00:00
There's TV show got canceled, but but discovery gives them a whole network. Discovery's like, yo, we're gonna make the Magnolia network. All around you guys. And you guys are gonna create, like,
00:10
hundreds of hours of of, like, TV that's fixer upper content, cooking content,
00:16
gardening content, like, all the, like, house shit. Right? And now they've built this empire, the the kind of the the bottom line of the whole the the the headline of the story, is
00:25
this couple in a in a span of about ten years has built a billion dollar brand around themselves. So It's that big. It's that big.
00:48
Well, it's what's happening. Keep in what just happened.
00:52
So before we hit record, it's, like, five four three two one. And Sam, on three takes out a drink out of nowhere at three seconds left. It just chugs it. Like, tilts up, not only just tilt it up, squeezes the bottle. Like, it's a it's a kool aid or, like, a Capri sun or something. And he's chugging some carbonated drink, and then it goes to one. And then he puts up the one sim symbol, like, hold on, looks to the side, burps,
01:18
Flexes,
01:20
resendors himself and is ready for the podcast. That was elite.
01:24
That was an elite preps for a podcast.
01:28
Dude, I'm on top of it. I drink so many beverages in, we had this fast company article written about, the Hampton Launch and the reporter in, like, the first paragraph called out how I left the interview
01:38
to grab a root beer and I came back.
01:44
Yeah. He skimmed the foam off the root beer like it was a guinness,
01:49
and then and then finished it. Held up the one second sign to my lips. Tobita Shush as he, as he drained his recruiter during the interview.
01:59
You know how men drink, like, IPAs crap, and then they look at the glass after they take a drink and try to analyze it. That's basically what I do with my coke zero. Dude, you should. You gotta have more weird quirks because, like, You can't really be a billionaire founder if you're not super weird.
02:15
So, you know, you gotta start picking up some things, like, you know, oh, he only wears, you know, open toed sandals with
02:22
socks and, like, you know, he wears,
02:25
shorts with, you know, EMS protection on his pockets because he's worried about radiation. And what what are the other weird things that you can do? Well, I had a I had carbonated water on tap for a while. That was pretty awesome.
02:36
Like, I I like only drink carbonated water. No normal water. Only sleeps during full moons.
02:42
Do you have a you don't have any eccentricities, do you? No. That's why I'm broke, dude. I need I need some of these before, you know, otherwise,
02:50
how can I be? How can I be the weird rich billionaire I'm trying to be?
02:54
We have, Sean and I have these friends. I won't name who they are, but they're they're young guys. And the minute that they got like a mild amount of success, like, maybe five hundred thousand in revenue,
03:06
they clearly had read, like, Naval's book on, like, charging by time or something like that. And then they sent all of their clients, the client services business saying, we don't do meetings anymore.
03:20
that they were leading into that eccentricity thing, and I wanted to tell them you guys are doing great, but you're not there yet. And they're not successful enough. Customer dropped them immediately. Yeah. It was like, oh. Yeah. Well, we kinda needed to meet to talk about the I get okay. Well, I guess we'll just find another vendor.
03:39
Yeah. I want it done. I'm like, it's great. I love the attitude. You know, it showed up to meetings with the shirt off. And then it was just like, well, that's cool. It's one way. It's one way to wear your shirt. That that that that's not the way that that particular client was willing to do it. So that's no longer their client that is our way, you know, that is definitely our way. They do have a nipple policy,
03:58
unfortunately.
04:00
Yeah. They're not on board with the free the NIP campaign. Unfortunately.
04:04
Yeah. Oh, we forgot to shout out. We're doing a live pod April twenty ninth. That's a Saturday. If you live in Austin, or if you wanna fly in, Sean and I, along with m f m, guest, Andrew Wilkinson, are doing a live pod.
04:18
If you go to m f m pod dot com, you'll see the details and you'll see tickets.
04:23
We're gonna do a live pod. We did it in Vancouver a couple months ago, sold out. This one's gonna sell out as well. So if you're interested in hanging out with Sean, me Andrew Wilson, as well as five, six hundred other guests, and fans of MFM,
04:36
We're gonna be there. So check it out m f m pod dot com, and you'll see the the banner up top, where you can check out tickets.
04:44
Dude, we have a bunch of stuff. You have Chip and Joanna Gaines on there today. And I went to Waco this weekend where they are from. Oh, no way. And, like, saw some of their houses. Yeah. That's crazy. Okay. So you might know more about this than I do. Okay. So let me tee it up, and then you tell me what you know about these people. So
05:01
Here's my my trail of events, and, I'll put the disclaimer out there right now. If you actually know about them, that this is gonna all sound very elementary. This is gonna sound very, very beginner because I was a complete beginner about, like, who are these people? I'm walking around in Target. For their listener though, Sean doesn't know, like, I I told him what cold play was last week. Like, he didn't know. He thought that was, like, baseball in the wintertime. He didn't know anything about, like, pop culture. So this is you learning. Loud. Yeah. Exactly. Like, I I still use a flip phone. So I I would I left my house. I go to Target. And inside Target,
05:33
there's this one section that my wife always goes into.
05:36
And it's the only section in Target that looks like this where there's a giant picture of this happy white couple,
05:42
and it's their names, Like, it's like, oh, here's aisle one, two, three, four, five. Chip and Joanna gain six, seven, eight, nine so why do they have their own section? So I noticed that first, and I thought, that's interesting. Who are these YouTubers? Why what what what is the who are these people? Do they is this the owner of Target? What what is this? And so I noticed that filed that away.
06:04
Then I was talking to Aldone who came on the pod, or we talked about it on the pod, who
06:10
runs Missouri Star quilt company, the big quilt company, a huge quilt company,
06:15
and he did this thing where he started buying up a section of a town. He basically bought a town and started to build it out. He wanted to make it like, you know, quilt heaven. So, basically, a mecca for where quilters would go as, like, as a pilgrimage to go and just, like, really indulge in their hobby. And he told me world for grandmas.
06:35
Disney World for, yeah, for for your auntie. So so he was like, alright. Well,
06:39
he goes, I go, does anybody else do this? And he goes, well, there's There's Chip and Joanna Gaines thing in Waco.
06:45
And I go, there they are again. Who are these people?
06:48
And, you know, fool me once.
06:50
Shame on me, and fill me twice, shame on me. Finally, I'll look you up, and I looked them up, and they got an incredible story. It sounds like you're pretty familiar with them. But,
06:59
He had told me one thing that kinda caught my attention. He goes It's it shocks me, by the way, you don't know about these people. I mean, like, in the Midwest and amongst, like, moms, like, you are so California
07:09
that you don't know about this. They've been in the game for, like, ten years. But I don't know too much about them. Yeah. It's, you know, it's it's quaint, but, I I I I I left him up.
07:18
They the YouTube videos are amazing, by the way. If you if you watch the YouTube videos, so they own a
07:23
part of town in Waco.
