00:00
I I don't think I would wanna do something that high profile because if you screw up, it would be a big deal. Oh, look at you. You're afraid to fail now. Oh, you you make it big. You sell your company, and now now you're like, I I gotta be able to watch my step. What's going on? Who I'm not afraid to where's the guy with the pirate ship tattooed on his thigh? What would that guy do?
00:20
I feel like I could root the world. I know Sean's new studio there. Are you in a garage? Is that what that is? I am in my garage. We,
00:28
We upgraded. We improvised. So we did this crazy thing where
00:32
we had talked about on the podcast. We were like, shit. We need to, like, upgrade our setup.
00:37
I think mostly it was you just telling me to get a haircut, which is fair. I'm and wear a shirt
00:42
wear a shirt.
00:44
And, I took that as I need a whole new studio.
00:47
So so basically these guys who are,
00:51
from Chicago, they're like twenty three year old guys who love the podcast. They were like, they heard that.
00:56
And this is like their forte. They do, like, camera audio. They have their own podcast. They have their own YouTube channels. They're basically what I realized was I went and watched their YouTube channel. And this YouTube channel has like this guy, he Henry, his YouTube channel has like, I don't know, five hundred and seventy subscribers. So it's not like some big YouTube channel, but if you watch it, it's the same level of quality of, like, video, audio, and editing as, like, Casey Neistat's channel.
01:22
And I showed this to our friend Sully, and I go,
01:25
I go, check these guys out. Like, look at look at their channel. These are the guys coming this weekend to to make my studio. And he goes,
01:32
he goes, I remember when I was, kinda, like, twenty one, twenty two, we were coming up. And what the kind of thirty and forty year olds used to say was, oh, man. You guys have this huge advantage because you're, like, your com your, like, digital natives is what they were calling us. Like, we grew up with a computer and the internet. Like, I think we we got the internet and computers when we were, like, in sixth grade. I don't know about you. It was probably around the same sixth grade, something like that. And so, you know, for for our parents, they were getting a computer when they were thirty five or forty. So it's just like, you know, you didn't have the you didn't have it to grow up on. And so he goes, these guys, this is the next, the next wave. They're video native. Basically, they grew up with a camera in their hand, and they had just, like, constantly shoot videos. They know how to edit it. They're not afraid to be on camera. And, like, it's such a superpower. And I think it was so true what he what he was saying?
02:21
You said one that line that I think is the real superpower, which is,
02:25
being on camera. So for you and I, we're kinda, like, media people. So we're maybe a little bit more used to it than the average joe, but even I am still very uncomfortable just talking to a camera and, like, looking at it, young people are not. I when I was at the airport, I saw twelve year old kids with, like, the phone on the ground with a pop socket. Right. And they were, like, feeling and I could see that they were doing TikTok dances. And it was, like, that's, like, unheard of for me because I'm, like, oh my god. You're gonna do that at the airport with people watching. Right. Right. Yeah. I think the upside is they all look cool. They know how to dance and they know how to edit videos. The downside is, like, you know, they're like riddled with anxiety and stuff like that. So, you know, it's not all it's not all good. But I but And they're not having sex, which is a topic we're gonna talk about. We're gonna talk about that. But the other thing I was gonna say is let me ask you this. When you get us, you're on Snapchat. Right? You have Snapchat?
03:16
I had no. I have an account. Alright. So, alright. I'll bring you. I'll bring you. You got a time in here. I'll bring you. How how old are you?
03:23
Twenty seven. Alright. So you're more like us than, like, the people I'm talking about that are kind of, like, I'm not gonna say gen z. Yeah. But, Scott, I think those I think those couple he is
03:32
he's a lot hipper.
03:35
He's a lot hipper than we are. Alright. He's a little bit more into it. Okay. So so basically,
03:41
or Britney, when you have Snapchat. Right?
03:44
So someone sends you a snap, right? They send you a picture of something they're doing, something they're looking at. And you need to reply.
03:49
Tell me, do you just type the reply, like, in the text version, or do you send back a photo?
03:55
That's so weird. Yes. See, that's crazy to me. That is wild to me. I'm like, you say something. I comment like it's fucking like it's Facebook. Right? I just write, like, Oh, looks fun.
04:06
Cool.
04:07
That's great. You know? Like, I'm like a ninety year old. You're talking about young people. Another interesting thing to do is when you ask a young person, or did you show me Janiacs, a younger person,
04:17
what it what do you do when someone calls? If they put their hand for the people listening, I have my hand, like, I'm waving high, like high five. And they put their hand, like, a high five to the ear versus if they put their picky and thumb out like this.
04:30
Well, or or or if you say, hey, do look at a gesture to to take a picture.
04:35
So if I said to you, hey, Sam, take a picture Yeah. You're gonna do this. That's an old full camera. Yeah. This is not a camera. Right? So so so what they do is they they hold up their their hand like this with their thumb, like, you're holding an iPhone. Right? We're, like, out here with a a a polaroid
04:50
trying to trying to demonstrate what a picture is. Anyway, so
04:54
I don't even know why I'm talking about that. But, basically,
04:57
these guys are, you know, I I would say younger people are video native, and I think that's gonna be a huge, huge win for them because people like us are, like, self conscious and, like, just don't know how to use the tools. Right? I wanna bring up a topic that's both related to this and something else. So
05:12
at Sean's old office at monkey inferno, the guy who owns it Michael Birch, a It looked like it was out of a magazine, but he had one or two things that really stuck out. And one of them was this Macatosh computer. It was a max, MAC, MAC two. Is that what it's called? Apple two. So
05:28
I'm gonna look that up. I'll so the reason I'm bringing this up is I am building my studio to look good like yours. And I was looking to thinking of, like, designs and interesting stuff to put in the back. And I also this little NFT has got me interested in art and like, you know, just beautiful. Yeah. Just like valuable or not valuable, beautiful, interesting cool stuff. I've always liked stuff.
05:51
Just like junk. Right? That's what I used to like. But now I'm gonna try to get some nicer shit. Anyway, I was
05:59
looking around,
06:00
how much do you think
06:02
so is an apple two? Is it apple two the same as a Mac is a,
06:07
Macintosh two?
06:09
I don't know.
06:10
Well,
06:11
wow. How much do you think an Apple two that still works costs?
06:16
I don't know. A couple thousand, I'd say maybe I'm reaching two and five. It'll be my guess. Two and five thousand. You can get
06:23
one that's in pretty good condition for, like, five hundred dollars.
06:27
Wow. You can get
06:28
one. You can get a Mac Macintosh
06:30
two, which I don't know the difference between the Apple two and the Macintosh two. You can get a Macintosh too that is still in the box for, like, a grand.
06:39
And do you remember the commercials,
06:42
when we were younger, we were in our teens were probably in eighth grade or ninth grade where
06:46
it was like a colored Mac.
06:49
So it was like a blue it was called the IMac, I think. Right? Yep. You can get those for, like, three hundred dollars.
06:55
Now, strictly speaking, like, from, like, a collectible,
06:58
like, just it's interesting. It's, it's cool to look at. That's incredibly cheap
07:04
for a machine that I'll tell you what. Every single person who came to our office was like oh, this is awesome. Now granted it's tech nerds coming to the office, but they were like, wowed by this thing. And there was, like, expensive art all up on the walls. Nobody cared about any of that. People saw this old thing and then we would boot it up and they would turn on and they were, like, amazed by it. So it definitely every single person noted commented on it. I think these types of, like, old computers, these vintage computers, I think these are gonna get really popular. And the reason I think that is I was looking up how much,
07:36
So for a gift, I thought about buying people,
07:40
an iPad that wasn't connected to the internet. Did I tell you this? No.
