0:00
So, in like 2012, 2013, 2014, he started a vitamin brand and it only did okay.
Search this video
0:06
And then he started also tinkering with a skincare brand, which it actually did much better.
0:09
It got to like 10 million or so in revenue. He hired a CEO.
0:10
The CEO kind of like drove it into the ground and it didn't really do that well.
0:16
And so he started focusing again to his vitamin brand and he's like, "Look, it's doing okay, but who's the best customer of a vitamin company?" Dogs.
0:27
Because you And this is it I'm not disparaging him, but like does do they work? Yeah, why not?
0:31
Like fugazi, you know, like Yeah. Welcome to Fugazi Inc.
0:37
We make supplements for dogs.
0:39
They'll never tell you if it works or doesn't work. What up? What up?
0:52
Are we supposed to like start with like a catchphrase now?
0:57
Hey boys and girls, welcome to the business show where you learn how to make so much money that you'll get taxed out the ass.
1:05
That's what rich people care about, taxes.
1:06
If you don't care about taxes yet, you ain't rich. Do you care about taxes? Yeah.
1:12
I like I don't I don't I'm not going to live my life according to like where the low taxes are, but like it's like the number two or number three thing that I'm thinking about.
1:19
So I'm thinking about this whole New York Texas thing and I like do the math and I'm like, "Damn, like imagine I got to rent a place for let's just say like 20 grand a month, like that's how much taxes I'm paying by moving here versus staying or you know, whatever it is, like a lot of money a month."
1:34
Well, you have a good thing.
1:34
You could do the like Texas as your main residence and spend four or five months out of the year in New York. So that's not so bad. That's not so bad.
1:43
But I I I need to do it with uh New York and Florida because Texas winter is not like winter winter that's desirable enough that you want to winter there. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.
1:54
Dude, have you heard about this like the teddy bear law? The teddy bear law? No, what's that?
1:58
So I was asking my tax guy.
2:01
I was like, Where do you keep your like possessions?
2:02
Yeah, basically I was like, "So what's the rule?
2:05
Is it 6 months out of the year?
2:07
What does it take to have residency in some place?"
2:10
And he was like, "Well, it's there's a bunch of little factors."
2:12
He's like, "But one He's like there was a famous case with Derek Jeter, the the New York Yankee shortstop.
2:17
They're like, 'Jeter wanted Jeter played for the Yankees in New York, but he didn't want to pay New York taxes.
2:22
He wanted to pay Florida taxes cuz he's like, "Look, this is my home. This is where I live." Uh blah blah blah.
2:27
They're like, "But you also have an apartment in New York and you play in New York. So you work there.
2:32
Your home is there and your kids go to school there, I think."
2:34
And they're And so they ended up It got ruled in the in court and they call it I think the the the name they call it is the I haven't looked this up.
2:41
It's like the teddy bear law and it's basically like, "Where would you keep your teddy bear?"
2:44
So the place you would call home.
2:46
So like factors like where your kids go to school, where are the possessions that you love?
2:51
It all goes into this like umbrella to be like, "Where do we actually think your home is?"
2:55
And um And actually when I first heard this, I was like, "Wow, that's really like subjective for like a ruling or a law."
3:03
And actually it's one of the laws I kind of agree with.
3:05
I actually think that that is more like how it should be done, which is like, "Dude, what's the spirit of this?
3:10
Do you actually live here or do you just like stay here for exactly 6 months and 1 day every year and I have to you know, I don't actually know where you are at any given time."
3:19
But if you know, if you're working at a place, your kids go to school there, all your possessions are there, all your friends are there, your family is there, like that's where you live.
3:26
As an avid listener of Dateline, one of the easiest ways to catch the husband who kills the wife is like 3 weeks before he either bought like, you know, a trash bag and like a shovel or he Googled like how to dispose of a body.
3:41
And last night I found myself Googling and I was so embarrassed to do this, so I went to an incognito window.
3:48
I was like, "I can't Google this." Yeah.
3:51
Like they're going to know that I killed her.
3:52
Yeah, and and and it was like, "How does the state that you're visiting know like like if I'm renting And I didn't even know what to Google by the way.
4:02
I was trying to figure out how to phrase this.
4:03
But if I live in Texas, how does New York even know that I'm there if I'm just renting a place?"
4:09
Dude, that's so funny you said that.
4:11
I did the same thing and like my queries sound exactly like "Does the IRS really know?"
4:17
It's like it's somehow somehow that's how it's like formatted in my search like Yeah, like I wish Google would like under Dude, Google needs to understand italicized really.
4:29
Like the asterisks and everything.
4:29
It's like there's one browser that's just like, "Hmm, this guy's only ever incognito and he's either looking at porn or taxes.
4:36
Like what what's this guy's life like?" Right?
4:38
Cuz like basically it's like, you know, I'm trying to Google like um when you get you know, uh if the IRS does this to you, is that like jail or just a fine?
4:52
Are we breaking a rule or a law?
4:55
Is this Are taxes a recommendation or a requirement?
4:59
Well, what I learned Googling this Googling this was the IRS and I I It makes sense, but I didn't even understand it. IRS is for federal.
5:04
So like but I pay my federal taxes no matter what, but I'm like, "Okay, so then how does the state of New York actually know that I was ever here?"
5:13
And I'm trying to like figure I want to I'm Googling that to follow the rule, but I am curious Yeah.
5:21
To be clear, in case they also listen to podcasts, I'm Googling this A for a friend and B to enforce the law on my friend cuz I'm not here for anything else. And I was just curious. I'm just curious.
5:33
I'm like literally how does the state of New York even know that I exist? I'm I'm the same way.
5:36
I I I'm the same way where I'll go down this rabbit hole.
5:41
Then I'm like 30 minutes in, I'm like, "Why am I even looking for this?
5:43
This is not applicable at all to me."
5:45
But I'm like, "I just want to know how it works."
5:46
Like I'll be like, "When you keep the receipt, does anybody ever go read the receipts?
5:50
Like you know, what what actually happen Or like you know, there's this Twitter account I love called How Stuff Works or something like that. I love it.
5:57
And to today they posted a thing of like it was like "How luggage gets loaded into an airplane."
6:01
So there's a guy in the back of the airplane and then there's like a conveyor belt shooting suitcases at him and he's stacking it like a perfect Tetris grid.
6:10
And I'm just like, "I dude, I love this account."
6:12
Because it's always these these things where I'm like, "Dude, how does the world actually work?"
6:15
Like I you know, I know I give them my suitcase, but what happens after that?
6:20
And it's like sort of the same thing with like either taxes or like uh like I'll Google just like, you know, "Rich people don't pay taxes dot dot dot. But how?"
6:28
Like you know, like what are these loopholes that I hear about?
6:32
Are there are there really these loopholes?
6:33
Like are like, you know, "Universities have this endowment.
6:35
What the hell are they doing with that?"
6:38
And I'm just like always trying to get to the bottom of like I want to have like an actual understanding of the what's going on and Dude, it's so I feel like I have so little understanding about so many things on Earth.
6:50
But it's so funny that you you brought that book.
6:52
I actually wrote I'm like doing the thing with Maven again, the ideation boot camp course and I started talking about the book that I had as a kid called How Stuff Works.
6:59
And then there's another one where they just like split like a power tool into two and you just see like a picture of like how school bus like operates or whatever.
