0:00
This is such a good idea, by the way.
Search this video
0:02
This is a phenomenal idea.
0:03
This is a 10 out of 10 opportunity and uh Dude, he pitched me to invest.
0:09
why have I not invested in this already? All right, what's up? We got a banger. We got a doozy.
0:21
We got a We got a two-man trio here and uh it's just me and Sam, no guests today. Uh Sam, what's up? Nothing.
0:30
I've liked having guests, actually. Normally I hate it. Lately I've enjoyed it. What's the difference? So we should do more.
0:36
I've liked the people we've chatted with. It's been better.
0:39
Yeah, not like those other crusty guests in the past.
0:43
Um I have got a meaty topic.
0:43
It looks like I don't know if you have meaty ones, but you have four good ones, but they're smaller. Is that right?
0:49
All right, I'm going to tell you about a business that I think is kind of interesting.
0:53
Ben Ben put this on my radar um yesterday.
0:56
He goes He goes, "Dude, uh your sister should open a play street." A play street.
1:00
I was like, "What the hell's a play street?" So I look it up.
1:04
Have you ever heard of this thing, Play Street Museum? Pro- probably not.
1:05
You don't have You don't have little kids, but basically imagine like a good-for-you version of Chuck E. Cheese.
1:15
Let's start with that as the as the analogy. So like Chuck E.
1:17
Cheese is, you know, um it's like it cuz I remember this tweet.
1:24
It was like, "Um Come eat rat pizza at my child casino."
1:32
So you Dude, my parents used to say the they were I I always thought the Chuck E.
1:36
Cheese near my house had burnt down, but they just said, "We can't say no, it it burnt down. We can't go anymore."
1:40
It it it I drove by there when I got a license and it wasn't burnt down.
1:43
I just thought it had burnt down. That was their excuse. They said it burnt down.
1:51
At 16 years old, you're just slamming the dri- the driving the steering wheel, just like, "God damn it."
1:58
It's video the whole time.
1:58
Yeah, like it's like it's like one of the facts your parents tell you when you're five and you just believe it to be true.
2:02
Like you know, I think I told my I told you my my father one time said real men don't drink with straws, but he was referring to like a Jack and Coke.
2:08
So like for years I was like, oh, we don't we're not allowed to drink from straws.
2:14
It's like the Chuck-E-Cheese the Chuck-E-Cheese on Chippewa burned down.
2:17
You know, it's just not there anymore.
2:19
The Chuck-E-Cheese on what? Chippewa?
2:22
That was the street, Chippewa. Oh, too good.
2:25
All right, so this thing Play Street is basically you go there, it's a nice clean play it's like the like a dream playroom for your kids.
2:34
So it's like they got a giant train set, they have some learning games, they got like you know, the floor is all it's like child safe and you basically pay 50 bucks 15 bucks and you get to play for an hour and a half or something like that.
2:45
And so Ben goes, yeah, I've been going to this place and I see that basically the one near me at least he goes, I think they're doing 50 grand a month.
2:53
Like a 50 grand a month, that's kind of a lot.
2:55
And he goes, yeah, he goes they basically they have and I forgot the exact numbers, but it's like seven sessions a day.
3:00
It's $15 each and you have 25 kids I think in the in the thing at once.
3:09
And he goes they're basically 75% full in these sessions.
3:11
You kind of do the math like all right, that gets you kind of like to 40k plus you can host your kids birthday parties there on the nights and weekends.
3:17
And so some people do that.
3:18
He's like I think they're probably you know, an extra 8 to 10k of of of sort of event revenue per month.
3:25
And then if you look at the cost, you know, you got your rent is probably like you know, 5k and you have you have your staff, your teacher your sort of like your your supervisors or whatever that are like overseeing the the play space and like resetting it, recleaning it in between sessions.
3:37
Um I think I'm pretty sure this thing is like netting something like 30k a month in profit.
3:44
Maybe 25k a month in profit.
3:47
And And they have tons of these locations.
3:49
so turns out they're franchising or something like that.
3:50
I don't know if these numbers are true, by the way.
3:51
This is like complete guesswork on my side, but I wouldn't be surprised.
3:55
My sister owns uh some preschools in San Francisco, and the numbers are somewhat similar. Now, that's different.
4:01
That's, you know, they pay, you know, a lot more, but for for for, you know, regular schooling.
4:06
Uh but it's interesting to me that these play spaces can uh can do so well, and it's like it's weather proof.
4:14
It's like, you know, you do it like I know with me, like we go to Target three times a week.
4:17
You might ask yourself, "Sean, what do you What do you need from Target so much?
4:19
Don't you know you can order online?"
4:20
And what I tell you is this is uh this is daycare for me.
4:25
Like I I go Sean goes to Target so much that in his home you have this like Target like a a Target checkout play set and a Target like grocery cart that you said you had to like find because it was like a collector's edition or like it was all sold out everywhere, right?
4:43
Didn't you have like Moms go crazy for this thing.
4:45
to like buy it on eBay and do a big markup. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
4:48
These Target mini grocery carts uh kids love them cuz they're they're used to seeing The kids like to do anything they see their parents doing.
4:54
So, the whole mini grocery checkout plus plus Target cart is uh is is like in high demand.
5:00
So, I go there often, and I do it because you got to kill time.
5:03
It's like, "How do I kill 90 minutes?"
5:04
Uh and ideally and I would do something that's like enriching to them, you know, worst-case scenario, we just go to Starbucks or Target or whatever.
5:11
And um this would be better.
5:11
I would gladly pay 15 bucks for my kids to be able to go play in a place that's not a park, which is like weather weather dependent.
5:19
So, I think these are really cool ideas.
5:20
Um I I think I think this play street thing is a is a cool idea, and I could see this uh you know, this franchise doing like, you know, decently well.
5:28
Probably not the best franchise in the world, but I think it could do decently well. Where are the locations? They're like Texas.
5:35
Uh there's like none in California, none in New York.
5:37
It's like bunch of like But what are they?
5:38
It's like a It's like a What type of What type blank commercial space.
5:44
Um so, like you don't need any food stuff.
5:46
Uh so, you just uh you know it's like a just a blank like retail space. Huh.
5:50
Yeah, I mean their branding's pretty pretty good.
5:51
It's like of like how escape rooms work.
5:52
Escape rooms work because they require no specific real estate.
5:57
They can operate in a very small footprint.
5:59
And they take like two staff to run at any all day.
6:04
And so escape rooms actually are like you know fairly fairly good, you know, franchise businesses or they were for a period of time.
6:09
Now, unlike a escape room which is kind of like you don't know if if escape rooms are a fad or if they're going to be like popular in three years from now.
6:15
Um these you kind of know are going to be popular because it's like you know every parent's got this problem.
6:20
All right, let me tell you about another another thing like this.
6:22
Another problem you haven't really thought about.
6:24
This is a business called 260 Sample Sale. You ever heard of this? No. Uh let me Google it.