07:44
So I was gonna buy people, like, our investors. I was gonna buy them, like, a small thank you. I was like, maybe if I spent two hundred dollars ahead, let's see if I can go and buy a bunch of if I can buy, like, twenty
07:53
iPads that aren't connected to the internet. And my plan was ruined because I'm like, oh, wait. You have to have,
08:00
iTunes. ITunes. And that doesn't even exist. So, like, is pretty much meaningless. But these old
08:05
iPads By the way, iTunes exist. I don't know what Well, but I mean, like, you who no one buys? Can you even buy MP threes anymore from it? I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. You have to, like, have your own music. Yeah. Like, that no one does that anymore. You we all stream. And, like, these things didn't even have internet. I wanted it so you could, like, download it, and then it would only work if you were attached five. But anyway,
08:25
old iPads,
08:26
like, old old ones, first generation ones are expensive. Like, five, six hundred dollars. And so anyway, I think that both it'd be cool to have this stuff on your Dude, if an old iPad is five six hundred dollars and Apple two in the box or Mac two in the in the box is also five hundred dollars. Yeah. I I I definitely know which one I think has more more, like, long term value here. Those those things are collectibles. I think you're you're spot on. I I would scoop up five to ten of those right now and just hold them. Yeah. I'm okay. So, like, here's a vintage working in in good condition,
09:01
Macintosh two for two hundred and fifty dollars. I'm looking at it on eBay right now. Here's a macintosh,
09:06
in the box for four hundred bucks.
09:10
It's pretty interesting. Right? I think that this might become pretty popular. These old computers, and I think that it's kind of a cool idea.
09:17
Yeah. I like that a lot.
09:19
Those are good. And I I actually will go after this on eBay and try to scoop up at least at least two of those just to hold and see what happens.
09:26
Alright. You wanna get into,
09:28
you have two updates, and then we have an idea, two ideas.
09:31
Yeah. Okay. So one update is on the Michael Jordan thing. So last episode, we talked about Michael Jordan's house has been on sale for ten years.
09:39
It was a it's a fifty six thousand square foot house, and, it was originally for thirty million dollars. Now it's been price cut, price cut, price cut, all the way down to thirteen million, and it's still not selling. And this is after the last dance. It's after this giant boom and, like, trading card collectibles. Like, the Michael Jordan rookie card is going for almost two million dollars. And his fifty six thousand square foot house can't sell for thirteen. Like, something seems off. Like, a little tiny three inch piece of cardboard can sell, but not this. So, and he's paying property I think some somebody said he's paid about a million dollars in property tax just while it sat on the market. And so we threw this out there last time. We said, hey, look,
10:19
Why don't we either collect just me a new or we crowd fund?
10:24
Why don't we buy MJ's house? And, like, what could we do with it? And we got a bunch of good feedback. So I would say, like, there's a bunch of smart people who immediately pointed out that one of our ideas, which was to turn it into some kind of museum, the museum of Mike, you know, the basketball museum,
10:39
would it work because, you know, the HOA, the neighbors would never permit you to let, like, tens of thousands of people come into their neighborhood and and go to this museum every year. Right? So that's what I thought about. I mean, I was thinking about I just figured there's gotta be a way around something. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. When you start an idea, you don't think about all the different, like, small reasons why it might immediately fail. You think you know, what if this works? And then you find try to find a way to make it work.
11:04
But the more interesting one, in my opinion, was always the simpler one, which was You don't have to turn it into a museum. You don't have to get permitting. You don't have to have guests coming in and operations folks.
11:16
You just
11:17
treat it differently. You don't treat it like a house. You treat it like it's a monument. It's a piece of art. And there are paintings that sell for eight hundred, you know, eighty five million dollars And so if a painting itself for eighty five million dollars, I think Michael Jordan's house, this relic of the greatest basketball player of all time, it's gonna be worth something. And so the idea would be
11:36
You crowd fund it. You get, I don't know, five thousand people to each pitch in two grand. You buy the thing out for ten million bucks,
11:44
and, you hold it as a piece of art. And then the, you know, what I there was a couple of good suggestions I thought came in through Twitter. So some of the good suggestions were.
11:52
You could list this on Raleigh Road where people go to buy, like, you know, vintage cars or
11:59
rare first edition, lord of the rings book sets for thirty five thousand dollars that you you know, five hundred people each buy it, a fractional share of it. So that was one idea people liked. And the Raleigh Road guys said, Hey, we're interested. Let's talk. So I'm talking about Oh, they they they holler at you? They did. They replied to the tweet and then Rob, the the I think he's the CEO. I don't know. He
12:19
emailed me yesterday, and and so we're gonna gonna do chat and see Why does everyone cool reach out to you?
12:25
Bro, they know. They know.
12:28
Damn. And I didn't get anyone hollered at me. Well, are your DMs open on Twitter? My DMs are open. Yes. Oh. I've also talked to him before through DMs because I was just, like, rally is fucking awesome. So I had reached out to him actually Yeah. That's safe.
12:41
Saying is awesome. Can I invest in this thing? So he knew I was a fan boy already.
12:46
But anyway, so that was one interesting thing. Some people in the crypto world were like, dude, let's turn this into an n f t bro. And, so I talked to the the founder of, of nifty Gateway. Which is just exploding this this marketplace that's just exploding for NFTs right now. So I asked him, hey.
13:02
Would you like to dabble? And then the last thing was that some people were like, hey. And what did they say?
13:08
He was like, hey, this is cool, but he was like, you know, we're just crushing so hard on the digital stuff. I don't know if we wanna get into this physical thing, because there were some cool ideas from from Twitter. Some people were like, you know, let's say you came in and you bought a fifty thousand
13:23
dollar chunk. So you you instead of the two thousand dollar entry, you go for fifty k, that should get you, like, if you present your your certificate of ownership, your if you show your app and you show that you're you own a piece of this thing, you should be able to have, like, a three night stay once a year. With you and all your friends. We're gonna time share MJ's house. Exactly. So so you're not fully doing an Airbnb. You're treating it like it's art. But if you own a big enough share, if you're, you know, a super minority owner of this thing, then you can actually stay one weekend a year. And I thought that was pretty dope.
13:53
Anyways, there's some cool ideas, but then at the same time, I ain't got time to do this and either to you. So,
13:59
what's gonna happen from here?
14:01
You're asking me. I don't know. I feel like you're kind of the leader on this one.
14:05
Nothing. If I had a bet, nothing. I
14:09
here and here's why. When I did my deal, every smart person I talked to, what you know what they said? I bet you can guess what they said. No. No. What did they say? Do nothing for six months. Right. Don't invest it on your hands. Yeah. Yeah. Don't invest.
14:23
And so many times I've been I I've wanted to change and do something, and everyone has said the same thing, and I'm gonna try my hardest to stick to it. So that's one of the reasons why. Although, that's probably a bullshit excuse. The reality is it's kind of an I I don't think I would wanna do something that high profile because if you screw up, it would be a big deal.
14:41
Oh, look at you. You're afraid to fail now. Oh, you you make it big. You sell your company, and now now you're like, I I gotta fail to watch my step. What's going on? Who where's not afraid to where's the guy with the pirate ship tattooed on his thigh? What would that guy do? Dude, my first time buying, like,
14:58
a real estate asset and doing something like this would be like I mean, that would be national. I mean, I guess, yeah, I mean, I'm okay. I'm not I'm saying you buy it. I'm saying
15:08
clearly the way to go here is to crowd fund this thing because it's just more fun that way and you don't have to put out ten million dollars of risk capital. How many emails did you get?
15:18
So somebody okay. That was the other thing. So somebody created a website. Jonathan created a website. I think it's, like, by by jordans house dot com or something like that. And I think he said that, you know, pretty early on after the tweet. He said he had two hundred people dropping their email. And I think about the same on Twitter said, I'm in including a bunch of higher profile people. There's a bunch of people who are. Yeah. A bunch of really wealthy people founders of companies,
15:42
owners of owners of businesses that were like, I'm in for five k. I'm in for ten k type of thing. Now are they just talking? Is this real? I don't I don't know. We'll see. But
15:50
I think it was cool. I mean, the the little video that we had reached a hundred thousand people, I think, across a couple different platforms. So it was cool. And what we decided to take away from this is we gotta do viral clips all the time. We gotta we gotta be like Obama. The club is the best place to find what we're Exactly. Well, it's not even a conversation. This is now just a collection of clips.
