0:00
his company, which is called Tiny, which buys businesses, it's going public.
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0:04
And Andrew owns roughly 71% of the shares, and it's going public at a nearly billion-dollar valuation.
0:09
Who knows what it's going to actually trade at, but if it trades at what they want it to trade at, that's about 700 to 800 million dollars that Andrew will have from it, all starting with a bootstrap agency.
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And I want to walk through his journey, and I think this is amazing.
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It's pretty mind-blowing. All right, let's do it. I'm um Fancy shirt. Fancy shirt.
0:40
All I got to say is fancy shirt.
0:40
Jeff I've I now do this thing where if somebody does anything that's like I feel like they left the house today feeling good about that or they you know, they got a haircut. I'm not subtle about it.
0:50
I'll just I act like a like a dog barking.
0:52
I'm just like, "Nice haircut.
0:54
You got you you changed your face."
0:58
The thing that the audience is going to call me out on is I I couldn't find my other glasses, so I have to wear these glasses.
1:04
The problem with them is that [ __ ] Jeffrey Dahmer decided to wear the same ones.
1:09
So, it looks like I'm going to ask you like, "Do you want to come back to the apartment to take some tasteful pictures and have some beers?"
1:16
Like They'll be real nice.
1:19
Like They he ruined it for me.
1:20
Some people are into that.
1:22
I have a meaty one, another publicly traded company.
1:24
This is a big deal, and it kind of has not been made a big deal in the media because it's I guess not that big a deal to them.
1:32
It's a billion-dollar company, but basically our friend Andrew Wilkinson friend of the pod, friend of ours.
1:37
We're going to be with him in Vancouver on February 16th, so if you want to come see us uh live.
1:44
He basically And by the way, I got to preface this now that he's a publicly traded company.
1:49
Everything that I'm going to say, I just Googled it.
1:51
This is all just from Google.
1:52
I didn't ask him anything, and a lot of it's guesses, but not all of it.
1:56
He basically had a company that was publicly traded called WeCommerce and it was not doing great.
2:01
It like peaked at like 500 million, went down to 80 million.
2:04
Anyway, he's doing a reverse takeover. No, sorry.
2:07
He's doing a merge and he's his company, which is called Tiny, which buys businesses, it's going public.
2:14
And Andrew owns roughly 71% of the shares and it's going public at a nearly billion-dollar valuation.
2:19
Who knows what it's going to actually trade at, but if it trades at what they wanted it to trade at, that's about 700 to 800 million dollars that Andrew will have from it all starting with a bootstrap agency and I want to walk through his journey.
2:33
And I think this is amazing.
2:34
It's pretty mind-blowing.
2:36
Okay, the By the way, the billion dollars, is this one problem by the way is that all his numbers were in Canadian dollars.
2:42
It's all CAD instead of USD.
2:44
So, is this a billion CAD or is this a billion USD?
2:45
Everything I'm going to say is Canadian.
2:47
Now, I don't know what the conversion rate is of Monopoly money to USD, but like it's it's somewhere close enough that we're still in the same ballpark.
2:55
Yeah, so I think it's I think it's a little bit more like 700 million is the the the number that basically just discount it something like 20 30%.
3:03
Yeah, Andrew's in CAD is Canadian. Andrew's in Canada.
3:06
ever really want to inflate something, right?
3:08
Like if you're 5'9, you're you're 5'11 CAD.
3:11
So, just just go CAD and you'll, you know, get that extra get that little extra that you feel you've been missing your whole life.
3:20
So, dude, this story, it's really impressive.
3:23
Andrew comes on the pod and we mess with him, but like this is we treat him like he's one of us.
3:29
What he's pulled off is like not one of us, man. It's pretty epic.
3:30
He's just more like 20 of us if you add it all up.
3:36
He's the Brian Scalabrine of rich guys. You know what I mean?
3:40
Like this is the scalage.
3:41
He's the worst billionaire I know, but he's the best millionaire I know. Yeah, for sure. I mean, he's killing it. So, listen to this.
3:50
So, basically the company that is taking public it at this point has And this now this stuff is actually uh public.
3:55
Uh it's doing about 150 million in revenue, 50 million in EBITDA.
4:00
And so, here's the story.
4:01
So, 2006, Andrew was I think 19.
4:05
He started a web design agency called Metalab.
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And Metalab is like the core of all this.
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In year one, it had $250,000 in revenue.
4:13
And basically, what he's doing is he's doing like design stuff.
4:16
So, one of his big famous clients was before Slack was Slack Stewart Butterfield, he, you know, reached out to Andrew and said, "Hey, help me design Slack."
4:24
And like I don't know it's web interfacing, which frankly, I don't even know entirely the the whole scope of that work, but like more than logos, but including logos, I believe, right? More than logos.
4:36
That should be their tagline.
4:39
No, it it it was definitely something good.
4:41
We draw We draw good plus more. Logos and more.
4:47
No, it was it was web interfacing.
4:47
So, it was actually fairly technical.
4:48
But in year one, it did $250,000 in revenue with a 50% profit margin.
4:54
In year two 2019, so three three years in, it was doing about a couple hundred thousand in profit.
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And it doubled for a couple years, and then grew by 30% a year.
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So, 2012, you're six years in, only 3 million in revenue. Not like Right.
5:10
crazy out of this league.
5:10
Like, you know, he's he's kind of like what people say about us is you're relatable.
5:16
And whenever people say that, I was like, Ugh.
5:19
I don't want to I don't want to be relatable.
5:22
I want to be way out of your league. Yeah.
5:25
And they say, "You're so You're so authentic. You're so relatable."
5:26
I'm like, What I like about you guys is you're not that successful. Yeah. And you're pretty dumb. So, it just feels good.
5:35
You guys can do something with your life.
5:37
And so, that that's exactly how I feel. So, he he was relatable.
5:38
So, in year six, 3 million in revenue, but after that, it grows 30% a year, which which if you add up 30% annual growth, by 2020 you're at something like 20 million revenue.
5:49
By 2023, you're in like the 40 or 50 range.
5:53
And the reason why Andrew's agency works so well is And I actually think this won't work This doesn't work as much anymore is he's based out of Victoria uh What What I don't even I'm such I'm so ignorant.
6:04
I don't even know what state province it is.
6:06
but a little higher, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
6:10
He's in like Yeah, he's in like the Boise of Canada.
6:11
Yeah, upper Idaho, I guess.
6:18
Our software is the worst.
6:18
Have you heard of HubSpot?
6:20
See, most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous.
6:27
Think I love our new CRM.
6:29
Our software is the best. HubSpot. Grow better.
6:33
And so, what that means is he's paying those wages, but he's charging Silicon Valley British Columbia. Ben just corrected me. There you go.
6:41
British Columbia, whatever that is.
6:42
Uh I don't know what piece it is on the Monopoly board, but it's somewhere around there.
6:45
And so, he's charging Silicon Valley prices to like the Slacks of the world, so these high-end prices, but he's paying Canadian wages. So, that margin is fat.
6:56
And so, that's why he's able to take make all this uh profit.
6:57
And he starts taking his profit and he starts launching companies.
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And it doesn't work so well.
7:02
He launches one little software company.
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Uh I forget what it was called. Flow, I think.
7:06
It was basically like an Asana competitor. Doesn't work out.
7:09
He's like, "I invested too much money." He goes, "Fuck this.
7:13
What if I just buy a company?"
7:14
He reads a book on Warren Buffett and he's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could do this." And that's his new hero.