07:25
That they've just branded as their own. They bought these two abandoned, I think, silos, like, grain silos. And so they call it, like, whatever, Siloville or whatever, and they have the silobration
07:35
at the end of the year where it's just like this is a huge party for themselves. So their brand Magnolia is
07:41
the, like, everywhere in this little area. So they have the Magnolia Market where you go buy your stuff. And then they have the Magnolia Table restaurant which is served by the vegetables from Joanna's garden. And then there's the Magnolia other thing. And then there's Magnolia other thing, and it's just all them. And they get About two million visitors
07:59
a year, just coming and making the pilgrimage to Waco Texas, which is really the middle of nowhere. For Texas. I lived in Texas, and I never went to Waco. Like, it was not even in my top ten places to go in Texas. And so they have made Waco a destination
08:13
They literally have raised the housing prices in that area by, like, twenty four percent because they have made it an attraction. And their story is kind of interesting. I don't know if you know their their back do you know do you know pretty well? I don't. So they, the story goes something like this. And, again, I'm a beginner, so I'm doing the thing where you read the press release and you're like, oh, that's how they met How how fortunate? Or, you know, like, when you hear about somebody saying, like, how'd you think of the idea? It's like, well, I saw a a single mother. Struggling, and I just decided that that would be my mission. It's like, no, dude. You read a report that said this market was growing, and that's why you you, you know, you started this business. But, like,
08:48
Here's the PR version of their story. They live in Waco, Texas.
08:52
Chip, the guy goes into this car repair shop that her dad owns, sees a picture of her on the wall and decides I'm gonna marry that girl suspicious, but okay.
09:02
Keeps going back to the car repair shop. That that that story, it could it could go a different route. It just totally
09:10
it's like, it's like when you whispered, someone's ear, like, I see you versus, like, write it on their mirror when they're in the shower. You know what I mean? It's like, it's
09:19
context matters here. The other story really makes it, makes it okay, but it can go either way. She doesn't end up in a freezer.
09:27
so he keeps going back, and he eventually bumps into her ask her out on a date. They go on a date. Whatever. They end up getting together. This is back in, like, two thousand and threas. And so he was doing house flipping. And she was kinda, like, I guess, like, working with the doing, like, commercials for her dad's car car repair place or whatever. And they get together and they decide, they they don't have anything to their name.
09:49
But they decide to try to try to make something of this house flipping thing. She's like, oh, I could use my design sense. You're a contractor.
09:56
And let's say they move into this, like, eight hundred square foot house, and they renovate it while they live there, end up flipping one, flipping flippy three. They they start to, you know, successfully flip some houses in Waco, but still no big deal.
10:08
Then a TV show from HGTV starts casting.
10:12
And they read about the this husband and wife house flipper in, in Waco, Texas.
10:17
They said, well, Waco we're kinda for somebody in LA or or New York or maybe Atlanta or something like that. But, like, okay. Whatever. Let's go down to Wakeco and beat them. And,
10:26
And he's got this, like, kinda big personality. He's he's real outgoing, and she's really good looking. And so it, like, plays well for TV. So they get their show on HGTV called fixer upper. And, basically, the show, like, from day one is a hit. And so they go from
10:40
kinda husband and wife small time house flippers, like very small houses that they're flipping in in Waco. To now on TV,
10:48
and they they're doing this and they do five or six seasons. They become very famous on on HDTV,
10:53
show gets canceled.
10:55
But what they did was they had built this,
10:59
this following, and they had built they they had brand in mind that they had called Magnolia. Like, they had opened up a retail store back in the day. They closed it because it wasn't really going so well. But they had this idea for this store called Magnolia.
11:10
So when the show ends, they do two things. They reopen Magnolia as a beautiful place in Waco. And then secondly,
11:18
They go to the the, just the channel, discovery channel, and they go and there's TV show got canceled, but but discovery gives them a whole network. Discovery's like, yo, we're gonna make the Magnolia network all around you guys. And you guys are gonna create, like,
11:38
gardening content, like all the, like, house shit. Right? And now they've built this empire, the the kind of the the bottom line of the whole the the the headline of the story is
11:47
this couple in a in a span of about ten years has built a billion dollar brand around themselves. So it's that big. It's that big. So the there's no real numbers that, like, have come out. So, like, if you go look for their net worth or their revenue,
12:00
super hush-hush. Which you know?
12:03
Just makes these little hairs on my arms start to tingle a little bit. I know -- Yeah. -- I know when it's that hush-hush, that that means It's a lot bigger than you think, especially because you see it, like, Target partnered with them to do develop that line
12:17
of goods in their store. So, like, when Target, it's not even like they got their brand into Target. It's like Target came to them as like, let's make a brand. That's like a big deal. They have Killers moving silence. Killers moving silence. And you hear yeah. So if you don't hear about it, if you don't hear about it in tech know it's doing good. I thought you were gonna hit him with a a g's and lasagna type of line type of no. No.
12:37
No. Not Well, you know, I I I think I've I've milked that one dry. Dude, it's like my mom when she was on the phone with, like, a customer service person, and you're, you're, like, a as in apple, b as in Bob, whatever.
12:48
She goes, k as a knife.
12:50
I just lost
12:53
it. I was like, I don't think you understand how that works.
13:00
Yes. That's just hilarious. So k is they they operate like k as a knife.
13:04
I grew up on this street called Simpson, and I would be like, I'd be like, you know, my address is this, this, this, Simpson, like o j Simpson.
13:15
it works.
13:16
Anyways, their their app that has their TV show network has tens of thousands of reviews on it. So that means that the app is doing pretty well, and that's a paid that's, like, their own version of Netflix. Right? Like, that's, like, kinda done it. You never really see an influencer that has their own
13:30
whole subscription network. And so they have
13:33
book cookbooks,
13:35
journals,
13:36
retail stores,
13:38
brand paint brand,
13:40
furniture brand,
13:41
they have their TV show network, They got everything. And this idea and they have their own town, which gets two million visitors a year. Like, if your web site gets two million visitors a year that's doing pretty okay. You're right. You're you're out there. Let alone two million people making the pilgrimage
13:57
to your small town in Waco to come buy shit from your stores. That's kind of impressive. I guarantee you that these people will end up billionaires off of this Magnolia brand. This Magnolia brand has to be worth
14:08
High hundreds of millions, if not over a billion dollars already.
14:11
Have you been to Waco ever? No.
14:15
Dude, so I went to Waco this weekend because
14:18
and, I'll tell a quick story, then we'll get back to this. But basically,
14:22
last year, I I randomly came across this guy who had this new airbnb. It was basically a a piece of land that he built a lake on and puts and he built seven Airbnbs.
14:33
I was so curious. I couldn't find him on social media. I call him up. He built a lake.
14:37
Yeah. He built a lake. Like, it was like, like, a plot of land and they built, not a huge lake. More more a pond is a better is a better way to describe it, but but it's it's a lake, I guess. But I call him up and I go, tell me your story. He goes, well, I had a part I I was a an accountant. I had my own small business for accounting. I just built this Airbnb thing. I think it's gonna be really success but I really describe myself as an artist. I looked to paint and play music. And right right away, I'm like, I'm in. Do you wanna hang out?
15:03
Start hanging out with them. He's part of this thing. I mentioned it called Homestead Heritage. It's this religion slash community.
15:10
They it's like all different parts of Christianity in it, and they believe in, like, sustainability
15:15
and and the weird part is they believe in craftsmanship. So the way that they, like, find god is by, like, doing things with their hand and doing doing it well.
15:24
So, anyway, this weekend, I went and celebrated Easter at his church and, like, they, like, had the whole singing thing. I stayed this area around for a long time, or did this it was like a really creative religion? Okay. Basically, the story is is that one of the the main guy, which is his wife's grandpa, I believe,
15:39
her the wife's Isaac
15:41
wife's grandfather lived in New York, was atheist,
15:45
found god somehow and felt like the best way to, like, show him that I love god is to, like, just be excellent to I do and be kind to people among other things, but that was basically it. For some reason, they moved to Waco. They get five hundred acres, and they build a whole community on there. And then this guy, Isaac now has built this Airbnb a few miles away, and he tweeted out his profits. In in his first year business, he did a million in profit.