16:11
Yes. And the clip the clip had sixty thousand views too, your Twitter clip of you talking about it. Really? Yeah. Well, the shitty part is that it's you talking about it and me looking at this, like, it kept showing my faith and you're talking all the time. And I'm just Dude, that's the way the world goes. You put the white man's face up there, and the brown guy's just in the back coming up with ideas and and handing them over. That's why they get our voices confused because they say I look like a bro, but I talk like a nerd and you look like a nerd but talk like a bro.
16:39
Dude, that was the most spot on. I wasn't even was like, I'm not mad at all. That is so accurate
16:45
and,
16:47
you know, I it makes now I understand why people keep saying this thing that they get as confused. It makes I get now.
16:53
Let's talk about sex.
16:55
You have something on here. And you
16:58
before we get into it, I wanna tell you a fun fact. So We have this list where Sean and I list ideas. He has one thing and it says,
17:06
why aren't young people having sex? And what are the opportunities here? And apparently, thirty one percent of men aged in twenty four were sexually inactive before COVID. Yes. Inactive.
17:17
And the tweet was from a guy named Matt Allison.
17:20
Who does a bunch of cool stuff. The tweet's not there anymore for some reason, or at least I can't see it. Canceled probably. Can't say you can't say men anymore. So this guy, Nat, is really interesting. His name's Matt Ellison,
17:34
Google. He's got, like, a cool website. He owns, this agency business.
17:38
Did you know that this guy so he's interested in this because he owns this thing called, like,
17:44
I'll have to look up what's called, but it's a kegel app. Do you know what a kegel is?
17:47
I do know what a kegel is. It is the, like,
17:50
exercise you do with your private parts. Yeah. So, basically, it
17:56
it makes it so you don't premature ejaculate. And
18:00
I think women do it too. You know, I don't know.
18:03
I think women do it because it it, like, it can increase, like, pleasure. But also, I think it's just healthy for you to do. Like, it's just like it's just like a movement that's good for you, I guess. I don't know. And this guy his name is Elias, not Elias.
18:17
He has a
18:18
an app called
18:20
I I'll I'll look it up what it's called, but it should be called squeeze. Because to do to do a kegel, you're basically trying to, like, you know, for a guy, you're basically trying to, like, flex your ball. That's the best way I could describe it,
18:32
and and for a girl, I'm sure there's, you know, the the equivalent. But I don't know what is It's called stam stamina.
18:39
Stamina. I don't know what the play on words is. Anyway,
18:42
it walks you through how to do these kegel exercises, and it makes like a hundred k a year. He just made it one time and it just ranks. What it's a crazy interesting
18:51
thing, kegel exercise. I never I never knew that was a thing.
18:56
Go ahead.
18:57
Okay. So so we've talked about this before. And before, when we said, I think you actually were the were the original person that's kind of rant about this, you were like, dude, kids aren't having sex. You're like, I went to this.
19:09
You know, people make funny for the hot dog stand thing. They're like, we get it. You used to own a hot dog stand. The other story that I've I've heard you tell a number of times because it's very entertaining, and I think it gets you hyped up is you went to some camp and they had a bunch they had, like, a gen z, like, you went to some summit, and they had a gen z analyst there. And the gen z analyst was like, hey, all the kids are depressed and not having sex. And then you were like, dude, what's going on? And you talked about replica, which was this app, this messaging app where you messaged, like, a virtual girlfriend,
19:38
And, I tried it out. You've tried it out. After you told me about it, I went and downloaded it. And it was okay. It was interesting. There's definitely a bunch of people who are really into this. It's like this AI virtual girlfriend, but I have a different slant to it that I wanna bring up here. So And by the way, this whole sex thing, this has been a problem in Japan, I think, for years.
19:57
Right. Right. Yeah. Those are like, you know, the sexless generation or something they they call it. Like,
20:02
okay. So I wanna actually talk about a company that's based in Austin, right, where you're, right, right, where you are. You might be able to see it if you look out the window. It's called interactive life forms LLC. You know, you know these guys?
20:13
Yeah. I I know where their building is. I've seen their building. Do you know what they make? No. If interactive, do they make sex styles? Interactive life forms. This is the maker of the fleshlight.
20:23
And so
20:25
I wanted to tell you about this. So I did a little research. I got a message from a founder of a tech company.
20:31
I won't say his name because he said no.
20:33
He said don't say his name, but he messaged me and he goes, dude, idea.
20:37
Modern flesh lights. And I was like, what? He goes, flesh lights. And he breaks he broke it down for me. He goes,
20:43
the,
20:44
the sex toy market is bigger than you think.
20:46
He goes,
20:48
female sex toys like a dildo or vibrator
20:51
are on the rise, and there's this big, like, kind of, like, anti
20:56
stig like, people trying to remove the stigma around it. I don't know if you've seen any of this, but it's, like, kind of the feminist movement
21:03
they call they call it sex positivity, which basically, like, hey, sex doesn't need to be taboo. It doesn't need to be stigma.
21:10
It's okay to have sex. That doesn't make you, like, you know, a bad person or something like that. And so there's this sex positivity movement. And with that, has been this big boom in sales of sex toys, primarily female sex toys. So I started looking at the most popular
21:24
male sex toy, which is the fleshlight. And so here's some information about the fleshlight.
21:30
It was started by this guy, Steve Schubbin.
21:32
And this guy's super interesting. He basically, he's a he's one of thirteen kids.
21:37
He,
21:38
go he plays college football, then he goes into the army, then he comes back and he's a police officer
21:44
with the SWAT team in LA.
21:46
And then he, like, retired from SWAT when he's like thirty something because he's like,
21:50
I love being in the police force, but, it doesn't pay well. So I'm gonna start a business. And his wife is a pro tennis player. So this is he's got this hot tennis player wife, and he's like, I'm gonna start a business. He doesn't know what he's gonna And by the way, do you know who that hot wife and Steve Schubin's son is?
22:08
No. Who? Aubrey Marcus, the founder of Onit.
22:12
Oh, no way. I didn't know. Yeah. And he
22:15
Co found with Joe Rogan. Yes. Because Flashlight was Joe Rogan's first sponsor that Aubrey secured.
22:22
Amazing. Okay. So I'll I'll get into that. That's actually a part of this. So,
22:26
so so years go by. He does nothing. Then they're in their forties,
22:31
Steve's wife gets pregnant, and the doctor tells him, hey, you're in your forties. So this is kinda like an at risk pregnancy.
22:37
So you can't, you can't be having sex.
22:40
And he's like, okay, doc. Like, you know, what do you want me to do? I'm a six three red blooded American. What what am I supposed to do? And so, he starts thinking about it.
22:50
And he goes,
22:51
why isn't there a,
22:54
why isn't there a sex toy for men? And so he's he originally plans to make a mannequin. And in fact, in nineteen ninety eight, he gets a patent
23:03
for a mannequin with sexual application. So it's basically like a doll. That he wants to make. So he's trying to make this dull, and he puts in fifty k, and he starts working on this doll. And he's he's trying to blend all these different polymers. How do you get this skin feel of this doll? How do you get the flesh to feel like flesh? How do you get it to look like a doll? Feel like a doll? I feel like a human. And,
23:22
And he makes it a family business. So he brings his sons into the to the table. They get a whiteboard out, and they start,
23:28
brainstorming together as a family, which I find hilarious.
23:31
Because, you know, in my family, this is not a this is not a business we could start together. So he he keeps going. Two years go by. He's put in a quarter million dollars now. He's sold zero,
23:42
zero zero product so far, and he keeps trying to make this full body dull.
23:47
And he meets a guy one day, a friend of his, and his friend's like, hey,
23:51
I think what you're doing is great. There's this weird taboo around this. But why not? More pleasure in the world. What's the problem? So he says,
23:58
will you give me one? I'll I'll buy one off you. And he says, cool. What's your address? I'll send you the doll? And he's like, no, dude. No way. I can't bring that doll into my house. He's like, just take out the part that's, like, the vagina of the doll and send me that, like, put it in a little box and, you know, my wife won't see it and, just send me that. And so he's like, dude, if my friend who wants this won't, like, can't buy this doll. This doll is dead. So that's why he pivoted from the doll
24:22
to just the just the, like, you know, just the the organ part of it, just a single piece, one component.