7:19
He turns into a a Buffett guy.
7:21
And he starts buying businesses.
7:21
And he buys a couple that are doing okay.
7:23
But then he buys one that becomes like the crown jewel of this whole business.
7:27
So, this whole thing, Tiny, there's I think there's two crown jewels.
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There's Metalab, which we can guess is doing 40 or 50 million in revenue, 20 million in profit.
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That's the cash flow engine of this whole thing of being able to buy these companies.
7:40
Then he buys uh Dribbble, which is basically like GitHub for designers.
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So, designers go to this website and they upload their portfolios, other people can uh share your portfolio, you send it to employers, they can comment, you get inspiration, whatever.
7:56
Now, I don't have all the details on this, but I if I had to guess, Dribbble was launched by two founders who weren't very business-savvy and it had a lot of traffic, but they're like, "Dude, we don't know how to like make money off this."
8:06
And Andrew buys it from them.
8:08
I imagine, if I had to guess, I bet you he buys it for 5 to 10 million dollars.
8:13
Turns this thing into a behemoth, making Now it's making many tens of millions of dollars.
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If I had to guess, it's worth 200 million dollars or higher.
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I'm This is just pure guess.
8:25
And that becomes a crown jewel of this company, Tiny.
8:26
And so now he's got these two agencies or uh Metalab and Dribbble, and then he's also has now, what do they own? Like 15 other companies?
8:33
And he's taking it public.
8:35
And throughout this whole period, he's bootstrapping this thing.
8:38
So, Metalab is the one that's paying for everything.
8:39
He's hires a CEO to run Metalab, and because of that, he basically owns like 90% of Metalab, and now he owns, what did I say?
8:46
70% of these Tiny shares.
8:49
And then his other partner in the business owns like 10%.
8:52
So, him and Chris, his his partner, own 80% of this publicly traded company that's hoping to go public in the billion-dollar range.
8:57
This is just a crazy fascinating story, and uh I can't believe he's pulled this off.
9:04
Yeah, I got to be careful what I say because I invested in Tiny recently when it was private.
9:09
Um so, I kind of know more of the numbers, but I don't know what's public versus what was private.
9:16
Am I in the ballpark of everything?
9:19
Yeah, I think you're in the ballpark.
9:19
Um I think the maybe the Dribbble valuation may be a little bit high.
9:23
Um but you're right that those two things make up like, you know, it's like cuz I guess here's my Here's where this kind of broke for me, and this is maybe not that interesting, just a my personal framework.
9:37
Broken in a good Broken in good way.
9:37
In a good way, which was up I thought he'd been around doing this for way longer.
9:43
It was actually 2016 when he started like buying other companies.
9:47
And um that's not that long ago.
9:50
Like we met him in I don't know.
9:53
I met him in I want to say 2020.
9:56
You know, that's only 4 years in and and it was kind of like about him.
9:59
He was like a personality. Yeah, exactly.
10:01
had like he always had this like cool looking avatar.
10:03
His pictures always look cool.
10:04
He was like a designer, so his hair was always slicked back and he had this like where we all looked like dorks, he was like kind of good looking in his pictures and stuff like that.
10:12
Yeah, just shows what a good head of hair could do for you.
10:13
And um you know, I think that's the real takeaway number one.
10:18
Number two number two, this segment is brought to you by Hims.
10:23
Number three, uh no so so I think that that was the first thing which was wow, this was actually built up in a relatively like on one hand it's a long period of time cuz he's been started Metalab a long time ago.
10:33
So that part you got to give credit for that oh wow, 2006 and then he grinded it out year after year building the service business up.
10:40
But on the other hand, the portfolio side of things was relatively new.
10:43
So I thought that was really interesting.
10:45
The second thing, I assumed that the portfolio was a lot more a lot flatter, a lot more parity.
10:52
So maybe like there were um you know, five to 10 companies all of sort of equal value pitching in each one like you know, five to 10% of the overall value of the pie and that's how you get like 70% or something like that and the rest was Metalab.
11:06
And in fact it was kind of like like a venture portfolio in a way where a couple of the companies were really the standout ones that were driving most of the value.
11:13
And I think for them it was actually three.
11:16
There was the the one they took it they originally took public, so WeCommerce, which is basically their Shopify apps roll up.
11:22
Uh so the Shopify app roll up I think was was one winner, Dribbble is another winner and Metalab is another winner.
11:27
And to me everything else is nice, but now that those are such big winners, the they make up so much revenue and so much EBITDA that the others are almost like rounding errors at the moment.
11:37
Uh, that's a little bit harsh, I would say, but like, you know, so maybe that's maybe that's a little too harsh, but just comparatively, it wasn't like this portfolio of a dozen equally sized companies.
11:49
Um, which maybe was I never should have assumed that in the first place, but when you hear somebody's doing a portfolio, you sort of think, "Okay, it's going to be sort of more smoothly distributed out."
11:57
But But it was actually a little bit more concentrated in a few key key winners that just really kept compounding at a high rate.
12:06
And um, so yeah, so I think that's that's amazing.
12:08
I think what he's done is amazing.
12:10
Like, um, to build this level of a of a sort of empire in this short of amount of time is uh it's pretty awesome.
12:17
And I the biggest thing is I love that he did it his way.
12:21
Like, there really wasn't anybody doing exactly what he was doing.
12:25
Um, of course, there's private equity, right?
12:30
But he wasn't doing it like private equity because he wasn't looking to flip.
12:32
He's looking to buy and hold.
12:32
So then you have sort of, "Okay, okay, who's doing permanent equity?
12:35
Who's doing a buy and hold strategy?"
12:38
Okay, there's some people doing it, but they all raised money.
12:39
He used his own company's profits to do it. So that's pretty dope.
12:44
And then he branded it and was more public about it versus these kind of more under the radar It's like, "Oh, you you're part of like Maple Oak Capital. What is that?
12:53
I you know, I go to your website, it's got two lines.
12:54
It just says, 'We acquire software companies.'
12:58
And it's like, 'Okay, I don't know what this means.'
13:00
Whereas, he built kind of like a sexy brand out of it.
13:03
So I think there was a bunch of things he did that were pretty cool.
13:05
Like, even his term sheet.
13:05
He's like, "Oh, I read that Warren Buffett basically, you know, will meet a company, understand it, and then write a one sheet, a one-page, you know, like term sheet for them to just, you know, are they going to take this deal or not?"
13:17
He doesn't do this like complicated lawyer process.
13:19
If he can buy a billion-dollar company with with a one-or-two-pager, then I should be able to buy this $3 million company with a one-pager.
13:26
And so he had took it, you know, he took that approach and I think did a good job branding what he was doing along the way.
13:33
Yeah, and so here's a few more takeaways, and then I want to hear yours if you have any extra ones.
13:35
The first is that you said that he did this quickly.
13:39
Yeah, kind of, but he also did it really slowly.
13:42
I mean The acquisitions part only. Yeah.
13:42
The acquisition part, but he basically started in 2006, and then he didn't really hit his stride until 2016.
13:49
So, that's 10 years of having an agency.
13:54
Now, he didn't run that agency the whole time.
13:55
He ran it for a little while, and then he also hired people, and so I'm I'm sure he was managing it to some extent, but slow is good in some cases.
14:03
And the second thing is that he didn't raise money for an agency, and because of that he had so much freedom.
14:06
The second you raise money, that that your cap table is one of the few things that you can't reverse, or or it's really hard.