16:09
And so I went I became friends with them, and I went and hung out there. And I drove through all all through Waco, and basically, if in Waco, Waco's sorry Waco people. It's not nice.
16:18
It it's not the it's not it's it's, like, objectively, like, a a fairly rundown place as if maybe it was, like, an oil town. It feels like there was once something there, and then now it's not And when you drive through that area, you see, like, not NICE House, not NICE House, NICE House. And I told him that. And he goes, oh, yeah. That's the chip and Joanna's house. Like, they, like, started here remodeling homes, and you could distinctly tell
16:41
which one is their brand. And it's and and so, like, it's, like, basically, like, Isaac French, who, like, brings in all these people and Chip and Joanne, like, you know, way above him, but that's, like, my my understanding of AW at the moment.
16:53
Yeah. There's these, like,
16:55
these these, like, kinda simplicity
16:57
based, communities or religions or or or
17:01
cultures where it's, like, like, I'm on their homepage right now. It says, Homestead heritage is an agrarian,
17:06
craft based intentional Christian community, It stresses simplicity, sustainability,
17:11
self sufficiency, service, and quality craftsmanship. And then there's literally, like, a video of a cow eating leaves, and then, like, a boy stitching a baseball himself,
17:21
which Yeah. Like say I never did.
17:23
Well, I was like, Isaac showed me around. He goes, here, let me show you the orchard I planted last week, you know, and it's like, it has two hundred apple tree like, we did this for the community. Anyone can come take an apple. It'll be ready in, like, five years. And that's what he does instead of watching TV. So if I, like, I'll be like, hey, if you see in this movie, he's like, no, I don't really watch movies, and I'm planting trees. Not not a whole lot of, by first million podcast listeners out there probably. There were a few. I think there was a few, but, you know, they're more fans of, like, Johnny Applesey than on purry.
17:52
I don't think
17:54
yeah. You know what I mean? Like, there there are no, like, jotty apples in, like, posters in their
17:58
room.
18:02
dude, when I so I've told the story many times, I used to work for Mike Wolf from American Pickers And that was what I first learned about, like, entertainment and business and things like that. But Mike Wolf was American pickers at the time was, like, second most popular show on TV when I worked there. Number one was pawn stars. And, like, number four was David Letterman, like, to give you an idea. And and we no. For real, that's the that was the real rankings. And then
18:24
I would be at the store. In some days, we would sell thirty thousand dollars of t shirts at the store. And these, like, were not nice t shirts. They were just normal, like, with the logo on it. We would sell, like, ten grand worth of mugs.
18:36
And so, like, these shows kill it. And what Mike did was he would film himself. Basically, the show is he would drive to Barnes, find old stuff, tell you the history about it. Buy it and then sell it. And he would,
18:46
he spent, like, four years driving around with a video camera, filming this trying to pitch it. And then when he finally did pitch it, he got the production rights. Or, I guess he kinda like what Rob Diddick did. I think that's where the money is, and it sounds like that's what Magnolia did too. Yeah. Exactly. They they, I mean, the the breadth of this empire is is kinda stunning to me. Right? It's like,
19:07
whether it's home goods, it's a restaurant, it's coffee books, it's the it's the, the bakery, it's the TV show network, it's the target line. It's, like,
19:17
And and their brand is, like, they're this relatable,
19:21
you know, blue collar, you know, salt to the earth people. It's, like, yeah, like, They are, but they also have some part of them that's Rupert Murdoch. And they are they are flexing that Rupert Murdoch over the last, like, you know, years. I wonder if they have, like, a manager or if they're just doing this all in themselves.
19:37
Like, Robert Murdoch in Wrler jeans,
19:40
you know. Like, it's
19:42
we're relatable, but we'll your heart out if we had to. Right. If succession was in denim.
19:48
No. I dig these I dig these people. The worst thing that would happen to them is a Johnny k plus eight. You remember Johnny k plus eight? Of course. How can I forget? They're they were some of the first guys to get popular, like, in the reality TV world of TLC, and then like a divorce and it ends horribly just like honey boo boo, man. Honey boo boo. Same thing.
20:06
It it always ends horribly. So, hopefully, it doesn't end that way. Yes. I remember, like, seeing if your shtick is just how many kids you could have,
20:14
that is not -- You can have a bad time.
20:20
It's like sometimes you see these YouTubers, and they come out real hot because it's, like, I'm buried alive with tarantulas.
20:26
Ten million clicks. You're like, yo, but Where to from here, son? Where are you gonna go with this? Like, this is not a sustainable
20:34
path for you.
20:36
Yeah. I, but I like these people. I mean, they seem like pretty, like, I don't know, wholesome, but we'll see how how money impacts things. Well, you have Oprah here. And I think that Chipa Joanna Gaines,
20:47
the and other people like them, like, Bernae Brown, they're kind of feeling this Oprah gap. Like, Oprah left some big shoes to fill, I feel.
20:56
And I I've been amazed by by the do you know, do you follow Bernae Brown, very much?
21:01
Yeah. My wife is reading all her stuff, and, like, she's kinda killing it amongst, like, the empathy crowd.
21:06
The vulnerability crowd. Yeah. Yeah.
21:10
It's those offense.
21:11
We're all about authenticity. Yeah.
21:13
Yeah. The capital e, empathy.
21:16
Well, like, if I hear one one more person say the n word, nuance,
21:21
then, like, that's, like, that that's the thing, man. It's nuance, it's empathy,
21:26
awesome city. There. I didn't know where you were going with with that, with that joke. I was like, Sam, don't end it here, man. We've had a good run, but don't end it here.
21:34
Nuance.
21:36
Have you seen her Netflix special?
21:39
No. No. I I like her, but that's not my speed. You it's a it's a gotta watch.
21:44
It's that good? Is that good? So go watch her first Netflix special. It's some you gotta watch it just because you've never seen anything like it. It's basically
21:53
Tony Robbins,
21:54
Oprah,
21:55
and a stand up comedian at the same time. Like, she comes out on stage like a stand up comedian.
22:00
And she's funny without telling too many, like, jokes. Like, it's not, like, set up punch line, but she's funny.
22:06
But then she starts talking about vulnerability
22:09
and herself.
22:10
And then people in the crowd are crying, and you're just like, what is what kind of event is this? You know, it's like, you know, twister with my emotions. Like, I don't I don't know what's going on. I got right leg on sad. And I got, you know, left left hand on empowered. I didn't know what was happening. It's kind of an incredible little live show that she's created. And I could at first, I was like, why would Netflix give a special to this person? I don't even understand what that could be. It's actually pretty pretty well done for what it is. And I could see
22:37
why she's so likable, why she is so, like, relatable to people.
22:42
You quickly went from like, wow. To wow.
22:51
No. I'll I'll I'll watch her. Do you do what can I tell you a little bit about Oprah? So we we we were gonna talk about Oprah last time. We didn't really know what we were talking about I dug in a little bit. I guess the the theme of this episode then is, you know, what are the TV empires or female TV empires, something like that? I don't know. Let's get let's see what where we're doing this. TV, TV empires that everyone knows about that you and I are just discovering twenty years after the fact. Empires with empathy. That the boys discovered. Yes. Seven years after they they they're off air.
23:21
But capitalize both as ease. Alright. I'll tell you a little bit about Oprah. So she started at seventeen by, doing beauty pageants. She won Miss Black Tennessee at age nineteen,
23:31
She got a first job at CBS Station in, Nashville. A few years later, she moved to Maryland and, then back to Nashville. And eventually, she was the first African American news anchor,
23:43
on TV, and that was in Nashville.