24:28
So he's like, oh, okay. How how do we brand this? So him and his sons are brainstorming, and they're like, what do guys like? Guys like tools? Okay. This thing's kinda like a flashlight. Okay. We'll call this the flashlight. So that's how it gets its name, during that process.
24:42
And so he eventually This was like a father, son project. Father son project, multiple sons. Oh, weird, dad. And so,
24:48
now years have gone by. They've put in over two million dollars And this guy believes so much in this thing. He ramps up production. He's pumping out twelve hundred units a day before they've sold anything because he's like, the world is gonna love this. They are gonna buy this thing.
25:03
And, so he goes all in on this to to meet this, you know, future demand and turns out they actually did it. So the flashlight now,
25:11
these guys do, I believe, about a hundred million dollars in revenue. It's definitely above fifty. It's they don't report it, but it to me, I did some sleuthing. And I think it's a hundred million dollar a year company over a hundred employees.
25:24
They,
25:25
basically dominate the market for for for male sex toys now. And, you know, this guy who went all in on this thing, it ended up being a successful family business, which I think is, you know, just a heartwarming story.
25:37
What a crazy story. And and I had heard a little bit about it, but I didn't realize
25:42
I didn't know all those details, but I think By the way, this is the best part of the whole story. So he he opens up a facility in Austin. So he's manufactured near you.
25:52
Then he has a one in Spain, and he has one somewhere else in Asia, I think. And
25:57
He has so much, like, manufacturing capacity.
26:00
So what do they do with the excess capacity when they when they have a little extra? Guess what they make. They make prosthetics
26:07
for elephants who have had their legs blown off in the, you know, from from where there's minds and and and Southeast Asia.
26:15
So they're they are the top maker of elephant prosthetics in in Southeast Asia. That's their backup. That's their side business. What got you interested in this?
26:24
Well, when this guy said it, I was like, you know, the founder who messaged me, he I yeah. This is we're might have to bleep this, but he goes, dude,
26:31
every guy jacks off. There's gotta be a market. What if you he's like, what if this he's like, I don't own this product. You don't own this product. He goes, but what if this thing made it ten times better? Isn't that crazy that there's still a taboo around this? That's gonna change, dude. The sex positivity thing for women, it's gonna affect men. I bet you you can make a modern day DDC version of the fleshlight. And so I started thinking about it and started looking up, okay, how big is this, how big is this industry, and it is a pretty big industry. Like, they do, like, the sex toy industry itself is about twenty billion dollars a year. What percentage is to to men? So women so this is kind of to figure out the sales difference. So it's it's dominated by female,
27:09
sales.
27:10
So the fleshlight is the biggest of males, but,
27:13
the the female industry is much bigger, about sixty five percent of women say that they have used one. There was a stat that said fifty percent of male men said that they've used one, which I don't believe.
27:24
I don't I know a lot of dudes. I haven't heard one ever talk about this, so maybe it's just happening on the down low, but A sex toy?
27:30
Yeah. Like the I've never I've never had one conversation with a friend. Not a single. Yeah. So so
27:36
yeah. So I don't know if I believe that stat, but
27:39
basically, the European market is bigger than the American market. Like, places like Italy, it's like super common, apparently. They're, you know, free love.
27:47
Places, the fastest growing markets right now are India and China, where it's the most taboo.
27:52
But what's happened is because it's all gone to e commerce,
27:55
And the e commerce companies are using very discreet packaging. Like, they send it to you and it looks like one thing, but inside is another. And so that's the, like, that's where this thing is growing. And so there's a bunch of startups in this space as well that are,
28:08
doing, like, fifteen million a year, like, love, honey. Like, just just check out this traffic. So
28:13
the top the top website for this, the top sort of Amazon for this thing is called adam and eve. Yeah. I was just I was just looking at adam and eve. Because they have stores all over San Francisco.
28:23
They they have about eight million visitors a month to their e commerce store, which is a huge e commerce store.
28:30
Love hunting is about four million to their store. And what's interesting is just all these problems, all this friction in trying to build one of these companies because
28:38
Stripe won't let you take payments.
28:40
Wait. Why wouldn't Stripe let you take payments for a dealer? They say, we don't, we do not do any sexual products.
28:48
So that's it. So you can use Shopify, but Shopify uses Stripe. And so you can't do Shopify, basically, because Stripe won't allow it. So, Adam and Eve love Honey, these these companies, they can't
28:57
they can't process on Stripe. And so there's an opportunity, I think, for for, you know, building Stripe for vice products, because cannabis can't use Stripe and neither can any any sex products,
29:09
porn can't use stripe. And so
29:12
if, you know, just those three industries alone, that's like multiple hundreds of billions of dollars of of of turnover.
29:17
And so who's building Stripe for Vice? I don't know. I wanna go I wanna go look into that.
29:22
Another one of these, like, opportunities is,
29:26
is is is that you can build a, a brand that's figures out a new form of marketing because you can't advertise on Facebook
29:34
or Instagram,
29:36
or any, like, kind of display network that's,
29:38
mainstream
29:39
for these products. And so I was looking into how do they get around this, and I was curious, how would you get around this if you were trying to market one of these products? It's a it's a interesting sort of, like, job interview question I would ask, somebody wants to Well, I would write articles on, like,
29:54
you write articles
29:55
that are yep. Yeah. So you have to write let me So if we're talking about, like, a vibrator, you would write an article about, like,
30:03
sexual health, I guess, or I don't know. Whatever
30:05
a I mean, I would have to add I don't I would have to do research. What what a woman who is about to buy this, what is she what type of content interests her? And I would write that article and I would display it on outbrain or I would display it on,
30:20
I don't know. Where would I display? It's hard. So I looked into how these guys are doing it, and I think there's there's three interesting Oh, pornhub. You gotta go you can do pornhub. So so they use the adult ad networks, like traffic junkie and XO Click. So they advertise on porn sites, basically. That's that's a good that's a easy one. Pretty straightforward.
30:39
The other thing that they do is they they do heavy like content. So so even though you can't advertise on, on Facebook,
30:45
and you can you're kind of limited on Google. You can do it for certain keywords
30:49
and for just stuff that people searching for. So if people are searching for, what is the best one I should buy, what it, you know, reviews.
30:56
And so you remember how the cat the the mattress company Casper was buying up the mattress review websites
31:02
and then, like, promoting Casper. So that's what these guys will do as well. They'll buy up the review sites,
31:08
and then they'll just put their products as the best reviewed product on there, and they'll say, this is, you know, I'm an affiliate for this for this company.
31:15
So that's one way. And then the I thought the most innovative one
31:18
And they also do, like, kind of direct. So, like, you were saying, Flashlight was one of the first sponsors on Joe rogan. They'll do that. They'll go direct to podcasts or newsletters,
31:27
that are willing to take them as a sponsor, and they'll they'll go for it there. But, the last one I thought was interesting was Well, flashlight did. This is a little bit this whole segment's a little bit x rated. I, you know,
31:39
you know, apologies if you're listening to this with kids in the car. You know, I hope you've skipped forward at this point. But, basically, what Flashlight did was they wanted celebrity sponsors.
31:48
So what they did was, you know,
31:51
Nike goes to LeBron James and says, okay. We want you to sponsor our stuff.
31:56
So are they gonna get women to be the they got they went to famous models and porn stars and they created
32:02
molds of them. And so it's like you can buy the I I forgot the I looked at the chart of who is the top selling SKU of that. And so there's a woman Kayla or Shala or something like that. I don't remember her name of us, but she's some model, she's some points are. I don't know who she is, but she's famous. And they they they bring them in, they do a cast it, a cast mold of her body, and then they turn that into a product, and then she can sell that product to her fans. And so I was thinking if you were gonna do this now, you have only fans where where, you know, I think a billion billion plus dollars is being paid out to their creators.
32:37
I would go to only fans, creators, and I would do this the I would do that model for them. I think that would be probably the strongest distribution tactic you could get.
