took a whiteboard marker, and he just sat down cross legged, like, you know, like Indian style in front of a whiteboard on the floor.
54:40
And I was like, is your child at play? Yeah. He was literally, like, a child at play. And he, like, he just, like, put his phone at silent and put it outside. And I was like, whoa.
54:50
Skype, you know, like, there's no bigger sign of seriousness than somebody who put turns their phone off and, like, leaves it outside of the room. And he's like, he just started writing, and he started writing long form. Like, not I was like, oh, he's got some names, and I went there to get a look for names. He's, no. He was like,
55:05
you know, dating is
55:08
Like, hard. Actually, it's not hard. It's just kind of it's
55:12
it's frustrating.
55:13
Well, the thing that's frustrating about it is, like, I know that I'm a good catch.
55:17
But I'm sitting here trying to perform and he's just, like, writing out, like, the feelings
55:21
that go through the mind of the person that did this. The the the way the story needs Ed is it's the most, like, weirdest, horrible thing. Like, he's this thoughtful thing and he comes up with, like, dick butt. Like
55:31
Basically.
55:34
That's basically it.
55:36
So he, you know, so he he did this long process. And I actually think that there's a,
55:41
There's some of a military f phrase, which is like,
55:44
slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Yeah. And I've always tried to go fast when it comes to business stuff. Do I go faster? How do we speed this up? And
55:54
I paid the price many times where, like, if I had just slowed down at the pro on the appropriate step,
55:59
The whole thing would have gone faster, even though that step would have gone slower. For example,
56:04
figuring out what is the actual problem I'm solving What are the what is the pain that the person is feeling here? What are the words that they would use to describe it that they that would resonate with them and get them to nod their head and be like, yeah. I've had that.
56:18
And then how would I explain it in a way that's simple to them? Like, that's what he was ultimately trying to do. He was trying to figure out what's the problem? What are the words that somebody would actually use that would resonate with them where they'd nod and be like, you know, amen preach. Like, I I've I've feel that you wow. You just you put it in words better than I even could, how I was feeling about this situation.
56:36
And then, oh, you described the solution, but instead of describing in terms of, like, the features and the the widgets and the gadgets around it, Like, you tell me kinda, like, how my life's gonna be different because I'm using this, and this works this different way. And it kinda makes sense that it would work that way. Right? Because
56:50
You know, let's use an analogy. Imagine you ran a lemonade stand and blah blah blah. And so that's what he did. And I remember just walking out of that being like, wow.
56:58
That was, like, an impressive thing this guy did, and it looked so unimpressive. He asked me some questions.
57:04
He kept slowing me down. Didn't wanna jump to an answer. Then he just with a marker alone in a room and wrote for a long time on this whiteboard, like, paragraphs of stuff.
57:12
And then through that, he came out with, like, you know, a deep a better understanding about my product than I had to begin with. And I think that that, like, there's something cool about that process. And, like,
57:23
you when you go make this landing page, it's like, that's the thing you actually wanna do because slow and smooth and smooth is fast. Well, did you, did I show you that I hired a branding agency?
57:33
I saw that. Yeah. You sent me the So
57:35
I think I spent fifteen grand on it, and they're based there in Hong Kong. So, like, I think there was a a like, I I think normally this would cost thirty grand in America. And I was actually happy with the work, and this is normally something I would never do. And it took them thirty days And it's like, you just get this deck that, like, outlines. And, like, I never would have done that. And
57:56
I think it was totally worth it. This is not something I ever would have done and I think it was totally because whenever you, like, build shit and you make a website, you slowly iterate, and then, like, you hire new people and you're and they, like, come up with ideas in like, no. We already tried that or like, no. That doesn't work because this page looks like this. Like, it's I'm like, let's just get it all. Do it all the right way the first time, and that's something never in a million years would have done and it was worth it.
58:18
Yeah. We did that for the milk road too. We hired, the Sky Jeremy,
58:23
who did our initial branding. And I'd never hired a branding agency like that for for a startup that I was doing, but I was like, alright. I told Ben. I said, we're not gonna do it off the bat. Like, you're you're saying you're doing it upfront?