7:06
And I'm like, "The reason why researching, which is what you and I do for this podcast, is cool is because whether you like it or not, America and the rest of the most of the world is you know, guided by capitalism and commerce.
7:18
And so like if you understand how like a business works, just like these books show you how like the luggage guy works, then you kind of understand like what's possible and what's not possible, why laws are the way they are, why art is the way it is.
7:30
Like you can it's not just money making, but it's just like the Earth, like just how the world and society.
7:35
And so I actually was just writing that yesterday and I totally agree and I think that's why like studying businesses is cool.
7:43
And by the way, like I think most people do this for science.
7:44
They're like, you know, "Why is the sky blue?"
7:46
And like there is an element of that.
7:47
I'm talking about just like Here's a perfect example.
7:50
The We'll use the luggage one for example.
7:52
It's like question, "What happens if you just never pick up your suitcase?
7:57
Or like what happens if you just simply like I see those bags over there that say that they're waiting for somebody to come get them.
8:03
What happens if they don't?
8:05
Dude, you want to know what happens? Like a bad game of Dr. Mario.
8:07
And then yeah, I do know.
8:09
I'll I'll Yeah, I'll tee it up for you.
8:11
Then there is an answer and it's actually kind of fascinating for somebody who goes and digs in and says like, "Okay, but then what?" Right?
8:17
Or like they you know, like a kid like, "Well, why do they do that? And why do they do that?
8:20
And why do they do that?"
8:22
And then you get to what's it called unclaimed baggage or whatever it's called.
8:25
Like that What's that Was that the name of the company?
8:27
So basically The Hustle wrote about it.
8:28
So if you Google like The Hustle unclaimed baggage, there's a company in like rural Alabama.
8:31
I think it's Alabama or Arkansas called Unclaimed Baggage and they sell $300 million a year worth of unclaimed bags and they it's like a huge thrift store, you know? Right.
8:43
And same thing with like the like you know, the shampoo at a hotel.
8:49
Like you know, I use this thing once. What do they do with it?
8:50
Do they just refill it and give it to the next person? I'm curious. What do they do?
8:54
It's like oh actually there's the whole company that recycles these.
8:55
They take the half-used shampoos from hotels.
8:57
And they say they tell the hotel, "Hey, we'll pay you nothing for it, but we'll come collect it for you.
9:02
We'll take it off your hands cuz you can't give that to the next guest."
9:05
And then they take that and then they have like a basically a a way to repackage and resell those and their brand is around lessening waste on Earth and they that company does extremely well.
9:14
And so you actually find companies at the end of all these because again, this is like a giant little business ecosystem.
9:22
Just in the same way that like you know, there's plankton that eats stuff off the whale's head or whatever.
9:26
It's like, you know, basically there's a little business that's going to solve every one of these edge cases all around the world, right?
9:31
There's a person whose job it is to do that thing.
9:36
And if you keep going far enough, you'll like find those those little nooks and crannies.
9:39
Well, which is a perfect segment for what I want to talk about today because here's here's what I I want to I'm going to give you a bunch of example of things that I've I'm calling frame-breaking businesses.
9:49
So like things that I've discovered that have changed how I thought about stuff.
9:54
And there's a story and and by the way today I was I was thinking I was like today's my leg day cuz I'm putting you on my back and I'm carrying us for this episode.
10:02
I I I I've got a I've got like a Side note by the way, my mom yesterday while I work out with my mom sometimes and she was like Sam Parr's legs.
10:12
She always calls you Sam Parr, full name. I love it.
10:14
I don't know if she knows that your first and last name but Sam Parr's legs, man, he's got strong legs.
10:22
And I was like, "Yeah, he's great."
10:24
And she's like, "I was just looking at his legs in the last video, the Mr.
10:28
Beast video cuz you were wearing like shorts on the couch or whatever.
10:29
I was just looking at his legs. I didn't hear anything." All right, mom. All right, mom. Hey, Sean's mom text me.
10:37
I'll send you some more pics and I'll send you some pictures of my legs. I got you. It's It's genetics.
10:45
So, people people comment on my legs.
10:48
It's just It was They I was born that way. So, thank you.
10:51
I appreciate the love though. Um all right.
10:53
So, basically the reason I thought about this was because uh Digg.
10:59
So, there's this website called Digg.
11:00
It's actually not that popular anymore but if you're above 30, you probably know it.
11:03
Digg and Reddit were competitors and for a long time Digg was kind of beating Reddit but they're both like the whole like front page of the internet type of businesses that had like tens of millions of monthly uniques and Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, was on the cover of Time as like meet Silicon Valley's new wonder kid, the guy who is 28 years old and worth a billion dollars or whatever.
11:21
He was like the Mark Zuckerberg, like the next Zuckerberg and Digg ended up not actually winning this battle and they're currently for sale and I linked to their financials.
11:31
Someone just sent this to me on Twitter.
11:33
So, it's not like I got this through like I didn't like sign up for a service where I had to agree to confidentiality but someone just sent this to me. Right.
11:40
You signed a FDA, a full disclosure agreement where you're like, "I will put this on blast if you send this random [ __ ] to me through an anonymous Twitter account."
11:47
That's exactly what happened.
11:49
Someone just sent it to me.
11:50
I didn't ask questions and I just looked at it but I'll give you like the overview.
11:53
The overview is that over the last year they had 27 million users. So, what's that? 2 million a month. So, which is not a lot.
12:00
The Hustle gets more than 2 million a month just on our website and we don't even try to get traffic on our website.
12:04
So, 2 million a month, their revenue Slam. Slam on Digg. Nice. Keep going.
12:11
They're Okay, so their revenue for the year was something like a million or like 1. 3 or like it was like 1. 2, 1. 3, nothing.
12:20
[ __ ] Digg, which was supposed to be like, you know, a great website, only like 80, 70, 91,000, 44,000 a month in revenue. Horrible.
12:33
Terrified small boy [ __ ] Yeah.
12:36
Yeah, and but here's the thing is that this this this discrepancy, we're going to call it the gap.
12:42
The gap between how much we talked about them and their prestige and like, you know, the accolades that they get as but from but the gap between where they actually are in reality, that gap is huge.
12:54
So, instead I'm going to swap it and we're going to have some frame breaking companies and we're going to talk about the actual good type of gap.
13:02
Um and I want to show you a few businesses that people don't talk about that are actually phenomenal and really interesting.
13:11
So, I'm going to give you the first one.
13:13
The first one I we maybe talked about before but I was uh looking at Michael Bisping.
13:18
Michael Bisping is a a YouTuber for MMA and a VPN company sponsored him and I thought that's kind of strange.
13:25
So, I just Googled like what's a good VPN and maybe I'll start buying a VPN.
13:29
Basically, a VPN if you're in America and you want to like tell the internet that you're in Europe, you use a VPN or if you're in like North Korea or one of the Koreas, whichever one would this would apply to and you want to act like you're in America, you use a VPN.
13:42
That's That's a That's a Or if you just want to like just search the web anonymously and you want to Google stuff about taxes.
13:49
Um and that's what the VPN is for and so I Googled best VPN and I came across this website called CompareTech.
13:55
That was kind of intriguing. So, I linked to it. You see comparetech. com/vpn?