23:45
She basically had an issue where she struggled to show objectivity
23:49
because she couldn't really report the news because she was showing too much empathy and she was pretty casual.
23:54
And at the time, like, this was like, hey, Oprah. You gotta, like, you know, keep it straight. You can't, like, express remorse or, like, show too man too much emotion. If you remember, like, well,
24:04
let's, Let's take this a different way. So she created a show called People Artalking, and that aired originally in nineteen seventy seven, and she would improvise and she was casual.
24:14
Kinda like
24:15
you and I -- Yeah. -- one point could say.
24:18
Yeah. She was like the MFM of the seventies.
24:21
And by the end of the decade, so after, like, three or four years, she was beating Phil Donahue in the local ratings of Phil Donahue was god. So he was, like, the man in charge. So eventually, she keeps doing that for a little while longer, but in nineteen eighty six, so about ten years after starting that, she gets her own show. It's called the Oprah Winfrey show, and she, along with the a couple outside investors established her own production company called Harpo productions, Harpo's oprah spelled backwards. And at thirty two years old, she became the first woman to have a nationally syndicated show, and she still owns eighty percent of that production company.
24:53
And all along the the way she started like innovating innovating. So in nineteen ninety six, she created the,
24:59
her, her book club, which made a hundred and thirty million in sales year one and arguably set the groundwork for this, like, massive influencer industry that we have. Then in ninety eight, she co founded the oxygen,
25:11
media group, which has programming towards all types of, shows mostly towards women. She launched Oprah Magazine. She had a radio show, in two thousand ten, the Oprah Show ended after twenty four years, and she had, you know, all the best guests leading up till then. Two thousand eleven, she launched own, Oprah Winfrey Network, and then all along has been doing all types of stuff. So for example, in two thousand fifteen, she bought ten percent stake in weight watchers, and then the stock six x, like, within a year or two of that happening. In two thousand eight, she sold most of her, stake to, own to discovery
25:45
And she's done a ton of interesting stuff between now and then, but he listened to her empire. So she has the Oprah Winfrey show, which had over twenty the twenty eight thousand guests giving away five hundred seventy cars, had five presidents on.
25:59
She got twenty thousand fan letters. The finale had sixteen point four million views, She also owns Harpo still to this day. They've, collectively, it's done two billion dollars in profits and made a couple movies as well including the color purple, beloved, and Selma, They have two hundred employees in Chicago.
26:17
own so that her network, Over Winfrey Network, the it started with a hundred million dollars in funding. Eventually, she sold most of the stake, but she's still CEO of that. She has Oprah Magazine, which in the first year did a hundred and forty million in revenue just from subscriptions.
26:33
And then she has Oprah and Friends, which is a,
26:36
XM Radio contract,
26:38
or, or, or, show where she got fifty five million dollars in the first three years. She's invested in weight watchers, true food kitchens, which is basically a restaurant that has forty two locations.
26:48
She, helped start a food Science startup backed by Oprah,
26:53
Katie Perry, a few others, that has a billion dollar evaluation. And she also is a big investor in Oatley,
26:59
Then, and missus finally, she has a forty five million dollar estate in California, a fourteen million dollar one in Washington. In Colorado, she has sixty acres for fourteen million In Hawaii, she has over a thousand acres, and she has, basically, her net worth grew from at age thirty two. She got her first million. At forty one, Three hundred forty million ninety seven at the age of forty three, five hundred fifty million, and at the age of forty eight, she became a billionaire. So that's Oprah's story.
27:26
Super fascinating. I mean, she's been in the game forever. It seems. And I think she's what? Sixty something now. And still killing it. I didn't realize she was the CEO and, like, active in all this. I thought she was more so like a face, but I think she's actually not, you know, not just a face, but, it seems like she's, like, actually, like, a, like, a mogul, a tycoon. Right. You know, what's, the
27:44
one thing that stands out when we talk about these is that there is this, like, flywheel that happens. Once you become
27:50
a certain level of famous?
27:53
It's almost like, you know, that that graph that's, like, going viral, the the fuck around and find out graph?
27:58
It's basically, like, Fuck around and find out what the positive version. So you could kinda, like, if Oprah was, like, here's Oprah's Maple syrup, here's Oprah's,
28:07
you know, like, new line of spoons,
28:09
Here's Oprah's,
28:11
you know, new board game. Like, what does it really matter at this point? It'd be, like, her board game does fifty a million in sales. Her syrup is the number one syrup in the in the country right now. Like, it's kind of at that point you just choose.
28:24
And because so much trust and distribution has been built up, And I have a friend
28:29
who this week. I can't say the details, but they went to a very famous person. They went to a very famous person, and they said they they had a business idea. They said, hey, my our friend has a has a a background in a certain industry
28:42
and said, hey, famous person. You should be doing something in that industry. Let me walk to you.
28:48
Show, but your door, not get your door and say,
28:50
Here's a full business plan of exactly how you would dominate in this category.
28:55
So they go. They fly out.
28:57
Knock on the door.
28:59
First, they don't meet the famous person. Famous person sends a a a manager to them, sends a And by by the way, are they Are they, like, a list famous? They're super famous. Yes. Super super famous. Got it. Okay. A list famous. And so they go to them and first, they get hit with a manager and they say, they're trying to, look over the manager's head and be like, hey, is, famous? I just wanted to talk to
29:20
just hoping to get a word in with the famous person. Can you on the way, and they're like, no. No. No. You have to get through this wall first. They talk to the manager first. They say, hey, look, here's my background. I've been super successful in this industry. I think you guys could crush it in this industry.
29:33
can I meet the famous person now and tell them the idea? They said, no. No. Tell me the idea. I'm in charge of this. I said, okay. Here here's the idea. And then the person says, manager says, That's a good idea. Okay. Cool.
29:44
then they get the meeting with the the famous and and the poll time they were told, hey, you fly in on Monday? You'll meet with the famous person sometime this week. Just hang out in the hotel.
29:53
Just be here, which is a pretty big time move to try to try to pull on somebody. To give you a time but say, hey. We'll we'll hold this walkie talkie.
30:04
Would you hear me?
30:05
Put your pants on. Get ready where the meeting's happening. I I can't tell you what's gonna be. Like,
30:10
they've got a special calendar in Google. Everything ends in ish, but it's, you know, Monday ish, you know, like, It's all ish. Right. You're given a window, and you better be prepared it during that window to to strike. Okay. So end up getting the meeting with the with the famous person, famous person comes in, explain the whole idea.
30:28
Famous person,
30:30
likes the idea, but also has a bunch of their own ideas, of course, as famous people do. And so I asked my friend later, I said, so what happened?
30:39
the response was this, they go. Well,
30:43
I'm pretty sure we convince famous person that they should do this and do this with us. And I'm pretty sure they convince me that I should not do this with them.
30:53
Thought that was just an hilarious takeaway. And I was and it's like, okay. Well, why? They said, well, you know, they have all their own ideas. They go, honestly,
31:00
everything they're trying to do in the space probably won't work.
31:03
Like, I think they're going about it the whole wrong way, but they'll probably end up being successful anyways. That's the crazy thing about It's like,
31:11
their margin for error is so large,
31:13
and they can kind of do anything and still have it work because
31:18
their brand, their celebrity, their distribution,
31:21
their trust and loyalty in their audience is so large
31:24
that you can kinda mess up eight out of ten things and still get get it to work eventually.
