0:01
I read something very interesting that FTX as a, you know, $30 billion company only has um like 200 employees or something like that.
Search this video
0:09
And I believe you the you know, for the first year the product was built by just two engineers and even now you only have sub 20 sub 30 engineers. A, is that true?
0:18
And B, what the hell is going on?
0:21
Like, do you is FTX he's like he's like I can only think of one of two things.
0:26
Either FTX is simply like you have a unique set of problems so you can do you can operate your business differently or the rest of us are doing this completely wrong. Which is it?
0:37
And and he goes the latter. What up, birthday boy? Thank you. What's going on? going? Uh it's going okay.
0:51
I am You didn't pick up my FaceTime.
0:54
I I was going to sing to you. You FaceTimed me? I FaceTimed you earlier. Oh, I'm sorry.
1:00
I didn't even get the notification.
1:01
I was I had personalized But you did miss out on what would have been a good serenade.
1:08
Actually, can I tell you a funny story about that?
1:09
Wait, was your kid there?
1:13
No, it was just me and Ben.
1:15
And we're Oh man, what a bummer.
1:15
I'd rather see your kids though. I've got baby fever. Oh, nice.
1:19
Yeah, well my actually my son was there but you know, before the age of like two they're kind of just like an inanimate an object that you just carry around.
1:26
I was I was working out and when I work out I put my phone on like focus mode or whatever.
1:32
So I'm sorry but thank you. Swole mode. So how old are you now? 33.
1:41
33, okay, you're getting up there too. All right, I like it.
1:42
So you're I think a year younger than me.
1:44
We um I was at a birthday party like two weekends ago.
1:50
I had to leave the house.
1:50
It was crazy and we get there and this guy did this thing that I saw and I was like, "Oh, what an amazing little life hack."
1:57
He basically had So, it's like some kid's birthday party.
2:03
They sing happy birthday.
2:05
It's time to blow out the candles and cut the cake.
2:06
And the guy grabs the mic, and he's like, "Hold on, hold on.
2:10
We got a special birthday song for you."
2:13
And this guy, apparently, because my wife knows him, she she's like, "Oh my god, he's doing it. He always does this."
2:18
And it's like he has his own version of happy birthday that he sings.
2:24
But it's not like a singing thing.
2:24
It's more like um like he's Indian, so it's kind of got like an Indian vibe to it.
2:30
But let's just pretend it's sort of like when I say happy, you say birthday.
2:33
Happy, and everyone is like, birthday. Happy birthday.
2:34
He's like Which are always I I always love all those. Of course.
2:39
It's like, you know, there's something in my body that just I can't help but become like, you know, the the the follow the leader during that moment.
2:46
And he'll be like, you know, who's the birthday boy? Sam, Sam, Sam.
2:49
And then it's like it'll make you feel good.
2:50
And then um And I was like, what a life hack to just be the life of the party is to simply have a cool version of happy birthday that you can do. Uh that's amazing.
3:00
That's like having a joke that just always kills. So, listen to this.
3:03
I've got this friend named and and Jonathan, we'll get we'll get to the Sameer thing in a second, but I have this friend named Nick Gray.
3:09
Uh Sean, do you know who Nick Gray is? I know of him.
3:14
I don't I know I don't think I've ever met him, but I've seen his like his like website, and like you've told me about him.
3:20
And he looks like he's He's like an entrepreneur, but he kind of looks a little bit slick.
3:24
I don't know I don't know who who he is.
3:27
So, I I call him grown-up Dennis the Menace cuz he looks like a 40-year-old Dennis the Menace.
3:31
Like if you think of like what Dennis the Menace would look like when he's 40, that's like Dick.
3:34
He had a company called He he had a one business that was like it worked it was the aviation industry, sold it.
3:40
Then he started this thing called Museum Hack, which was like you pay like $25 or something like that.
3:47
Um and it you get a group museum tour, like a private museum tour, whatever. He sold it.
3:52
And then he loves hosting parties so much that I believe he used Scribed, like you did, and he wrote a book on how to host the perfect 2-hour evening party.
4:06
And this guy Yes, I'll I'll I'll try to find the the title, but I have a It just came out like 2 days ago, and he just sent me a copy.
4:15
It's called the Here, I'll find it, but it It's like It's like how to host the perfect cocktail party.
4:22
And this guy, whenever he hosts parties, he brings name tags to all Every time you're with him, he has a name tag, a kite, a Frisbee, and a blanket.
4:32
I'm telling you this guy is like a 12-year-old.
4:33
That's why I call him grown-up Dennis the Menace.
4:36
Because he just like he's like, "These are the best things to bring to like a park party."
4:40
And they just It just works.
4:42
And so he brings this to like all of his parties, and it's hilarious.
4:46
the rulebook to the game Red Rover, and it's a great icebreaker to play the game Red Rover.
4:51
It's been working since preschool.
4:54
And he brings like a harmonica, and when he goes he'll like play the harmonica, and he goes, "All right, everyone, come to the circle."
4:59
And he like does these icebreakers. It's hilarious.
5:01
So the book is called the the 2-hour cocktail party.
5:06
And it's just a book on hosting a 2-hour cocktail party.
5:08
He's been working on it for like 2 years.
5:09
I gave him a shout-out, but I actually wasn't I'm only bringing this up cuz we were talking about hosting the perfect party and everything.
5:15
It's hilarious, and he's And it's like might actually become like a brand around host It's like, you know, like Marie Kondo made like putting your clothes away into like a Martha Stewart-style business.
5:24
That's what this guy might be doing for like a cocktail party. Oh, wow.
5:31
Okay, so I have three instant reactions to this.
5:33
Number one, what a great idea.
5:38
What a great idea because when you first said it, I laughed, which to me already means this is kind of remarkable as a product, meaning you you had to remark on it. It was worth telling.
5:49
That's already like a good thing.
5:51
Second thing is it's actually a real problem.
5:53
Like nobody teaches you how to do things in life that are life stuff.
5:57
And so if you can hone in on a piece of life stuff like, you know, the classic example is like, you know, the book The Game, which is like, you know, about how to like pick up women.
6:06
Like how do you approach a stranger that you're interested in it and like, you know, can you get a date?
6:10
And like we all laugh and say, "Oh, man, that's so uh you know, people will sort point at it and be like, you know, it's sort of a loser thing." Right.
6:18
In reality, best-selling book.
6:18
It was one of the best books I've ever read.
6:20
Um and like really helped a lot of people who literally like don't know how to navigate this social situation that they get put in.
6:26
Yeah, I dude, I think it's awesome.
6:29
Yeah, so by the way, look at the link I sent you.
6:31
I sent the link in Riverside and I didn't realize this, but look at the reviews.
6:35
The re The reviews are all of our friends.
6:37
So it's Nick Huber, it's Cat from Best Self, it's Ben, the guy who I think he started What's that group On Deck?
6:45
And then David Perell's Is she on there?
6:52
It says Sarah, it might be her. Yeah, it could be her.
6:54
And then David Perell's on there.
6:56
They're all like the Isn't that hilarious?
6:58
They're all like the reviewers or whatever.
7:01
Uh I don't know Yeah, I I agree.
7:01
It's it's a pretty pretty funny niche to own.
7:08
So my first thought is it's actually What a great idea.
7:10
Helping people know how to host a party just like fun in a box.
7:14
It's like, "Look, you don't have to be creative and you don't have to have experience doing this.
7:18
Like I will help you know the like three or four things that will make you look awesome when you do this."
7:23
I think that's kind of great. Second reaction. What a terrible idea. Why is this a book?
7:29
Why isn't this a Twitter thread?
7:31
Like if there's ever a thing which is like this book could have been an email, um like this book could have been an email. I I guarantee it.
7:36
And so that's my My reaction to this.
7:39
It's just like love the idea of creating a brand and content on this topic. A book? Wow, overkill.
7:45
Like it's a a book takes more than 2 hours to read.