14:03
So, I started reading it and I was like this is kind of an interesting site and I looked them up on SimilarWeb and they get millions of views and I scroll all the way to the bottom and I noticed that they're based in England.
14:11
And the thing about England and the UK is that if you are a UK company that Name all the things you love about about England.
14:18
Uh maybe the tea, maybe you like the queen, and you like the fact that all companies' numbers are publicly available. Yes.
14:25
A lot of people don't know this but if you are a company in the UK, I don't know what the threshold is.
14:31
It could be as low as five, it could be as high as 10 million and you do over 10 million in revenue, you have to there's a thing called Companies House, which is a very British name.
14:39
It's like they're I don't know if it's like Is it like their IRS or something like that where you can go and log in and see all these financials from privately held companies.
14:49
And I was curious about this little website called CompareTech.
14:51
So, I went and looked it up on their on Companies House.
14:56
Can you see what their financials are? Do you have it up?
14:57
I don't have it open, no.
14:59
Okay, so I'm going to pull it up and I I linked to it down there. It said financials.
15:02
Um basically, oh [ __ ] It the link broke on me but basically, their revenue for the trailing 12 months was 12 million and their profit was 10 million.
15:17
And this little old website that just reviews VPNs, it's I'm sure it's more sophisticated than what it looks like but it's not good looking.
15:26
It's not like doesn't have like the best design and I believe this website ended up selling for like $200 million and I think it only gets like a million visits a month.
15:35
It sold last year or six six or 10 six or 12 months ago. Interesting site, right? That's crazy.
15:44
It was also only started in 2015.
15:46
So, sometimes I see these sites that I'm like, "Oh, wow, this thing gets so much traffic and they just send clicks out to whatever."
15:52
You know, basically, their business model is they write about which VPN to use and then they link you to the VPN and they get a kickback from any whichever link you click of the 10, they'll get a kickback from all 10 for, you know, some some dollar value, right?
16:06
If the VPN says, "Cool, every customer is worth $300 to us, we'll pay $100 to anybody that refers us a customer."
16:14
And so, these guys will do, you know, some some numbers like that.
16:17
Normally, when I see that there's like really high traffic sites that sort of just look very basic, it's like, you know, this was started in 2004.
16:22
I'm like, "Well, okay, props to you.
16:25
You had the foresight to know that like very early on in like the, you know, the the internet days or Google's days, somebody was like, "I'm going to start reviewing credit cards.
16:34
I'm going to start reviewing VPN providers.
16:35
I'm going to start reviewing what email software is best."
16:39
And they made what email software is best.
16:41
com and like, you know, they rake in $6 million a year, you know, 90% profit margin, something silly like that.
16:48
And like, you know, the person is spent the last 15 years trying to figure out, you know, the meaning of life because they they won the business game already.
16:55
And so, that's normally what you see but 2015 is like pretty new for a site like this.
16:59
It's pretty new and here here's their financials.
17:01
I went and found them on Companies House.
17:02
In 2021, they did 15 million in revenue and 13. 2 million in profit.
17:08
The year before that, 10 million in revenue, 9. 5 million in profit. That's crazy. This is crazy, right? Right.
17:20
Yeah, I'm a big fan of these.
17:20
Now, by the way, do you ever Do you play with SEO a lot?
17:23
Cuz um growth tactics are like martial arts.
17:30
It's like you can be a black belt in jiu-jitsu and know nothing about karate, right?
17:34
Or you know karate and you know nothing about taekwondo or judo.
17:35
You don't know how to do any grappling and any throws.
17:39
And that's how I feel about growth channels.
17:42
It's like I've spent a lot of my career figuring out virality.
17:46
Spent a lot of my career figuring out paid marketing now with e-commerce, things like that.
17:49
Uh the thing I've never touched is SEO.
17:54
Dude, I know I'm like an absolute novice on it, absolute beginner.
17:56
I know SEO like an Ivy League architect knows about construction.
18:01
Like maybe I can have a conversation with a construction worker who's going to build my project and like kind of know but like I'm not going to be able to reference like which rivet to use and you could kind of lie to me sometimes and I wouldn't exactly know if you were or not. Right, right.
18:16
You put me on the job site and I'm going to ask for some gloves cuz I don't I don't want to hurt my hands.
18:22
Yeah, I'm just going to everything's going to be called a monkey wrench.
18:23
So, like I don't entirely understand SEO but I do believe it's the maybe the best one.
18:32
Like it's like like if you nail it, I think it's the best thing to nail or one of them.
18:36
that that scene in The Office when Dwight's like you know, trying to ignore Jim and then Jim's like, "Dwight."
18:40
And then they're doing like a job interview and they're Which bear is best?
18:47
He's like, "That's a stupid question.
18:48
There's And he's like, You're basically school Yeah.
18:51
Well, there's basically school two schools of thoughts here. Wrong. Yeah.
18:56
That's That's how I feel about like, you know, is SEO best? It's like, I don't know.
18:59
Is a brown bear best or is a black bear best, right?
19:01
Like every every one of these growth channels is like has something awesome and then something terrible.
19:06
And the one you're in, you know it too well usually and you're like, "This thing is awful.
19:09
I wish I could just go on Facebook and spend money and get two I'm going to spend a dollar, get two dollars back."
19:14
And the Facebook guy is like, "Oh my god, you can get free traffic on Google."
19:17
And the Google guy is like, "Holy [ __ ] this thing grows virally. Wow, what is that?"
19:22
You know, and so I think there's no there's no best. I Yeah, I would agree.
19:24
And by the way, this site CompareTech, it was sold for Yeah, it was sold for over $100 million.
19:32
I believe this year, 2022. Um for like 150.
19:37
me give me another frame breaker.
19:37
That's a great first one. All right, another one.
19:40
A company called can I give a PS here just in case something good happens?
19:43
A PS is uh with the Milk Road today, we run like our business model is is newsletter ads and I had asked Ben.
19:50
I was like, "Ben, if we were going to sell a product, our own product, instead of advertise other people's products, what what would be what product would work best? What bear is best, Ben?
19:59
And he was like, VPN, dude. Yeah.
20:03
he's like, we should just launch our own VPN. It fits the audience.
20:05
It's an amazing business model.
20:07
We just have to buy an existing VPN and plug in our distribution.
20:11
And so if anyone has a VPN they want to sell me, I would I'm happy to either buy one or build our own.
20:16
Yeah, you got to come up with like some cute branding like VP Nope. You know what I mean?
20:19
Like can't track me, you know, like you got to come up with something cute just like you do with Milk Road and Silk Road.
20:24
got to just get get rid of VPN.
20:24
That's just too whatever.
20:26
It needs to be like, you know, a whatever Mysterio or like, you know, some like, you know, you know, secret juice and it's like, I use secret juice. I'm on board with that.
20:39
don't tell don't tell, you know?
20:39
Yeah, just call it don't tell mom.
20:41
Uh all right, the next one. Quin Street.
20:43
Have you heard of Quin Street? Mm no. All right.
20:46
Google Quin Street and go to their website for me. All right, going.
20:54
And tell me like what the hell is I thought this was a fashion brand if you told me nothing else, but I can I'm guessing it's not.
20:59
All right, Quin Street, I just see a guy and it says, where performance drives digital.
21:03
And then there's like another stock photo and it says And this guy is accessing high intent prospects.