32:46
Dude, what a fascinating thing?
32:49
I,
32:51
would you ever I would invest in this, but I wouldn't I would never work on this. I would never work on this. I've zero interest in this from from, you know, like, to actually, like, pursue it. But I do think it's one of those things that nobody talks about. And so because nobody talks about it, it's both interesting and it's surprising when you look into it, how this whole system actually works. So I like you know, just like, I love the Silk Road, I would never go on the silk road and buy drugs, but I like to learn about it and see how it worked and how big it was and who was behind it and how how they kept it stealthy.
33:22
Like, that's fascinating to me. Just like, I like watching prison shows, but I'm not trying to go murder anybody. I like watching, you know, bank heist, but I'm not planning to rob anybody. That's how I am with this these types of products. So at the Adam and Eve store or what was it called?
33:35
Yeah, Adam and Eve stores.
33:37
I saw the though, we had so many locations in San Francisco. We probably had three or four or five different locations.
33:44
It's a pretty huge business. Hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue currently owned by, I believe, a private equity setting.
33:51
That is also another
33:53
fascinating business. Did you research that?
33:55
No. I didn't research that one, but I one other two other, like, interesting things about how they how they market these things. I thought was pretty clever. It just shows, you know,
34:06
entrepreneurial
34:07
creativity here. Alright. So,
34:09
there's one company that's doing these, like, you know, like, the the sort of MLM model, which which is
34:15
you get one person who's kind of a seller for you and they have a party. So this is like the old tupperware parties.
34:21
They call them passion parties for this. And so they have women invite their friends over. They're called passion parties where they show the different toys and what they could do or whatever. I don't know how this this sounds like the most awkward party to me, but apparently it's working.
34:33
The second one that I thought was super interesting was,
34:37
they basic there was a company called,
34:40
Diamond Product, and they make they make, some brand of something. I I have no idea.
34:45
And they couldn't advertise in any traditional channel So they went and they bought,
34:50
sir Richard condoms company.
34:52
So they said, oh, condoms are allowed to be advertised on TV and in on on on different websites, it's more loose to to, to,
35:01
like, you, Trojan. Right? We've all seen Trojan ads on TV, for example, So if the restrictions are looser there, they went and bought that company. And then on their website, they just they upsell other products, basically.
35:11
And so he he went and bought this company because he goes, they're sold in whole foods. He's like, this makes it so easy for me to advertise because now I own this little thing. He's like, it's my trojan horse.
35:21
Like, you know, this is how I advertise my my sex products company. And so I thought that was pretty interesting. And, you know, I think if you did this with Instagram models and Oldie fans, you could basically just copy the,
35:32
what's that watch brand, MVMT,
35:34
You could copy the the the Movement Movement watches brand,
35:38
model and and try to, you know, they they went to a hundred million in sales and watches. I bet you could do the same using their influencer
35:44
strategy.
35:45
Dude, how interesting? Like,
35:47
I,
35:48
I love learning from these types of people. I I don't even like. I'm don't even like going to this. I went to the Flashlight website. I don't even like going to that. I think. Close the tab. Yeah. I think it's weird. I'm on my work computer just so anyone
36:01
at Hubspot List. Yeah. I apologize.
36:03
My, my, my wife's dad listens to the podcast. I I'm just gonna tell him, hey, don't don't listen to this one. I apologize. If you will. Well, it was a fairly academic discussion about something. Well, the worst part is now my now I'm getting retargeted like crazy because I was doing research on this for the pod. And now all my ads are completely,
36:21
messed up. Well, do you wanna talk about another interesting person? Yes. Or do you wanna talk about an idea? Person. Make this a p okay. We're gonna do, an interesting person. Okay. There's this guy who we're gonna do Billy the week here with this guy. And I, by the way, I think we're gonna do this We've discussed doing this every Friday. Maybe we will. But Google's got By the way, we need, like, a jingle for the belly of the week. It needs to be, like, the billing of the week. Somebody make us a little jingle for that. That would be pretty cool.
36:49
We do need that. Google Brad Kelly. And make sure you spell it, like, b r a d. So Brad, space,
36:55
k e l l e y.
36:58
Okay. If you're on your phone, do it, Brad Kelly. Now you're gonna see a of a guy with a red beard. You see the red beard? I see it. Okay. And then two over, you're gonna see a picture of an old guy with a longer, like, he looks like, like, Mark Twain.
37:12
Yep. See it black and white. So that that's the same guy. The photos are just he's just older now. So
37:17
this guy, he's so interesting to me for a couple different reasons. So this guy's name is Brad Kelly. At this point, he's probably in his sixties,
37:25
and he's known as, the man with a million acres. That was a headline that was written in the New York Times about him. And they wrote it about him, because he is one of the largest landowners in America. At one point, he was number three or number four.
37:39
And he's kinda known for being incredibly reclusive. So he doesn't do any interviews. He doesn't do anything like that, but he's bad to the bone. He's a really interesting guy. And I've read a little bit about him, and I've kinda got a feel for this guy, and he's so intriguing to me. So he was born,
37:54
you know, he's sixty five years older ish. He was born in Kentucky.
37:57
Went to college in Kentucky, but at age nineteen dropped out because he started buying warehouses.
38:04
And he started making enough money buying and leasing out warehouses at Alright. I'm gonna do this. I don't need school anymore. And eventually, he started renting them out to people who were building stuff, so who creating little miniature factories
38:15
He would fix them up and lease them to people.
38:18
And eventually, he saw that people were using them to store tobacco.
38:22
And one of his tenants moved out and he got whole he he they left a machine that turned tobacco and, like, pumped him into cigarettes or, you know, like, a, like, a rolling machine or something like that. He was like, well, I got this machine. Let's try it. And so he started making cheap cigarettes. And eventually, he rolled, he made it a proper company, and he called commonwealth brands. And if you Google commonwealth brands, I don't smoke cigarettes, but I recognize some of the brands. They're like, I think maybe it's like he has like fifteen or so cigarette brands. Yeah. It's, like, I think par limits. That's, like, when I was a kid, that was, like, we would joke. Like, if someone spoke par limit, that mean they were, like, a broke kid.
38:59
But he made cheap cigarettes. And after ten years, he sold this cigarette company for a billion dollars.
39:05
And I hate smoking, and I don't think it's cool to smoke.
39:09
And he that doesn't either. And he didn't, but he didn't hide that. He goes, I've never defended smoking, and I hope that it will be phased out of society. But I did because, you know, it made I made a living doing, you know, it it made me a living for me. And using almost all of them when billionaires say they they're just trying to make a living, It's like, no, you made you made like a billion livings. That's a lot of Yeah. You made a lot of livings.
39:27
And with all this money, he did a couple interesting things. The first thing that he did well, he didn't do it first, but the first interesting thing is he bought lonely planet. You know what lonely planet is?
39:37
I've heard that name. What is that? Is that a dating site? That's a dating site? I bet you if you at your,
39:41
your book collection, you might have a lonely planet book. It's a travel website and book company. Oh, okay. And it was a big it was a really big deal for many years. And then when digital came along, it got crushed. And he bought lonely planet for seventy million dollars, and he had us and they probably had three hundred employees And he had, a kid that he liked. Somehow met this young guy who was twenty four, and he put him as CEO, and they never signed a contract. They just shook hands, and they go, alright. You're a CEO now. You know, talk to me if you need me. Such a Kentucky thing to do to sink in.
40:12
And this kid ran it, and it didn't do so hot. I mean, it, like, would have been cool if there was a better ending to that part of the story. Right.
40:21
Either through a combination of the twenty four year old sucking and COVID, they sold it
40:26
for, like, fifty million. So he didn't make money on it.
40:29
But what he did with the rest of his money is he bought ranches
40:33
and leased them back to the owners And they make a little bit of profit, but not a significant amount of profit. And at this point, he owns,
40:41
over a million acres in America. Which is a huge, huge, huge amount, making him in twenty twelve, the fourth largest land owner in America.
40:50
The guy never does interviews,
40:51
He, you can't find him if you want to. He's really hard to find.