7:50
Uh like you know, like the book shouldn't be longer than the full party would be in this case.
7:54
I kind of agree with you, but I think you have to forget that most people don't have charisma.
7:59
And although I think I definitely have like a little social anxiety, I think you do too.
8:03
Like I don't like leaving my house that often and I don't want to like talk to like strangers that often, but like I could.
8:08
Like I can turn it on and be like, all right, fine, I'm in that mode.
8:10
Uh I think most people like all of our like nerdy ass friends, I just don't think they just like stand around like, what do I do with my hands?
8:18
Like they don't know like where to hold their hands.
8:20
They don't know anything. Oh, that's amazing.
8:27
Actually, dude, I I still remember.
8:27
So, I've been to a bunch of like startup events.
8:31
I was in this accelerator called the MassChallenge back in the day.
8:33
It's like a a Boston-based like startup accelerator.
8:37
I don't even know how I ended up there.
8:40
And I've heard I would say at this point in my life I've heard at least 500 in-person like talks to entrepreneurs, okay? 500.
8:50
If you want to know what's the most memorable one, it was this guy, this old-school guy who came who was probably in his late 60s.
8:58
And he's like, he did two things.
9:01
The first one was he goes, all right, um you guys are all entrepreneurs?
9:06
Somebody stand up and pitch me your business.
9:09
Tell me what your business does.
9:09
And somebody would stand up and be like, hey, we I'll go I'll go, right?
9:12
It's like a bravery contest.
9:14
I'll go with a thousand hands go up cuz it's entrepreneurs.
9:16
You got to you got to be the one who's like courageous.
9:18
So, you everybody raise their hand. Pick the first guy. I'm Sam.
9:22
I host you know, I'm CEO of the Hustle.
9:24
We're a media company for millennials who love to learn about business.
9:28
He goes he just No, you're not.
9:29
Actually, I I forgot the very first thing.
9:31
The the best part of the whole thing is he started the talk from the back of the room and he was like he's like, and everybody's looking at the stage.
9:39
All the chairs face one way, right?
9:39
And he's like, I'm back here.
9:42
Entrepreneurship, you got to adjust.
9:45
That was the first It's like, you know in dodgeball, dodgeball you want to dodge ball or get a dodgeball wrench.
9:51
So, this guy was like that guy and he's like, I'm in the back of the room.
9:54
What are you going to do?
9:55
And he's like, he's like, all of a sudden you got to adjust. Turn your seat around.
9:59
Are you stuck to what the ways that society works or you just going to do what makes sense?
10:02
And so, that's how he started.
10:04
Then he goes and he's like, pitch your business.
10:05
And if if you just said like, I'm Shawn, you know, we're the Milk Road, we you know, we we're a web three focused newsletter that does No, he'll just cut you off.
10:18
But he wouldn't tell you what you're doing wrong.
10:19
And it's process of elimination.
10:21
Everyone's trying one thing and then finally some guy said it right.
10:24
He goes, we're Smart Shade.
10:24
Um You know when you're in a room and it's too bright through the window?
10:28
We help you make sure that you have a shade on there that doesn't make your room look ugly.
10:34
And the guy was like, yes. That's exactly right.
10:37
You explained the situation and you used the keyword help.
10:41
Your business exists to help someone do something.
10:44
Help someone get some outcome, some benefit.
10:46
He's like, all of you guys think you're entrepreneurs and you couldn't tell me who you're helping do what.
10:50
And then we're all like, oh, we're like reeling.
10:52
And then he transitioned into he goes, put up a diagram of a of a meeting room of a bunch of six-chair table or like an eight-chair table.
11:00
He goes, biggest meeting of your life, where do you sit?
11:05
Hey Smart Shade guy, where do you sit?
11:07
And we're like, ah, I don't know.
11:10
And the chairs had numbers on them. And you're like, three? And he's like, no.
11:14
And he's like, you sit in chair two.
11:16
It's the corner of the table so you're not the head of the table, but you're the corner of the table.
11:18
You have like, you know, sort of like 80% of the visibility as the head of the table, but you now have both angles.
11:24
You're kind of at the wide angle where people can see you and talk to you.
11:27
And then he showed another diagram of like another a round table.
11:31
Where do you sit in a round table?
11:32
If this is the door, where do you go sit?
11:33
Uh then he's like, "You have 5 minutes before the meet uh your meeting is about to start in 10 minutes. Not everybody's there.
11:39
You have 10 minutes to talk to the number two person. What do you say?"
11:42
And he was like giving these like real-world social and business situations.
11:46
I was like, "Where do you sit in a round?"
11:50
I don't remember that one.
11:50
It was like, you know, uh you you go to the other you basically go like I don't know it's like you don't have your back to the door.
11:57
You kind of have a side-facing uh thing to the door.
11:59
You don't want to be directly facing the door cuz then you're like a little child sitting in your seat waiting for the teacher to come in.
12:04
Like, you know, you do that.
12:04
And like in your small talk thing, he's like, "Do you talk about the weather and sports?" No.
12:10
Uh he's like, "You've done already 8 hours of research on this person.
12:13
You already know A A B C D E and you are going to bring up this topic."
12:18
And so this guy was like so opinionated, so crazy, but I remember it because he was answering things that I felt like nobody had instructed me how to do.
12:26
And it was the where do I What do I do with my hands while I talk problem, which is like I definitely run into these situations and I've received zero guidance in my life on what I'm supposed to do.
12:36
And if you have like the solution in a box, I'll take it. That's interesting.
12:40
Well, Nick's going to freaking love that because uh you know, like cocktails parties is such a niche thing, but I'll probably do well. He's pretty successful.
12:49
Um You we So we want to talk about Cullen Samir, Jonathan.
12:52
So Cullen Samir, that episode went live on YouTube like Yeah, it So we have it's Shawn and me and Ben typically and Jonathan most of the time is actually on air.
13:05
I actually don't know Jonathan why you're on air like why you're here, but I know what you do as a job.
13:11
You grow the podcast, but I don't know like why you actually need to be sitting here. Why Why do you sit here?
13:17
Um one cuz this is fun and two, this is the only time I can get like FaceTime with y'all to talk about these types of things.
13:23
So it's like my only time I can actually carve out time on y'all's calendar. Our calendar? We are the issue?
13:33
Yeah, I mean come I He slacks us.
13:34
He asks us to do stuff and we just never respond.
13:37
Like yeah, it makes perfect sense.
13:39
It's like, you know, oh, why did you open the sushi restaurant?
13:42
Cuz I cuz I knew you love sushi and I just needed to get your approval on these three things.
13:45
It's like, damn, we're that much of an [ __ ] Sorry. Sorry, Jonathan.
13:49
I I apologize that we are not very responsive in general.
13:53
And so, he came on And and you said you said, "Hey, talk about the Colin Smear thing because A, it was interesting. And what was the B?"
14:01
Um I think there's just like some good takeaways that we should probably implement.
14:04
Into our YouTube strategy?
14:08
YouTube and the podcast as well.
14:11
Um but first of all, I've hosted a Nick Gray party and it was awesome.
14:12
And like like you just described, Sean, like there's so much nuance to, you know, like hosting a good meeting and like where you sit and how the experience is for everyone else.
14:22
And so, you kind of do need a book to like piece all that together.
14:25
Chapter one, here's the pre, you know, party stuff and all that.
14:27
But yeah, email templates and all that stuff are kind of necessary and all that. Wait, wait, hold on.
14:33
You said you hosted a Nick Gray party. What does that mean?
14:36
You you did his method or you attended a party?
14:38
Dude, he's like famous in Austin.
14:41
He He did like a beta launch for his book.
14:43
And so, a few people, myself included, hosted one of like the beta parties. Wow. Wow.
14:49
Whoa, that is You're blowing my mind right now. HOLD ON.
14:56
WOW, HOLY [ __ ] DUDE, he's like famous in Austin. It's hilarious.