6:31
it's like kind of a cool New York thing.
6:32
So what what they do is any e-commerce or fashion brand has a ton of you know photo samples or product samples that they get from their manufacturer.
6:43
They use them in their photo shoots um to create the the you know pictures on the website or for advertisements or marketing or whatever.
6:49
And then those don't live in the warehouse like they live like where the photographer is or where their office is.
6:55
And you just end up piling up boxes and boxes and boxes of photo samples um you know over time cuz it let's say you you know most fashion brands or apparel brands have you know thousands of SKUs.
7:08
For each SKU you had a sample made before you had the production one made.
7:12
But you didn't just have one sample made, you have each of the sizes made and because you needed it in for the photo shoot um to be able to show the range or be able to cast different types of of models.
7:21
And so what ends up happening is you get a ton of these samples over over the years that you can't really it's like not worth your time to get rid of.
7:28
Um and so this business popped up again like you know the markets are like you know water.
7:35
Water's going to just flow to every where there's an empty crevice.
7:37
There's an empty crevice in this market here for getting rid of these samples.
7:39
So what they do is 260 samples does is send us your [ __ ] brand and we will host a pop-up where we're going to sell you along with a bunch of other brands all at a great markdown.
7:51
So, we have high-quality brands at a markdown because these are samples.
7:55
So, you're not like training your customer that like, you know, hey, this is like TJ Maxx discount or something like that. It's It's a good story.
8:01
This is These are samples that you're going to get uh for for less and they'll like they'll just give the brand a commission back.
8:09
They'll say, "Uh you know, every time we sell something of yours, you get a small commission."
8:11
It's better than nothing.
8:13
It takes it out of your space.
8:14
How'd you How'd you find this?
8:17
This totally out of your out of your They're only based in LA, Miami, New York and the pictures are like smoking hot women and then like a It looks like a picture of like a huge line out of a warehouse in Soho. Hot women in waiting. things. I don't do it.
8:34
You know, YOUR BOY DOESN'T DO IT. YEAH. SO, uh Yeah. None of this sexy box.
8:38
Yeah, your boy is so married and so in the house that I did not go to this. You're right.
8:43
But, I'm in the e-commerce world.
8:45
I got my own e-commerce brand plus I know and talk to a lot of other e-commerce people and I know about this problem and so I heard about this solution and I think it's very clever.
8:54
Um I think it is a smart thing to do.
8:56
I also think these guys are not that well known and they're only doing it in certain um certain area, certain locations and and whatever.
9:05
I think this could be done at many times over.
9:07
I think I think like a Spire could do this do this by vertical.
9:11
So, you could go get a bunch of health and wellness and fitness brands or beauty brands and be like, "Hey, beauty brands, send us your products and we're going to we'll have a stations where you can demo them and and sample them and then buy them."
9:22
Um so, I think you could do this for other verticals.
9:25
I think you could just do this in other places.
9:26
Like, "Hey, if these guys are doing New York and LA, I think that their locations are like Beverly Hills and Brooklyn or something." Do this in Texas.
9:32
Do this in um do this in different different parts of the the country.
9:36
I think you could have a you know, it's like your own little farmers market.
9:41
It's your own flea market that you you get to to stock and run.
9:43
Um and but you don't have to do it as a full-time job.
9:46
So, you could do it with every quarter or twice a year or something like that and still have it be successful.
9:51
So, I thought this is a cool little Have you heard Do you know Kingsford charcoal?
9:55
You you've you've seen it.
9:57
It's like the most popular charcoal like the blue Do you know how that was created?
10:02
I think it's a byproduct of something else, right?
10:03
What it What was it a Exactly. wood Ford Oh, Ford.
10:07
So, Ford when when when Ford was making cars, they had to like, you know, have all these furnaces making metal and they took like the leftover char and they're like, what should we do this?
10:17
And so, they pushed it together and compact it really tight and that's how charcoal came to be.
10:19
And that's like a byproduct business and I love byproduct stuff.
10:25
You know, it's kind of like it's tangentially it's kissing cousins with like the sharing economy. I love that stuff.
10:30
I love byproduct stuff and this is one of those that's awesome.
10:34
This is actually quite cool.
10:34
Their website is really challenging to use, which is uh I think actually a good sign cuz I can't tell like apparently they do sell stuff online.
10:44
But, it's mostly but one thing I do hate, whenever I go to New York, dude, seeing people wait in line to buy like Supreme clothing like just Put your Put the gun in my mouth, man.
10:54
Like I'm never doing that. I'm not doing that.
10:58
I'm not going to wait in line and spend my valuable time to purchase a thousand-dollar like thing that should cost two dollars.
11:04
worse than that is bottle service at a club.
11:06
It's like the guys who are paying, you know, seven thousand dollars for a table to and paying a thousand dollars per bottle that they could literally walk across the street buy for forty dollars.
11:16
It's um It's literally the chump tax.
11:19
It's like, oh, you're a chump. Come to this line. Please, please, please.
11:24
Yeah, yeah, come right ahead. Come right ahead.
11:25
You you walk through the chump line.
11:29
I'm not a man of God, but when Jesus made like the list of seven deadly sins, the example of debauchery and gluttony was people waiting in line for 5 hours to go to Supreme store.
11:38
I mean, like whatever like I see that stuff, I've like this is the worst form of consumerism. I cannot stand this.
11:43
I So, I they have these pictures here that turns me off. But Amen.
11:53
I I would maybe buy this online, but I ain't standing in line.
11:55
I'm not standing in line with a bunch of these people to buy this stuff. I can't stand that.
12:00
Whenever I see that, it makes me want to like throw away everything and go live in the woods.
12:03
here's an idea you're going to like more. Um host share.
12:07
So, got a DM from a guy named Michael Fisk, and he shows me this thing called hostshare. co.
12:14
Um and he goes, "Here's the Here's Here's the Here's the situation.
12:16
You have a short-term rental, right? A property um Yeah.
12:19
Shout it out so people can go stay at it. marathonranch. com. Marathon Ranch. Marathon Ranch. Is it . com or . co? I don't know. Yeah, . com. Marathon Ranch.
12:29
Sam comes by, has dinner with you, gives you a massage. It's fantastic.
12:32
So, um you don't have 100% occupancy, right?
12:37
You have some nights that are unused. Is that correct?
12:40
Uh a 60% occupancy rate is is a profitable month for you.
12:43
So, you got let's say 40% that's unused nights.
12:44
What you doing with those nights?
12:47
This is the sharing economy, bro.
12:48
What you doing with those nights?
12:50
Well, Michael Fisk has an answer for you.
12:51
His answer is trade your unused nights with other hosts who have unused nights.
12:57
You stay for free there, they stay for free at at your place.
13:02
And um I think this is a really smart idea.
13:05
I don't know how many hosts Let's Google this.
13:06
How many hosts on Airbnb.
13:09
I don't know how many properties they have or how many hosts. There's 4 million.