21:08
This guy is a horrible stock model like these guys on here aren't ugly enough to be like a stock model.
21:15
They're not good looking enough to be like they look like they're like out of like a like Spanish or like geometry test Telemundo.
21:24
Yeah, like they they they just look like just normal, you know, it's like it's they're so normal that they don't even look stock.
21:31
your skin have like, you know, normal people wrinkles and blemishes? That's not right.
21:35
Stock photo, you need to be perfectly airbrushed. Right. the founder?
21:38
It looks like the founder. I don't know.
21:40
I don't know who the founder is, but it's like a simple ass website that's not good looking.
21:45
All right, this bit Dude, I'm going through the slideshow.
21:47
This slideshow is hilarious, dude.
21:48
This looks like Meredith from The Office.
21:50
This is like That's what I'm saying.
21:51
They're like so normal Hilarious.
21:54
that they're not that that that it looks silly.
21:55
So, this this company, I'm going to explain what they do.
22:00
I'm going to tell you how big they are.
22:01
So, what this company does is they used to own and I don't know if they still own these sites, but I'll tell you what they what they still own now.
22:06
But they used to own websites like directoryofschools. com or campuscorner. com or learningandlife.
22:13
com or findtherightschool. com.
22:17
Just like these like boring websites that don't look that cool.
22:18
And when you Google Ohio Insurance, Ohio Auto Insurance, they come up number one.
22:25
You enter in information and they sell that information to the highest bidder for insurance people.
22:28
This website, it's like ugly looking, it's simple looking and you like a lot of people disrespect it.
22:36
They made about 600 million in revenue last year. It's publicly traded. It's publicly traded. That's crazy, right?
22:43
This is this is another frame-breaking company.
22:45
Like they have I if you click their about page on Quin Street, their about or one of their forms, like it doesn't work.
22:52
Like it's like it goes to like a 401 like it it they don't have it set up.
22:58
Dude, okay, you know when you meet someone and you're like, I can't tell if this person is absolutely a genius or if they're completely idiotic.
23:05
Or if you're in San Francisco, you see somebody walk into a fancy restaurant with like a hoodie and like, you know, they're like wearing one Allbird and one Croc and you're like, all right, this person's either homeless or a billionaire, right?
23:18
Like that's like a pretty common situation in San Francisco.
23:20
That's how I feel when I go to websites like this.
23:22
I'm like, these are either the biggest dummies on earth and don't cuz I can't I can't understand what they do, right?
23:27
Their website is full of pages.
23:28
It just says like performance are our product. Or something like that.
23:34
into a video game and like you talk you bump into one of the the stock characters that just like is like, oh hey, didn't see you there. Hello.
23:39
And this is like keeps repeating on loop some random [ __ ] that doesn't make any sense. That's their website.
23:43
So, these websites, they're either like absolute money printers or it's like, you know, someone's aunt who's got some dream of like, you know, being successful and then they're never going to make it cuz this makes no sense. I can't tell.
23:54
And now when I get to finally then I see the the key money tab. Investor Relations.
24:00
If you got an Investor Relations tab on your on your website, like it's working, right?
24:05
Like, you know, put in the Bill Clinton clip where he's like, I did not have relations with that woman.
24:08
That's how that's how I feel when I see the Investor Relations tab.
24:10
I know some shit's going down That's hilarious.
24:18
Our software is the worst.
24:18
Have you heard of HubSpot?
24:19
See, most CRMs are cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous.
24:26
I think I love our new CRM.
24:28
Our software is the best. HubSpot, grow better.
24:33
It's kind of this whole website and this whole brand, it reminds me of like a fourth grade classroom with like the like, you know, like teamwork and like each letter like it spells a certain word. Do you know what I mean?
24:41
Or like It's like teamwork. T is for teamwork.
24:43
E is for E is for everybody.
24:51
That that's what the this whole website looks like, but it makes 500, 600-ish million in revenue.
24:55
Market cap isn't very great because it's a lead gen company.
25:00
Those typically just don't have good market caps, but it's just crazy.
25:03
They just ignored all the unimportant stuff like how good does their uh website their like uh public-facing brand website look and they only focus on just the results, I guess.
25:15
And they own all these other websites that don't look so bad and they clearly get results.
25:19
But it's like a really interesting company and and it's another frame-breaking business where they just don't give a [ __ ] about the things that most people care about and it works. It's effective.
25:28
So, I recently met two guys who run a business like this and they've run three other businesses like this and exited them.
25:38
I'm going to share I can't share the story now, but I'm hoping 1 month from today I can share a kind of crazy story about them.
25:46
So, I'm just going to put that there.
25:48
Crazy a teaser for a future 1 month from today, you know, there will be a crazy story about these two guys.
25:53
I might even have them on the podcast.
25:55
I don't know yet, but um but this is this is insane.
25:59
This is a Sam Parr special.
25:59
How did you find Quin Street? Where Where were you?
26:03
What was it in the What VPN and private browser did you have open when you were searching for this? Two ways.
26:08
One, a guy named Jackie Chu who I like just like tweeted at this at this tweeted me this a while ago and I just saved it.
26:15
And then number two, Joe Speiser, my partner in a bunch of stuff.
26:18
He told me he used to work with them.
26:20
He owned an ad network and he was like in the early 2000s like I worked with them.
26:24
They basically right now they do car insurance and things like that, but they used to do University of Phoenix.
26:29
So, University of Phoenix, you they would you know, they owned all these school websites.
26:33
You would Google like what's a good online degree?
26:36
They figured out And this what what these guys look unsophisticated. They are not.
26:42
They're very sophisticated.
26:43
They like know how to get traffic to websites. They know how to do SEO.
26:45
Like they look like a fat guy who like is trained jujitsu.
26:49
Just like just like you talked about like, oh this guy, he's good and but then he like, you know, can like put you in a headlock within 3 seconds.
26:55
That's what these guys are. Yeah.
26:57
Uh and so anyway, uh I found it just by goofing around and talking to people. This is crazy. So, they own insurance. com, insure. com, carinsurance. com, car ratings.
27:05
com, money rates, bank tracker, M1, and Modern Eyes Home Services.
27:10
And then they partner with way more. It's wild.
27:14
By the way, that's a really great source for info is talk to people at ad networks.
27:18
Yeah, they know everything.
27:20
who like work at Google Cloud or AWS, they know everything. They see everything.
27:24
They They know who's making money and who's not.
27:27
They know who's getting traffic and who's not.
27:30
And like if you ever wanted to go figure out your next gig, go be like, yeah, I'll be janitor at this like mobile ad network.
27:36
Or I'm going to go be janitor at AWS.
27:38
Uh my payment, all I need is like login credentials into the dashboard.
27:42
I like to I'll be a account rep for high value clients and therefore I need that list of the high value accounts that we have.
27:52
And you basically just mine that and you're like, all right, which one of the you know, who am I going to copy?
27:59
You're right, you're right.
28:01
Dude, there's a website going to a going to a barber shop and you see like the number like, I'll take the number 12.
28:07
The fuckboy fade, please.
28:07
Yeah, the line on the side.
28:09
Exactly like that, please.
28:12
Do you guys do eyebrow lightning bolts? No? Okay, fine.
28:14
I'll take the number 12 then. That's funny.