14:58
Which by the way, we got to give him a proper shout-out.
15:01
So, it's Nick Gray, g r a y.
15:04
I believe his website is nickgray. net.
15:06
So, if you want to go and learn, but whatever, go ahead.
15:09
So, you were like a pilot for this thing.
15:11
First of all, how much of a freaking early adopter are you that you like knew about a book that's not even written yet and you were like, "I'll be one of your test cases to test your your party thing." Okay, wait.
15:20
Well, okay, us the rundown.
15:22
Give me like one or two of the golden nuggets that like you wouldn't otherwise have done at a party that Nick kind of like helped you try out.
15:29
Yeah, well, so Nick everyone just kind of knows Nick in Austin if if you're kind of running in the same circles.
15:33
And so I went to another guy who hosted a Nick Gray party and I was like this is awesome.
15:39
And so I was and I knew the guy so I was like let's co-host the next one.
15:42
And we had it at my house.
15:42
I got like a backyard and everything.
15:44
Um and so the takeaways were I bought a house.
15:48
Uh I got ready for the party.
15:53
Uh yeah, we got pizza and it was just it reminded me of kind of like a prom party just to begin with.
15:57
But the pieces that were uh kind of crucial are one like the icebreakers.
16:03
So like you start the night with like you know, everyone's getting their drinks and getting comfortable and stuff like that.
16:08
And then you blow the harmonica or whatever you're like you play you strap the banjo or whatever it is. You strum the banjo.
16:15
And you get everyone's attention.
16:15
You be like hey, we're doing icebreakers. Say your name.
16:17
And then like the fun fact would be like what was the first thing you did for money?
16:21
And so it kind of gets people like you know, to get a little bit deeper and then that can lead into the next conversation and so on and so forth.
16:27
So there's like two or three of those throughout the night.
16:28
And then you know, it's just like the the email before, the email after and like how you nurture those people I guess and like actually you know, connect them and all all the little things like that.
16:39
But I feel like there's like a bunch of little hacks like like Emailing is part of this template.
16:43
I didn't even I I didn't even think about an email as part of the experience.
16:47
Dude, he's got a whole stick about it.
16:49
And the funny thing about is he's like he's very flamboyant.
16:53
Like he's like gregarious, but he's like loud and a lot of people think that he's gay.
16:56
And he gets more girls than anyone I've ever met.
16:59
And it's mostly because of this party this party stuff.
17:03
He like he like dates so many like well, I won't I won't say that. I'll say girls love him.
17:11
Women love this guy and it's all partially because It's called straight up gay.
17:15
How to be a straight man and use gay know, being gay to your advantage.
17:20
That's his next social hack that he's got. He kills it.
17:24
Like when you he kills it.
17:26
This guy is very interesting.
17:28
That's another huge thing about this is like when you become the connector, when you're hosting these parties like once a month or once a quarter, like that's really valuable.
17:35
When you're able to like kind of be that person they're like, "Oh, I'm going to reach out to Jonathan because he knows X, Y, and Z or whatever."
17:41
So, that's like kind of what you did in San Francisco, I feel, like with the Hustle Meetups, right?
17:45
Yeah, it and it is a hack. It totally works.
17:50
And Sean did the same thing because we hosted like all of our events at his house, like at his office.
17:53
So, he was like by proxy was like the man.
17:58
Dude, so I know we probably have other things to talk about, but I'm so mind-blown by this and I just have so much more that I need to know.
18:03
Okay, so uh give me Okay, so give me something that is you wouldn't um expect it, right?
18:11
Like let's say uh maybe like I don't know Okay, like email kind of accounts.
18:15
The harmonica is a great example of this.
18:16
Like have a little instrument that will help get people's attention and like, you know, just kind of like lightens the mood a little bit by just hearing this like, you know, great sound.
18:24
Give me another one that I wouldn't expect.
18:25
Let me give one, Jonathan.
18:27
He hosted a party one time called a petting zoo party and he hired like a mobile petting zoo for like $400 or I don't even know what it was, but it wasn't like a big deal and it like was the most fun at a party.
18:37
I just sat around and petted like rabbits and like guinea pigs and it was awesome. So, he like does themes.
18:43
Like then he'll have a dinosaur theme where you wear like dinosaur-themed clothing, which I don't know what that means, but what else, Jonathan? What else does he do?
18:54
Again, I've only been to like one or two, but it it's If it's not that, like you really don't need to put a theme around it if you're just doing something super simple like I did, but like you want to make it a little more memorable, like yeah, I feel like he's done like uh he just did a paddle board thing where like everyone went out to to like Austin and were on their paddle boards and like did a whole thing there.
19:12
And he had a thing where he gave numbers.
19:15
He gave a whiteboards to three different people and he said, "We're having a diving contest."
19:18
So, the best the person who does the best cannonball off of their paddleboard and he he goes, "The contestants are" and he had already planned it.
19:25
He goes, "There's this person, this person, and this person.
19:28
You guys get up front and do your cannonball and we're all going to get and these three judges are going to give you a review."
19:31
The second or third thing that he does is he has a very specific end time to the party.
19:36
So, he goes, "Come on over.
19:38
The party's going to end at 8:00."
19:39
And at 8:00 he goes, "All right, everyone. Thank you for coming. The party's over.
19:43
You don't got to get a you don't got to go home, but you got to get out of here."
19:45
And he's like, "Parties need end.
19:46
Otherwise, they drag on for too long and people don't want to go anymore."
19:49
And so, he always has an ending to his parties.
19:51
Which is actually pretty great cuz I go cuz I'm like I don't got to sneak out like it's going to end at a very particular time.
19:55
So, two-hour cocktail party.
19:57
Dude, we Okay, I don't know if we're Oprah, but I feel like we just sold the [ __ ] out of this book.
20:03
Like you know, this this this guy he's going to get a lot of sales from this from this this plug cuz this was incredible.
20:10
But honestly, I'm genuinely interested in this topic.
20:12
You know, I had heard something once like Charity: Water is kind of known for their events.
20:18
And they raise a ton of money for charity and like most charity events are kind of the same old stale like dinner, gala. You sort of go. It's sort of a drag.
20:26
And Charity: Water's events you feel like you're you know, you feel like you're at some like Hollywood party basically.
20:31
And it's not because they spend more money.
20:33
It's like they're just more creative with like the way that they they like create memorable things.
20:38
And so, and every year they top themselves, which is like this impossible standard.
20:42
It's like last year the Super Bowl halftime show was this.
20:45
This year's got to be even bigger.
20:47
That's how they treat their annual events.
20:48
And they raise like I don't know, $75 million in a night doing that.
20:51
And that funds clean water for a lot of people.
20:53
And I remember asking Scott.
20:53
I go, "Well, so what's like how do you think about these events?
20:57
Like how do you Everybody always raves about these. I've never been to one.
21:01
What is the secret sauce?
21:03
Like what how do you guys think about this?"
21:04
And he goes, "Oh, that's my wife uh Victoria.
21:05
That's that's her her thing.
21:07
He goes, she has this phrase which is um it's about the moments in between the moments.
21:13
Like it's the moments between the moments that matter.
21:15
And so it's like everybody thinks of when they plan their event, that okay, for dinner we're going to do this and then for the dancing we're going to do this, but they don't think about the like 20-minute period right before dinner when it's like getting set up or served and like the the 5-minute walk between this place to this place or whatever.
21:32
And if you do something there, people feel like wow, I'm having a like a 10 out of 10 experience because they thought of everything.
21:39
Like they thought of like I know for Charity Water it was like they really thought about like the walk between um like where the cocktail hour was and the dinner.
21:48
And they were like, okay, yeah, you could just like traverse through this like, you know, hallway.
21:51
But like, what can we do in the hallway that will like send the message?