13:12
Okay, so you have a market of 4 million hosts that you could make a inter-host um like network, basically.
13:20
Where you say, "Hey, if you're a host, you get to travel for free."
13:24
Um so, you get to I I know I don't know how they make things equal.
13:28
So like if your property is way more dope than somebody else's, I don't know how you make that uh that trade uh thing.
13:34
Okay, how do you normalize the values across properties?
13:37
We calculate how many shared nights you'd be staying in in exchange for 21 in exchange for the 21 days of travel per year.
13:42
The formula is established so higher higher value properties share less nights, lower value properties share more nights.
13:47
So for instance, if your average night is $500, you'll share approximately 15 nights in a year.
13:53
Whereas if you're $100, you got to share 45 nights in a year. Take to same minimum. That's great.
13:57
So like what's your property per night per night right now? Uh $700. $700.
14:01
So you're going to basically what they'll say is, "Hey, make your thing open for 12 days out of the year and then in exchange you get 21 days free booking in this network."
14:12
Would you take that deal?
14:14
That's Yeah, in fact I do.
14:16
So go to live livekindred. com.
14:19
So it's kindred k i n d r e d and then live. Uh livekindred. com exists. So I use this service.
14:25
So my dream situation is I want to find like another couple that has like similar style or like wants as I do that lives in New York and they want to be in Austin and we could just swap and I've not found a good solution for that.
14:40
But there's this thing called live livekindred kindred that I do that I have used where someone will stay at my home when I'm not there and then I get credits for the marketplace and then like I'm going to go to Taos, New Mexico.
14:54
Like I have like eight credits because someone stayed at my house for eight nights and I know that so I'm going to go and stay somewhere else for free.
15:00
And it's actually pretty cool.
15:00
I wish that it was just like a direct swap so I could do six months here and we could just swap six months for six months.
15:09
But I've been using services like these.
15:11
I actually think that I don't think I'm not bold enough to say like this is the future but I think that like you know, there are a lot of people like me who do split time.
15:19
Dude, finding a place for those split like when you split time, it's really challenging.
15:23
I'm always looking for a good solution.
15:27
Yeah, that's uh that's good.
15:29
I didn't know that something like this exists.
15:30
So, with this, do you It's hard.
15:31
And and I think they raised money by the way from Andreessen Horowitz.
15:36
give up your space, is that right?
15:36
So, you give up you put your space in the network, but you still have to pay or you it's free?
15:42
Uh I there's some type of service fee.
15:44
Frankly, I don't think it's a good business.
15:45
Uh I don't understand how they make money.
15:47
And what cuz what what I signed what I signed up for, I was like, "I'm getting a lot of value.
15:51
I'm not spending a lot of value.
15:53
I don't know how you guys are doing this."
15:55
So, like that's like subsidy right now.
15:57
You're getting that Andreessen Horowitz value exchange.
16:02
Yeah, so like we're trying to use our credits quickly cuz I think I don't know if they're going to stay in business or not cuz I don't I don't understand how it works.
16:08
But, it is awesome if it's awesome if it does work. Uh that's hilarious.
16:13
Um so, yeah, I like these types of businesses where you where uh or that solve this problem uh is Host Share popular?
16:19
Or is I think I think I can't tell.
16:21
I think the guy just created it.
16:23
Yeah, if you could pull it off, it's pretty amazing. It's a smart model.
16:25
I think it's hard to pull off.
16:27
Uh cuz like I don't understand how Host Share makes money.
16:31
they have to charge a flat membership.
16:32
So, I think they have to basically say, "It's $500 or $1,000 a year to be in the network."
16:37
And um you know, you only pay if you use more than five nights or something like that.
16:43
Make it a make it a fair trade.
16:43
And um you know, I think I I think basically then they they're trying to get a subscription, right?
16:48
So, they're trying to say, "Can I get 50,000 people to pay us $1,000 a year um on this subscription?"
16:56
There's a few things like that.
16:58
I forget what the big one is called, but there's they there's things like for luxury rentals where I'm almost certain that they just partnered with hotels where you pay like five grand a year.
17:08
Do you know what I'm talking about? Is it called AvantStay?
17:10
Yeah, I don't know the name of it, but I know what you're talking about.
17:11
It's like you get access to this like network of boutique hotels.
17:13
Yeah, and I've looked into them.
17:15
When I originally saw it, I didn't have enough money.
17:17
Like I I wasn't in the spot that I could do it.
17:20
And so I've been looking for things like this.
17:22
I I actually I really like these businesses.
17:23
There's one There's this company called The NerdWallet of England.
17:28
I forget what it was called.
17:29
It's called Money Market Swap or what There's a guy named Simon who started it.
17:34
And so basically he started like the NerdWallet He started a blog that compared like mortgage rates and things like that.
17:39
And then if you bought one or got a mortgage through him, you got affiliate fee.
17:41
It's I think it's called SuperMoneyMarket is what it called.
17:43
It's publicly traded in England.
17:45
Anyway, the guy sold all of his shares after he took a public 20 years later.
17:48
And he now owns this thing called like Simon's Resorts.
17:53
And so it's this rich guy who went and bought like 50 resort or 50 like really nice how homes around the world.
17:57
And I actually don't know they they frame it up like this is his personal stuff and you can just use it when he's not there.
18:04
But it's actually pretty cool.
18:04
And so I love these types of things cuz I think they're just neat to like buy all this [ __ ] and share it with everyone.
18:09
I think it's really cool. Yeah, I like that.
18:11
Can I tell you about a little random experiment I'm going to do?
18:14
So I want to make for this Christmas season a deepfake Santa.
18:22
So basically you're going to be able to come on the site and pay $35 and you um and you type in your message.
18:29
You can say, "Hey, wish my daughter Jessica uh Merry Christmas.
18:33
Tell her great job with the soccer thing and um be nice to her brother." Big sports fan, huh?
18:43
Great legs and soccer Uh and so you you'll be able to type in that message and then it'll basically create a video that's Santa saying this to you.
18:53
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to try this thing that Replit has.
18:56
So Replit has this new thing where you can basically buy developer cycles. Have you seen this?
19:04
No, but tell me about it.
19:05
So let's say you need something built.
19:07
You can basically just go and buy You can put up a bounty.
19:10
So you're like, all right, I want somebody to build me this deep fake Santa.
19:13
It's got to do A, B, and C.
19:15
And you put up a bounty, you put up some put up the dollars, and then people will just build it for you.
19:18
And um And you can you basically have an award.
19:24
So, it's kind of like a uh uh Like 99designs. Yeah. for code. Yeah, exactly.
19:28
And and you do it in their currency, which is called cycles.
19:32
And so, they kind of help you estimate like roughly how many how many cycles should this be for this to to to work out?
19:37
Um but I haven't used it yet.
19:39
I really want to try this bounty thing.
19:40
I think it's great because So, you're going to uh you're going to pull an Emerson.