14:14
And he didn't raise money for a company that Metalab should not have raised money, and it did not raise money, and because of that he was able to use the profits to invest in [ __ ] versus if you raise money, they're like, "No, don't use those profits to do other things.
14:29
Reinvest them and make this thing bigger."
14:30
The next thing is financial maneuvering.
14:34
Like, you know, I joke that I like don't know anything about finances.
14:38
It's kind of uh like his like thing.
14:41
I think I think he's built that skill up over time, right?
14:43
Didn't didn't know it initially, but but yeah, has he can create a lot of value A lot of people do this now, they can create a lot of value by increasing their financial IQ.
14:51
Like, um taking WooCommerce public via SPAC in 2020 when the timing was perfect um required some combination of being prepared with a good business.
15:03
Secondly, um you know, identifying the timing and saying now is the time to go aggressively.
15:08
And third is like, just having the financial IQ to go with the balls to be able to actually go pull something like that off. 100%.
15:14
The next thing is where you live, it can actually matter a lot.
15:18
Now, I think that this is gap of Silicon Valley wages and Victoria, Canada wages might be closed a little bit.
15:25
It's closer at least than it was before.
15:27
That gap is smaller, but this still exists in other places.
15:29
I know I have friends that have built pretty big businesses or building them right now and they're using Indian talent versus American talent and they're getting great products.
15:37
Like so you did with this podcast. Guilty.
15:44
Um and then the final thing is hiring and negotiating.
15:47
The way he negotiated with his CEOs and kept them happy while also retaining equity.
15:52
So I don't know like how he pays people.
15:54
Like I I imagine he pays them with just tons of cash.
16:00
Uh so that's like you're like, well, that's easy.
16:01
You just pay overpay people.
16:02
But anyway, it's still like really impressive how he's able to negotiate and hire and manage people.
16:08
I've heard from a bunch of his CEOs where they're like, "When things are going fine, I don't ever hear from him and I love that."
16:13
And then of course, I imagine there's times when things aren't going fine.
16:16
He's like, "All right, dude. Come on.
16:17
We got to we got to like push this little harder."
16:20
But he's done a really good job of hiring and uh anyway, this whole thing that he's pulled off I messaged him and I was like, "This sounds like an insult." Yeah, we got to clap.
16:29
Well, we'll clap for him.
16:31
I was like, "Dude, this sounds like an This sounds like an insult, but do you ever just sit with like a shit-eating grin and just laugh and like a little evil laugh and be like, 'Got them.
16:39
I pulled off this caper.'"
16:41
Because that's kind of what it feels like because he makes it look easy.
16:45
And of course, it's never easy.
16:47
There's like there's times where he'll message me and he's like, "Dude, I feel like I'm in the dumps." or I feel overwhelmed. He's human.
16:54
But he's done a really good job of doing it his way almost to the point where I'm like, "Dude, you got to be smirking right now."
17:00
Like it's that feeling like when you get successful and you think of all your ex-girlfriends who like made fun of you.
17:04
It's like you you [ __ ] Yeah. Oh, me only?
17:09
Yeah, you know that thing? No, no, no, no. I got you, bro. Don't don't worry.
17:12
You know like you know like that shelf You know that that that shelf you have with like the names of all your enemies marked on like champagne bottles.
17:17
You know like when you pop that cork off whenever you like of their hair and you just set it a fire with with with the lighters.
17:25
What are you talking about? But he's pulled it off.
17:29
He's Let me let me let me also say another thing.
17:34
You know that um there are people that are masters of engineering, you know, people that are um you know, fantastic leaders.
17:42
But you know I'm the dawn of storytelling and Andrew is a great storyteller.
17:46
So people should go read his Dribbble 2. 0 blog post. It's on Medium.
17:51
So uh just Google Dribbble 2. 0 Andrew Wilkinson.
17:55
And here okay, Sam, how do most people announce an acquisition? Um go.
17:57
Just Just uh give me your generic thing. Yeah.
18:02
They're it's like uh we're so brought we're so it's a press release. We're so pleased.
18:07
They built a really nice business and we're happy to be stewards of this business and we're really looking forward to the future and then like the seller's like you know, we were looking for a nice home for Dribbble and this is a perfect partner and we're excited for the future. Just nonsense.
18:21
No, absolute absolute soulless dribble.
18:24
So here's here's what he he did and said.
18:26
So here's I'm just going to read a little snippet of this cuz I think people should pick up on the storytelling too. I think that helps.
18:32
So he goes When I first started MetaLab Dan Cederholm was my hero. A great opening line.
18:38
A great cuz I don't know who this guy is and now I'm like why is this person your hero?
18:41
He goes the Bulletproof Web was the first book I read.
18:46
I used to reverse engineer his style sheets on SimpleBits to learn his CSS tricks. Anything he did, I did.
18:49
And I drove my front-end developers nuts trying to get them to implement every little one-pixel detail that I learned from Dan.
18:57
So already you're like okay, this is interesting.
19:00
He's basically setting the context of like that's the guy who started Dribbble and he's like it's not just I bought Dribbble and I'm pleased to to you know, raise prices in 6 months.
19:09
He's like, you know, I uh I've admired this guy. This guy's my hero. I learned from him.
19:14
And so, when he uh and so here so let me uh keep going.
19:19
So, he goes, I remember I remember meeting another favorite designer, Dave Dave Shea, at a conference back in 2008.
19:23
He mentioned that he knew Dan and my floor my jaw hit the floor. Wait, what?
19:27
The CSS drop shadows, the cork logo, he's the best. What's he like? I was gushing. Um blah blah blah. I wasn't just a fanboy.
19:36
I was his web standards fanboy. Uh blah blah blah. Then he keeps going.
19:40
He goes, one of the projects that Dan did was Dribbble, which he co-founded with whoever. Uh I had used it. Blah blah blah.
19:47
Which is why I'm excited I'm extremely excited to share the big news. Right?
19:51
So, just that little paragraph of setup it draws you in in a way that like he could have just done a standard boring eye-roll press release and instead he decided to do it this way.
20:01
And then he he talks about kind of like that it wasn't just like we therefore we've acquired it and it's done.
20:07
He's like, I was bugging them and bugging them.
20:09
I kept emailing them every month asking them if they would let me in.
20:12
He's like, this September my moxie finally paid off.
20:14
He emailed me think it saying they would think to do that they might do it.
20:17
They cared about these three things. I wouldn't mess it up. I have a long-term view.
20:21
And I want them to stay involved and own a piece of the business.
20:24
We shook hands and made a deal. Um blah blah blah.
20:26
And then he tells the rest of the you know, then he then he does the standard stuff about we're excited, it's going to be great.
20:32
And um I just thought that was just a way better way of doing it than the average person would do it.
20:35
And if you add up a lot of doing things better than the average person would do it, you end up with this type of exceptional outcome.
20:44
Dude, it's just great, man.
20:44
I I have a lot of respect for him.
20:46
There there's always like this little bit of envy in me uh when I talk to Andrew because he's my friend and uh I consider us peers.
20:54
And but I then then he'll make jokes about like what he's doing on the weekend and then like oh, that's sick.
21:00
And uh and then but I'm proud of him.
21:05
I feel like I feel a lot I feel a lot of pride like on his full kind of for him and I'm very happy that he's pulled this off and I think it's really impressive and I think that it's badass that people are that there are people that are bold enough to do things their way regardless of what the nerds invest in from Stanford tell you the way you should do it.