21:55
like send the message? And they basically created like I don't know, like a visual light show of like I don't know, a woman in Africa, a real woman and she starts when you start and she's carrying these like 60-lb gallons of
22:05
water and there's one on the You see her carrying it and then 15 steps in, there's one sitting on the ground that you could pick up and you could try carrying and then by the end of it you've had like it's like damn, that was heavy and I that was hard and I only walked 54 steps. She does that for 3
22:16
She does that for 3 hours a day just to get clean water for her family.
22:22
And you're like, are you likely to donate by the end of that? Yeah, right?
22:25
That's like but they just used the hallway as this By the way, I made up this exact example cuz I didn't go to the event, but like you were doing something like That was great.
22:36
Yeah, I had to put the disclaimer cuz I was like, damn, I just made up a really vivid ass lie about what they did at their event.
22:41
And like Scott's big on integrity, so let me be clear, that's not exactly what happened.
22:44
That's what I kind of remember from him telling me while we were drunk 6 years ago and he was telling me like what he did.
22:50
Um so so yeah, but it's the moments between the moments is just a good uh like phrase to remember when you're going to host an event.
22:57
I'm going to write my own book. [ __ ] you, Nick Gray.
23:03
All right, let's talk about Colin and Samir.
23:05
So, these these guys came on.
23:08
They're like these YouTube I don't know exactly how you would describe them, but they're popular on YouTube and people seem to like it in the comments.
23:16
You know, my takeaway was Sean, do you think being a YouTuber is a good life or not? I can't decide actually.
23:23
I think it's a good life the way they did it.
23:24
So, the the daily vlogger style I think is a is a tough one.
23:28
And I think the like gaming streamer who's going to sit in their chair and play video games for 7 hours a day every day is not a good not a bad nor is the Mr.
23:40
Beast like I have to up my pranks or my stunts.
23:44
Like I got to come up with a new miracle every month or I lose relevance.
23:46
That to me is like stressful.
23:50
And to be fair, that's like 75% of YouTube success is like daily vlogging, stunts and pranks, or like gaming.
23:57
So, you know, if you're not in that, good for you.
23:59
Colin and Samir, for example, not in that.
24:01
They're in an interview show that's like paced out well.
24:05
They do, you know, like whatever, one or two a week or something like that.
24:07
It's not as treadmilly as other content things.
24:10
What I'm learning about through them, what we need to do, and what more people should do, that woman Rebecca I keep calling her like that woman.
24:20
Rebecca texted us and she was like Our friend Rebecca? Our friend Rebecca. Sorry, Rebecca.
24:26
She told us that this guy she worked with, I won't say the name, went from zero to eight Was it 8 million subscribers in 8 months or was it like 3 million in eight I forget the number, but I think it was 8 million. In how many months? 12 months? Like a year. A year, yeah. And all from shorts. Is that crazy?
24:45
All from freaking YouTube shorts.
24:48
I never watch YouTube shorts. Yeah, I I do.
24:52
I actually watch YouTube shorts.
24:53
But the thing Once once inside of tech company, I was like, "Oh, I get it." Like I'm YouTube.
25:01
The biggest threat to my company is TikTok.
25:03
Every day, like you know, somebody there's like every every quarterly offsite, we're hearing about the latest TikTok numbers.
25:10
Wow, their growth is crazy.
25:13
Wow, they're blowing us away.
25:14
Wow, the stars are going there.
25:17
You know, like TikTok is your like kind of like main priority if you're one of these big social media companies right now, um beyond like, you know, your core business.
25:26
Like if you're going to think about growth, you're going to think about TikTok.
25:30
And so you release a competitive product, Shorts, and you announce it to the world, and you put your best people on it, and like you can't let that feature fail right away.
25:39
And so you like you got to pump the engagement. How do you do that?
25:41
You're like all right, you know, engagement was a 10 out of, you know, 10 out of 100. Okay.
25:48
Uh if we put it at the top of every time you open the app, it jumps to a 40.
25:53
Okay, now we're also going to add it every three scrolls, we're going to add another little Shorts banner.
25:56
Oh, also we're going to like, you know, make it one of we're going to change our recommendation engine to just recommend a short after a long video.
26:02
And so you you're going to try to game the system to give yourself the best shot at that feature becoming successful.
26:08
And so at least in the short term if you're a creator, you say, "Oh, their priority is pushing like, you know, oh Instagram's priority was pushing stories and then Reels, then I'm going to make great Reels and stories because that's what they're pushing right now.
26:21
That's what the algorithm wants to they're going to they're going to favor that in the UI and the algorithm, and so um I'm going to get faster growth because I'm sort of like piggybacking off of their priorities."
26:33
And I think that's actually a really good strategy for like if you and I or uh My First Million wanted to get popular on YouTube, it's just like exploit the ego of the social media platform. Like it totally works.
26:46
Just just give them exactly what they want, and not always, but sometimes they'll give you exactly what you want, which is you know, more followers.
26:55
But are we going to do it? Maybe.
26:58
Clearly a good idea that we may or may not execute on. But by the way work.
27:04
Hilarious thing that I saw.
27:04
So, uh there was like some page that's like uh you know, like these like meme pages on Instagram that get like a bunch of followers.
27:12
So, it's like I had like Friday Beers, I think is the one it was.
27:15
It was like Friday Beers I follow so many of them. Yeah, they're great. They're very humorous.
27:19
They post great memes, whatever.
27:21
So, they did a collab with something called like it was the word entrepreneur, but it was spelled like super wack.
27:26
Cuz like you know, the word entrepreneur is like kind of a wack word in general.
27:28
So, it was like antre- antrepreneur.
27:33
And like that was like the name of the account or something like that.
27:34
And I went, I clicked on it, and the bio cracked me up so hard.
27:37
It was like, "Cultivating that trillionaire mindset.
27:42
The multi-trillionaire mindset."
27:42
And then the next line was uh mindset is grindset. #grindset.
27:46
I just thought it was so funny.
27:51
And so, I've decided that on this podcast, our new intro is going to be about cultivating that multi-trillionaire mindset, #grindset.
27:59
And I'm going to start every single podcast by saying that.
28:00
And somebody who doesn't know what I'm talking about, they're going to be so turned off, but the people who are listening to this podcast are going to know that that is the funniest thing ever, cuz it is. That's amazing.
28:11
Well, what were we saying, Jonathan? Um I I love that.
28:17
That's They always always They always also say They always also say "Read that again."
28:24
Like they'll do the post, and then all the copy, and then it's like "Read that again." Yeah. All right, guys. That's the show. Listen to that again. Go back.
28:34
You know what you got to do now.
28:34
Rewind for the two time, double time, get double, get triple trillionaire mindset, #grindset.
28:40
Go back and listen again.
28:43
What was the phrase What?
28:45
was that phrase Read Their latest post says Read that again.
28:50
Their latest post says, "You keep your money in the bank, I keep my my fish in the tank. Think about it."
29:00
Yeah, I think we should change it to Keanu Reeves.
29:03
Like, you know, we we named this My First Million, and the reason we get flak for that and reason we give ourselves grief for that is cuz My First Million is in the middle.
29:10
It's like neither um it's not like trying to be humble and like um you know, thoughtful about life.
29:17
It's like, no, you want to make a million dollars.
29:20
But, it's only a million.
29:20
When you say, "We're you know, we're all about that trillionaire lifestyle," you you all of a sudden you it's like, "Hey, we are not trying to be that guy who's trying to sell you a dream of making a billion dollars."
29:31
And so, I think I realized the mistake in the name.
29:33
The name should not have been million.
29:34
Uh the whole brand should have been about the trillionaire mindset.
29:41
It should have been My First Trillion.
29:42
We're we're community We're a community of future multi-trillionaires uh who gather around, you know, to to trade stories.
29:54
Our software is the worst.
29:54
Have you heard of HubSpot?
29:56
See, most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous.
30:02
I think I love our new CRM.
30:05
Our software is the best. HubSpot. Grow better.
30:09
What do you want to go from here?
30:09
Did you have anything on Did you have Do you have topics? I've got one or two. Do you have any? I have a couple. What do you have? I have a couple.