19:43
You're going to uh you're going to be this smart guy who just does a money grab.
19:47
Uh no, I'm going to bring I'm going to pull a Justin Merris.
19:51
I'm going to bring the joy of Christmas of of belief, really, of the belief in magic uh to millions of kids around the world this Christmas.
19:59
What are you What are you doing for the children this year, Sam?
20:03
Is that your You're going to do the Justin Merris pitch?
20:04
Like, So, we had a problem.
20:06
We wanted to bring joy to children.
20:08
But, like, And we thought, what better way to do that than a $50 cartoon?
20:14
full of war and divisiveness, joy is all we have left.
20:17
It is what they call the last refuge.
20:19
And people say that magic is magic, but the magic is getting people to believe the magic.
20:26
And how do you get people to believe?
20:27
Using deep fake technology.
20:27
And that's what we deep fake Santa.
20:32
How do you get people to to believe in You lie.
20:37
We're going to We're going to create a fake cartoon about a fake person.
20:38
We're going to charge real money, and it's going to be a fantastic result.
20:47
Are you really going to do this?
20:48
cuz I really want to try this roughly bounty thing.
20:50
I want to play with this uh I think this could be cool.
20:52
What's the URL going to be?
20:52
Um I think it's going to be called Santa's real uh you know, dot org. Give it a dot org.
21:03
Let's make all of our businesses dot org just so we can like Just so we can be better than other people. Yeah.
21:13
For a long time, I wanted to make my businesses .
21:14
net so people would think that I've been around for a long time.
21:18
Yeah, your personal website has to be a .
21:20
net and then your business should be a . org. Yeah, but . org is way better. I'm going to do a . org.
21:25
That's way better than that stupid ass .
21:27
xyz crypto [ __ ] I want a . org. Is that what they are? Or like . ai, . io? If you have a .
21:32
io, like I'm not in business. I want a . org. We are a for-profit . org. It's fantastic. Is that what . org means? It's a non-profit?
21:45
you have to be a non-profit to get a . org.
21:48
But who makes that decision?
21:48
Is there like a governing body?
21:50
like present your EIN for your 501c3 or something like that. I have no idea.
21:55
I've never done this, just to be clear.
21:56
I've always been firmly in the .
21:56
com camp, but I'm ready to I made my nut and I'm ready to go and get get my .
22:01
org on for the rest of my life.
22:09
That's like uh on stage Andrew or backstage, we were like, "So, what are you doing?" And he used the P word. I know.
22:15
And he so slanted us with the philanthropy.
22:19
Yeah, it's like, "Dude, if you don't say that word around me. Don't say philanthropy.
22:23
You don't flex with me, bro."
22:24
And so now instead of philanthropy, it's . org. You know I'm A. Wilkinson . org.
22:35
Go ahead and email me there.
22:39
I can't find this client info.
22:39
Have you heard of HubSpot?
22:41
HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application.
22:46
Every team can stay aligned.
22:48
No out-of-sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot, grow better.
22:55
Today I want to talk about Vice. vice. com.
22:56
The reason I'm talking about them is because they are are to declare bankruptcy. Right.
23:02
Cue the Michael Scott clip where he just walks out and declares bankruptcy.
23:08
I always think about that. I love that clip. Now Yeah, I I I agree.
23:09
Most every joke I've said on this podcast I've stolen from that show.
23:14
Um so, the reason I want to talk about them is not because of Vice, but because of the story of the founder, Shane Smith.
23:25
And if you're under the age of 26, Vice probably means nothing to you.
23:29
They've actually like very quickly lost relevancy.
23:33
But to give you some background of what Vice is.
23:36
So, Vice originally was a like a punk rock magazines based out of Montreal.
23:41
So, it was three Canadian guys, and one of those guys being Gavin McInnes.
23:44
You know who Gavin McInnes is? No, who's that?
23:46
Have you Have you heard of Proud Boys?
23:48
Proud Boys, like the political thing?
23:52
Yeah, he started Proud Boys.
23:55
Which a lot of people don't realize.
23:55
And so, it was like these three like kind of like punk rocker guys, and Gavin McInnes being one of them.
24:01
Shane Smith, who I'm going to talk about today, was the other one.
24:04
And basically, the way it started was they got like a grant from the government where they were able to launch this magazine, and that's how it started.
24:11
It started out as a skateboarding punk rock magazine, and they would write like these amazing articles where it was like Vice's guide to drugs, and they would like write all these stories about drugs.
24:20
They would use the N-word all the time.
24:21
They would like They were like Wow.
24:24
It's kind of like you know how like some You probably don't know about this, but like in the punk rock community, they like sometimes they'll like talk about Nazis and talk about like use racist language, but they do it as like a shock factor cuz it's like, I want to be in your face, that type of thing.
24:37
That That's what Vice was all about.
24:37
I don't remember I don't know if you remember like the old school covers of these magazines, but it would be like a tab of LSD on like a hot chick's uh tongue.
24:46
Do you remember like Do you remember that?
24:49
seeing the Vice magazine.
24:49
I remember reading something Actually, they called it just zines.
24:52
Is there a difference between a zine and a magazine?
24:54
Cuz that's what that That's what I remember.
24:57
Just just just the just the culture.
24:57
If it's someone's a zine, it's typically more it's like a punk rock thing.
25:02
Whereas if it's a magazine, it could be like GQ. Okay, got you.
25:07
So, you've never seen these, but it started out as like hardcore punk rock where they would write articles about um doing drugs, having sex, like just rock and roll [ __ ] And that started getting picked up.
25:17
And so, they started this company in '94, but in '99 they moved to New York.
25:21
And that was like where things changed.
25:23
And that's right where like the internet just got started.
25:26
What looks like you're looking at something funny.
25:28
at the magazine covers and I'm and you're saying rock and roll and I was just thinking about like this is what cool like basically like this is what influential people uh it's I kind of like musicians were influential people and they did the stuff it's like the the the tongue with the LSD on it.
25:42
It's like someone just biting a tuft of hair.
25:44
I don't know what why there's a bunch of hair in someone's mouth.
25:48
And I was just thinking about pod and roll and how it would be just like someone entering a cold plunge. Someone meditating.
25:53
It's like Yeah, we're part of that pod and roll movement.
25:57
Yeah, we we're the famous five casters, you know what I mean?
25:59
They're all just sauna cold, hot cold, man. It's crazy.
26:02
The temperature variance is insane. Things have changed. changed. Things have changed. Cool has changed.
26:10
Yeah, the definition of cool has changed, which is actually part of the thing I'm going to discuss.
26:12
But so, the internet starts coming around in the late '90s.
26:16
They raise a little bit of money, like $2 million.
26:17
They move down to um they move down to New York and that's where they like really get going.
26:22
And so, they create the website vice. com.
26:26
Originally it was a magazine.