31:29
And whereas most startups, most businesses don't have that margin for for error. And so I don't know what the big takeaway is. It's kind of a no duh, but it's
31:37
If you're mega mega famous,
31:39
it's not hard at that point to to do the empire thing because,
31:44
it's like what was his name? They got a noise from Native. How he when he was selling his company, and they're like, you sell just deodorant. You know, you're asking for this big valuation.
31:52
He goes, yeah, because, do you know how to write the word native on a bottle of shampoo? Do you know how to write the word native on a on a bottle of toothpaste?
32:00
Cool. That's your expansion plan. Like, I left a lot of room for this to grow. If you could still write the word native on something, it will work. And that's that's how I feel about these mega celebrity brands, which is, like, if you if you put my face on something, it's gonna work.
32:14
So let's just let's put this in in a very realistic context. So you and I have that minus or no divided by a hundred. So we're Oprah divided by a thousand, whatever it is. But we we have a very small taste of it, And we also have friends, you know, like the ten fairances of the world and and whoever else who have it,
32:31
you know, times ten or twenty for us. And are in this, like, potentially billion dollar space.
32:36
There's been three things I think that I've narrowed it down to that make this empire strategy,
32:43
That whole hold me back, and and I imagine
32:46
someone like Tim who's, a perfectionist or someone like that holds them back. Number one is reputational risk.
32:53
So putting your name on crap products, and then how on earth can you actually, like, track it all to make sure that you're not you're not putting your name on bad, on bad products that you actually standby.
33:03
And so because of that, it's almost like you have to pick and choose, but then there's other people like Richard Branson that put, you know, version on everything.
33:10
And it kinda has seemed like it worked out.
33:13
So that's like the big thing. Number two is finding people who you can trust. When you have five or ten or thirty different things going on, you need really trustworthy people. And even if it's your family, even if it's your brother and your cousin,
33:26
people can screw you. And, like, you have to really stay on top of it. You have to find a partner who's good enough to, like, really have your back. Like, even my accountant,
33:35
or imagine if, like, your lawyer, your accountant. And every once in a while, you're like, is this person actually thinking of me, or how are they incentivize here, and who's actually making the right decision? That's actually exhausting, and I think in in in quite hard.
33:48
And then the final thing is, like, do they want the headache of that? So, like, a Joe rogan
33:53
He's just like, no, f this. Like, I'm on my island here. I have what I need. I don't wanna put my name on anything.
33:59
Screw that. I'm I I don't need anything. And I wanna keep things small and tight. And so those are kind of the three things I think pre prevent, like, empires from being built like this. Yeah. I think that's true.
34:11
So say say the say the the first one again. What was the first one? Do you remember? Reputational
34:16
risk, having people that you can trust, and then just, like, not wanting more headache. And here's the counter to each. Okay. Reputational risk. Put your your name on craft products. Do you, have you drank prime?
34:27
Once I tried it, it's fine. It's fine.
34:30
It's also the fastest growing drink in the country right now. And it's fine. And I think that that's the the counter to that is
34:38
yes. You can't put it on a crap product or do something that would, you know, hurt people or do something like that. Like, you know, something nothing nothing on the sort of terrible end of the register,
34:46
but there's a lot of leeway between the best product in the market and it's fine. And you just gotta fall somewhere there. Right? It's like It's like you're playing golf, and the fairway is so wide.
34:57
You've really gotta screw it up if you hit to hit it out of bounds, and that's how I feel with these products. Like, is Kylie's lip product, the best product on the market? I have no idea. Is, you know,
35:08
for most of these products, I can't tell you that Conor McGregor's whiskey or the rock tequila is,
35:14
is anything better than fine? They might just be You're saying there had there's gotta be a threshold. There's a threshold, and the threshold's pretty goddamn low. So I think the reputational risk is is a little bit less than than what I what I think a a lot of people would worry about.
35:27
The rest is true. It can become a headache, and you do have to find a company of people to to run them. The good thing is when you have that brand, it's like Prime. The pro you know, Prime did start by Logan Paul and and KSI
35:38
saying let's create a drink. Let's go to the flavor house and and create a formulation.
35:42
There were some entrepreneurs who approached them that said, We do this. We've done this at, you know, medium scale.
35:49
With you guys, we could go super scaled.
35:51
We will take care of everything. You guys take the cut. You guys help us with the promotion.
35:55
But, like, look, we come with this track record. And I think that's what happens for most of these these celebrities. Is their approach by people with track record even the example I was just giving. Somebody with a track record came and said, I know this industry. I've done this before.
36:08
With your brand and your distribution, we could do this again in a big way.
36:12
And I think those opportunities just come knocking at your door. So it's not even like, where do I go find somebody? Great? It's like, can I filter?
36:20
Can I just, like, recognize great when it shows up, shows up at my door? Is really the, the question for most of these people.
36:26
Do you think
36:27
you would enjoy that type of fame? Like Chip and Joanna?
36:35
Not only would I not enjoy it.
36:37
From a, like, oh, I don't wanna get bothered when I'm out and about with my kids and stuff like that. But, also, I more than that is
36:45
I don't enjoy what it takes to get there. And that's actually what goes like, that's actually the most important question of business. I was talking to to Ben Levy about this day of the day. We're talking about business ideas. Earlier,
36:55
earlier, I asked you this while ago and you go, there's a price to pay. I ain't willing to pay it. Yeah.
37:01
Exactly. Know the price and then decide if you're if you're gonna pay it.
37:06
When we we were talking about business ideas, it was like, oh, do we like this idea or this idea? And the easy thing to do, I think everybody gets this wrong is, like, I love basketball. So I wanna do a basketball based idea. Or I love I'm really passionate about, like, helping people. So I'm gonna do this health care startup, whatever it may be. And they think that their enjoyment of the Of the thing is gonna be based on the product or category that they're in. But in reality,
37:31
most of the time you spend when you're an entrepreneur is trying to grow or sell. Just trying to get more customers and grow grow their actual business.
37:40
You're not playing basketball. Your day to day experience is bit actually about selling and trying to grow. And what ends up happening is that some ways are more enjoyable or suit you better than others. So for some people,
37:52
they love
37:54
Facebook ads or they love SEO.
37:56
And for some people, they love phone calls. And for some people, they love high level business deals, enterprise sales,
38:03
where you're nurturing a long relationship for long period of time. And the big mistake people make is they think, oh, I'm creating a basketball related startup. What they don't realize is that the only way for that business to grow is through enterprise sales. And they hate enterprise sales, or they're unwilling to go and sell to these facility managers of NBA stadiums,
38:21
or they're unwilling to sell to blah blah blah. And they think they're in the back of all business, but they're in the enterprise sales business because ninety percent of their day to day
38:30
work and their their the challenge that they're faced with, and the the the stuff they have to do.
38:36
whether they're selling basketballs or ping pong balls or,
38:39
books, it doesn't matter. It's the the sales channel, the sales process is where you're gonna spend most of your time. So you gotta figure out which sales process do I like the most or at least tolerate the best? And then find a business that uses that sales process. Right. I think that is like a,
38:57
I wish somebody had told me that earlier because I got tripped up with this for many, many years. And then when I look back, I'm like, oh,
39:03
I just really like growing things through Facebook ads. It's, like, it's, to me, it's way better than these other ones. And so, like, So I have a a list. I'm like, my favorite sales channel is just mention it on the podcast. It couldn't be anything easier than that. Like, if I could just tell people what I think about this product, and then they go buy it because they already trust me and they like me. And we have enough listeners to this product, to this podcast. That is the number one easiest sales channel most pleasure if I could think of a business that works in that, fantastic.