21:28
And I imagine that along the way he got a lot of flak making fun of him from being in Canada for not raising money for buying these little quote little things and I guess that's the [ __ ] name of the company Tiny.
21:45
But he just like pulled it off and I appreciate that gumption and I appreciate that boldness and I find it inspiring and I'm happy that like we have him in our life.
21:55
So that's a little my little love note to Andrew. Good job.
21:58
Love letter to Andrew Wilkinson.
22:03
And if you want a if we're going to Canada, we're going to be there February 16th and Andrew if you're listening to this, you want to fly us up there private, that's cool.
22:10
If you want to celebrate We know how much money you have now so Look, let's celebrate by How does one friend invite another over? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:23
Let's celebrate by flying private together except we'll be like you don't have to be there.
22:30
And Sean and I will each be in different planes.
22:31
Uh so Can we have an allowance?
22:34
Can he just send us a card with just an allowance? That would be tight.
22:37
Anyway, that's my breakdown of Tiny. He deserved it.
22:43
Dude, I got roasted so badly by my daughter last night.
22:46
I was like, "Oh man, this is Your four-year-old daughter roasted you so badly. Nice. Three. Three years old.
22:51
We play so so she she can't play many games.
22:53
We play rock, paper, scissors but she always throws scissors so that's like you know fun for for her and not for me.
23:03
She plays hide and seek, always hides in the same spot.
23:04
There's like kids do this.
23:06
They just like play the game but they don't know how to play.
23:07
And then she So So I taught her I spy.
23:09
I was like, "Oh, here's a game we can play in the car. I spy." And so she loves I spy.
23:13
So she So I'm like, "I spy something green."
23:17
She's like, "Is it the tree?"
23:17
I'm like, "How'd you get it? It's always the tree. That's right."
23:20
And she goes, "I spy something yellow."
23:22
And I'm like looking around the house.
23:23
I'm like, "Where is that Where is the yellow?
23:24
I I don't see anything yellow." She goes, "Your teeth."
23:31
And she's she's not aware that that's the sickest burn that anybody's done to anybody.
23:35
Hey, I spy an [ __ ] Yeah, exactly.
23:38
I was like, "Wow, that is just like natural. That's a natural burn." That's good.
23:44
Can I tell you about something cool that you probably know about and I saw it and I can't stop thinking about it?
23:47
Have you heard of the Scallenge? I don't know about this. Tell me about this.
23:52
All right, this is You know, I don't pay attention to sports. This is your league.
23:56
So you know you know Brian is Brian Ke- Oh, oh. Scalabrine.
23:58
Okay, I didn't know he called it the Scallenge. That's a good name.
24:03
Well, ex- explain who he is.
24:05
People don't know probably.
24:06
So Brian Scalabrine, he played for the Celtics. He's like a redhead. He's 6'9".
24:12
He's huge, but I think like a Will Ferrell but actually was an NBA NBA player.
24:15
Yeah, so easy to make fun of, but I think he was like okay, right?
24:20
Or was he always that Yeah, he he was okay, but then like he was okay, but he was he didn't take himself too seriously and over time, you know, like he had a kind of a few years where he actually played, but most of his career he's on the bench as a scrub.
24:30
And yeah, Barshav's his nickname, you know, Kobe was the Black Mamba.
24:35
He started calling himself the White Mamba.
24:37
And so you know, he was a goofy dude who was basically a bench warmer for like the last whatever seven years of his career, but was a great, you know, great locker room presence and and you know, a warm body, so people kept him around.
24:49
And I think at one point he called himself, I don't know if it was a joke or what, the worst player in the NBA. Obviously it was a joke.
24:56
But anyway, after he retired, so I guess he retired from the NBA somewhat recently-ish, but he's still 6'9" and athletic and whatever or athletic for uh you know, he's a basketball player, but he would compared to the other guys, he wasn't like that athletic.
25:07
But he starts playing rec leagues and like he would score, you know, rec leagues like at the YMCA and on uh playgrounds and he scores like 60 points a game, you know, just crushing these guys.
25:16
And he doesn't like brag about it too much, but then like online at one point he mentions like, "Yeah, I got I got 60 points last night at my rec league."
25:23
And then just people online just start chirping at him hard and they're like, "Dude, you suck.
25:27
I could beat you or you I don't even know how you made it in the NBA, you know, yada yada yada."
25:31
They start chirping at him.
25:33
And he goes, "Wait a minute, no.
25:35
I may be suck compared to Derrick Rose, but I don't suck compared to any of you guys."
25:39
And so he starts doing this tour where he goes to like all these basketball courts.
25:43
He goes, "I want to go to the the the the hoodest of the hood basketball court.
25:48
I want to go to the best YMCA.
25:49
I want to I'll go all around the country."
25:51
And he starts doing this and he crushes these guys.
25:53
And he He challenges people.
25:55
He says, "Come play me one-on-one. You think I suck?
25:57
Come play me one-on-one."
26:00
Yeah, he he he he destroys them and there's he he's like, "I'm not even doing this for social media."
26:03
But some people recorded it a couple of these things and he would beat them like 10-nothing.
26:07
He was like, "I let them get one point just to figure out what they're going to do, but I just destroy these guys."
26:12
And he's got this awesome quote that he goes he said this to like one of the kids.
26:16
It was like an 18-year-old kid who like plays against him in the in the in the in the crushes this kid.
26:20
He goes, "Let's get something straight.
26:22
I'm closer to LeBron than you are to me."
26:24
And I thought I read that and I go, "This is the greatest thing I've ever heard. This is awesome."
26:32
It's such a good story and he called it the scallenge and I thought it was so good.
26:36
It just shows, you know, there's levels to greatness.
26:39
Yeah, there's levels to this I think is the the perfect the perfect takeaway from that. And also he's hilarious. He is so good.
26:45
Um I don't know if you remember this by the way.
26:47
We were when we did our our Camp MFM getaway, um the the guy who came to train us, he's he trains like a bunch of NBA stars.
26:56
So, he trains Kyrie Irving, he's trained Trae Young.
26:59
And so, he was there and his wife is in the WNBA.
27:05
And uh she's like one of the best players in the WNBA.
27:06
We're talking about the WNBA and how like they're, you know, the players are awesome, but they also don't get like high viewership.
27:11
It's like not like the league doesn't do that well.
27:16
It's kind of like subsidized by the NBA.
27:17
They kind of loses money, but you know, it it it's good overall for the sport for there to be a women's league.
27:24
And so, we were like, you know, what what we had a kind of a impromptu brainstorm of like, you know, what do we Same thing everyone says, which is can can I beat her up?
27:30
You know, like it's what you're it's what everyone says.
27:32
Not beat her up, just beat her up faster.
27:35
That's what happens with like when a bunch of drunk idiots at Buffalo Wild Wings are watching like Rose Namajunas and like these female UFC fighters. Everyone thinks it. Can I kick her ass?
27:44
Yeah, what would happen if I fought her? Yeah, exactly.
27:46
Uh so, basically we did a brainstorm of like, what would you do that to get ratings up or to like if you were to launch a different women's league, like how would you get people interested?
27:53
Cuz the problem is uh I think I saw this this crazy Tik Tok.
27:58
It was like some team, whoever won the championship last year, I don't I have no idea.
28:00
Maybe it's like the Atlanta Dream or something like that.
28:03
And they came home to do their parade in the city.