26:26
Then it was a free magazine that they would just hand out and they would make money off ads and it would be the three of them writing articles and they would do something that I used to do all the time where they would have like fake authors.
26:36
So, it would be like someone who wasn't real just [ __ ] making up stories is really what it was, which is you know, it was an entertainment magazine, so that's fine.
26:44
But they start growing and it takes off after a handful of years.
26:46
And so they kind of created this thing at the time now we just know it as like branded content, where it was now sometimes people call them advertorials, things like that.
26:57
But basically, their whole stick was we're going to make awesome content, and we're going to get the eyeballs of millennials, which back then, millennials were like the Gen Z today.
27:08
You know, it was like the elusive, hard-to-reach audience.
27:09
And they said, "We're going to reach these millennials, and we're going to make the best content, and we're just going to plaster your logo on there, and that's going to be good enough for you."
27:17
And this is like pre-Facebook, so like performance advertising wasn't really much of a thing.
27:23
So, it was like the way to advertise.
27:24
And eventually, they blow up, and the important part of the story isn't exactly that they blew up, because they did, but the story is like the antics that they went along and and and built this thing with.
27:35
And so, they raised money from Rupert Murdoch, who's, you know, the founder of Fox.
27:40
They raised money from all these amazing people, Viacom.
27:42
Eventually, they raised money at a $6 billion valuation. Today, they're nothing.
27:47
But, they still make $600 million a year in revenue.
27:50
And so, I want to talk about some of the crazy stuff that the founder did, as well as how their business model works.
27:57
And so, have you ever heard of the the guy, Shane Smith, who was the CEO and kind of the main man? Never. All right.
28:03
So, he had a whole bunch of interesting things that he did.
28:05
So, if you Google Shane Smith, you'll probably see like pictures of him, like it's a it's a a guy who almost looks like a punk rock Santa Claus, where he's kind of like a bigger guy, and he like you'll see like he's got sleeve tattoos, and you'll see him shirtless all the time, and smoking a cigar.
28:20
Do you like see any pictures like that?
28:22
Yeah, he looks like um he looks a little bit like the guy who's the number two guy in Billions.
28:25
I forget what the guy's name is.
28:26
Uh like not not Axe, but his his right-hand man.
28:30
He looks a lot like that guy, if that guy had just like chest tattoos.
28:32
If he just had like a tattoo around his nipple, that that'd be this guy.
28:37
Dude, so he's just like crazy.
28:37
And so, Vice originally, the way that they became respected is they would do all this crazy stuff, but it was him doing it, Shane, the CEO.
28:45
And so, he would go to Liberia during when they're having a civil war and he would just bring a camera and just get dropped in Liberia and figure it out.
28:53
In 2013, he traveled to North Korea because he organized a basketball game between the Harlem Globetrotters and the national team of North Korea.
29:02
And that was like the big stick.
29:05
And then eventually, do you remember hearing about Dennis Rodman going to North Korea?
29:11
That was for a Vice documentary and they would make these like free documentaries and they would post them on It was originally their site and then they moved to YouTube and they would get lots of views and they would like put like an Intel logo on there and that's how they made money.
29:22
And so, they And so, he was known for walking around his office of like Vice and I've been to the office.
29:29
It's like as magnificent as you would think.
29:30
It's like the coolest of the cool and he would walk around shirtless and he would just like say crazy stuff.
29:35
He was known for just being like this wild guy.
29:37
And so, one time when he hired a CEO, her name was Nancy. This was recently.
29:43
He said, "We're the modern We're the modern-day Bonnie and Clyde and we're here to take all your money."
29:48
And he would just say stuff like that all the time.
29:50
There was another time when they were just getting started and I believe it was into it.
29:54
They came um Was it into it or IBM? One of those.
29:59
They came to the office in order to pitch or Vice was going to pitch into it.
30:04
And so, what they did was there was a really shitty office at the time.
30:06
24 hours before the meeting, he built like a glass conference room so it looked legit and so you could see your employees and then he went and hired a bunch of like actors and got a tons of friends to come and work in the office to make it look like they're important because he always like said something like um we don't want them to think that we're What did he say?
30:27
We want them to think that we're rich.
30:28
Like they like he was like, "We're going to act as if."
30:29
And he did and they eventually got a $25 million deal from this company and it worked out.
30:35
worked out. And there was another time where there was this 2003, Vice made a in documentary on themselves and he tells a story about when they started the company how he got arrested in Bangkok Bangkok and he said something like a few years later they were like yeah I remember that story you talked about
30:52
being in prison in Bangkok and he was like yeah yeah I remember that and he goes tell me more about that he goes well I made it all up we needed a story on how they we needed a story on how the company started and I had heard this story from someone else so I just took it over and we needed and I just had to take make it mine. He's like I want The
31:07
He's like I want The Hangover 3 and decided that was my life.
31:13
Dude he would do crazy stuff like that all the time there was another time where I was reading this interview with him.
31:19
He there was this headline about how he spent $300,000 at dinner in Vegas and a reporter goes did you really spend $300,000 for dinner? He goes no.
31:31
It was $380,000 plus tip and it was barely dinner it was mostly wine.
31:38
He's just the guy is like wild he even tells crazier stories where he goes this was a quote from the Financial Times he would go I would be at the party and we'd just go get wasted take coke have sex with girls in the bathroom and then get and then afterwards mail my advertisers drugs because I knew if I sent them a bunch of drugs in the mail they would keep buying ads with us and he admits all this stuff.
32:01
It's crazy man this guy is wild. I just don't get it. Well so check this out. Where did we go wrong?
32:08
Was it when we mailed our customers drugs or when I did drugs during the day when I was working with my shirt off having sex in the bathroom?
32:19
Dude he tells a story about him and his co-founders having threesomes with like people who are going to buy ads with them and he says that they were like mobsters who accidentally clanked shovels together while they were burying a body.
32:34
If that if that analogy makes sense when someone was like what's it feel like having a having sex with your co-founder?
32:38
And you know, do you guys ever like touch?"
32:40
He goes, "Yeah, but it's just like two mafia guys and our shovels accidentally clank while we're burying the body." Wow. This guy is a showman. He's a total showman.
32:54
Of course, it didn't work out well, but In all seriousness, didn't totally blew it.
33:01
It didn't It didn't work out well for the company, but it worked out for him.
33:04
So, Google Shane Smith house.
33:06
Yeah, I see a $50 million house.
33:06
I already I'm up two steps ahead.
33:07
Yeah, I already Googled it.
33:10
So, this There's this amazing article that came out in 2008 where it's all about Shane Smith and it says, "Shane Smith's Living Large."
33:15
And it documents his new house that he purchased for $30 million, I think.
33:19
And it's this beautiful mansion up in LA somewhere.
33:26
Well, he recently sold it for $50 million.
33:28
So, like this guy has totally come out on top of this of this whole thing.
33:32
And I It just really fascinating that he basically came in, he spent about 15, 20 years doing his thing right before like tide the tide change and like these guys were the opposite of woke.