39:30
Number two for me is Facebook ads. Why? Because I I don't have to talk to anybody. I sit behind the computer, I set up the budget, and when it works, I just scale it up with the push of a button. I don't have to hire more salespeople.
39:41
I don't have to, like, go do something new. You could take one image that works or one video, one ten second video that works with Facebook ads, and put millions of dollars of spend behind it, and make
39:52
multiple millions more off that ad. I love that. I love that model. I like that. I can look at the dashboard, see a number, and know what to do.
40:00
I Yes. That's like my number two. And my number three is cold emails because I'm good at cold emailing, and it's kind of a pain in the ass, but I've done it before. I can train people to do that. I've had a cold email order to generate customers. Those are my three favorites.
40:12
Everything else, I don't like as much. And so when I think of an idea, it's gotta fall on that top three.
40:17
Have you so we had, I guess, technically, the hustle kinda was enterprise sales. I mean, we had six, maybe once or twice. We had seven figure deals, and that's like a long process.
40:26
I wasn't allowed to go to those meetings because,
40:30
I remember, like, I had to go and buy, like, brown shoes and, like, tight jeans and, like, tuck my shirt in, and, like, a certain way I was like, dude, like, I'm Todd. Nice to meet you.
40:40
it wasn't for me. Got all the details wrong. Just a tank top tucked in,
40:44
some catties,
40:45
which are tucked into some brown shoes. Yeah.
40:48
Yeah. Your knife tunnel you created, tuck it in, everything in. Right before the meeting, they're like,
40:53
Sam, the the buttons are supposed to be in the front.
40:56
Like
40:57
that was a breakaway.
41:01
Yeah. So I was, like, was learning as I as I went. But as the owner of a company that had enterprise sales, it is awesome because what I didn't realize There's this amazing thing that I learned, which is that sales teams
41:13
can create demand.
41:15
So even if your product, our product was great, but even if your product is okay, If you have a good sales team, you can truly create demand, and I didn't understand that until, like, year two or three of, like, having a team like this. I'm my god. This is how the world works because most big companies, they just have a certain amount of budget. They have to spend it on something. And if you just get in with them and you wine and dine them, and you they like you, half the time the product doesn't even matter. They just have to spend it otherwise next year, they won't have the same budget. If they don't have the same budget, they don't have a job. So and you can like that or you cannot like it. Frankly, I don't love that that that's like the truth, but
41:52
If you can make it work, it's pretty amazing. And I've, like, learned that the hard way while running a company like this. And if you don't know which one you like, Your best bet is to go get exposure to a bunch of them. So go go try your hand and do like a a six month rotation, where you're basically like, okay. How do I do this enterprise sales thing? How do I do cold calling? How do I do Google ads? How do I do these different things and figure out which one of these appeals to you? Because Once you do that, then then you could kind of pick and choose. I I know most most people, and and I would think you you would find this to be true.
42:23
Most successful people we know, they don't really hop around sales channels that
42:27
It's like No. If they're good at Find one thing and and you and you kill it. Yeah. They oh, you're good at SEO. They just do SEO four different times of four different flavors. Oh, you're good at Facebook ads? You do Facebook ads for one business than another business than another business. If you're good at, enterprise sales, you just figure out you know, which businesses to plug into that over time. And they kinda make a career
42:46
out of really understanding
42:47
one growth process because
42:50
Being a master at any growth thing is, is super super valuable. I
42:56
can find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot?
43:00
HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out of sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot,
43:13
Do you want to talk about hustle g p g p t three, or do you wanna go to another topic?
43:20
Which let's do some quicker ones. So I feel like we did a long long, a long winded thing. So I have I have a couple quick ones.
43:28
Tell me. Okay. So I'm gonna give you my two
43:31
bad dating ideas. And by the way, I'd like to to put another trunk ideas on the books to, to just put that out there. This would have been in my trunk ideas thing, but We we don't have it scheduled, so I'm just gonna do it sober. So,
43:43
too bad dating ideas.
43:45
Number one. Do you watch this TV show Love as blind?
43:49
Sarah does. So it's on my TV all the time.
43:53
Okay. Good. So, you know, the previous my wife have, like, the exact same TV stuff. Like, for the listener, Sean and Sarah are texting about bachelor or Bachelor, whatever it's called.
44:03
Yeah. Or, no. What do you guys talk about? The challenge? The challenge, but also these other shows. So
44:08
So Loews Blind is this, like, sensation show on Netflix, which is basically, like, you get a bunch of single people together. They're in these rooms They can't see each other. So you kinda speed date. You date you date other people, but you never get to see them. So you're only supposed to, you know, fall in love with their personality. And then after you choose who you like the best per on their personality,
44:27
then you get to see them and you get to see what happens. Okay. So and don't you, like, get married at the end? Yeah. Well, of course, to to, like, any great story, you need stakes. And so they raise the stakes by saying, you don't just get to pick say, oh, I like Sam the best. Let me I wanna see him now. It's, like, in order to see him, he must get engaged, blind, and get married four weeks later. So they, like, you know, that's how they make it a TV show, but But some people walk walk on the alter.
44:48
Yeah. You can decide at the all. A lot of people, when they see the other person, they're like, oh,
44:53
hey. It's so good to see you. Like, they're just like, oh, Like, I imagine something different. And now
44:59
I'm stuck with you right now. I look like an asshole because I fell in love with your personality, and I fell out of love with your face. But they can't say that. So they have to find some other excuse.
45:08
One guy on the show was, like, they're trying to get an idea of how, how they looked and they go So I'm pretty the guy was like, I only weigh a hundred and fifty pounds. Yes.
45:17
Could I give you a piggyback ride? No. No. He goes. He goes. Anything it was so smooth the way he did it. And by smooth, I mean, terribly goes.
45:24
I love to go to music festivals. She's like, me too. He goes, at music festivals, you know, I,
45:30
I usually put my girlfriend up on my shoulders.
45:34
Do you think I'd be able to do that?
45:40
He's like, did she catch it? Yeah. She was like,
45:44
like, no. That's my worst nightmare. Is a guy, like, struggling to lift my body weight.
45:49
Oh. And so she was just like, what the hell? But Yeah. Like What size robo do we need? On this on this season, there's one guy. She's the the all love, and then they meet. And he's just he's not he's not bad looking or whatever,
46:01
but he's does really intense eye contact. Like, the guy doesn't blink. And she's like, you're gonna never known this from behind the wall. And so she's like, like,
46:11
how can we not looking away? And he's like, what?
46:14
What do you mean? I am blinking. And she's like, no. Like, please, look away. It's like so uncomfortable to watch. So anyways, great show.
46:23
I think somebody should take this show on the road.
46:26
Literally, I think somebody should do a I think the show, but if not the show, then somebody should spin this off. Do a love is blind tour where you go city to city,
46:35
and people pay to be a part of the experiment. So people pay to actually, like, do the show themselves. I also think you should do a podcast version
46:43
of Love Is Blind because podcast is audio only. So it's already
46:47
No visual. So you could have two people talking, and you could sort of edit and cut this together and make a a pod version of Love Is Blinds. So I think people could take this concept of this dating show or it could be other dating shows too. But
47:00
make a make a tour out of it, make a show out of it, where it's going from city to city and people get participate, almost like American Ninja Warriors. Some people get to participate, and other people get to watch the the show going down. And, I think that these things would generate a lot of money ticket wise because Netflix has done the hard work of educating the market.
47:18
And so once you get that education in the market, now somebody should go to them license. Like, we talked about this with, kids, cartoons. Like, or they can just call it, like,
47:27
love with poor eyesight.