28:24
Dude, all right, the next one is in your world.
28:26
Not just because he's an Indian guy, but because he's he's an e-commerce guy.
28:35
some reason come up with some reason that it's not just that. I don't know, man.
28:38
Indian entrepreneurs, you guys are taking over the world.
28:40
I'm sure you you you guys all are part of the same tribe.
28:42
You know one another kind of.
28:43
There's only a billion of you.
28:46
Um so, this guy, all right, so I was looking at the Inc. 5000 list.
28:48
Of all the list, that's the only one that like kind of matters.
28:53
It's still you can still game it. dude.
28:55
I see this all the time I see the random ass some digital agency that I've worked with that does not like nothing special.
29:02
They're like, we're a three-time Inc. 5000 winner.
29:05
I'm like, well, what is this list based off of?
29:06
You can still it's supposed to be based on revenue and they're supposed So, I don't trust Inc.
29:12
anymore, but I used to and when I did Like okay, let's I clicked the link for 2022. BlockFi is number one.
29:15
BlockFi basically just went out of business. a month ago.
29:21
So, I think that tells me everything I need to know about you and your goddamn list.
29:27
They'd already written the story though.
29:29
Greatest you know, greatest active athletes, Bill Russell.
29:32
Like he just passed away 2 weeks ago.
29:34
Like I'm They're the ones on it.
29:38
They like created the list and someone who works there are like, hey, uh we got to remove BlockFi from number one.
29:43
And they're like, huh, seems like a lot of work."
29:46
They're like, "Look, I don't make up the rules here.
29:51
I just think them up and write them down."
29:53
According to us is 245,000% this year.
29:57
It's like, yeah, you forgot the negative sign, dude.
30:03
They're like, "But, it's like it's so far away, that computer."
30:10
I don't know where my charger is.
30:14
That's what they 5,000 is. You go TO THEIR OFFICE.
30:20
NO ONE KNOWS WHERE THE CHARGER IS AT 8.
30:26
We can order one, but we would need our computer to do that.
30:28
I guess I could swing by Best Buy on my way home.
30:31
Yeah, but they're like, "Ah, it's happy hour." Daiquiris.
30:35
Have you ever been at a Have you ever been at like a company happy hour and like you'll hear news that something really really bad has happened and since you heard about that during the day, you'd be like livid and like you're going to Yeah, I'm going to [ __ ] kill somebody. Like this is livid.
30:50
And then you hear about it like when you're laughing at happy hour, you're like, Huh.
30:54
Yeah, and like that's like what happened.
30:58
You know what I'm talking about?
30:59
You ever been at like a company happy hour and you like hear bad news and you're like, 100%.
31:01
We used to do ours on Friday.
31:04
It was called the Friday wind-down and it was like wine and cheese and like whatever you know, that office was posh.
31:09
You guys don't seem like a bunch of wine and cheese type of guy though.
31:12
Like I know, but that the office Before I joined, the office was pretty, you know, adult and mature and like sophisticated people and then I joined, I started hiring people that would sleep at the office.
31:23
It's a like it became this crazy culture clash.
31:25
We ended up ending it, but it was so funny cuz it'd be like Friday, you look at the numbers, like, well, still don't have product market fit, I guess.
31:33
All right, let's just head over to the to the office bar and just drink for a bit.
31:37
And like, "Ah, server's down."
31:38
It's like, "How much traffic you think we get on the weekends anyways?"
31:45
Yeah, you got to like guy would go back to his desk to like fix the thing or like they check they check their email, like, "Ah, we got to go fix this."
31:50
And then everybody else would be like, So, watch them walk away.
31:53
Be like, "All right, if he looks like he's having trouble, I'll go too." Like, "No, don't."
32:07
That's the type of talking it is.
32:07
The voice of like, "Well, let me know if you need anything." I'm sorry, dude.
32:17
I was looking at this 85,000, which apparently is just [ __ ] blocked by.
32:21
I didn't realize I saw Blockbuster was number one.
32:22
I didn't I didn't realize that that was the company that like went out of business with So, yeah, the list is kind of null at this point.
32:30
It doesn't really matter.
32:31
But I saw someone who's number six or number seven. It's called HighKey.
32:34
It's like a keto cookie business type of thing.
32:37
And the the guy's last name, I don't know if it says it on this list, but this other list I was looking at, it was Patel.
32:42
And they used his real name, but I was like, wait, I think that sounds like AJ Patel, so who I recognize.
32:48
And HighKey was like six or five.
32:50
Do you see what it is on the list?
32:54
Yeah, it's number five or six, yeah.
32:54
And they grew by 40 1,000%.
32:57
I think that just means 41x, right?
33:00
So, like if it was a million, they'd do 42 million now or 41 million.
33:03
Yeah, again, these numbers.
33:05
By the way, my new my new favorite word, fugazi.
33:07
Have you ever heard this word?
33:10
Yeah, it just means like fake, right?
33:12
Yeah, but I'm I'm all about the word fugazi.
33:14
I feel like I can own this corner.
33:16
I don't know anyone who says it and absolute pleasure, absolute treat say the say the word.
33:21
It's like, well, It's like the most popular line in Wolf of Wall Street. Fugazi, fugazi.
33:25
Yeah, he goes, "It's all fake.
33:27
You know, just carry the 12."
33:27
You know, like I just can't do this type of math.
33:31
So, this guy AJ Patel, he started this thing called HighKey, which I would imagine is in the 30 or 40 million range, but listen to this guy.
33:38
So, he's probably in his later 30s, probably 35 or 36.
33:42
So, in like 2012, 2013, he started a vitamin brand and it only did okay.
33:48
And then he started also tinkering with a skin care brand, which it actually did much better.
33:53
It got to like 10 million or so in revenue. He hired a CEO.
33:55
The CEO kind of like drove it into the ground and it didn't really do that well.
33:59
And so, he started focusing again to his vitamin brand and he's like, "Look, it's doing okay, but who's the best customer of a vitamin company? Dogs.
34:12
Because you This isn't I'm not disparaging him, but like does it Do they work? Yeah, why not?
34:15
Like fugazi, you know, like Yeah, fugazi. Welcome to fugazi Inc.
34:20
We make supplements for dogs.
34:23
They'll never tell you if it works or doesn't work.
34:27
Yeah, you know what I mean?
34:27
It's like it's like What's that memory loss game where it's like brain teasers?
34:33
You know, brain dacity or brain acidy.
34:34
It's called It's like It's like Neurocity. No, no.
34:38
Yeah, it's like having like like a like a like an ad campaign towards those with amnesia.
34:42
Like does it or or with like Alzheimer's? It's like, does it work? Yeah, maybe.
34:48
So, that's like what what like these vitamins for dogs are.
34:49
Like who knows if it actually works?
34:50
And he starts growing this company and he pivots from like, you know, normal vitamins to dog vitamins and he starts growing this thing and it takes off after a while and he and he kills it.
35:01
He gets to 25 million in revenue and then he sells part of it to a PE company and he took $60 off the table.
35:09
Then he grew it for another 3 years and sold it for like $650 million and he still owned like half of it.
35:14
So, collectively he made 300, 400 million dollars at the age of 32.
35:19
And this guy isn't in Silicon Valley. He's not in New York. He's not in Brooklyn.