33:45
Now, Vice is like the wokest of the woke.
33:47
But right before that change happened, he got his money, he got out, and he bounced, and he hired a CEO.
33:51
And his story is super super fascinating.
33:56
And so, you've never heard of him? I've never heard of him.
33:58
I briefly knew that Vice started as a as a zine or magazine.
34:02
What's your main takeaways?
34:04
Cuz this is entertaining cuz this guy's like Felix Dennis just like reincarnated.
34:09
So, what's your takeaway? You're a media guy.
34:12
You're You're a bit of a wild man.
34:15
What's your take on this?
34:16
I mean, this this guy makes you look like a like a you know, choir boy or something, but what's your takeaways from this story?
34:23
I have a bunch of takeaways.
34:23
And so, but first let me tell you how their business model works because that's part of my takeaways.
34:28
So, a lot of people don't realize how they make money.
34:29
They're going bankrupt now, but they still make 600 million a year in revenue, but it's just like wildly unprofitable.
34:34
So, they their company it's basically like I consider it like a mortgage-backed security for media.
34:40
And so, do you remember like the mortgage-backed securities of 2008 where it was basically like banks would buy like tens of thousands of mortgages in one tranche.
34:50
Turns out like 4,000 of the 10,000 were [ __ ] That's exactly what Vice does.
34:55
And so, they they got famous because they only had like 20 or 30 million monthly visits to their website, vice. com, which isn't a ton.
35:03
That's not a ton for hundreds of millions in revenue.
35:07
What they did was they did uh they partnered with omgfacts. com, distractify.
35:14
com, and all these other clickbait websites, and they would roll that up and so they would sit call them part of the Vice Network.
35:21
And so, they would tell people uh you know, like Intel or whoever the big advertisers are, "Look, we we reach all of uh millennials and we have 100 million, 200 million monthly uniques to our network."
35:33
In reality, it was on like [ __ ] sites like, you know, all those other things.
35:37
And that was like once that came out, it was kind of frowned upon.
35:42
And then the other way they made money was they had a agency called Virtue, like Vice and Virtue, which is pretty clever.
35:47
But their whole company is basically a creative agency.
35:49
So, they would make content for Snapchat, and then eventually HBO, and all and they would get paid like a service fee basically for it.
35:58
And it was basically one big agency, and that's how they made money.
36:04
Which brings me to the takeaways. Takeaway one.
36:09
If you're going to be a company that makes money from multiple different streams of revenue, you got to nail one first.
36:13
They didn't even nail one like a stream of revenue.
36:16
They had like five other things that added up to a lot, but not one of them worked wonderfully, at least not enough to be profitable.
36:23
So, that's one major takeaway.
36:26
The second major takeaway is they would always say they're going to be the next Disney.
36:31
They go, "We're going to be a mini Disney."
36:32
Shane once said, "We're worth 10 billion right now, but conservatively, I think we're going to be worth 40 or 50 billion in a couple of years."
36:39
That couple of years would have been like in 2020 or something. Never worked out.
36:44
They go, "We're going to be just like Disney, except with like cocaine." Didn't work out. Why? Cuz no one likes them.
36:51
If you're going to build the next Disney, you got to be like people got to love you.
36:54
You know, people love Mickey Mouse.
36:56
They don't really love like Shane Smith, you know, and all that stuff.
36:59
You know, they like them.
37:00
They don't They don't really love them.
37:02
So, if you're going to be a media company like that, you have to have something that people love. The next thing is news.
37:07
If you're going to be in the news business, that's really, really hard because you have to stay relevant.
37:13
And I actually think that you should be something that typically people don't grow out of, but they grow into.
37:20
Meaning, a Wall Street Journal, a New York Times.
37:23
If you're going to be like one of these publications, Economist, Financial Times, things like that.
37:26
You want to grow into it.
37:26
Meaning, like as you get older, you want to like aspire to be able to read it and like it and understand it and brag about it.
37:34
Whereas with Vice, it was like, "I'm no longer 28 years old.
37:37
Reading about this stuff is not exactly cool.
37:40
And plus, the people working there, you kind of look silly."
37:44
I've always said about this about Barstool Barstool Sports.
37:47
I'm like, "Dude, Dave Portnoy is getting older.
37:48
Like, some of these antics are kind of not going to be cool anymore.
37:53
They're more so like pathetic." Do you know what I mean?
37:54
And that's kind of happened with Vice.
37:56
Yeah, you basically uh you either stay with the stick and you just start to look like a clown as you get older and older, or you got to sell, get out, and change your life, you know, change your lifestyle.
38:08
And uh it's pretty interesting cuz it is very hard to let go cuz A, if you weren't such a nut, you wouldn't have got the got this level of success in the first place.
38:16
So, it's kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
38:18
And then on the second second uh part of it, you know, it's very easy to get addicted to the character, the the fame, the money that comes with with acting a certain way.
38:28
You're being rewarded rewarded rewarded.
38:31
And then you now you're 57 and you're you're oh you know you're you're you're Vince McMahon now or you're Hugh Hefner now or you're whoever, right?
38:37
Like it's hard to leave the character uh even though you might actually you maybe you actually should uh you know grow out of it.
38:45
Um anyways, but I'm glad that these guys don't grow out of it.
38:48
It's it's for our entertainment. Thank you.
38:50
Thank you for your service, Shane Smith. It is.
38:53
And the last two things, if you're going to build a media company, avoid New York City.
39:00
Like when you're a creative services business, you need it's an it's a talent arbitrage and it's really hard to do that when you're in a really high cost of living city like New York.
39:09
And also, you saw that they like became this woke company, which I don't entirely believe like go woke go broke, like that type of thing.
39:19
I do think that um I think that like there's a niche you can make money in any niche no matter if you're woke or not.
39:26
But they like changed that way when that wasn't originally what they did.
39:28
And I think they changed that way because they moved to like Williamsburg and and everything like that and it totally changed their uh their their stick.
39:34
But the last thing is actually a compliment.
39:39
So you texted me the other day right before you're about to go on to you're going to speak at this conference and you said uh What did you say?
39:45
About to drop some showmanship on these [ __ ] Is that what you said?
39:48
About showmanship on these [ __ ] of showmanship. Yeah.
39:53
And that is totally true and that is what he did.
39:55
And frankly, even though he it seems as though he conned a lot of people, he kind of got the last laugh and he had showmanship throughout the entire thing and had it worked out, it would have been a lot cooler.
40:06
But having showmanship, it totally works.
40:11
people ask me like, "Oh, do you get nervous before public speaking?"
40:12
It's like, "Ah, I don't know, man.
40:16
If I was nervous, I probably wouldn't be thinking I'm about to drop some showmanship on these [ __ ] Like, it's a different attitude versus I hope I don't mess up.
40:24
Dude, he he like throughout his career if you can like there's so many crazy stories about this guy.
40:28
It's all about showmanship.