47:31
Fuzzy love.
47:35
I forgot my glasses love. So so, like, people did this with a cartoon thing.
47:39
That was a three out of Yeah. It's okay. I gave you a a laugh to try to, like, you know, smooth it over.
47:46
Kids's cartoons like Blippy or Cocamelon, there's these companies that go and they license the rights to create the Cocamelon live tour or the Blippy live tour. I've gone to these. And these I did a segment on the pot about these. These things make millions of dollars a year. Yeah. Well, the every parent loves it. It's like, we're you can't really there's not many places you could take a tiny kid. That's like kid friendly, but this is perfect because they already love these cartoons on YouTube. And so I'm willing to pay fifty bucks a ticket times four I pay two hundred bucks, then I buy the merch, then I buy the the snacks, because, of course, my kids want snacks. And, you know, we go there. We've dropped four hundred five hundred dollars by the by the end of it or, you know, something like that. And so shows can make a lot of money. And so I think somebody could do this with other television shows, including the dating shows.
48:29
That's not a bad idea at all.
48:31
Well That's that's a great idea. Yeah.
48:34
You should've seen an average person try to explain that idea.
48:38
You you would have laughed about the room. Okay. Here's my second Love is blind on tour. Even that sounds alright. So my second,
48:45
bad dating idea. Okay. So You've heard about this like dating app, Rya, you know, about this app?
48:51
It's basically a dating app originally
48:54
for famous people, but now it's like dating apps for people with like, verified on Instagram or something? Yeah. I don't even really understand it.
49:02
I think somebody needs to come over the top on Rya. And make the even more elite dating app. So I'm calling it daddy. Here's what daddy is.
49:12
So daddy Daddy or daddy, you know, we're we're debating it internally.
49:17
daddy is an app where
49:19
for a guy to be on daddy or actually, let me first start with the girl's Okay. For a woman to be on daddy,
49:25
she's got a, basically, audition or apply.
49:28
And we're only accepting the top
49:31
one percent of eligible women. So this is beautiful, but not just beautiful.
49:36
Smart, but not just smart. You gotta be living in in a in a town, a big city so that, you know, you're available to be to be to be, you know, reached to be dated.
49:45
So beautiful,
49:47
smart top one percent, maybe even top point one percent of applicants to get in more more elite than Harvard.
49:53
And then on the guy side,
49:55
You gotta pay twenty five thousand dollars a year to be on the app. So that's the app idea. Five thousand men. If you can get five thousand men who
50:03
have the money to drop twenty five g's on their dating app.
50:08
They get access to this elite pool of women who want access to this rich group of
50:12
men.
50:13
And it is what it is. That's our slogan. It is what it is.
50:19
Is it right?
50:20
No. But it is what it is. Okay?
50:23
And so it is what it is. It's rich guys with beautiful smart women, And the business model is if we can get five thousand guys to pay us this amount, that's a hundred million dollars a year business.
50:34
Does that sound like something you might be interested
50:38
So when I was studying, like, for Hampton to launch Hampton, I was, like, curious about communities.
50:43
And there's a bunch of a lot of people are, like, you should charge like a hundred grand a year. And the reason being is there's a bunch of communities out there where the whole thing of making it elite in community is just
50:55
Can you pay the money? Yes. And I was thinking about that. And I'm like, first, like, the audacity.
51:00
And second, if you can get
51:02
My first question is How dare you? Who are you?
51:06
And the
51:08
but if you can get past that,
51:11
How amazing is that? Where your whole business is just,
51:15
if you could pay it, you're probably good. So we'll just,
51:18
we'll we'll be happen to be that middle man and check it out. And so there's this app called the League. If you know what the league is, it it's a dating app. It started when we were in San Francisco. I just want my name Amanda Bradford, who, I'm friends with here in Austin.
51:29
She sold it recently to
51:31
what's the big the big company IAC who owns, like, match and Bumble and or not Bumble Tinder. Yep. And
51:39
what when Amanda was getting started,
51:41
she was or the the the league kind of took off. And so I don't you probably don't know that. It was, like, Ivy was the premise. Right? It was, like, only It was, like, Ivy League.
51:49
But then, she one day she was like,
51:52
how hard can I push this? And so right now, the league costs, I believe it's either four ninety nine or nine hundred ninety nine dollars. So it's either four hundred ninety nine dollars or nine hundred ninety nine. It's one of those two And the reason being is that's the highest price per month that you can charge on Apple's,
52:10
on the Apple store. It's three hundred ninety nine per
52:12
sorry. Yeah. Three hundred ninety nine dollars per month.
52:16
So, yeah, it's it's the highest that you could possibly charge. And she goes, screw it. That's what it is gonna cost to get premium features. And people, like, at hers, I think her team was like, this is crazy. We can't do this. No one will do this. And it crushed it. And IAC came to her, and they're like, we wanna buy you because How on earth are you able to charge this? And I imagine in her head, she was like, well, it was actually pretty easy. I just, added an nine
52:39
at the end of I see. You're right. It was it was the the highest tier is called investor.
52:44
It was member two ninety nine. Owner, three ninety nine investor, nine hundred and ninety nine dollars and ninety nine cents. Yeah.
52:52
Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's like, there's, like, there's, like, an episode in South Park where they come up with this, like, new MBA, and they're like, look, I don't make up the rules. I just think them up and write them down. You can't argue with me. I didn't make up the rules.
53:03
And it's like, well, how'd you increase pricing so much? Well, I just clicked that button nine, and, we added we made it instead of nine hundred ninety nine. We made it nine hundred or instead of ninety nine point nine nine, it was nine hundred ninety nine. So anyway, it's killed it. And so I actually think that there are a lot of interesting opportunities in the market where you can just charge way more And it feels very weird. That's the business model. And, actually, now that I think about it, twenty five thousand dollars a year, that was complete small boy stuff. And I apologize to the entire audience.
53:33
Needs to be a hundred grand a year. This this has to be a hundred grand a year. And guess what? We only need a thousand members now. I need a thousand guys who are willing to drop a hundred grand in order to get access to the most and in fact, you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna take a portion of that money, and we're gonna pay some women to be on this app. We're gonna say, look. You are so great. You were casted. Onto this, and you are gonna be paid to be a part of this network because,
53:59
we wanna blur the lines between
54:02
prostitution,
54:03
and legal dating.
54:05
Oh my god.
54:07
It is what it is, as we say.
54:11
God bless you. Maybe this will work. But, yeah, good But I think there's there needs to be more, apps that do this that go over the top, with it, like, I agree. Basically, find the theoretical max of,
54:23
of of of what what the market will bear or what, what people actually wanna do. Right? Like, what what what is the actual behavior people want?
54:31
And what are they willing to do? And it's usually more than you think.
54:35
Or or more than, you know, sounds sounds reasonable. Like, what what if you just took an unreasonable approach to the same thing? What would you do differently? Is it is a question you can ask about, really, any business?
54:45
Like, there's these guys. They created this thing called the unreasonable Institute back in the day, and I loved it. Is that real? Yeah. It was a great it was a great idea. It's called the unreasonable too. And it was for I just love the name because I I love the entire premise, which was
54:56
what good has it come from just taking a reasonable approach to something? If you're trying to make any big shit happen, you're trying to do anything, change the way anything works, you know, like, create a new system or improve something or innovate,
55:07
You know, in a way, by definition, you're gonna do something slightly unreasonable.
55:12
And so Is this called the unreasonable group? Yeah. It was called the unreasonable institute, then they had the unreasonable, like, toured where they, like,
55:19
they, like, got a cruise ship and went into international waters.