35:26
He's in Orlando, Florida. Capital of jorts. Jort City, USA.
35:31
You know, jort city white New Balance Town, USA. 22 listeners in Orlando?
35:37
They all just collectively looked down at their lap.
35:41
Came back and nodded, like, "Facts are fact, baby." Yeah, yeah, yeah.
35:46
Like like, you know, England or Illinois is the land of Lincoln.
35:50
Florida's like land of Dog the Bounty Hunter, you know, like and that's where this this He's born in India, Indian immigrant, came over, decided for some reason that Florida's the place and knocked it out the park and not really well known and I was just like researching him and HighKey is now number six on this list.
36:13
They grew 41% 41,000%, so 41x.
36:17
So, if they were doing a million in revenue or 500,000 in revenue, they're doing 20 to 40 million in revenue now.
36:23
So, it's another nine-figure in value brand.
36:25
And this guy is just quietly crushing it and I love it.
36:29
And I watched a talk with him.
36:32
There's this thing There's this website called capitalism. com.
36:36
Dude, I'm reading the transcript of that talk right now as you speak. It's pretty crazy.
36:40
So, so let me just recap.
36:42
This guy is known mostly for He sold Zesty Paws, that that company for 600 million, I think. Right? So, the the It was over.
36:48
In the in the in the transcript, he he says, "Yeah, the public number is 6 600, but it actually got raised a little bit higher." Wow.
36:57
And he also has HighKey Snacks.
37:01
In this thing it says his first business like his first kind of side hustle was he was selling He's like, "I played single poker and I got to a million."
37:07
By the way, I did this exact same thing.
37:10
This is why this stood out to me.
37:10
I I told you, you guys are brothers, man. You guys are cousins. I know the connection.
37:14
So, he got to a million chips, he sold it for 37 bucks.
37:18
I I did this on PokerStars.
37:18
I grinded my way I got I I accumulated a million.
37:22
That was my actual first million.
37:24
It was a million fake poker chips on PokerStars and I sold it for $13.
37:30
And I tell you what, I've never felt like more of a prostitute in my life.
37:32
I was like, "Wow, I just worked so hard for like 3 months to get to you know, like just grinding the free money game and I got to a million chips and I sold it for $13 via PayPal and then I proceeded to lose the $13 immediately on the real money tables and I was like, I never felt like, you know, You should You should go take a shower. I just I feel dirty.
37:54
Yeah, I Googled like, "Can I declare bankruptcy just out of embarrassment?"
37:58
And like, you know, is there is there some like version of that?
38:00
Cuz I was so embarrassed at like the the terrible trade I had done.
38:04
He said he did that same thing and he started doing that as a like as a market basically on eBay and I think he made like 100 or 200 grand just doing the the fake poker chips like buying and selling basically.
38:16
Which is it's kind of like a you know, it's kind of like a a kid being good at chess when they're six.
38:22
Like if you're doing that on eBay, it's like Yeah, you're going to Yeah, well, just here's all my money.
38:25
Just hopefully you'll figure it out one day.
38:27
Just give me back what you can.
38:29
Like that's what you do when you when you meet people doing things like that.
38:31
That's like a telltale sign.
38:33
We need this guy on and I'll give you two reasons. I'm talking to him.
38:35
I've been talking to him on Facebook. I got him.
38:38
He's He clearly has You know, he comes from our He's cut from the same the same cloth.
38:41
I don't know what what what kind of cloth that is, but but it's definitely our cloth, whatever it We'll assume it's silk.
38:48
But dude, this guy he I started becoming friends with him on Facebook, never talked to him in my life.
38:54
There's this software that I needed to use.
38:56
I don't want to out him, but there's a software I needed to use and it's like 10 grand a year and I mentioned to him that I use it. He goes, "Oh, here.
39:02
I have an annual subscription. Here's my password."
39:03
And he's been letting me use this free like $10,000 a year subscription.
39:06
So, this guy this guy is my guy. man. Yeah. Yeah.
39:10
And so, wait, what's the second reason why why we need him on here?
39:13
Because I just Googled his name, AJ Patel.
39:17
Now, here's a guy sold a company for over 600 million, sold another company.
39:20
He's got HighKey Snacks, you know, he's sitting on store shelves everywhere and across the country.
39:25
Guess what Google puts up in the the like Google thinks I'm talking about Patel AJ MD, the doctor in San Francisco.
39:34
Dude, no matter what an Indian guy does in business, the doctor is still number one.
39:39
He's still at the top of the ranks.
39:41
And so, he needs to come on this pod so we can we can get this guy's SEO up so that he's number one.
39:46
what's the Jessica Alba's company, Honest?
39:47
The guy who started that, his name is Brian Lee.
39:49
He started like that, ShoeDazzle, and like LegalZoom.
39:51
If you Google Brian Lee, like he ain't coming up.
39:56
Oh, dude, it's a wrestler.
39:56
It's a It's a guy who looks like Undertaker or like the Big Show or something.
40:01
Yeah, like Brian Lee, like you don't matter if you're a billionaire or not.
40:04
You you know, you can't Which by the way, fame is always way better than than money.
40:09
So, wrestling beats being a billionaire.
40:12
But this guy in his talk, he said something amazing.
40:17
So, he like he hired the CEO to run his skin care brand, and he says, "Yeah, like it stunk.
40:22
This guy, like I gave him the reins and I told him to do it, and he totally talked slick to me and I thought he knew what he was doing, and he and it didn't work."
40:28
And the guy goes, um the interviewer goes, "Well, was it a sad day when you fired him?
40:34
Like it must have been hard, right?"
40:35
And AJ goes, "No, it was awesome.
40:38
Firing him was so easy cuz he was so bad and I felt so great like getting rid of all the dead weight, and I look at business as a living organism, and like I have zero emotional attachment.
40:49
If someone doesn't serve the business, and I'm willing to fire myself or anyone else, and I have zero sadness about it."
40:54
And I saw that and I was like, "Hell yeah."
40:56
I call that You know what I call that?
40:58
I call that Korean convenience store owner energy.
41:02
Remember You remember Here's why.
41:02
You remember, um during Remember like the Rodney King riots like in the '90s?
41:07
Remember like these pictures of like the Korean store business owners with like shotguns standing on top of their like They're like, "No, like we like Yeah, like let's go."
41:16
I was talking to like some people I invested in the other day, and they were telling me about their business and like how they're like, "Things aren't going that well."
41:23
I'm like, "Well, can you do me a favor? Like do a screen share.
41:25
Let me see your calendar."
41:28
And like it was totally open and like they didn't book a lot like I'm like, "What I'm like every Morning meditation, afternoon walk.
41:36
Yeah, like dude, from 8:00 a. m. to 8:00 p. m.
41:38
, it's got to You have to have sales calls set up with prospective customers, and like don't give me this nonsense of like, "Oh, well, you know, it went out of business, but we learned a lot."
41:47
Or like, you know, like we just couldn't or the things that you're suggesting, Sam, they don't scale.
41:53
I'm like, "No, no, no, no, dude.
41:54
Right now, you need to have that Korean store owner energy where it's just like if you don't make this work, you don't feed your family, and maybe you're going to get deported."
42:04
Like you need to have that like like that that energy of like Starvation with a side of deportation is how Sam likes his dishes served.
42:14
You have to have that energy sometimes.