28:05
And it literally just looked like, you know, if I walked to my bus stop here and there's like three people kind of loitering around, there's like a bum, and then, you know, that was the parade.
28:15
There was nobody there for the parade.
28:17
And the the team was going down in the bus and there was just like other people were like, why is this What is this Why is this bus here?
28:24
What is what Oh, do you guys play a sport?
28:26
I I didn't really realize that.
28:27
And so, there's this Tik Tok that went viral making fun of it.
28:30
Um and yeah, the idea that that we all landed on was basically the three or four three, four, five best players should basically go on tour like it's the And 1 mixtape tour and go city to city and challenge, you know, any five, you know, go play pick up with any with dudes at any of these and live stream that um or like cut that into clips of them basically punking punking guys.
28:53
Yeah, like beating guys who think they could beat them and uh you know, put some respect on their name.
28:59
So, so that was kind of the the marketing idea, but you know, to to our to if if the CMO of the WNBA is listening you're welcome.
29:06
Dude, I love these challenges.
29:08
There was another one where like when you're watching running, running's not a popular sport, but I love it.
29:13
It's my favorite sport to watch uh next to the UFC and people were like they're not that they're like a 2-hour marathon.
29:20
Do you do you remember that when a guy Eliud Eliud Kipchoge he ran 2 hours?
29:25
And he just looks so smooth.
29:25
He looks closer to an animal than he does a human.
29:28
Like his body is just like he just you know, running 100 miles a week for probably 20 years.
29:32
He's just like his you look at his calves and you're like I can't believe that you and I are like the same we're both humans.
29:36
It just it's not even fair.
29:39
He looks graceful when he runs.
29:41
He looks beautiful and he doesn't look that fast.
29:42
And so they put a treadmill at the same speed and they go here's here's the speed. ease.
29:48
He's doing it with ease and he does it for 2 hours and they go see if you can do this for 15 seconds.
29:54
And they had this treadmill and like people can't do it for just 20 seconds.
29:57
They can't even run that speed.
29:59
It's basically like 4 minutes and 30 seconds a mile which is like I don't know what that would be like 16 miles an hour. for me. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:05
It's like a sprint and um it's a sprint for most people and it was really funny.
30:11
No one could keep up with it.
30:13
So, I love these like that's actually one of the tenants of making content viral which is it made you have to make something made to stick and you can make it stick by comparing it to real tangible things that everyone can understand.
30:23
And when you put one of these treadmills at that speed you're like oh, I can't keep up with that for 10 seconds let alone 2 hours. Totally, totally.
30:30
Somebody said this about the Olympics.
30:31
They go the Olympics there should be one civilian in every event.
30:36
Just a normal fit guy from the gym and it should just be like just as as baseline comparison here's the average person and you know, here's even like an above average person and then here's the Olympians.
30:45
Like let them all just let them line up in lane 11. And see what happens. Dude, I would love that. I would love that.
30:51
I have I've got I've got a big meaty topic. What do you have?
30:55
All right, so I This is a story of a multi-million easily multi-million po And type type in the chat how do the calculation of how much I I lost doing this. Let's see.
31:10
I would have invested at a company at 5 million and it's now a 3 billionish company.
31:15
Um so you know, I I basically turned I missed out on a chance to probably turn something like 25K into tens of millions of dollars. Yeah.
31:26
Um okay, so here's what happened.
31:26
But it's it's kind of there's kind of some some interesting things baked into this.
31:31
It's not just that oh, I missed it. Big deal.
31:33
Um everybody misses misses opportunities.
31:34
This is uh an interesting one.
31:36
So back in 2015 uh which is kind of when we met um I was not a angel investor, but I liked the idea.
31:46
I thought it sounded cool.
31:46
I was a founder of a of a company uh and I was making I think 100 160 grand a year.
31:52
So 160 grand a year Back then you told me you were making 160 and I was like, oh you're the richest person I know.
31:59
I remember you told me you were making $150,000. I was like, oh my god. Yeah.
32:06
I I may I remember I was like, man, find a find somebody who looks at me the way Sam looks at me right now.
32:09
The way that Sam looks at my pay stub.
32:11
And so um so yeah, I I I was making 160 a year, but in in California, you know, you're kind of after taxes, now you're at like 110.
32:21
You're netting, you know, and then you pay for life. It's pretty expensive. Blah blah blah. You don't save much.
32:24
So I didn't have much of a bank roll, but I liked the idea of being an angel investor and people because our office was so dope, when a founder would come, they would think that I'm a a richer than I was but just because our office was so fancy, which was only fancy because our main investor owned the building and decked it out for himself, and like that's why the office was so fancy.
32:46
It had nothing to do with me.
32:47
So, anyways, I um I meet this kid.
32:51
We're building a product, and I meet this kid.
32:53
He's 13 years old, and he uses our app every day.
32:58
Our app was like a Clubhouse type of app.
32:59
He used to use it every day after school. Come home, use the app.
33:02
And he's hanging out in the Silicon Valley chat rooms, and we're like, "Dude, you should be like going and go try to have a kiss.
33:07
Like, you know, that should be your mission, not like sitting in on this room talking about raising your Series A."
33:14
And um And so, two things happened.
33:15
One, he's like, "Dude, I want to come work with you guys." Whatever.
33:19
We're like, "Dude, you're in middle school.
33:20
Like, I can't your parents are going to kill me.
33:22
I can't help you work for us."
33:23
Like, "Oh, here's Here's what you can do."
33:25
He goes, "I want to be a scout for you."
33:27
I said, "Okay, go ahead, kid. Be a scout for me."
33:31
He goes, um he goes he goes, "What do you want me to do?"
33:33
I go, "Every week, I want you to send me a company that you think is awesome, and that you think I should invest in.
33:39
And just write why you think I should invest, and send me the company."
33:42
Now, I have zero hope or really even zero plan to read this email at the time.
33:46
I'm just basically giving this kid a homework assignment.
33:48
I'm like, "Yeah, this will help you think.
33:51
And most likely, this is going to be too much work for you. You might do it once.
33:54
You might do it twice, but you're going to give up by the third time for sure."
33:59
So, I give him this homework assignment.
34:01
Very first company he sends me is a company called ApplyBoard.
34:03
And so, here's a This was the second cuz this is sorry, this is the second week.
34:09
He goes, "Hey Sean, here's the second company I want to introduce, ApplyBoard.
34:11
What they do, they help international students find the right university for themselves and apply there on their behalf.
34:16
They have 11 schools contracted to pay them a commission for every for a student that gets that signs up, and they have 14 more schools in the funnel.
34:26
They have over 1,500 students signed up, 160,000 Facebook likes, and this is all with $10 in paid marketing."
34:30
This is actually pretty interesting, right?
34:32
Like that's actually a kind of a a really good analysis and that's, you know, simple, two lines.
34:37
So, I'm like, "Wow, this kid's 13.
34:39
He's like, you know, he's This is a good find and he's explained it well."
34:42
He goes, "Why you should invest?"
34:44
Now, this is where he got a little off, but that's okay.
34:45
He goes, "They started 4 years ago with offline consulting and then pivoted into a software business.
34:51
They know this space well.
34:52
They have four co-founders.
34:55
They have a very, very diverse skill set, blah, blah, blah."
34:57
Um They have an algorithm, something, something.
35:01
And he says, "Um their customer acquisition cost only a few dollars and their LTV is thousands, so they have sustainable growth."
35:06
Uh he goes, "I'm trying to correct my shots so that one day I can hit the bull's-eye for you.