40:55
The only reason people really truly know about him is at one point, he sold one of his ranches for four hundred million dollars.
41:02
Really interesting guy. I like him because he's,
41:07
I think that, like, I get caught in this world on Twitter of, like, oh, build in build in public. You know, what's your MRR? I gotta go to executive coaching.
41:17
And it's so nice to hear from a guy. This guy actually seems like a pretty thoughtful guy, but he definitely gives off the redneck vibe.
41:24
Obviously, he's highly intelligent, but
41:27
they say that, like, he goes to his ranches and he likes to drink bourbons, bourbon and wear a kilt.
41:34
So he's, like, kind of a wild guy. He's into some weird shit. Alright.
41:38
Yeah. But pretty interesting guy. And I wanted to bring this guy up because I bet most people never heard of him.
41:44
But so interesting. He also owns do you know what Kentucky Downs is?
41:47
The horse horse track?
41:49
Yeah. He owns that. Oh, wow. And so he just owns all types of real estate, and that's where he put all of his money into. Very interesting person.
41:58
Yeah. This is this is cool. So why were you saying the part about people,
42:03
who have like executive coaches? And what was the contrast there? So to explain that one?
42:09
Like, I see people who've got, like, small ass companies who, like, are not even they're they're, like, barely just started, and they're, like, tweeting out, like, leadership quotes, or they're talking about, like,
42:20
how they need to be more inclusive at their company or this and that.
42:24
And I just get sick of this hype thing, and I see all the people like, oh, build in public,
42:29
and and I'm guilty of all this as well. But, like, all the and we're part of the hype cycle. Right? We're media, but it's cool to see someone who you've never heard of who just is anonymous and shuts the fucks up and just works and does cool stuff and has a cool life. And it's entirely like, you know, everyone's, like, I got in a fight on Twitter about people which, about buying domain names. You think this guy knows how knows how to buy a domain name? In one of the interviews, he said, he he's he doesn't know how to use email. Right. Yeah. This guy's not vegan.
42:56
Yeah. This guy.
42:58
No. This guy eats vegans.
43:00
Right.
43:02
This guy is made of leather.
43:04
Yeah. Okay. So you just like that these, like, kind of like a tough guy, rough guy, business guy, doesn't give a fuck. And, everybody else you know, make such a big deal of little things is kind of what I just think it's cool to see to hear different perspectives. And I'm sure that,
43:19
does a lot of bad stuff. I mean, he owns a cigarette company. Right? Like, that's kind of pretty shitty. But,
43:26
it was just cool. It's cool to have a different perspective And this guy, if you Google them, I'm pretty sure there's only three pictures that I've I've researched this guy a lot. I I've only found three pictures of him. And he's worth three or four billion dollars.
43:40
I like it. Alright. He is indeed
43:43
the billy of the week.
43:45
I wonder I wonder who I wonder how people will will react to this guy, because I think some people are, like, so anti cigarettes that they're, like,
43:53
you are, you know, that you're saying that you you kinda idolizing this guy who is a,
43:59
you know, who did bad things, like a, you know, like a warlord almost. And so I don't know. You're you were the one who also said you would not invest in Jewel. Right? Was that you? Yeah. Look, I'm not I'm not defending this person's actions. I think but I think that no matter how evil or horrible someone there's you could always find something interesting,
44:15
maybe saying
44:17
admirable is a bit of a stretch, but you could always find somebody interesting no matter how bad someone is. And I don't think this guy's necessarily a bad guy, but, yeah, he I mean, he fucking he's so poison. Yeah. It's pretty Right. See, I think of it I think know. Maybe I'm a little disconnected from reality, but for me, I'm like
44:34
I don't like movies where everybody is a good guy. I would not play a game
44:38
a video game
44:40
where you just walk around as a good samaritan. Like, those aren't fun to me. And I think that the real world has
44:46
all kinds of people, shapes, colors, beliefs, all all kinds of different things. And
44:51
I'm interested
44:53
in
44:54
the variety of ways that people live their life. And I'm glad that people live their life doing all these different things. Even though a lot of them are, like,
45:02
villains or a lot of them. I'm not saying this guy's a villain, but, like, I think that's just the way the world is, and I think it's crazy to believe that the world shouldn't be that way or won't be that way. Where people are gonna live their life doing different things. Maybe this guy likes to drink bourbon and wear a kilt on a farm that he owns, like, alright, great. I'm glad that character exists And I'm glad that that that, you know, I'm glad these characters exist. I think that,
45:24
most people will not feel that way. Most people will say, well, if this person's a bad guy,
45:30
you know, he shouldn't exist. And I don't know. I I find that to be this is not the way I think about it. I believe every great man or every great woman is also a bad man. So what I mean by that is if you are at all if you're considered great at anything, or one of the best. Inevitably, you have any enemies because you can't make everyone happy. Right. Now By the way, can you tweet that out? So I'm doing this thing. Getting, behind me. One of the things that's gonna go behind me is I'm pre I'm getting these laser etched
45:58
signs
45:59
that are tweets, basically. It's called laser tweets dot com. And so,
46:04
you could basically get a any tweet turned into a wooden laser etched sign, and I'm gonna put I'm gonna hang a couple of my favorite quotes and tweets behind me. And one of them, one of my favorites is every great man. He's also a bad man. And so I need you to tweet that out so that I could do it. But what you can't do is you can or you could do person,
46:22
if you if you wanna not make it a gender specific here, I need you to beat that out so I can I can get that one made? Maybe you're gonna get you're gonna get on my wall. I don't think I may I think I made up that phrasing, but, I I read it in a book. And, I don't remember exactly how they phrased it, but that's how I phrased it. But I believe it to be true. And, dude, I did so much research on this guy. That I went and I went to land forums. So a really interesting research tactic that you should do is you type in whatever you're searching for. Like Flashlight, and then you type in forum. Right.
46:52
And then you are brought to user generated content of message boards at what people are saying. You could do the same thing, but you just type in the word Reddit. It's pretty sick. And I went to land forums where this guy bought people's land, and they go, yeah, you know, someone's like, hey, this guy named,
47:07
Brad Kelly offered to buy my land,
47:10
who sold to him. And people are like, yeah, we sold to him. He's fine enough, done done bother us and offered us a fair deal. And so they're like, well, and we all and people said, well, and we read about him doing cigarettes and that kinda sucks, but He's ever caused us a problem. So, anyway, every great man is also a bad man.
47:28
I like it. Did you wanna do any any of these other ones, or are we saving them?
47:33
I think this one should they should be saved. Okay. I have one quick one because I don't really have much to say, but we talk Or we could do the NDC one. Okay. I'm gonna do a one quick plug for these guys that took an idea we talked about and they made it. So we talked about levels that FYI, which is a salary compares a website. We had a whole episode about, like, open salaries and should you or should you not? Transparent data, how that helps. Blah blah blah. And we said, hey, levels does this for the tech industry where you can go see. Alright. If I'm a Facebook pro product manager, level five, what will I make if I live in Seattle? What will I make if I live in San Francisco? What's the benchmark? What are the what is some data? So I know if I'm getting if I'm getting hosed, if they gave me a fair job offer or not fair job offer. And so
48:14
we said, dude, somebody should do this for other industries, because this is awesome.
48:18
Why isn't this happening in other? So these guys made medlevels dot FYI, and it's basically pay.
48:24
And so they if you go to it, you can see they don't have a ton of data yet, but, they're getting some they're getting doctors to to put in how much they're getting paid. Based on where they live, what type of doctor they are. I think it's great. Super simple. It's just basically an air table
48:39
displayed on a website. So really easy to build. And, shout out. No. It's, Google forms, I think.
48:45
Yeah. Yeah. I would say, like, in theory. Right? It's, like, such a simple
48:48
simple product to do. So med levels, that FYI, good job by those guys. And if you're a doctor listening, go put your shade in there. Yeah. It's pretty cool. I was looking at this. Alright. We'll wrap it up by talking about one more thing. And maybe we should put this in the beginning, but Let me ask you, how has your angel investing gone
49:05
so far? I'll tell you in ten years. That's the problem with angel investing. But
49:10
How many deals have you invested in?