30:17
I have a couple good ones.
30:19
Okay, so what do you want to do?
30:20
You want to do Okay, I'll give you three options.
30:24
A really interesting uh thing I heard that I I want to get your opinion on, like a like a thing about how a company we a big famous company runs their company that I thought was kind of mind-blowing.
30:35
Number two is an idea that I don't really even understand as I don't know what the hell they're doing, but maybe it's cool.
30:40
And then, um, the third is, uh, you know, random business idea.
30:46
Which which one would you like to go go through? Number one. Number one.
30:51
Okay, so the interesting Okay, so we, uh, so the Milk Road, our main sponsor right now is FTX.
30:55
And I don't know if you like Do you know what FTX is?
30:59
Dude, in my on my topics, I have a thing about how they run their company and how it's weird. Go ahead. Yeah.
31:07
Okay, so it's probably the same thing then.
31:09
Is it about how many employees they have and how many engineers they have? Yes. Look at the doc.
31:12
I have the exact same topic. Go ahead.
31:16
Okay, so so it recently gets So we we were like as part of the sponsorship, it's like, okay, we tell people, you know, hey, FTX is a great trading platform, blah blah blah.
31:23
And in addition, we we like, hey, we want to do a deep dive on you guys.
31:27
And I was like, but here's the thing, you don't get to tell us what to write about.
31:29
I'm going to like I'm going to talk to your head of strategy, I'm going to talk to whoever, and, um, whatever's the most interesting thing to me, that's what we're going to do the deep dive on.
31:37
And so I ended up doing it on, um, like the the like kind of like the seven like growth hacky strategies that they used to grow cuz they went from zero to a $30 billion company in like three years.
31:46
And so I thought that was kind of amazing. I wrote the whole thing.
31:50
And then I discovered I discovered something even more amazing, which is that they built the whole they they built like for the first year or something they had two engineers.
31:57
And even now to this day, they have like, I think 25 to 30 uh, software engineers. It's amazing.
32:06
And I think And I think they only have 250 people. Yeah. Exactly.
32:09
And so he did this, um, he went uh, this the guy, Sam Bankman-Fried, he did this talk at the Sohn conference.
32:14
And so Sohn, I don't know if people know, it's spelled S O H N.
32:18
It's like this big kind of like economic, uh, annual conference or whatever.
32:22
And what happens is the big shots And then Sam Sam Bankman-Fried is the 29-year-old like 20 or 30 billion-dollar found Well, he was before the crash, but like deca-billionaire guy, uh, and he started this Coinbase competitor, which is called FTX, after he got rich in Bitcoin. Yeah, exactly.
32:43
It's a platform for people to trade uh crypto and now stocks and other things.
32:46
But, basically, he he talks there.
32:49
And if you've ever watched these I don't Have you ever watched other Sohn conference talks?
32:51
They're very interesting to go go back and look at cuz you get the It's the It's like a TED Talk for It's TED, but just for like um invest investors.
33:02
Uh just for like finance and Wall Street people.
33:04
So, like Bill Ackman will go on there.
33:05
And you could look at his old videos.
33:07
And by the way, if you go watch these So, here's what Here's my journey.
33:10
I'm like, Bill Ackman, man, this guy's really smart.
33:13
And our buddy Andrew Wilkinson loves Bill Ackman, says he's he's the best.
33:17
And um and I go back and I I I go look for old YouTube videos of Bill Ackman.
33:19
I see his Sohn conference talk, and it's like I don't know, 10 years ago.
33:22
And he goes on and he talks about um What's the name of the It's like the Howard Hughes company?
33:27
He's like It's like a home builder.
33:31
Uh Tool tool bit or something.
33:31
Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
33:35
No, I think it's I think it's called the Howard Hughes company.
33:36
It's basically like whatever that guy famous guy Howard Hughes or whatever.
33:38
And he's got this company they build homes. And he'll give a talk.
33:41
And so, what you do is you go give a talk about like a thesis that you are really bullish on.
33:47
Uh basically like a big bet you're making or you've already made, basically.
33:49
And you go pitch your case for for that bet.
33:54
And this kind of has like twofold effects.
33:55
One, if you're in the audience, you get ideas on investments.
33:59
Um like, you know, why this person's so bullish on this thing.
34:00
It's a It's interesting to hear their case.
34:01
Two, it's only like the who's who that talk.
34:05
Like, it's like the top top guys.
34:07
Um and and they go and talk at this thing.
34:08
And then the third thing is that like you um for the speaker, they get to kind of like build their brand, but they also get to pump their bags.
34:14
So, like, they've already made this bet.
34:16
Then they go talk here, they get to pump a bunch of attention.
34:19
A bunch of other people going to invest in it, and it may cause the price to go up, which is like a good thing for them.
34:22
So, they're helping propagate the narrative that helps their their case.
34:27
So, anyways, you go hear him talk.
34:27
And you By the end of the 40 minutes, you're like, there's has been a better investment on Earth than the Howard Hughes company, right?
34:32
Like you're like so convinced cuz these guys are very convincing and they have a great track record, so you're like, "Wow, whatever."
34:38
Now, if you actually go look at the results, it's like I remember Chamath went and spoke and he talked about how Box, like box.
34:42
com, is like like of all the tech companies I we have identified one winner that is going to benefit the most from this cloud movement and AI ML and it's Box.
34:51
And you go look at the stock chart for Box since that day, uh it's like down into the right, you know what I mean?
34:58
It's like it it it it has not done well.
34:59
Uh but they they put together very convincing cases.
35:01
And of course, occasionally they're they're they're correct.
35:04
So anyways, at this year's Sone, there was a really interesting talk which was Sam Bankman-Fried talks to I think Patrick or John Collison, what the the Patrick Collison, it's the one of the brothers who started Stripe. Redhead or what? Uh the redhead one.
35:20
I think they're Are they not both No, it's Patrick. He's the CEO. actually did interviews.
35:27
One interviewed Stanley Druckenmiller, awesome interview, go watch that.
35:29
The other one interviewed Sam Bankman-Fried.
35:33
And and first of all, the one thing that stood out is kind of like um when you watch these guys do an interview, it's basically like, what if you had like a world-class brain become a podcaster for like, you know, like like I'm talking world-class.
35:45
Like these guys are some of the smartest, most well-read, best executors, most like most well-connected people on the planet.
35:53
Are they're the Collison brothers, like they did They were millionaires at like, I don't know, 17.
35:58
They like built cool [ __ ] at 17 that like they sold for a million dollars or whatever.
36:01
They they're Now they built like a hundred billion-dollar company and they're like the best of the best.
36:04
Like they're the best YC founders.
36:06
And YC is the best group of founders, right? So they're amazing.
36:09
And you hear them give an interview, they hear their talks and how they frame questions, that alone is like worth the price of admission just to see that.
36:17
But then they ask questions and they're so he asked a question to Sam Bankman-Fried, he goes, "I read something very interesting that FTX as a, you know, $30 company only has um like 200 employees or something like that.
36:29
And I believe you the you know, for the first year the product was built by just two engineers and even now you only have sub 20 sub 30 engineers. A is that true?
36:38
And B what the hell is going on?
36:41
Like do you is FTX he he's like he's like I can only think of one of two things.
36:46
Either FTX is simply like you have a unique set of problems so you could do you can operate your business differently or the rest of us are doing this completely wrong. Which is it?
36:56
And um and he goes the latter.
37:01
That's a really good way to frame a question. Exactly.
37:04
And so he goes he goes I I he laugh he's like I think it's the latter and he goes you know we he's like I I more I looked at tech companies I looked at your Facebook, Google, you know, successful tech companies I I think I don't know for sure.
37:16
I can't say like you know, I don't know that they're exact business but from what I can gather uh they they employ an order of magnitude more people than they need to.
37:27
You know, and then he's like how many he's like how many people do you think Facebook would have optimally?