40:30
He does the wildest stuff where he like tells stories.
40:32
The the way he tells stories, it captures your attention.
40:35
And some of his employees were like, "When I'm with Shane, I feel like I'm going to war and I'll go to any war with him." Right.
40:40
Or there's like Johnny Knoxville did a interview and he was talking about Shane and he goes, "He's the greatest leader you could ever have.
40:47
Also the greatest drinking buddy, but and like he like does this Yeah.
40:55
He like has all of these like amazing one-liners even if they are full of [ __ ] But whenever I hear him talk, I'm like, "Oh my god, I believe everything you said."
41:03
So, for example, have you ever heard me say, "The best way to circumvent someone's [ __ ] detector is to not bullshit."
41:08
I've used that line a couple of times. I stole it from him.
41:12
So, he would like he has all these like amazing one-liners and that showmanship, it's absolutely captivating.
41:16
There's like a story about him with Rupert Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch and Shane are walking and Rupert Murdoch is like a you know, if you see the movie TV show Succession, he's like that guy.
41:26
He's like a mean old man.
41:30
And Shane sits down with him and goes, "You don't have millennials, but I do.
41:32
I have everything you don't have."
41:34
And like he's talking to this billionaire like this. The value of my youth?
41:43
What what what what what do you mean what are the things I don't have? All right.
41:46
But he just like totally like swings above his weight and I think it's really fascinating to learn from this guy.
41:51
So, if you're listening to this, Google Shane Smith.
41:52
It's there's like crazy stories about this guy. Good segment by you. Good good job by you. Good job. I like that one.
41:57
I actually have a a spin-off of that.
41:59
You mentioned a company in there that I was like, "Hmm, that sounds familiar.
42:04
I kind of remember this name." So, you said OMG Facts.
42:06
Do you know who started OMG Facts? I do.
42:11
I forget his name, but he's an oddball, right? Emerson Spartz.
42:16
And I met Emerson Spartz maybe 10 years ago.
42:18
And so he And when he was building OMG Facts and building a network called Dose Media.
42:23
He's like a genius, right? Like a savant.
42:26
I met him and I was like, "Wow, this guy is super smart."
42:28
Um I actually think that he is kind of like if he had just applied himself to some other areas, he would have like totally uh done done some like you know, absolutely amazing things.
42:39
Everybody would know his name versus just kind of me and half of you knowing his name.
42:42
So, I'm going to tell you a couple things about Emerson Spartz.
42:46
So, the guy when he was 12 years old built a website called MuggleNet.
42:49
And I don't know if you're a Harry Potter guy, but I'm I'm a Harry Potter guy.
42:54
And I was on MuggleNet all the time.
42:57
And I used to love this cuz it was the number one Harry Potter fan site in the world.
43:01
Tons and tons of traffic.
43:04
I mean, at the time Harry Potter was like, you know, Justin Bieber.
43:07
It was Harry Potter was was super super famous.
43:11
And in between the books, people wanted a place to discuss, to post theories, to post fan fiction, to uh debate, you know, what should have happened, blah blah blah.
43:22
And so MuggleNet, when he's 12, he builds this super popular site getting millions and millions of visitors.
43:29
When he's 18, he publishes a best-selling book.
43:31
His best-selling book is called uh I think it's called Harry Potter Should Have Died.
43:39
Controversial views from the number one fan site.
43:42
And basically it's like, "Harry survived, but should he have?
43:44
Uh you know, I run the world's biggest fan site for Harry Potter, and here's some of the controversial viewpoints that people have about Harry Potter."
43:54
You can already see this guy's got the he's got the certain that au jus that comes with the sandwich, you know, that He's got the sauce and uh he's got the showmanship.
44:04
And so he I I met him maybe he was I don't I don't know how old he was, maybe 22 or something like this at this point.
44:09
And um Where'd you meet him?
44:12
I don't even remember, man.
44:13
I was I remember being on a call with him, a video call.
44:15
And it was him and I think his girlfriend at the time.
44:19
And they were creating something called Dose Media.
44:20
And I go, "So what is it?"
44:22
He goes, "Well, we were going to make like really viral content."
44:24
So uh they had OMG Facts, that was one of their companies.
44:27
They had like four or five websites like that.
44:29
One that was like science facts, one that was funny things, one that was whatever, controversial or pop culture stuff, like references to TV shows and things that were hot right now.
44:40
And they had these websites and I go, "Okay, so how do you like At the time in my mind I was like, going viral is getting you know, lightning strikes you.
44:50
You know, you It's just not something you try to do, it's just something that happens or it doesn't happen and it usually doesn't happen."
44:57
And he's like, "No, no, no."
44:57
And he had built a four-part system.
44:58
This is the first guy, he's like, "Yeah, we're a different type type of technology company.
45:04
We have 18 engineers and we have four writers.
45:06
And we reach millions and millions of people a month."
45:07
And I was like, "No, no." It was actually good.
45:09
I was like, "So what What do the engineers do?"
45:13
He's like, "Well, basically all the viral content on in the world starts either in one of three places, Reddit, Imgur, or 4chan.
45:24
And he's like, "Basically I built a detector that would find stuff that's going that's getting hot on those on those three platforms first before it hits Instagram, before it hits Facebook, before it hits Twitter.
45:35
Uh it's going to get popular there first."
45:37
And he goes, "So we built a detector.
45:41
Then we built a um like a then the writer basically would would uh build like like write a summary.
45:48
And then we built a uh AB tester that would basically create headlines um headlines and uh and like different like uh frames of that same story.
45:57
And it would test them really quickly.
46:00
Then we had a tester that would spray that out.
46:03
We would pay to get that in front of like, you know, 5,000, 10,000 people.
46:04
We would find what what's the winning angle, and then we would have the post and then distribution, right?
46:10
And then we would actually distribute that to our audience.
46:12
And so, we could engineer a higher degree of virality in every piece of content. Why?
46:17
Because we're finding the best stuff, we're packaging it quickly with our writer, then we're remixing it with our automated AB tester that's going to juice up the headlines and then the images, then we're uh spraying it out, getting data feedback telling us which of these 15 variations is the winner, and then we post the winner.
46:34
And um I was like, "Dude, this is amazing."
46:37
And over the few years, I saw him build this up.
46:38
And he his traffic kept going up and up.
46:40
Now, the problem was his traffic wasn't that valuable.
46:43
It was kind of fly-by traffic.
46:45
Uh it was kind of like the lowest common denominator of the internet.
46:50
And from Facebook, I think, right?
46:52
very dependent on social networks, and then Facebook changed, and for a while, Facebook was like rewarding the hell out of anybody that could post viral content.
46:58
And then it got too click-baity on Facebook, and then Facebook just manually went and unplugged the like viral engines for for for these companies.
47:07
And so, like 10 companies died, like, you know, in the in that transition.
47:12
I don't think his totally died, but I think it definitely slowed down.