49:12
I think a little under twenty, maybe, like, eighteen, something like that, eighteen companies we've invested in. Deployed about,
49:18
I don't know, million and a half, two million dollars, something like that. And do you feel confident that you have some winners?
49:25
Yeah. Definitely there's some winners.
49:28
Now we'll see. I think any anything anything happened, but I would say I'd be surprised if out of these eighteen,
49:34
If we don't have,
49:36
you know, two companies that are worth a billion dollars or more, I'd be surprised.
49:40
So, wow, that's pretty sick. So we, a few weeks ago, I tweeted out something that Andrew Chen said. Basically, I asked Andrew Chen who's a partner at andreessen horowitz, what his advice to me for angel investing was. And he told me his opinion, and I tweeted that out. People shit on me, even though I was like, I'm not saying this. I'm just
49:59
or I'm just, like I'm the messenger. Yeah. Like, I'm just, like, reporting on someone interesting's opinion, but I did tend to agree of, on a couple of the things And one of them was that
50:10
there's this narrative
50:12
that you there's this narrative of people who hate VC.
50:16
And they're like, I would rather
50:18
grow slower. And it's like, okay. That's cool. Do that. But in order And and they also say,
50:25
profits matter, you know, like and they they love to mock Silicon Valley companies. They're like, dude, these got, you know, they don't know anything about profits. I'm sorry. I'm just over here running a profitable business. Just growing steady every year. And so they they like to get on that kind of high horse. Which is crazy because, like, both can exist and be wonderful.
50:42
But
50:43
there was this guy who I really like, and I don't mean to shit on him at all.
50:47
His it was called NDC,
50:49
and it was
50:50
it was kinda weird. I don't know why it was a venture capital firm because
50:54
its whole shtick was basically we invest in bootstrap businesses that wanna grow slowly.
51:01
They didn't exactly say slowly, but it was for bootstrap companies, which is Again, a little bit of an oxymoron. Why is a bootstrap company gonna be taking venture capital? Right.
51:11
But a lot of people really liked it. And the guy he ran it, I forget his name. I met with awesome guy, and they went out of business this week. And Bryce, I think it's his name. Bryce. I like Bryce. Bryce is a good guy. But the model didn't work.
51:24
And I wanted to bring this up because something that Andrew said was he said two things. He was
51:30
said
51:31
invest in quantity. So just kinda throw money at a bunch of stuff. So, like, anything that seems promising, just kinda mindlessly invest in it. And second,
51:41
make sure it's growing three x a year. If it's not, then it's not good. And a lot of people didn't like when I said that. And they didn't like it, I think, because it kind of hurt their feelings of, like, well, You're saying I'm not worthy of venture capital. And the answer is is, yeah, you're not. Right. You're you're not. And but that's okay. That doesn't like, you shouldn't be offended.
51:59
Right. You don't have to shut down your business. That just means
52:02
this type of asset this type of venture, you know, venture, capital
52:06
is chasing a certain profile, a company, and you may not fit that profile. And by the way, I think that most people,
52:13
I bet you
52:15
I mean, this sounds so douchey. I bet you I've made significantly more money than a lot of people who have raised.
52:20
Absolutely.
52:21
And so I was telling somebody this the other day. I was like,
52:25
I was like, you know, media companies. We're talking about media companies.
52:28
And, you know, you guys just sold your you guys are media company. And it wasn't the biggest exit ever. It's not like, you know, some insane thing. But I was like, dude, he I don't how much did you raise total? Like, a million and a half dollars, two million dollars, something like that? A million. A million dollars. Right? So it took so little money
52:45
and then not so so give give the profile. It was a million dollars and it took you how many years from start to finish,
52:52
not finish, but but the liquidity.
52:55
Start as in we raised money to finish,
52:58
less than five years. And I made eight eight figures. Right. Exactly. And so and you owned, you know, majority of the business or whatever. So, like, because you didn't have to raise all this money and dilute yourself over and over and over again from round after round after round. And it's like there are if you look at companies that are selling for a billion dollars where the founder owns four percent or two percent or seven percent. And, you know, there's not like and they and they sweated it for ten years And every hair on their head is gray because, because of that path. So it doesn't
53:28
the size of the exit is not
53:30
not linked really to the to the outcome for the for the founder themselves. I agree, which proves that we're not, or I I know for speaking to myself. And I I I think you you're not shitting on this this idea of anti VC whatever, but
53:45
this company went out of business, and it goes against this narrative of, like, if you're gonna give money to venture capital
53:52
or companies that fit the profile of VC, you want them to be what many would just think or describe as reckless.
53:59
Right.
54:00
And that One one thing I didn't get,
54:03
why did they go out of business? So so basically they couldn't raise more money was the idea.
54:08
Yeah. Right? That's how a VC Fund goes out of business. And he said in his thing, he's like, we invested in ten companies,
54:14
or whatever. He gave some numbers. So so tell me, but he goes, They were all bootstrapped and profitable, and they're all still going and they're forty he said something like, we've invested in these. They're all still going. They're all still profitable.
54:26
We couldn't raise any more money. It's like, what what are you I don't understand what what is his reason? Why did they go out of business? He he kinda sounded like he was crying a little bit. I used kinda whining because he's like, our LPs didn't like
54:38
our model, so they pulled the plug because, you know, whatever.
54:43
I I didn't read the thing very carefully. So you tell me, you you look into this. No. I mean, yeah. Why is he saying they failed? I don't think he was whining. I think he was just saying the fact that, like, most people don't like this idea and weren't willing to stick it out. And I don't blame them because if you go to n d dot v c, the website, it's a video of a a unicorn head on fire as if, like, they're anti unicorn. And I in my head, I'm like returns are good. If his returns are good, every people would still be looking to back the fund because people who invest in But the returns aren't as good as other stuff like that. Right. So that's what he needs to say. It's not that people don't like this. He needs to say I was wrong. My returns weren't as good as I thought they would be, and they were not good enough to get more money. Because people invest I invest in VC funds, I also would invest in real estate, which has a different profile. I'll invest in crypto, which has a different return risk return profile. I invest in many things. And so
55:34
That's why I thought it was kinda whining because I didn't it didn't just say the honest truth. I had this idea that this would be a great way to invest and my re but my returns were actually shitty. And therefore, I couldn't raise more money. And either that's true or
55:48
his returns were actually good, and he sucked at going and getting new investors. I didn't there's only two ways to go about it. Right? Like, I didn't understand. I didn't I stopped reading because I didn't he didn't he wasn't saying the truth in my opinion?
56:00
No. I mean, he said the truth. He said that, like, our strategy, a lot of LPs bailed, it costs us eighty percent of our LP base. They didn't wanna come back.
56:09
And it was just, yeah, the strategy didn't didn't work in the sense of investors. Did he post his returns?
56:15
No. Okay. That's the thing he needed to say. Right? He's saying they didn't like our strategy. It was so he he's kinda just like patting himself on the back. I felt. He's like, they didn't like that we were going against the Graham going against the VC thing and they had to pull out because of that. It's like, well,
56:30
is it that they didn't like what you were doing or is it that wasn't working. And the returns weren't very good, and they didn't believe the returns were gonna be very good. I don't know. I I'm being harsh on the guy. I don't know the guy, but No. He's cool. And I'm not bringing this up to show, and I'm I think it's cool. He took a shot. It was a bad shot, though, and that's that's great. Right? You take swings sometimes missed. For sure. But, I think though it's important it's important that we look at what this what's what does this mean here? And I think that someone like Andrew Chen, who's this
57:00
from the outside, you think of him as, like, an elitist, like, went to, I don't know. He just, like, give this vibe that he's, like, an elitist type of guy.
57:08
But
57:09
and and so and he kinda represents a lot of the people like him. Right? These, like, VCs who are like, oh, like, fuck these tech bros.