42:16
Like of course, like once things going well, yeah, you got to get like beyond like scale and all that stuff, but like early on, it doesn't Call yourself a startup, call yourself It doesn't matter what you call yourself, you're just convenience store owner, and like some convenience stores, you go there and they have every type of Kind Bar you could ever imagine. That's where I'm going.
42:32
Other type of convenience stores, like, you know, they don't have what what I want, and I ain't ever going there again.
42:36
You got to be that convenience store that has every Kind Bar, every Cliff Bar, has a stick, and is just grinding and knows your name, and they are willing to call me like, you know, like, "What do you want? The usual?"
42:45
That type of That's what like a lot of startup founders need.
42:49
And so, this guy, AJ Patel, he's got that Korean store business owner energy, you know, that like immigrant hustle. I love it.
42:55
Yeah, he's great, and that's great, and I feel like we know so many people that it's like I meet with them and I hear them talking, and it's like, "Oh, let's just fast forward to the part where you write a Medium article called My Next Chapter or Our Next Our Next Adventure."
43:11
And then you're going to sign off saying, "Onwards." Yeah.
43:16
Like you're a [ __ ] captain of a ship in the 1700s.
43:18
Like, "Ahoy, matey, your business is failing. Wake up. Do something.
43:24
Don't just sit there and lose and then go work at Facebook and write My Next Chapter.
43:29
I'm so excited to lead, you know, you know, digital digital ad products at Facebook now for the next 2 years of my life before I go out and do the same stupid thing again." It's like "Wake up.
43:40
Go figure this out, right?
43:42
Figure out something that's going to work.
43:43
I don't care what you do.
43:43
I don't even care if it's bad.
43:44
But like I need to see some like some serious action being taken.
43:49
I you know, and like realize your [ __ ] is not working."
43:54
And like I invest in startups, and I know that the name of the game is you're going to lose most of your money, and only a few are going to like return all the money.
44:01
But when I hear like their updates, I'm like, "All right.
44:04
I I'm okay with swinging and missing.
44:06
I'm not actually okay with it, but I know that's part of the game, and it's just a numbers game.
44:09
But for those not swinging, it doesn't matter if I only invested $5,000, I reply, and I'm like, "Oh, you're losing and you suck for these reasons, and you need to improve because I gave you my hard-earned money so you can have a good shot at trying something, and you are not trying or taking a good shot, and that's pissing me off."
44:26
And I told some of my other angel investor friends, and they're like, "Well, I kind of feel that way, but I never say that."
44:30
I'm like, "What do you Like What What? Why not?
44:31
Why wouldn't you say this?
44:34
It doesn't matter how little or how much you invested, you gave your hard-earned money to someone to like take a swing. Step to the plate, dog.
44:41
Like swing, but don't like give me this nonsense.
44:45
We, um uh we have this phrase I use in in all my companies, which is that uh All right, people are going to make mistakes, but there's two types of mistakes, and you have to you have to decide when you when you make a mistake, which one is it?
44:57
Did you make an error of action or error of inaction?
45:02
An error of action is you tried something and you did it wrong or it didn't work or it had a bad result.
45:05
But you you know, you were trying really hard to do something and you just messed it up. That's okay. That's a fumble. No problem.
45:12
Then there's an error of inaction, which is your mistake was that you didn't do something.
45:16
You didn't think about something.
45:17
You didn't anticipate it. You didn't plan.
45:18
You know, you just forgot to do something. You dropped the ball.
45:22
And that's the unforgivable one, right?
45:24
So, it's like I'm always like number one to be like, "Bro, no problem.
45:29
This was an error of action. That's great. I love errors of action.
45:34
That's how you get better, and like never feel bad or sorry for an error of action.
45:38
For an error of inaction, I now have a problem."
45:40
And so, I feel the same way with founders that I invest in.
45:42
It's like some of them I'm like, "Oh, man, they're just banging their head against this wall.
45:48
I will only ever say something to somebody if I feel like if it's a if it they're making errors of action.
45:51
When they're making errors of inaction, my experience, I did it twice now, and I was just like, "Hey guys, like your like your update makes it sound like everything's okay, but like read what you said. Everything is not okay."
46:06
And like you got to do something. What can we do here?
46:07
And I like rolled up my sleeves and I was like helping them with their strategy and their pivot and then their investor deck to raise money cuz they're running out of money.
46:14
And I same thing with the other one.
46:15
I was like, "Hey guys, like this is just not working.
46:18
Like you don't have product-market fit.
46:20
You have like two customers after 2 years. Like what's going on?"
46:23
And they're like, "No, we're really excited about the pipeline.
46:25
We think that's that doesn't That's not fair."
46:29
And I was just like, "Oh my god, you not only were you like not aware of it, you're actually in denial of it.
46:35
Wow, this is like, you know, a complete waste of my time."
46:36
And you know, sure enough in both cases, they, you know, uh my like several days worth of like full-time effort to try to help them uh resulted in nothing.
46:46
And so, you know, I I now I'm picking I'm a little bit pickier where I'll test the waters and I'll see does this person, if given a dose of reality, do they take it and say, "More, please?"
46:56
Or do they like, "Ugh, I don't want this."
46:58
And it's like, "Oh, if you don't want reality, then I don't want to, you know, I was just It was a mistake on my part.
47:03
I I judged wrong, you know.
47:04
My my my my check was written to the wrong person here." As the great Dr.
47:09
Phil once said, "Don't piss on my back and tell me it's rain."
47:15
All right, I got last one.
47:17
Um I have an interesting one.
47:18
So, it's like a billy of the week, but someone who like people never talk about or at least they don't talk about a lot, and he's he's got that gap.
47:25
And it when I say he, it's actually him and his wife, and his wife is actually the more interesting person, but this guy a little bit is more front-facing.
47:32
His name's Stewart Resnick.
47:35
Have you ever heard of Stewart Resnick?
47:37
Do you know Have we talked about him?
47:39
I don't know the name, but I just Googled it, and now I know.
47:41
They do the the Wonderful Company or whatever.
47:43
So, so give me his story.
47:44
All right, so listen to this guy.
47:46
His name's Stewart Resnick.
47:47
Him and his wife His wife's name is Lynda.
47:49
They're they're based out of California.
47:50
And so, in the 1970s, he started a janitor business, and he just basically like was a janitor at one point, I think, and then he eventually hired a few more, and he got contracts with buildings.
48:01
And once he was in those buildings and had the contracts, he expanded to security guards.
48:04
And at one point, he had a thousand armed security guards on staff.
48:09
So, he like grew this janitor business into a security guard business, and it was amazing.
48:13
He got some lucrative contracts to uh LAX, and it turned out to be a great business, and he ended up selling it, and he made a little bit of money.
48:20
And with that money, he eventually bought the Franklin Mint, which at the time was one of the world's largest sellers of uh coins, collectible coins.
48:31
And oddly enough, you know who owns the Franklin Mint right now? No. No idea. Former MFM guest. Ty Lopez. Oh.
48:40
Uh That was my That was a joke.
48:41
Yeah, basically the good job.
48:43
So, basically like in the '60s, '70s, '80s, and even up until the '90s, like all the Marilyn Monroe coins and Elvis Presley coins, the Franklin Mint.
48:53
They they're the ones who started it or who produced a lot of them.