47:15
And I think he also grew up and was the sort of like, "What else do I want to do with my life?"
47:19
So, now I just went to By the way, really quick before that before you go on to him, did I Have I told you about my partner at Hampton, Joe?
47:28
He had a company called Little Things, which was the same thing as that.
47:31
It was a content like click-bait website.
47:33
He started in New York, and then like he had all these He had multiple floors in an office building, and it was killing it.
47:39
They were at 100 million in revenue. He had a deal to sell.
47:43
They went through due diligence.
47:45
The deal was going to close in 2 weeks.
47:48
That change that you just referred to, it happened to Little Things.
47:49
At the time, Little Things was the most trafficked website from Facebook in the world.
47:56
So, it was like little things and then it was like HuffPo and then like BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed, yeah.
48:01
The deal was about to close, I think for a hundred and something million.
48:04
He was going to walk away with 50 million after taxes.
48:06
Two weeks before the money was supposed to go through, that change happened.
48:10
The deal he lost the deal and weeks or months, like only a couple months later, they had to shut down the company.
48:18
And it was all because they built everything on top of Facebook.
48:21
That's a Mike Tyson gut punch, right?
48:23
Like birds fly, fish swim, and deals fall through.
48:27
That is the the the the the sad part about deals.
48:30
That that that is too common.
48:33
Yes, and that's very common.
48:33
That's what happened to this guy, Emmett Smart. Emmett Smart.
48:36
So, what happened to him afterwards? Emerson Sparks. Emerson Sparks. Sorry. Yes. But here's his bio now.
48:45
Um he's his thing says like AI history, complex systems, and Bitcoin.
48:48
Then he goes, "Goal, I'm going to die number one on the leaderboard of people who changed the world."
48:53
And so, his what he's doing now is something called nonlinear.
48:56
And nonlinear it looks like is basically a is basically a company that is funding people working on AI to make it make sure that it's safe.
49:09
And so, so they they fund basically nonlinear entrepreneurs, people who are trying to work on these like exponential technologies.
49:18
And so, yeah, they we incubate ex exris exrisk nonprofits.
49:21
I don't even know what exrisk nonprofits means.
49:23
Uh by connecting founders with ideas, funding, and mentorship.
49:26
And so, that's what he's working on now.
49:28
But this guy's always going to do interesting things.
49:29
This guy can't This guy can't be uninteresting.
49:33
Dude, when I had read about him, I I was like, "Why are you doing this, dude?
49:35
Like you're doing this Dose Media thing.
49:38
Like you seem like a genius.
49:39
You are just absolutely wasting it."
49:41
This is a What do you say?
49:43
It's a high high effort, low or What do you say?
49:48
Like Hormozi had a good one for this.
49:49
He said it's a 10 out of 10, um 10 out of 10 entrepreneur going after a four out of 10 opportunity.
49:55
And uh that's how I felt when I met him.
49:58
I remember literally like this is now 10 plus years later.
50:01
I've not spoke to this guy.
50:04
You mention OMG Facts, and in my mind I'm like, that guy's smart. Follow up with that guy. Right?
50:07
Because he left such an impression on me where I was like, this guy is really, really clever, really smart, really also like wholesome.
50:15
Like even at the time he was like, uh even though he was working on something that's like typically I would say almost everybody I know that's in this kind of like viral media Actually just like lame.
50:26
media there's kind of [ __ ] And um And I mean that like in an endearing way.
50:31
Like, you know, some people are [ __ ] And it's all right.
50:34
You're just like, yeah, I'm trying to I found this arbitrage. I'm making it happen.
50:36
Um and so he was not that.
50:40
He was really soft-spoken, really, really nice guy.
50:41
Ben says, "X-risk is the risk that something can end the world. It's existential risk." Okay, yeah, good.
50:46
So he's he's going to save the planet, which is good.
50:48
Dude, and his website is a is a . org. Yeah. Noble mission. type of guy.
50:54
I had a When I was in Austin, um a friend of mine was hanging out with Justin Mares, who's been on the pod before.
50:59
I think I can quote this cuz I think it's a good quote.
51:00
But he said uh he goes, "Justin said the best thing."
51:02
He goes, "It doesn't matter how you make your first nut.
51:06
You just got to make your first nut.
51:09
But after you do that, then you want to work on a noble mission."
51:10
And he's like, "Dude, I he's like, I like that."
51:13
He's like, "You know, do whatever you got to do to make to make your first nut, which is to make you know, get your that first few million dollars where you're financially free and you're you don't have to have a job.
51:22
You can work on whatever the hell you want.
51:24
But then after that, don't go chase the second nut.
51:27
Go go after something that's a noble mission.
51:29
Go after something that's awesome."
51:31
And um Yeah, very few people actually do that.
51:35
In fact, I don't even think Justin is doing that at the moment.
51:36
But but I I love the quote.
51:39
Isn't he doing like an FSA spending store?
51:41
That's like the most like opportunistic thing I could hear I think of.
51:46
The way that he pitched it, it was pretty awesome.
51:47
He said something like obesity in America is like an epidemic and 60% of people are overweight.
51:52
We want to make you eat healthier by making it easier to acquire like, you know, these types of food and this type of health care and we're doing it via and then he like that's where the pitch comes in.
52:04
All right, let's go let's go let's go look at his site.
52:05
I think it's called True Medicine. True Med? So, True Med.
52:11
It says food is medicine, exercise is medicine, sleep is medicine.
52:12
We don't mean this in a theoretical sense.
52:14
Food, exercise, and sleep are all scientifically proven to prevent or alleviate uh physical and mental illness.
52:20
In short, these are all medicine.
52:23
It's a True Med is a payment integration that enables qualified customers to use pre-tax HSA and FSA funds to purchase health promoting products and services from their favorite merchants.
52:32
Soon it'll be available in the checkout flow for all merchants who are for merchants who sell healthy food, supplements, exercise equipment, and other health and wellness products.
52:40
This is such a good idea, by the way.
52:42
This is a phenomenal idea.
52:42
This is a 10 out of 10 opportunity and uh Dude, he pitched me to invest. I not invested in this?
52:50
I mean I didn't invest because I was just like saying no to everything and I deeply regret it.
52:53
I deeply regret it because, by the way, this is the best way to pitch a business, which is like you like paint this like dreary picture of like the world is obese, you know, did you know that like if you add up all the terrorist attacks, all the guns, all the car accidents, it would only be 1/10 of the people who die uh you know, from being obese.
53:14
Like, you know, that type of fact and you say like if we continue this, this is what the outcome's going to be, this and that.
53:21
And and so, we need to solve this.
53:21
The way that we are happen to happen to be trying to solve this is by doing X, Y, and Z.
53:26
And I'm like, all right, that's a great pitch. is uh wow.
53:30
I am so jealous that I'm not invested in this.
53:32
I'm I'm I'm messaging him right now. All right, um that's it. That's the pod. We're out of here. Mhm.