55:24
And then they did a bunch of these now. It's probably called this is like ten plus years ago. So, yeah, that's so funny. It's probably true. Well, there's this thing called unreasonable group, and it's The unreasonable collective is an international community of sophisticated investors. We pull we pull capital as a community and co invest in world class But then there's the unreasonable Institute, which is a fast track program to give altruistic entrepreneur skills and funding to affect a large scale change. Yeah. I think that's the one. One sounds maybe a little yeah. The first one maybe sounds cooler though. But,
55:52
that's cool. I like that name.
55:54
Speaking of unreasonable, do you wanna wrap this up by talking one thing Elon Musk? Okay. Did you see what he did?
56:01
So see the Twitter thing?
56:03
Well, which which Twitter thing? I feel like every day there should be a little less Twitter thing. Yeah. That's the
56:08
where he blurred out the w?
56:10
Oh, yeah.
56:11
Oh, okay. This is news. No. No. No. I saw this. I saw this. I saw this. This is this is dumb. There's this there There's this thing in the UFC
56:19
call if you win. So, basically, the UFC and all bot fighting, it has weight divisions. In every once in a while, some like Connor McGregor or someone else comes along, and they achieve greatness.
56:29
And they earn what's called the champ champ status, meaning they have a champ,
56:33
the champion in one weight division, and then while having that belt, they also gain a few pounds and go up and win another belt. It's unheard of.
56:40
In my opinion, Elon is the champ champ.
56:43
He has amazing
56:45
products.
56:46
He's one of the best entrepreneurs out there. He's the champion. He's also the most trendiest.
56:51
He's the champ champ right now. And he doesn't ever the fuck he wants. That's what champ champs do. And recently,
56:58
like last night, He tweeted out that there was a dispute with the landlord saying you can't, like, alter the sign or something like that. So he took, like, a piece of white
57:08
sheet or paper or something, and he blurred out the w. So now Twitter,
57:13
the sign, it's a huge sign when you live in San Francisco, I lived a block away from it, it says, titter.
57:19
it's the most cringe thing I've ever seen. Why on earth would he do that? I love a good troll, but that's not like funny. It just makes, like, People like, look, I like trolling.
57:29
I love punching up.
57:31
But this is, like, This is punching yourself in the face like making people uncomfortable. This is the bad type of uncomfortable.
57:38
Go to his Twitter,
57:40
right now. Do you see what his name is on Twitter right now? Because You thought that was the cringiest thing he's done in the last forty eight hours?
57:48
he's one upped himself. Oh my god.
57:51
What an idiot.
57:52
God.
57:54
It's his his name right now.
57:56
It is Harry
57:58
Balls. He spells balls, b o l z, but it's Harry Balls. That is his name on Twitter right now. Oh, Elon. You're so you're so irreverent.
58:11
Yeah. Dude,
58:12
it's the These billionaire's much, man.
58:15
Like, what? Just like us. I would love see what Elon thinks the, like, other people's reaction is. He must type these in and just sit back and just smirk
58:25
Just have a smug look on his face. Just imagine oh, man.
58:29
The internet's gonna love this.
58:32
I I'm super rich, but I I don't take myself too seriously. Look at this. Yeah. Like, jeez. Next week, it's gonna be, like, like, Elon Baller sixty nine. Like, it's just, like,
58:43
This is the lamest thing ever, man. I don't know how I mean, I guess, like, look, when it with extreme personalities comes extreme success,
58:51
they don't tell you there's another end of that belly curve, and that's extreme that's extreme cringe.
58:55
Yeah. And that and we're experiencing that a little bit right now. I know a lot of billionaires Not a lot. I know a a couple of billionaires, and I go I know a lot of wildly successful people, and they do every once in a while. Like, you're like, oh, man, you don't know how to hold the conversation appropriately. Let me help you out here. This is kinda what's happening with him. It just so happens that it's in front of a hundred twenty twenty five million followers. He is, like, the cringe version of Tourette's. Like, dude, just stop. He can't he can't stop just blurting out these cringy things.
59:21
Yeah. It it's it's ridiculous.
59:24
He's he I I actually think that he's kinda ruining his legacy for sure here.
59:29
Like, maybe five years ago, he was the man.
59:32
And he still is the man, frankly, like his accomplishments are amazing, but
59:37
he's a little less of the man at this point. There was a funny -- Just a little. -- funny back and forth. He somebody tweeted out a, a graph of all the billion dollar or chart of all the billion dollar companies and what industries they're in. Yeah. I saw that. And, Paul Graham,
59:51
retweeted. And he says, oh, you know, what's interesting here is, like,
59:54
we're clearly, like, over indexed on, like, software and, like, you know, real world things like, hardware or manufacturing.
01:00:02
You know, there's only, like, a few companies in that bucket.
01:00:05
Don't let that hold you back. They'll do it. You should still do it. I think there's a lot of opportunity there. And Elon replied and was, like,
01:00:13
Yeah. Like a complete waste. You know, it says something like it was, like, a a big waste of,
01:00:18
of resources or brain power or talent that that was the case.
01:00:23
And then And the the the response was the biggest owned,
01:00:27
and I've seen it in a week. It was it was a really good reply. Program goes. Yeah. Can you think of anybody right now who's really talented and,
01:00:34
it it could be doing those things, but is wasting their time on a software project?
01:00:39
And it's so good because obviously
01:00:41
talk about Elon.
01:00:43
And, yeah, it's like a a perfect self cell phone really by Elon. Yeah. It was pretty good.
01:00:50
Too good. It was good. That was good. I'm a big fan of him,
01:00:53
of Paul Grand. I I'm still an Elon guy. I think I might get myself a Tesla
01:00:59
I don't like this. It makes it hard to wanna wear, like, a Tesla t shirt. That's for sure. Not that he cares, but,
01:01:05
it makes it challenging to, like, root for him publicly when he makes these stupid comments. People people in our comments hate when I make fun of, Elon or or Desi Elon or Shamath or these guys, because they're, like, fans of them, which is totally fair. It could be fans of whoever you want. But I just want it for the record.
01:01:22
I'm out on Elon early.
01:01:24
Because guess what? More and more, you're gonna give me out on this guy over time, and I just wanna plant the flag.
01:01:30
I'm out on him early
01:01:31
because his cringe will eventually wash away all these people or he's gonna get canceled for something I'm telling you it's it's gonna happen, and I I would like the record to show that I was out early.
01:01:42
Dude, these these people in our comments are crazy to me because why can't someone do a lot of really good stuff and also some bad stuff. Like, why can't, like, someone kick ass at a at a at a ton of different things and make a huge amount of mistakes? Totally. Because whenever we talk about this, we say, yeah. He's he's the best at a bunch of different things. He's the greatest entrepreneur.
01:02:02
He's of of, I don't know, the last thirty years, fifty years. That is true.
01:02:06
Also true.
01:02:08
He's pretty cringe.
01:02:09
And, Corneet,
01:02:11
and disingenuous about some some things. Right? That's also true.
01:02:16
Yeah. It's like, I can love Michael Jackson's music and also not love what he did, you know. Like,
01:02:24
both, like, both can exist. I can like Chick fil a chicken and also not stand by what they --
01:02:30
Right. -- what they stand for. You know, both can be true. And I and I can't stand that with the with the commenters on our on our stuff. But
01:02:38
Let's we're gonna get a reaction on this. I'm eager to see what it is, but,
01:02:42
anyway, that's an action packed pod, I think.
00:00 01:03:06