57:15
And the reality is those that that strategy of, like, doing stuff that appears to be reckless from the outside,
57:22
it is the right strategy. It just feels really uncomfortable for a lot of people. Dude, if you if you'd it's it's a classic, don't hate the player, hate the game. It's not that the it's not that VC's decided. Oh, you know what I'll do? I'm gonna invest in a bunch of companies and one or two will return the fund and everything else will go to zero. It's not that they want that. Right? That's actually extremely
57:43
stressful for them.
57:45
That, hey, if I get into this company that becomes a ten billion dollar plus company, I'm a hero and I'm the best. And if I just miss them and I invest in a bunch of other good companies that didn't quite get there, I suck, and I can't raise my next fund and I'm out of a job. And,
57:59
And so so so it's crazy to me that, like,
58:02
they're not picking this. That just is the nature of the game, and they have to play it if they want to succeed at it. It's like in any game theory,
58:10
it will the game will the players in the game will eventually find the meta game, the strategy
58:15
that is the optimal strategy. And if you just because of your, like, you know, your opinion and your personality and your morals don't wanna play it. Cool. That's fine, but you're just not gonna get not gonna be playing the optimal strategy, you're gonna eventually lose the game. And so I I think it's crazy that people hate the VCs when it's just that's the way that innovation works. The innovations that break through
58:35
become humongous
58:36
and the innovations that don't become zeros
58:39
and, or close to zeros. And the the winners are so big that that's dominate all the returns. But then there's this other ground where it's like FVC, which
58:47
me personally, I'm on that boat where I wanna be a VC, but I don't wanna take VC money. And and that that's this other group of people. It's like, dude, they all can exist. Like Right. And that's what the that quote is so insightful. Right? Don't hate the player, hate the game. Cool. You can hate the game. That's a lot. That's in the quote.
59:03
You're allowed to hate the game and say, I'm gonna play a different game. No problem. You can play games where you bootstrap or you don't raise VAC money where you don't do business at all. You go be an employee somewhere. No problem.
59:13
That's always an option.
59:15
Well, I guess we just did a whole little rant, but I wanted to bring that up.
59:20
We'll see if this episode turns out to be anything interesting.
59:23
How about you? How we do?
59:25
E plus I want the graphics guys to, like, slam a big b plus all over the screen.
59:30
Alright. Why b plus? You gotta give give the people that your explanation. Why why why are you saying what you're saying? I mean, I'd it was good research, but it just wasn't as juicy as it could be. It was good. I've never seen Sean more animated than when he talks about flashlights, by the way. Yeah. I was super into that, to be honest. I, I got ruined when I went to the website. It's pretty freaking disgusting.
59:52
But do you go to the website? No.
59:54
Did all my research, but I didn't go to their websites. It's not great. It's pretty gross.
01:00:02
But, no, I think it's interesting. I think what we'll have to do is,
01:00:05
I think,
01:00:06
like, if we did an entire episode on flashlight or an entire episode on the Skype Brad Kelly, I think it would be crazy fascinating.
01:00:16
More? I thought you I thought Brad was saying I went too much into it. No. That the the flashlight was the best part. I'm just saying you were very animated about it. Yeah. Like I would do here and I I have root I have space, but it's cold. So I have to talk in an animated way to, like, not food myself. You're passionate about flashlights. It's so I've been listening I listened to a true crime podcast every night, which is weird that I'm in bed, like, with my wife. I'm about to go to sleep hearing about, like, how this guy was, like, murdered and raped these people.
01:00:42
But it's this one lately called generation y.
01:00:46
It's really popular, and all it is is two guys discussing crimes and mysteries ranging from nine eleven to serial murders to the Bermuda Triangle,
01:00:56
all the all that type of thing. And all they're doing is talking and retelling a story, we should definitely just do that with one interesting person.
01:01:04
Yeah. I think that's great.
01:01:06
Although if it's not true crime, I don't know how interesting people how interesting people would be in it.
01:01:11
If you told
01:01:13
a sixty to seventy to ninety minute story in the same way that you told that fleshlight story,
01:01:20
people would love it.
01:01:22
I could tell because, I mean, I could I was enthralled by it. What's the first story we could tell?
01:01:28
How could we try it?
01:01:30
Well,
01:01:31
one time we talked about this the French Bill Gates, that that guy was so intriguing to me.
01:01:38
To do sixty minutes, that's, like, you can really only tell, like, your own story or, like, some something you really go or like a, you know, the American king pen store, you can, like, retell it, retell the book basically as a as a podcast. Well, that's what you're doing at at the end of the day, which is you're just reading
01:01:53
fifteen articles and you're telling the long story about it. And what you could do is
01:01:59
one of us is the more more researched
01:02:02
and the other one listens and ask questions.
01:02:05
Okay. Alright. I'm down to try it if you have an idea. Am I wrong, Abreya?
01:02:10
I mean, it could work. I'm just I don't know how you can make it that exciting. Like, true crime, there's suspense, there's mystery, you know, what's gonna happen. I don't I guess business maybe like big business scandals you could do that with No, dude. You do it exactly like you did the fleshlight. The origin stories. Yeah. I think origin stories are good. Right? That's what I tried to do with the fleshlight guy. I was like,
01:02:29
basically, you you tell how this thing came to be.
01:02:33
So I think you could do it that way.
01:02:36
It works. I don't I but I agree with John. I don't know how you get sixty to ninety minutes out of it. I think you basic yeah. Forget the six to nine minutes. That doesn't matter. It could be twenty minutes. It's no no issue, but
01:02:46
It's like just a well told story, a well researched and therefore a well told
01:02:50
story about something that happened. I honestly know, like, me, I started listening to this YouTube channel that basically is like it's like book summaries,
01:02:57
but,
01:02:58
actually done good. I I actually like it. And, what's it called? It's called productivity game as a YouTube. It's a YouTube channel with about half a million, I think, subscribers or something like that. I might I could be wrong on that, but it has a lot of subscribers.
01:03:11
But I've listened to probably ten of their book summaries of just books I've had, I bought. I just haven't got to. I'm like, do I really wanna go read, like, made to stick, or can I just, like, watch this seven minute video and, like, oh, those are the four principles made to stick? Cool. I still might read the book, but now I know if it's, like, interesting or not. And so similarly,
01:03:27
I'm reading, like, you know, whether it's,
01:03:30
like, for example, I read this book, PayPal,
01:03:33
whatever, the PayPal origin story or whatever.
01:03:36
If we just retold that,
01:03:38
it's like, you know, just take the book and then turn it into a twenty minute retelling of the story. I think that's pretty that could be pretty Well, I know that would work. Kirkman would be great. There's this awesome podcast called We study billionaires, which sounds lame, but it honestly, it's like You guys know it's they're huge and it's really good.
01:03:56
And they'll read a book on someone or just a blown article and just retell the story. Right.
01:04:01
It's really good. I love this podcast. It's called the Investors Podcast. We never heard of this? Pardon Pish.
01:04:07
Yeah. Either good, man. I know their I know their thumbnail, the red thumbnail. They're huge. Yeah. Forty million downloads they have. So that would work.
01:04:17
I guess we're should publish us talking right now. But speaking of books, you know what I'm doing is this isn't the one I'm doing with it. I'm just gonna read one book this year, but I'm gonna study the fuck out of it.
01:04:27
I'm sick of reading, like, two books a month and not remembering anything.
01:04:32
Yeah. I'm just for me, like, YouTube is just so much better. Like, I'm just going deep on, like,
01:04:37
you know, like, Charlie Munger, Peter Lynch, YouTube stuff. And I'm just, like,
01:04:41
watching watching so many of their videos or listening to their videos, and,
01:04:45
there's just a lot of wisdom in there. And and Charlie Longer said this thing. He's like, He's like, I don't wanna read the news. He goes, I wanna read something that it made sense thirty years ago. It makes sense today. It's gonna make sense thirty years from now. And I'd rather just read that ten times than read, like, whatever the latest thing is. And that's kinda what you're saying.
01:05:04
Yeah. I I agree.
01:05:06
Alright. Well,
01:05:08
Let's balance. I'm gonna get my shit set up, by the next podcast better.
01:05:17
I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.
01:05:22
I put my all in it, like, days off on a road. Let's travel never looking back.
00:00 01:05:49