37:34
Uh and he's like you know, he's like he's like I don't know if let's say they have 50,000 employees.
37:39
Um you know, that's somewhere between you know, like um five to 30 times too many.
37:45
And like and so and it was kind of shocking to hear this and it's something I liked it cuz I've believed this for a long time which is that you like most tech companies are completely over hired.
37:59
I've told this story before which is that when I interviewed at Twitch for our acquisition uh they did the you know, the part of the interview is they get at the end of the interview they you know, hey do you have any questions for us?
38:08
And this was my first my how many employees does Twitch have? They said 1800 2000.
38:14
How many do you think is the right number for Twitch?
38:16
Like what do you think is is how many people do you I guess actually need to to like firing on all cylinders.
38:23
And like I would get basically three reactions.
38:24
The first was sort of like just like shock.
38:27
Like, what are you even saying and are you insinuating that like I shouldn't be here or like we shouldn't hire you or that we hired too many people, we don't know what we're doing.
38:35
Like you know, the people are just like, "What the I don't get what you're getting at, but it's not good.
38:39
Whatever you're getting at is not No matter what interpretation I have of this question, it's like pretty bad."
38:43
Um the second was a genuine answer, which was like, you know, uh probably like, you know, 15 to 20% less, but we you know, you don't know you don't know over time who those top performers are, you figure that out, and like, you know, it's good to have buffer and redundancy or whatever.
39:01
And then um I asked Emmett, the CEO, and he was like, "I think 2,500."
39:06
And he's like, you know, because his plan is like to hire and grow, and he's like, you know, he he and like we didn't get into a big debate about it.
39:14
I was just curious what he would say.
39:15
And so what was your reaction to this thing where you found out that FTX has like, you know, 20 engineers and is running this like pretty large tech platform.
39:23
And everybody else has thousands of engineers.
39:26
I think people over hire.
39:26
And so I wrote a tweet that said you know, I'm really fascinated with the idea of just hiring less people who are higher quality and paying them a lot more versus hiring a ton of people and most of them by definition are pretty average and you pay them a medium or market rate.
39:48
I like that idea of doing the first thing, but is that actually practical and what are some examples?
39:53
And the reason why I wasn't sure if it was actually practical is like even if you get the highest performing people in a room, does it just become natural still where it's like the 80/20 where 20% of the people does 80% of the work and it's just always And I think actually maybe that would actually would still exist, but at like a higher caliber.
40:11
And then also I was like I actually understand why you want redundancies.
40:13
I understand why if you were relying five people and three of them quit, like you're really screwed.
40:19
But, let me give you the And someone tweeted out And I found two good examples.
40:23
One example was Sam Bankman-Fried with FTX. And here's what he said. Here's the tweet.
40:26
He actually tweeted this out, I guess, after that talk, kind of summarizing his his thoughts.
40:31
He goes, "I've looked into hypergrowth companies, and time and time again, growing from 200 employees to 2,000 doesn't seem to 10x your product per your productivity as a company.
40:40
In fact, sometimes it doesn't even 1x your productivity.
40:43
Sometimes, the more you hire, the less you get done.
40:45
So, why exactly is it that hiring doesn't scale the way it should?
40:50
A, coordination becomes really hard.
40:50
And B, diffusion of responsibility.
40:52
If five people could theoretically do something, maybe no one will actually feel like they have to get it done and have to do it."
40:59
And then he just goes on to say that the basically companies hire more Sorry, companies lower the bar as they hire more, and over time the average co-worker, people interact, becomes a worse experience, and incentives become harder to align as people have less and less of a sense of what each person is doing. And I completely agree.
41:15
I think that the I don't I'm not smart like these guys where I can actually come up with a number, but I think a large percentage of jobs, at least in the tech world, and about I'd say most companies, are [ __ ] jobs.
41:27
I'd call them [ __ ] jobs.
41:29
And they're only there because the person who's running this particular division has to request more budget and hire more, so they get more responsibility and more credit, and they seem more important.
41:42
So, then when they go to the next company, they get paid more, and they can climb the ladder, because it seems like, "Oh, well, like, you know, you managed 200 people, you must be legit." Yeah.
41:52
That's why I think it happens.
41:52
The number of people under you is a is a power consolidation technique inside of of large companies.
41:59
And even if people aren't doing it for malicious reasons, it it is the incentive.
42:02
Like, you get paid more the larger of a group of people that you can manage.
42:07
And so, your incentive is to hire people, promote them to managers, have them hire people, have them promote them to managers, and have like layers and layers of people.
42:15
Cuz if you were if you were if everybody got the same budget, and then you were just measured on how much you got done, and you got to keep the extra, I think companies would work wildly differently than they do today, right?
42:26
And he says something he goes in that tweet, he goes Sam says, he goes, as far as I can tell, this is the most common reason that successful companies decay.
42:34
It's a race between how quickly new employees can understand the culture, and how quickly people are hired.
42:39
Faster you hire, the harder it is to keep everyone on the same page.
42:41
And um you know, if you're growing at 50% a year, maybe you can still mentor each new recruit and get them, you know, to learn how you guys work.
42:50
But if you're going 300% a year, each employee only has 4 months to learn before they have to start teaching.
42:56
And um meanwhile, we have you know, you have to also figure out how to make sure compensation is fair, coordination keeps happening.
43:01
Like I remember this inside of uh even a startup, even a very small company.
43:07
Um when you go from one people to two people, generally productivity increases like almost every time.
43:14
Um one person to two people is is almost a always a win.
43:18
Two people to three people, usually a win, but there's usually a cost, which is, oh, now we have to have meetings.
43:26
Whereas before, like one person, the whole project's in your head, you don't have to talk to anybody.
43:28
Two people, like by default, you're going to basically share everything with the other everybody, cuz there's only one one other person, knows everything that's shared.
43:37
Once you have three people, no longer does everybody know everything that's going on.
43:41
And basically, I think there's this rule, which is that for every um for every double of your employee base, you square the amount of communication required.
43:52
Meaning, so if you go from four to eight, you don't that doesn't double the communication, it four x's the communication or whatever, right?
43:59
Like uh I don't know my public math there, but it's basically like a non-linear like it's a non non-linear investment you have to make in communication and coordination.
44:05
And like suddenly it's like, "Oh man, we have a 12-person team and like it's really hard to keep everyone on the same page.
44:12
And now I'm having to do extra meetings that are all-hands meetings or things like that just to keep 12 people organized."
44:19
Now imagine that at 1,200.
44:19
And imagine that at 12,000, right? It's miserable. It's miserable.
44:24
So, the other example, by the way, that someone I don't know if anyone replied or how I found this, but have you heard of the company called StreamYard? StreamYard, no. They're in your world.
44:36
So, go to stream I think it's streamyard. com.
44:38
So, they're in like the streaming world. like Canadians? Uh maybe. Okay.
44:44
So, easiest way It's It's easiest way they say to create a professional live stream.
44:48
So, okay, it gives you like a It's like a broadcasting tool for live streaming. Okay, cool.
44:52
So, this guy It was two guys.
44:54
One guy's named Gage and I I don't remember the other guy. Amazing name. Gage is the first name. He Yeah, Gage and Dan.
45:00
Yeah, Gage like rode a dirt bike to school when he was a kid. And Gage is the power. Yeah. This guy's amazing.
45:08
So, he um So, he started this company with Dan and they were basically I think just making it a way for like I think it was like Twitch folks, you know, or just like streamers to stream.
45:19
But then eventually they kind of pivoted a little bit so it could be like a professional stream.
45:23
So, like I don't know who actually would do a quote professional stream. I guess like a company.
45:28
But like it had all these like d- It had all these like options that you like Yeah, so you just make it look cool and really easy.
45:35
Well, anyway, they launched this in '19 or I think even '20 and it was just them two and they got up to 3 million in ARR. Just these two guys.
45:44
Then the pandemic hits and in 1 year they go from 3 million to 30 million annually recurring revenue. Wow. Zero outside money. Just these two guys.