58:34
I think that's okay. I don't think that's necessarily bad, but I also don't think it's necessary. And so, usually, first start, if you just kinda wanna do what's necessary.
58:41
Off the bat. I already had a quarter of a million in revenue. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So I had told Ben I said, he's like, he made a logo, like, in five minutes on Canva, and I was like, Alright. I like this. I like the name milk road. Sounds fun. Coofy. Easy to say. You see I can get the domain for two thousand dollars. Let's do it. And then he created this logo in, like, fiverr or Canva or something like that. And I was like, alright.
59:00
Let's run with it. He's like, you know, don't you think we should, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I was like, alright. Here's the deal.
59:06
It seems like you wanna spend more on it because you think the brand is important, and I agree. The brand will be important. I just don't think it's important for us to get our first ten thousand subscribers or even a hundred thousand subscribers. So let's make a deal. If we can get to a hundred thousand subscribers through our junky thing, that will will reward ourselves by investing in the brand because I think ultimately the brand
59:26
the this whole exercise of, like, having a cool brand, it's really for our own pride more so than it's gonna improve the, like, conversion of this right now or, like, it's unproven how that's gonna do. Let's let's reward ourselves. So we got to a hundred thousand, and then we hired this guy. And then he took us through these, like, cycles and, you know, like,
59:42
you know, review after review of these, like, decks. And then I thought both were good.
59:47
I have this guy in India who's like my designer for all my projects.
59:50
And, to create that milkman character who I think is actually the best part of the brand,
59:56
he actually made it. This guy in India made it in, like, one day. And, well, I was like, wow. Perfect.
01:00:01
Thank you. That's exactly what I wanted. Thank you so much. And so we just, like, ran with that.
01:00:07
Dude. I think, I think the outcome was actually quite good. I loved your brand.
01:00:12
No. I thought it was good. I I told you the story, right, when I I went on vacation to Hawaii and the the,
01:00:18
guy Jeremy, he lives there. He lives in in Hawaii, and he's like, Oh, you're here. Like, let's hang out. I was like, oh, yeah. Great. And so he comes to the hotel.
01:00:25
He walks up barefoot.
01:00:27
And I was like,
01:00:29
something happened? Like, wait wait. Just get her okay. And he's like,
01:00:34
he said, what do you mean? I was like, you don't wear your shoes, dude? And he's like, oh, I don't wear shoes.
01:00:38
I was like, you don't wear shoes. And I was like, most fucking
01:00:43
branding agency thing I've ever heard, the most creative
01:00:47
Is he a white guy? Respect for taking the I'm a creative
01:00:51
to the the the peak? Like, you thought the beanbags in the office was it. You thought that you know, having these, like Is he like a a white guy who moved to Hawaii or is he born and raised? I'll show you, like, I moved to Hawaii. When they moved there, they were, like, we don't need to choose on the island. Like, we we just live we're part of the island, and so they put their shoes in storage. And so he's like, yeah, we had to go travel to Australia to go visit our family. He's like, I didn't go get my shoes out of storage. I was like, put a weirdo. You don't need to choose that much that you didn't even just chuck it in the garage, like, just in case, like, you you put them far away. Like, That was the equivalent of the guy, the branding agency kept putting his phone on, turning it off and leaving it outside the room. Dude, just so for the record, I'm on board with that. I think she's a stupid. I walk around barefooted all the time. When it gets above if it's eighty above eighty five, no shirt, no shoes. Just that's that's just the rule. I'm always outside shirt, but I'm wearing socks right now.
01:01:42
No.
01:01:44
These be I hate where
01:01:47
No, man. I you gotta get the calluses on there. Then you then you it's like you're wearing shoes anyway.
01:01:53
I dig it.
01:01:55
But I'm happy you're back. We went I went away. I had Ryan Holiday on, and, we'll do a recap about that. And then Yeah. I leave for one day, you guys do a podcast about how great Hitler is. I was like, wow. Alright.