35:11
If you have any feedback on the company, I would love to hear it."
35:13
Cuz the first one I didn't even respond.
35:14
I said I said like, "This is bad."
35:15
Um so, this was his second one.
35:18
And I'm like, "You know what?
35:19
This is actually pretty good.
35:20
I'm going to take this meeting."
35:22
So, guy is in San Francisco. He comes to my office. Love him.
35:24
Super charming, this guy Martin.
35:26
Um You You've probably met like a bunch of these guys who are like, "There's There's something that's really just like uh I don't know, charismatic or charming about dudes from like, you know, Israel or something like that."
35:38
Like Anyone who's like, Israel, Persian, Turkey, there's like It's like they're just so goddamn charming.
35:44
Like they're just dripping with sauce and uh What's uh What's Cliff's company? What's our buddy Cliff? Cliff W. Uh Cliff uh Weitzman.
35:53
Yeah, um it's the audio one.
35:57
I I I think he's uh Middle Eastern.
35:57
I met him uh when when he was just starting and I was like it it he had Oh, he's Israeli, actually.
36:04
Uh and he had that same vibe and in the office, I go, "What's interesting about you?"
36:08
or something and he goes, "I can do a backflip."
36:10
I go, "All right, well, move that chair over."
36:14
Yeah, I said, "Let's be friends." Yeah.
36:18
I said uh "All right, well, uh move that chair over.
36:21
There's enough room here. Go, do it."
36:23
And he did a backflip in the middle of my office.
36:25
And uh his company now, Speechify, it's it it's in the unicorn territory and I didn't invest in it, but that like he had that same charisma when he came to my office, he lit up the room.
36:36
I I should have I should have known better.
36:38
Yeah, he's got amazing energy.
36:39
And uh and so yeah, this is the So so he So I meet this guy, he's got the Israeli swag, I'm loving it.
36:45
And then and I again, I have never At this point, I've never angel invested in a company, but I'm like, this seems like a great idea.
36:51
And what they're Why is it a great idea?
36:53
For people who don't know, it's kind of f'd up part of the system, which is colleges in the US just have like surge pricing for international students.
37:00
So it's basically like if I'm a if I'm a state resident, I get like cheaper tuition at state schools.
37:06
Okay, but if I'm a US resident, I pay, you know, what I thought is full price.
37:10
So maybe I'll pay 25K uh to go to school at this place.
37:16
But an international student will have to pay two or three times more than that.
37:19
So they'll pay 50 to 75,000 for the same exact thing.
37:21
They just charge them more. It's kind of insane.
37:23
I don't really know even how they are able to justify this, but they do.
37:29
And um and so Do you remember in San Francisco University?
37:32
Was that what it was called?
37:33
University of San Francisco?
37:33
I I dated a girl that went like had ties there and I remember walking around campus and it was only Chinese students.
37:38
And And it's And it's not even good schools.
37:41
Like University of San Francisco or USF or whatever, it's not even that good of a school.
37:45
And so it's actually it's a it's actually a bit of a trick.
37:48
It's like um international students just want to come to America.
37:51
They can't differentiate between uh you know, University of Utah and and uh um you know, Columbia or whatever, like these different schools.
37:59
They don't know the the lay of the land that well.
38:01
They don't know that the school's in the middle of nowhere.
38:03
They don't know that it's not actually considered that prestigious or whatever it is, it's just expensive.
38:08
But uh so it's actually a lot of these other schools that really take advantage of this and have a huge percentage of their population coming from international, which makes up a disproportionate amount of revenue.
38:17
So that's kind of like why the schools were interested.
38:20
So they went to him and they were like, "Yo, we'll give you $3,000 if you can get somebody to sign up." And he's like, "$3,000? Oh, that's pretty good."
38:26
And I think now they take a lot more than I think that now they take, you know, 10% or something of the of the overall tuition.
38:31
So, it's gone up since then.
38:35
But, um anyways, so he pitches and I'm like, "Dude, I just get Yeah, I get I get caught up. I like the idea.
38:40
I love this guy's personality. I'm like, "I'm in." He's like, "You're in?" I'm in. He said, "Fantastic.
38:46
I haven't really talked to anybody else yet.
38:48
Uh so, I don't know all the round details."
38:50
I said, "Brother, I'm in."
38:53
And he's like, "All right, love it.
38:55
You're you're the first guy I've met in Silicon Valley.
38:57
You're my champion on this."
38:58
And I thought, "Huh, I'm the first guy he's met. Oh, wait, hold on.
39:02
I didn't want to be I didn't I didn't really want to be the first guy in.
39:05
Like, you know, first at the dance floor is kind of like not not exactly the position to be in."
39:08
So, then he goes on tour, he goes starts pitching people, and he starts coming back to me with and he he's a nice dude, he's honest guy, he trust me, he says, "Man, they're saying no because of this."
39:18
And I'm like, "Oh, these guys are idiots. Don't worry about them. They they don't get it. Next one."
39:23
They came back, they said no because of this.
39:25
And it's by the third one I'm like, maybe I should have been saying no.
39:27
So, I start to doubt my my conviction in this thing, but I'm still like, "Brother, I told you I'm in. So, I'm in."
39:35
And uh anyways, it takes him a little time if you if the end of the story is you backed out on him and you were calling him brother I wasn't calling him brother.
39:43
In fact, I think he was calling me brother because that was like, you know, it's like the Khabib thing where they just they just say brother a lot.
39:50
Uh you just knifed him in the back.
39:52
Well, I didn't actually knife him in the back.
39:53
I I don't know I don't know exactly what I don't know know I don't remember exactly how it played out, but I definitely uh was out.
39:57
So, so basically, takes him a little time to raise the round.
40:01
He eventually does get the round together and I'm supposed to write a a 25K check.
40:06
Not even like some crazy amount of money, but to me at that time, that was like it's like, "All right, well, that's kind of like my entire like savings for this year is going to go to this one random Israeli guy's company.
40:20
All right, you know, I I I could lose this, but I would really hate to lose this.
40:24
And I start thinking about, you know, am I am I ready for this? I don't know.
40:27
And so I kind of just I don't back out, but I don't from what I remember, I didn't back out, but I didn't reach back out either.
40:33
And so I think he probably emailed me once.
40:38
I was like, "Yeah, okay, let me know when it's time."
40:39
And then he probably emailed me like three or four weeks later.
40:42
He was like, "Yo, okay, it's time."
40:43
And then I just like didn't reply to that thing.
40:45
And I don't think anything really happened.
40:47
But anyways, long story short, I don't invest.
40:50
Um fast forward, you know, five years, I get an email from that same kid, Soroush.
40:55
And Soroush is like, "Hey, remember this email?
40:57
Yeah, Plyboard's a unicorn now. Huh."
40:59
And you know, "Well, what do you know?
41:05
Curious what you think about that."
41:05
And I was like, I think I was an idiot.
41:07
And I I think I was a total idiot.
41:10
And there's actually a few kind of like takeaways in this for me.
41:14
So, the few takeaways are one, um don't be a wuss.
41:20
If you say you're going to do something, just do it.
41:22
That's just a a lesson for myself.
41:23
And I think, you know, for most people, uh yourself included, that's that's rarely a problem.
41:28
For me, that's more of a problem.
41:30
Second, um I actually think I was correct that I was not ready to be angel investing at the time.
41:35
Um and so I I should have either could have done like a $5,000 check. Yes, exactly.