45:53
And when they they eventually sold at the So, they launched I think in '19, the pandemic hit when in '20 or '21.
46:03
Uh basically in like one year they went from 3 million to 30 million and then they sold that same year to Hopin for 250 million dollars in cash.
46:13
And these two guys owned the whole thing.
46:15
And when they sold, they basically scaled the company to 20 million in ARR with five people and then by the time they sold, they had 30 million and they had just hired the seventh person.
46:27
And this whole business was built with just seven people.
46:29
Really it was built with two or three and then the second half they were like our customer service was just getting out of control and so we had to have someone manage like an agency who was doing our customer service.
46:38
And and they were like it was just like of course they did they kind of were already killing it but they hit a lick with like COVID that like was unexpected.
46:45
So that accelerated it but they were doing 3 million with two guys like a year and a half into the business.
46:51
That's which is amazing for software.
46:54
But it's a pretty ridiculous it's a pretty ridiculous company.
46:57
You should Google like what the founders look like.
47:00
I think they're like they look like they're like 28 like they're like kids.
47:05
Yeah, I pretty sure I met these guys at a conference by the way now that now that I'm seeing their faces.
47:08
Yeah, Gage and Dan but we're going to call Dan Dirt.
47:12
So this Gage and Dirt were the co-founders of StreamYard. Yeah, I love it.
47:17
This is I mean that's that's an amazing story of like you know right place right time you know and being ready to like surf a wave.
47:23
Can I tell you like another random business like this that's like just deceptively big?
47:28
So my buddy Corey tweeted this out he was like He's like next time the high school guy?
47:36
No no this is Corey Levy? This is Corey Nicholson.
47:37
His thing is Corey N CEO is his is Twitter account. So Corey's a good dude. He's a really young guy.
47:45
He's like doing an e-commerce thing right now. I really like him.
47:46
I'm not like he's the one if we were going to do Southern Sam Sticky Icky.
47:51
This is the guy to run it and he's down to run it.
47:54
He we're We're waiting on you if you want to run it. But like he's a D2C guy.
47:58
He He's really What he's really good at is he's good at building a D2C product and using TikTok to market it.
48:01
And like that's like his current like niche.
48:04
And so anyways, he goes He goes, "Next time you're stressing over a business idea, just remember there's a website that just simply removes the TikTok watermark from a video and receives 37 million monthly visits and has ads everywhere."
48:17
And so it's called It's called ssstik.
48:20
I don't know if you've ever seen this website. ssstik.
48:27
So three s's and then tick. Wow.
48:30
I'm looking at the traffic now. Holy crap.
48:32
Almost 40 million monthly visitors for the last 6 months straight.
48:37
And it's just plastered with ads.
48:40
I don't know how I just Like you know when you If you TikTok is a great way to create videos, but it always keeps the TikTok watermark in there.
48:47
And so I guess this is a way to remove the watermark.
48:50
Because I'm pretty sure if you post a watermarked video from TikTok on a Twitter, I always feel like they like have a way to like downvote it. You know what I mean?
48:58
So it doesn't get shown to people. Is that legitimate?
48:59
I I don't know if it I don't know if it's that.
49:01
I I I really don't give Twitter that much credit.
49:05
Like Yeah, I I don't think they can build a feature that smart.
49:07
But um but I know for Facebook, I think Facebook if you upload a a watermarked video as an ad, cuz those TikTok videos do great as ads, um they won't let you run it cuz it's got a TikTok thing.
49:18
You're basically promoting their competitor, right?
49:19
So you have to like get the raw video. Dude, this is crazy.
49:22
I'm looking at the traffic now.
49:24
And so it gets like 40 million a month, it looks like around that.
49:28
And they're from every country.
49:28
So United States only makes up 8% of the traffic.
49:33
And then there's like Colombia, Philippines, Mexico, Peru.
49:35
Peru's the biggest source. Which is makes up 10%. This is crazy. What a crazy business.
49:41
Do you think this makes money?
49:43
Surely it makes some, but do you think this is big? Yeah, I think it is.
49:49
By the way, okay, so I tried to get in touch with this.
49:52
So, I don't have the full story on this, but um go to you're going to love this.
49:55
This is like I might be telling you about something like you already know.
49:59
You're going to be like my cousin started this. Go to eggcartons. com. All right.
50:07
Why would my I don't have a cousin would start eggcartons. com? What is this? Egg carton I don't know.
50:14
This This is just a Sam Parr special right here.
50:15
It's just like Did you know there's a business called eggcartons?
50:19
Dude, so many people think that I'm like I thought you were saying for I'm from the Midwest.
50:24
So many people think they're like, "Oh, like hey, I want to go hunting.
50:27
Can you like teach me how to hunt?"
50:28
Like they think that I'm like from like a rural southern area. I'm not.
50:33
I don't know anything about that.
50:35
Like I I I'm like when you think of they they hear I'm from St.
50:37
Louis, Missouri and they think it's the country.
50:39
I'm like, "Think of Detroit."
50:41
That's kind of like where I was raised.
50:43
Like that's it's more like Detroit than it is uh than the rural area.
50:50
Are you more likely to go bow hunting or get a pedicure? Dude, well, neither.
50:56
People from Missouri don't get pedicures, at least men don't.
51:00
But, bow hunting, like I only know about bow hunting from like the TV show Napoleon Dynamite where they talk about like a bow staff.
51:06
Like I don't even know like I don't know what bow I've never killed a animal before.
51:14
No, I've never done any of that.
51:15
And you don't have the you don't have the urge to. I definitely do.
51:18
It would be fun to look something in the eye and then consume it.
51:21
I think that would be exciting.
51:21
But, anyway Okay, so back to eggcartons. com.
51:26
All right, so basically it's just a website that sells like the actual packaging you need for eggs.
51:32
So, every form factor of eggs.
51:34
You got the 12 one, you got the 24 pack, you got the plastic one, you got the foam one, you got the good for the environment one.
51:40
And I thought this was really interesting cuz this is a this is a multi-million dollar business that just is like wholesale selling packaging for eggs.
51:48
And they just like if you go to the website it's like eggcartons.
51:49
com call 1-888-852-5340, right?
51:54
And it's like you know when that's in your logo that this business prints cash.
51:57
Cuz it's like oh yeah, we got like just this like you know, every grocery store in America, every corner store in America, they just eggcartons.
52:05
com and they they got my number, you know, in their phone book.
52:08
And um it's like the biggest tell.
52:12
And so what was interesting about this is I was like who owns this thing?
52:15
And then if you look up uh eggcartons.
52:18
com owner you're going to see um this woman named Sarah Moore.
52:24
And Sarah Moore, if you go look at her thing, it says her her LinkedIn says Sarah Moore, egg carton and packaging fanatic.
52:31
And she's been doing this for 4 years and before that she went to Harvard Business School.
52:36
And so I was like who is this?
52:36
And basically this is somebody who's like an M&A is a MBA private equity type that identified this business that's been around for 20 years.
52:46
And um basically, you know, like went and you know, either bought it, took it over um or or you know, did something.
52:52
I don't think it's like her dad is the owner cuz there's this other guy Paul B something who, you know, was the owner of it for 19 years.
52:59
Now he says he's semi-retired.
53:01
But I think she bought it.
53:04
And um I was like wow, this is a this is a like fascinating like path to pick uh for somebody who's just like smart and is like you know what?
53:12
I'm going to go fish where nobody else is fishing.
53:15
Instead of going to try to build the next social app or the next crypto thing or the next podcast, it's like let me go identify one of these businesses that's like a wholesaler of packaging buy the company and then just like, you know, modernize it and grow it.
53:31
So is this Sarah Moore from uh Massachusetts? Oh, wow.
53:38
Are you sure this woman owns So this woman does not look at all like you're going to think of a egg carton salesperson. This is the owner?