01:02:08
Yeah. Yeah. That,
01:02:09
that,
01:02:10
we
01:02:11
we had to switch some things up. Basically, we did this pod on hit on Hitler, and I was talking about how sad it was. And then our freaking YouTube guy, I he, like, put up this stupid thumbnail and it said, like,
01:02:24
things or no,
01:02:26
things you could learn from things. There's something about, like, it was about, like, like, you know, things you could learn from Hitler on business building. And I was like, whoa, no. Not a chance. And I it back. I go, bed. You gotta get rid of this. This is that's not at all what we talked about. This is, you know, I and it had my face on it. We had my face next to it. And I was like, Dude, that's not even remotely what we talked about. We talked about how horrible he was.
01:02:49
And so, yeah, we talked about Hitler had Ryan Holiday on. Just something right when you left.
01:02:57
Yeah. So I decided to come back.
01:03:01
I cut my emergency short to come back.
01:03:04
Oh, I gotta talk to man. I can't let you totally throw our YouTube guy under the bus because he did contact me. He he was like, Hey, I think I'm gonna do the Hitler angle. I think it'll get tons of clicks obviously, it'll be controversial. Do you think that's cool? And I was like, yeah, man. Go for it. Anything for clicks, more YouTube videos. And you're like, and you're like, yeah. Put say face on it while you're at it.
01:03:24
Not my face, only Sam's. Can you brighten the image?
01:03:31
Turn down the color balance.
01:03:33
Yeah.
01:03:33
Sam doing like a heart shape with his hands. It
01:03:38
was the worst, man. I saw that sure that I was like, Baron, I can't have this, man. You gotta delete it immediately. Please delete that. Alright. This is I gotta say that. The the reason I thought it was okay is because
01:03:49
In the first thirty seconds of the video,
01:03:52
you say,
01:03:53
Hilller's obviously a bad person, but I don't think it's wrong to, like, study his life and learn lessons from it. And so I was like, well, he says he's a bad person in the first eight seconds of the video. I think it's okay.
01:04:03
You ever heard that phrase? If you're explaining, you're losing,
01:04:07
Yeah.
01:04:08
If you're explaining your losing, that is that that is totally right. It I was like,
01:04:13
it didn't it didn't work. That that that was a that was understand. Well, people liked that episode, but multiple people were like, my favorite episode,
01:04:20
you know, I've I just shared it. I know you saw those tweets. There was a bunch of people who really liked that episode. Yeah. And they also like the Ryan holiday one. So, basically,
01:04:28
you're welcome.
01:04:29
You're welcome for,
01:04:31
for carrying the load for a while. I'm gonna take
01:04:34
this November, I'm thinking about doing a motorcycle trip, and I'll be gone for, five days. So you're gonna have to see if you can,
01:04:41
I got you? Carrie yeah. You're able to see if you'll, like, you can carry the weight during that time.
01:04:46
Yeah. Why?
01:04:48
You know,
01:04:49
why,
01:04:52
why Stalin is so misunderstood.
01:04:56
We could talk about this another time, but do you know that YouTube channel ghost town living?
01:05:01
Yeah. That's
01:05:03
I Those guys who walk out of town with that abandoned town and they they kind of
01:05:08
vlog about, you know, as it as they've been building it out or whatever. So I invested in it. And, it's like me and Ryan Nathan Berry and, like, three or four other guys. And I wrote a I think I I gave him twenty five grand, so I think I own, like, less than one percent of it. But,
01:05:22
I wanna I wanna ride a motorcycle there and and check it out. It's, like, four hours outside of LA. I think it'd be fun.
01:05:28
That's interesting. Why do you invest in that? Well, you can ride your motorcycle there anyways. Right? So what what do you think, like, this is gonna become a valuable investment or No. It was an emotional thing. No. It's it's the it was an emotional thing. My justification was it was like me, Ryan Brent, the guy on there. My friend, Brendan,
01:05:46
and, like, three and Nathan Barry, and, like, and then only three other entrepreneurs. So it was seven of us. And I figure, well, if I can, like, somehow, like, get invited to, like, a thing there or get to talk to them and I've invested twenty five grand. I bet I can make that money back just off these relationships or just like a cool story. Like, so that's kinda how I thought about it. And I thought and I asked Nathan.