41:41
So, what I should have done is I should have said, "All right, look, I don't have the bank roll to place 20 bets, which is kind of what you'll need.
41:50
You need 20 to 30 bets for, you know, angel investing to work.
41:52
And so it's like, you know, I don't I don't realistically I do not have the bank roll to do this. But that's okay.
41:58
That doesn't mean I don't do what I want.
41:59
It means I got to be resourceful and find a way.
42:00
So, either let me come in at a smaller check size that make it's my version of, you know, if an angel investor writes 25K when they have $5 million, then I need to write the proportional check for me and see what happens.
42:12
Or I should have gone to somebody and said, "Hey, I actually found this deal.
42:16
I think it's really good. You have the money."
42:18
Uh which is what I did later with Lambda School.
42:20
It was like, "Hey, I like this company.
42:21
Uh They haven't really raised much money yet.
42:24
It's not proven, but like I think it's worth a shot."
42:26
And I convinced somebody else to write the check and give me some carry.
42:28
So that's really what I should have done to make this happen.
42:32
But at the time, my fear overrode my like um you know, the the uh not even ego, the fear overrode my like uh ability to think like from just think like with a clear head and say, "Okay, well, sounds like there's just a little obstacle here, and let's figure out how we're going to get around it." I panicked.
42:52
of people are embarrassed.
42:52
They'll say like, "Well, can I do 5,000?"
42:53
Like I remember doing a deal.
42:55
I I did a deal for 15 or 25,000 when I didn't have a lot of money.
42:59
Thankfully, on paper, it's turned into a bit.
43:02
But I remember thinking like that's I want to ask him if I could be 5K, but I don't want to look like a punk. Right.
43:10
Yeah, so so I think I I should have found a way.
43:12
And that's I think has been a common theme in my life, which is like a lot of good opportunities come my way, and I say I don't have the time, I don't have the money, I don't have the skill, I don't have whatever, and I rule it out.
43:23
Even though objectively, I'm like, this is a great opportunity.
43:25
And the real answer is find a way to get the time or find somebody who does have the time.
43:29
Find a way to get the money or find somebody who has the money to help you out, right?
43:33
Like do do one of those things to get there.
43:35
Uh and this is not like a small thing.
43:38
Like just doing The difference between doing that and not doing that would have been again, tens of millions of dollars in this case when it in the result case where it it worked out. So that's one takeaway.
43:47
The second is this guy Saransh is like now become a general strategy for me, which is I always want to have like I don't know, four or five people who are kind of like way it's like it's like an anti-mentor.
44:01
Or like, you know, it's a mentee or something like that, right?
44:04
It's like I want to have people that are young, hungry, and ignorant and naive, uh, but that's an asset for them because they're young and hungry.
44:14
Uh, I want to have them more in my orbit and I need to find some excuse to have them in my orbit and hang out with them and and hear what they think is interesting and meet their friends and and whatever.
44:24
Like, that is, um, you know, I think that is an actual strategy that most people miss out on.
44:29
Everybody wants to to to sort of climb up.
44:32
They're like, "Oh, how do I meet the person who's done more than me or is more successful than me, has more money than me, whatever?"
44:37
And they're focused constantly on like reaching up and trying to like pull themselves up.
44:40
And instead, I found so much benefit out of just having a crew, a small crew of like 18 to 21-year-olds that I'm like, "Okay, you guys just think differently than me.
44:53
You're worried about different things and, um, you're excited about different things than me.
44:56
How do I have that in my life in some way?"
44:58
And so, that's actually become a a more core strategy.
45:02
Do you do anything like that? Yeah, so listen to this.
45:04
So, we had this kid By the way, thank you for not making like an, uh, Epstein joke.
45:08
I felt like I was treading I was like, "What you need is like 14-year-old dudes that you hang out with all the time." It's like, yeah. No, I I So, I'm 33.
45:16
I'm just now hitting the age where I'm no longer the youngest guy in the room and I'm just hitting the age where I've got 15 years or so of experience and I'm seeing younger people and I'm like, "Oh, you're full of energy, you're going to do something, but you're making an error here and I'm just going to let you I'm just going to watch you make that error because it's good for you.
45:35
I'm just now getting to the point where I'm able to be a little wise."
45:40
And I'm seeing the importance of surrounding yourself with young people. Here's an example.
45:44
A year ago, Shawn and I did this thing where we offered $5,000 to someone who made a TikTok video from our podcast and shared it.
45:55
One kid in particular, his name was Michael.
45:57
At the time, he made these videos that reached tens of millions of people for us.
46:02
And we gave him the five grand and I went to email him and I was like, "Dude, you should do this full-time."
46:06
And I asked him what his email and it was like, you know, michael@universityofmichigan. edu.
46:12
And I was like, "Wait, who are you?"
46:12
He goes, "Yeah, I just recorded this in my dorm room."
46:15
I'm like, "Oh, you're going to be a you're you're onto something.
46:17
You're going to be a superstar.
46:17
Just start turn this into a company."
46:18
Turns into a company uh I guess our 5K was his first money.
46:21
He makes tens of thousands of dollars a month.
46:26
Eventually sells it to Morning Brew.
46:28
Um Michael, what's Michael's last name? I don't even know. Sekhant. Sekhant, yeah.
46:33
And he comes over to my house and uses this studio and I just he'll me and Sarah will be in the kitchen and I'll just I go, "Mike, come out to the kitchen. Have a coffee with me."
46:41
And me and Sarah won't say a word and we'll just let him talk.
46:45
And I'm just like, "I'm just here to cuz he's 22 maybe."
46:47
I'm like, "I'm just kitchen.
46:50
Have some chocolate milk.
46:50
Yeah, you want some hot cocoa?
46:54
Want a lollipop and a cookie? Yeah.
46:57
Sit on my lap, too, while you're at it.
46:58
And like he just talks and about 60% of the stuff that he says is nonsense. 40% Absolute nonsense. Not just him.
47:06
Anybody who fits this category, you have to literally just immediately throw away 60% of the words.
47:13
But what I say to him I go, "Michael, most of what you're saying is [ __ ] and I think you might know it, but like here's the deal.
47:19
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut a nut once in a while. Keep on swinging.
47:23
You'll hit a home run soon because you're swinging.
47:26
You're in the game and I appreciate that about you.
47:28
And if you ever want to know what you're saying is [ __ ] just ask me and I'll tell you, but I'm not going to call you out.
47:32
I'm going to let you get away with it all because I I like I like this gumption."
47:35
And he tweeted something the other day that was hilarious.
47:37
He tweeted, "Got bad news.
47:39
Just got back from the chiropractor.
47:41
They said the chip on my shoulder's permanent." HOW FUNNY IS THAT?
47:51
AND I WAS LIKE, "THIS IS WHY you're going to make something of yourself.
47:53
Now, you might ruin it by saying dumb stuff and you're going to cost yourself a whole lot of money and you're going to have a lot of headache throughout the years until you learn to be calmer.
47:59
But, know he was feeling good about that line, too, when he tweeted it.
48:03
Oh, he was feeling He was feeling himself.
48:07
But, I appreciate that this is a young kid.
48:09
So, I have I have He moved to Austin.
48:11
I invite him over all the time, and I go, "Just talk, man. Just Just Just talk.
48:14
I want to hear what you got to say."
48:15
And he's telling me like And I'm just like learning about what like the younger generation feels about this and that.
48:19
And he's like, "Yeah, we're going to He's like He has a birthday party coming up on Saturday, and we're taking some like new weird version of Uber.