48:58
And so, from there, he parlayed that to a couple things.
49:00
And now at this point, his company, it's called Wonderful Brands.
49:04
They own a a bunch of really interesting brands.
49:06
So, they own Landmark Wines.
49:08
That's not that interesting. Teleflora.
49:09
Do you know what Teleflora is?
49:11
It's a pretty big $350 million a year business where you call It's like 1-800-Flowers, a competitor.
49:17
But But here's the big ones that they own.
49:19
The first is Wonderful Pistachios.
49:22
You've seen those at the store, right? Mhm.
49:24
The second is POM Wonderful.
49:24
Do you know what POM Wonderful is? Yeah, palm juice. Yeah, pomegranate. Yeah, palm juice.
49:28
And so, basically the wife, Lynda, she she's like, "You know, I love pomegranates, but there's no This was like in the in the '80s."
49:34
She's like, "There's not really a good pomegranate juice.
49:36
Let's let's do this juice."
49:36
And she goes, "You know what?
49:41
Pomegranate's good for your heart. It's What else is it?"
49:43
And she like learns about what it's good for and she was like, "You know, it makes women have like an hourglass figure.
49:47
Like it like is like good for you and like it's you know, it it makes you feel good, I guess."
49:52
And so they made she made the bottle like a you know, it's like a if you've ever seen it, it's like a bottle, yeah.
49:58
Yeah, it's like a signature bottle.
49:59
Well, they own another company that has a wonderful signature bottle called Fiji water. Mhm.
50:06
So they they also own Fiji, which has a square bottle.
50:08
And at this point, they're privately owned.
50:12
They're one of the largest producers of uh one of the largest farm owners in America.
50:16
So they own almond and pistachio farms and they do $4 billion a year in revenue.
50:20
And it's just in 2018, they were the wealthiest farmers in the country. Yeah.
50:28
And this guy they're you know, the the I believe the the wife, Linda, she's Jewish, but she's got this like Southern bell charm to her.
50:35
Like she's from like Alabama or something.
50:38
She reminds me of like an old like you know, Faulkner novel.
50:41
Like she reminds me of like a character in Forrest Gump movie.
50:42
And and but she they're based out of California.
50:47
And then he's got like a little New York vibe where he like kind of comes off as like cool and hip. But they're farmers.
50:52
They own they're huge farmers and they're like have the best brands out there. Fiji is a great brand. And they created these.
50:59
They're not just acquiring these, right? No, they made them.
51:01
Yeah, they they make these brands and they own way more.
51:05
Wonderful's are a really good brand.
51:05
I love Wonderful pistachios.
51:06
And so these guys just kill it.
51:08
They're just quietly crushing it.
51:10
And I think at this point, I think they're like 81 or 82 years old and I still watch talks with them and they talk about how they go, "Well, how do you stay close to their customers?"
51:20
And they're like, "Well, I just read Twitter all day and I like read about and like I sometimes I'll like Me too. They're just like us.
51:24
Yeah, they're just like us.
51:27
And so sometimes they they just like look at like what customer they're like, "We use Facebook and we just like skim like our page and we just see like which complaints are actually good and which are are nonsense and we reply and then we make changes and we just run our business that way."
51:39
And they're really interesting people.
51:41
So that's the billies of the week, Stewart Resnick and his wife Linda. Linda. Wow.
51:47
Yeah, she looks like the type person that would give you a kiss on the cheek and then wipe off the lipstick. Yeah.
51:53
And then you're like, "What just happened?" Yeah. Yeah. I love those women.
51:57
They always smell so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
52:02
Like going to the bathroom at one of the one of like that's house is just an absolute pleasure.
52:06
There's so many things you didn't know.
52:07
So many scents scents you didn't even know existed.
52:11
Like you'll spend 15 minutes just trying to wash your hands to get out of there cuz it's like, "Oh, wow, this This is like a handkerchief instead of like a you know, a towel. This is amazing."
52:19
Yeah, at the end of this you're going to be an expert on butterscotch candy.
52:20
Like you're going to know all about it.
52:23
Like those little like red, green, and yellow candies that like, "What the [ __ ] What are these things?"
52:28
It's like fruit punch candies. Uh so I love this brand.
52:34
Um and I love this of the This Teleflora 1-800-Flowers thing, why doesn't somebody create like 1-800-Flowers Teleflora flowers as just a ghost kitchen on DoorDash and on Uber Eats?
52:44
Like why is it Does that exist?
52:46
Like what why can't I just order flowers?
52:49
I've seen a flower thing when I go on there, but I think it's like DoorDash's own.
52:52
I think you could create like either edible arrangements or flower thing and just partner with local florists to fulfill the demand.
52:57
Um and it's like it's like way better than food.
53:02
But I know whenever there's like a birthday or something like that, that's my go-to thing now is just like, "Hey, I'm going to DoorDash them something." Right?
53:09
Cuz it's like I never plan anything. them?
53:11
What's like a good enough Like I'll do like like the last one I did was like, you know, like a a a bunch of boba tea.
53:18
Like this person like really likes boba teas.
53:19
So I sent them a bunch of boba.
53:21
Or I'll send them like, you know, pizza and wings.
53:23
Or I'll send them a Cinnabon and whatever.
53:25
Or I'll send them, you know, a bunch of ice cream or chocolate or whatever.
53:28
Cuz it's like I can procrastinate until 30 minutes before like their birthday, you know, is over and I could push this button and still be a great friend.
53:40
Uh so let me do that, you know.
53:40
It's like a great friend machine.
53:42
Noah Kagan for my birthday gifted me like 200 bucks worth of 16 oz bottles of Topo Chico from Costco.
53:47
And I like that was it was like a it was it was like a month and a half supply of Topo Chico and it's like all I drank for 2 and a half months or something. It was awesome.
53:57
Yeah, on your birthday I tried to see like is there such a thing as gas station gift cards, but they it was really tough to find anything that would work. That's so funny.
54:08
I was like, "Can I open a tab in my friend's name at your at your gas station?"
54:12
He'll he'll walk in from time to time and Do you guys sell dip and like Coke zeros? nacho cheese?
54:23
Do you guys sell nacho cheese, dudes?
54:26
If he brings his own cup, can he just walk out with some hot juice? That's awesome. That's disgusting. that's the episode.
54:35
That was Dude, you you really did carry that episode. That was amazing.
54:39
This is This is This entire episode is going to be called the Sam Parr special.
54:42
And uh it's just Sam bringing hit after hit after hit.
54:45
You want to know those quads to work.
54:47
You want to know what I'm most proud about?
54:51
Guess how long that took me to prepare.
54:55
I think you would be proud if you spent a long time. Like 45 minutes.
54:57
It's Oh, that went the other way. It's 1:00 p. m. now.
55:02
We started recording at noon.
55:04
I block off on my schedule from 11:00 to noon is my research time.
55:06
I did all of this in that 1-hour time and I even took a bathroom break and I definitely did some pull-ups. So Yeah.
55:12
Did you like take the Limitless pill?
55:15
How did you do all that in that 45 minutes?
55:19
Uh I just got a good brain. I don't know.
55:20
I just Yeah, I I I just my brain's good.
55:23
I just was on fire today.
55:25
I drank a bunch of coffee. Nice. But that's it. We're out of here.