01:06:06
Well, and so I did it for that reason, and I also I did the whole deal without seeing any documents and just talking to Nathan. Nathan Barry wrote me a text. He goes, just so you know, there's a little bit of room if you wanna join this. Here's the pros and here's the cons. Here's why I did it. And, he and I go, okay. Cool. I'm in then because you just said you're in. I'm in because you're, you know, I trust him. So that's it was that simple.
01:06:27
That's great. Yeah. I think it's a good idea.
01:06:29
Okay. Cool. And I have, by the way, I have a couple,
01:06:33
banger topics. I'm in a, like, I have a a lot of research going on right now. And, I'm excited. There's some that I'm, like, I'm, like, they're almost so good. It might need to be its own episode. Like, I wanna do one that's basically breaking down Like, what's actually going on with VR?
01:06:48
Like, is VR kinda like dead in the wall? Why don't you? Low key killing it? Like, yeah, that sort of thing. And so we've been doing a bunch of research on that.
01:06:55
Share it with me. And we'll do a whole episode on it on Monday, and I'll be the straight man, and I'll ask two questions. Like, I don't know anything.
01:07:02
Okay. Sounds good. I think in these Basically, it's good as is, but I think it could be levered. I actually wanna go talk to a bunch of, like, the VR app developers
01:07:09
to be like, yo, give me the real deal. Like, what are you like, here's what the data tells
01:07:14
But, like, what, you know, do you agree or disagree? So I wanna talk to a few other experts, which normally I don't do that. Normally, it's, like, either that happened already accidentally spontaneously. Yeah. You're not doing it's a capital j journalism.
01:07:25
Yeah. So this time, I'm kinda like, I don't know, going further for some reason, but I I it's I think it's because I actually want the answer because I wanna know if I should be investing more in this space or not. And,
01:07:36
and also,
01:07:37
dude, a couple of my investments have taken off, like, the first of of of some of the early deals with with the fund is now two years old.
01:07:43
And we now have two or three companies that are, like,
01:07:46
forty x to eighty x returns,
01:07:49
not liquid yet. So, you know, anything can happen, but
01:07:53
That's, like, a crazy multiple. And it's, like
01:07:56
it's it's such a it's, like, so in my brain, I knew intellectually, this is how it's supposed to go. Supposed to do this angel investing thing. You get this basket of companies, and then you're looking for these breakouts that are gonna return this huge, you know, multiple,
01:08:08
twenty x, thirty x, fifty x, hundred x, a thousand x returns.
01:08:11
And then when you start to see it actually happen, you take out the calculator app and you're like, wow. This is incredible. A hundred thousand dollars can turn into ten million just like that. A hundred thousand dollars can turn into fifty million if it does one more, like, leap here.
01:08:25
And that's, like, pretty exciting. So so that that's just been a, like, I don't know. For some reason, that's been a,
01:08:32
I don't know, like, a second wind in terms of, like,
01:08:35
once things
01:08:36
guess, in general, when things become real,
01:08:40
things always ratchet up. I have always felt this way. Like, the first time I took a dividend out of my business,
01:08:45
I was like, oh, okay. I was I thought I was already, like, you know, all in, but, like, this made it even more real and exciting. And I'm ratcheting it up when I thought I was already ratcheted it all the way. And the same thing's happening with the startup investing stuff where now as these startups actually break out, it's like you ratcheted it up even more, even though you thought you already worked, but that that tangible hit of success. Same thing happened with content creation. I thought I was already trying and then, oh, now we're getting a hundred thousand plus per episode. Okay.
01:09:12
I'm start doing research. I'm start doing more, like, that I was, like, I thought I was already doing research, but but no. Now I wanna push the envelope further. Alright. Well, let's do a whole thing on VR on Monday. And we'll talk about your investments.
01:09:23
Cool. We should actually do a thing where we
01:09:27
And we could balance it. We could be like, okay. I lost this much money in the stock market, and we could do a more wholesome, like, a more holistic thing. So it's not just Hey, here's some wins. It's like I mean, I have to log in and look, though.
01:09:40
I don't even look. Yeah. Fuck that, never mind.
00:00 01:10:01