48:25
I don't even know what it is.
48:25
It's like a party bus company.
48:26
I don't even know what it is.
48:28
But, he's like, "This is what all This is what we're all using."
48:30
I was like, "All right, cool. I'm in.
48:31
I just want to experience this stuff."
48:32
So, yes, long story short, I totally I am experiencing this where I have young people around me.
48:36
Sounds weird, but let's get past that.
48:39
No, the young blood strategy is a real strategy.
48:40
And And actually, this is my reminder to myself.
48:43
I need to refresh my my young bloods are now like 24 to 25 and rich. They're like made it.
48:48
Like Okay, so Michael is one example.
48:50
Um the other guys who set up our initial studios here and then created that agency Clipped, they've they do over a million dollars a year in revenue off their off their thing, and now their their content is going going nuts.
49:03
Their short-form videos are going nuts, like millions of views.
49:07
Um And I had to like reprimand reprimand Henry all the time.
49:10
I was like, "Hey, Henry, just so you know, you shouldn't talk like this when you're in this meeting." Or something.
49:15
And then eventually, I was like, you know, I'm not going to give him advice.
49:17
I'm just going to let him learn.
49:18
But, I saw the same thing where I'm like, "You're making a bunch of mistakes, but you're taking a ton of swings.
49:22
You're going to You're going to You're going to hit."
49:25
Uh the the kid I talked about, Saroush, uh probably has more money than me now from crypto.
49:30
The guy has made an absolute killing in crypto over the last few years.
49:33
And so, done done incredibly well.
49:35
Uh the guy who was my intern to start this podcast, uh Ishaan, who was just like doing the video editing and like created the initial brand name and all that stuff.
49:45
And didn't he like invest all of his money into like a short stock a short position on a penny stock? a short not a short one.
49:50
He He went all He took basically he had like a hundred grand saved up after a couple years of working for me and then for for a friend I introduced him to.
49:57
And he took the hundred grand and he just bought there was a stock that got delisted on a stock exchange.
50:05
So all the shareholders were like, "Damn it, what do we do with this stock that we can't trade anymore? It's like illiquid."
50:10
And so he bought it all for like ten cents on the dollar being like, "I don't know, I still believe."
50:16
And then that ran up to be worth a few million dollars.
50:20
Uh his his hundred K basically turned into like a two to five million dollar stake at that time.
50:23
Now now I think it's gone down a little bit, but um there's articles about him in the Australian Post or whatever now.
50:29
And I'm like, "Dude, this is crazy.
50:32
Who And another one Steve Bartlett."
50:33
Uh hired Steve when I was when he was uh eighteen nineteen years old maybe.
50:37
I maybe that's a little maybe maybe he's twenty at the time.
50:41
Um and I was like, "This guy again just dripping with swag."
50:44
And I was like, "I just want to be around this guy. This guy's like cool.
50:47
I don't know, he wears like rings and he like says words I don't know and like for some reason his tweets go viral.
50:55
Uh I don't know like mine don't.
50:58
So like what does this guy know?
51:00
And sure enough and ends up creating this social media agency, ends up taking it public, has this great podcast that's super popular.
51:09
He's a shark on the Shark Tank of Europe.
51:11
Like this guy's like now he's like he's the black Gary Vee now.
51:13
And so it's like there's a It's like, "Dude, that's I just thought of six in the last fifteen seconds."
51:19
Like I don't even There might be even more that I'm not even remembering that were like come from this same batch.
51:23
And uh I need a I need a new batch. My little personal YC.
51:29
This is good that you're talking about this.
51:30
So I was talking to a friend yesterday.
51:32
So uh producer Ben, you can leave all this live, but you're going to have to uh bleep out what I'm going to about to say, but I want Shawn to know what it is.
51:38
So um my friend I was talking to he said uh he he just mentioned it we were talking about something totally different and he's like "Yeah, you know, like you know, I made $30 million from an angel investment and yeah, you so this is how I found my accountant.
51:52
I did this this because I was asking him uh for a good accountant.
51:56
And I was like We like I've been the rewind sound.
51:57
I was like like you know, scratch the record. Reverse.
52:03
Tell me about this thing.
52:03
He goes, yeah, basically I was uh you know, like president of like a smallish startup that wasn't doing too well and a 22-year-old got kid who worked for me, he quit to start a company and I was a little you know, frustrated at first but like he was real promising and so I invested $25,000 uh at a $3 million valuation.
52:24
The company went public like a year or two ago and it was a $15 billion valuation.
52:29
It was called a market cap.
52:31
It was called this is the part you got to bleep out.
52:33
It was called You know that company? No, but okay.
52:37
It's a boring nothing special like B2B whatever.
52:39
Um and uh he's he's like Yeah, I had $75,000 at the time when I was running my first startup.
52:49
I didn't have a lot of money but I decided to invest all of it into startups and I did it in sizes of 10 and $25,000.
52:54
And that one check that I did of $25,000, it turned into $30 million.
53:01
Um and and I was like, are you kidding me?
53:03
He goes, yeah, basically like I knew this kid was strong and I wanted to be part of just whatever he was in.
53:07
I wanted to surround myself with young people and I thought he was promising.
53:12
And in fact it it it worked out really well and I made so much money off of this one deal and he goes the and then the other one he said made like a 10X return as well.
53:22
And he just got super lucky on that one and it totally worked out.
53:23
So it is crazy story and I'm like, well, I've invested in a bunch of companies.
53:27
I'm waiting for that to happen. That'd be nice. Yeah, exactly.
53:33
What what part do I do for the $30 billion?
53:35
Is there a line for that? Am I in the right line? Yeah, so it worked out. It is a crazy story. Um That was good.
53:42
Um all right, I had another one, but let's let's save it for the next uh let's save it for the next episode cuz it's getting a little long now.
53:49
All right, that's the pod.
53:49
I think that was a banger.
53:50
Uh we forgot to remind people if you made it this far, there is a gentleman's agreement.
53:54
This content that you're listening to, it is not free.
53:57
We're like one of the only places on YouTube actually where the content's not free. You have to pay.
54:01
What do you have to pay with? That's your cue, Sean.
54:04
Oh, oh, I was enthralled.
54:06
I was ready for you to just keep going.
54:09
I thought that you were on one. Go ahead. Keep going.
54:11
You have to pay something in order to listen to this channel.
54:13
If you've listened to more than one thing, you have to do me a favor.
54:16
Go to the YouTube page and click subscribe because that like helps us. Or, you know what?
54:19
What I'm going to ask people to do, if you're listening to this on like Apple or um Spotify, share this.
54:25
Share it on Twitter, LinkedIn, all that stuff. And and we're even. So, you listen to us.
54:28
I just spent hours on this research, by the way.
54:32
And you spent 15 million dollars of lost money in order to make this content. To tell that story. Yep. To tell that story.
54:38
I mean, you need it in front of you. So, uh this is not free. to the channel.
54:43
Yeah, this is not a This is not This channel is not free.
54:46
You have to click subscribe on YouTube because we're trying to build up our YouTube.
54:51
And you have to click subscribe and follow on the spot podcast.
54:56
what I like, people go in the comments on YouTube and they just say they honored the gentleman's agreement, and I go to each one and I just say, "From handshakes. From handshakes to you.
55:02
From handshakes to you, too."
55:05
So, that's what you have to do.
55:05
And by the way, I read every comment on those YouTube things. All right. We're out of here.