53:47
Are you Are you if you look if you looked at her picture, what Look at her picture. What's your guess? What does this woman do?
53:54
Like enterprise sales at Salesforce. Exactly.
53:58
I was going to say the exact same thing.
54:00
She sells high-end enterprise software or she runs an ad agency or you know, like whatever. I don't know.
54:07
She's a like uh you know, professor and part-time model or something like that, right? It's like she's crazy.
54:13
Yeah, she's like a really good-looking Harvard person and I would not expect her to do any of this in Sutton, Massachusetts. This is crazy.
54:22
look at the guy who's the previous owner, you go to his LinkedIn.
54:23
It's like a dude on the he's got his neck sideways cuz he's on the phone.
54:28
He's like at his computer. He's like looking up.
54:29
Someone took this photo of him and that's the best photo he has of himself. And he's got a cigar.
54:36
Yeah, smoking His desk has like, you know, 1970s World Series like, you know, ball from the game he was at.
54:43
he's got like a marble red in his mouth.
54:45
That's exactly how I would imagine this. This is crazy. How'd you find this?
54:50
So, cuz I just saw the tweet about the about the egg carton thing.
54:52
I went down the rabbit hole.
54:53
I found a PDF and it says she purchased it in 2017 after her after getting her MBA from Harvard and you know, now she has a private equity she did that she did that by the way in her 20s.
55:05
So, she's got a private equity company that basically does eggcartons.
55:07
com, Fall Harvest Products and those both those both serve the egg producing company sorry, industry and and King Supply which provides plumbing materials to campgrounds and parks.
55:21
And I was like, what the hell? Like who is this person? What are they doing?
55:23
And so, by the way, I might have some of these things wrong cuz I tried to get in touch with her.
55:27
I emailed her and I just subject line like holy [ __ ] you know, first line egg cartons, you know, like who would have thought?
55:33
This is amazing and I sent her I was like, look, you know, I want to know more about you, but I don't want to schedule time and I for you or for me.
55:40
Like, here's a Google Doc, like, would you mind just answer these questions?"
55:43
And so, I'm waiting on her to answer these questions now, cuz I have I must know more. I must know.
55:50
Where was this her family business?
55:51
Like, how did she get into this?
55:53
So, this like model-looking Harvard grad owns an egg cart business?
55:57
She owns a plumbing supplies business? Is that right?
56:04
And I don't know what a fall harvest What What is fall harvest products?
56:07
What What do you make I think it's also It's also for the egg industry. What? This is awesome.
56:14
This is a really good find. I love Sarah Moore.
56:16
Sarah Moore I love women named Sarah. My wife's name is Sarah. I love Sarah Moore. She's great.
56:26
It's not where I thought YOU WERE GOING WITH THAT ONE.
56:29
I love women named Sarah.
56:33
No, this woman's awesome. I'm a big fan.
56:35
Fun fact for you at a Nick Kray party.
56:39
Yeah, my wife's name is Sarah and there's this woman I admire who like with the Harvard and owns an egg cart business who's also named Sarah.
56:44
She's I'm fond of her as well.
56:49
Founder of of Spanx pants.
56:49
Love when pants make you look thinner. Sara Blakely. Another great Sarah.
56:55
Yeah, I'm a big fan of this. This is a good find.
56:57
Why did the person tweet about it? Uh I don't even know.
57:01
It was like What did they say they go?
57:06
I think that So, the the thread was like a kind of a golden thread where it was like, "Boring businesses are the best businesses."
57:11
And um and then somebody Patrick B Patrick B Johnson said, "I got one that's even better. Egg cartons. com.
57:19
This is a multi-million dollar business."
57:22
And that was the only reply to the thread, by the way.
57:23
This wasn't like a popular thread.
57:24
So, one guy tweeted that first tweet.
57:27
This guy is the one who tweeted that. He He something. a heat-seeking missile.
57:30
Yeah, he knows something.
57:32
No, I didn't reach out to this guy.
57:34
He's got like a picture that makes him look a little crazy.
57:37
And so I was like, I don't know.
57:39
I mean, it sounds like he's going to like assault you. He's on Twitter.
57:43
So like, okay, let me read you his bio.
57:45
This is why I was like, uh I want to have a conversation right now. Beats up Indian guys.
57:50
And he goes, "Teen Vogue" his This is bio.
57:53
"Teen Teen Vogue called me a visionary.
57:55
Elite Daily called me a genius. Link in bio."
57:57
And he goes, "@ramit blocked me is my biggest accomplishment."
58:02
"I'm the founder of Progress Labs." So, okay.
58:04
Yeah, I wouldn't want to talk to that guy, either.
58:08
Either Either he's awesome or he's completely not awesome, and I just didn't have the energy to go find out. This is a badass find.
58:15
I'm all about Is it A Cartons? Acartons. com. I'm all about this.
58:20
Cuz it's sort of like a birthday gift to you.
58:23
If anyone can find Sarah Moore, so please find Sarah Moore and uh and tell her to tell her to uh join the pod.
58:30
There's this one woman I I don't know if I told you this.
58:32
Did you see the tweet where I saw this lady at a Whole Foods and I thought it was cool and I just tweeted out a picture? No. Wait, what happened?
58:41
So, there was this lady giving out samples at Whole Foods. And Okay.
58:47
the sample was called uh I don't I actually don't know what it was Jesha. J E S H A.
58:55
And uh she It's like a sourdough Do you know anything about sourdough bread?
58:58
Like I don't know like I don't know entirely to be honest with you.
59:01
I don't know what that is.
59:02
It like something involving like it doesn't have yeast or something like something where like it you you actually digest it a little bit easier and it doesn't make you as bloated, at least when I eat it because it doesn't have like yeast.
59:12
It like is missing It's a There's one ingredient that's missing that just makes it all feel sometimes feel better on your stomach.
59:17
So, she made sourdough like mix that you can use for like pancakes and like muffins and [ __ ] like that.
59:23
And I was just talking and I just like went to the Whole Foods and I saw her.
59:27
I was like, "Oh, well, let me try some of this."
59:28
I was like, "This is great. Is this your business?"
59:30
She's like, "Yeah, I just started it like 6 months ago and I just cold emailed someone at Whole Foods asking if we could sell in the store and they said, "Yeah."
59:36
And now they're stocking it on all the shelves.
59:38
I was like, "Oh, wow, that's a pretty good story.
59:41
You know, what's your background?"
59:41
She's like, "Oh, I just worked at a fintech startup for a a bunch of years and I just always wanted to do this and I just saved up a little bit of money and I quit and I just launched it and I cold emailed them and I just kind of figured it out."
59:51
And I just tweeted that one tweet.
59:53
It was a It was a picture of her and it was like, you know, worked in fintech, quit, started this in 6 months, got into Whole Foods, just cold emailed someone.
1:00:01
And it got read by like 2 million people that tweet.
1:00:04
And she like met And I have no idea who she was.
1:00:05
I didn't even like know her handle and she like somehow found I I At the end of the tweet, I was like, "If you know who she is, send this to her and, you know, she'll like know where all the sales came from."
1:00:14
Apparently, she like knocked it out the park with sales.
1:00:19
All from just this one little tweet.
1:00:19
And I then I did the same thing with a pool company, Trek Pools.
1:00:22
And they sold a [ __ ] ton of pools.
1:00:25
I like just from from this mention.
1:00:27
It's kind of funny just these silly little tweets actually move the needle for people.
1:00:33
So, you're saying if you're out there and you'd like your needle moved, your boys are available for hire and bribes.
1:00:40
Actually, not even for hire, just bribes. Yeah, just money.
1:00:45
Send us your If you need your awesome stuff or cash in some kind of briefcase and we will move the needle for you. Needle movers. Yeah.
1:00:57
1-800 5-5-5 1-800 move my needle.
1:01:04
All right, that's the episode, I think.
1:01:06
Hey, we're just a couple of needle movers cult- cultivating that multi-trillionaire mindset. #grindset Mhm.