0:00
And again, remember, percentage of their readers are ultra-wealthy people who are like, "Yeah, great.
Search this video
0:03
I want to have a home on on the East Coast that I can park my private plane in and that'll be one of my hubs."
0:09
And I'm pretty sure Okay, I don't know the exact numbers on this, but I can triangulate a little bit.
0:13
I think they've done at least 25 million in pre-sales on this thing. That is crazy.
0:19
could be It could easily be double that.
0:21
But, um but that is a a really awesome and impressive like way to take this niche hobby, take find a find a kind of media publication that that that works and go content to commerce.
0:42
I have a I have some stuff for today.
0:44
You have something that I know about that I've kind of mentioned, but I mentioned it without saying their name. Craig Fuller. Now we can mention it.
0:51
Did you Did you get permission from about this? Uh yeah, um I think so.
0:56
So, we got Some of this is public, but let's let's talk a little bit about this.
1:02
Okay, so there's this there's this business called uh Flying Magazine or Flying Mag.
1:08
And um so, when you look at it, you're like, "Okay, well, what is this?"
1:09
And so, basically, the story is there's a guy who bought this magazine called Flying Mag.
1:15
And Flying Mag produces a beautiful magazine, amazing photos.
1:17
And if you're a a flying or aviation enthusiast, you will love this magazine.
1:25
He bought it for like I think like not quite 10 million, but a little under that.
1:31
So, maybe somewhere between Let's call it 5 to 10 million dollars.
1:33
My guess is a fraction of that.
1:35
I think it was closer to one.
1:38
Do you have any any evidence of a little source here saying high seven figures.
1:42
So, let's let's assume the source is correct.
1:44
Okay, so um But then I was like, "Well, where did this person get high seven figures to go drop on a magazine?"
1:50
That seems like a a pretty indulgent purchase for somebody unless they have a lot of money.
1:54
So, he started a company before that called FreightWaves, which uh basically is like a data company for the freight shipping industry.
2:01
So, they're like a uh a price reporting company.
2:02
So, they they provide data that shippers and freight companies use to um you know, inform themselves on what's going on in the market.
2:12
They also have a SaaS tool.
2:15
So, they kind of have like a media side, which is that you know, content that they're producing that's pricing information.
2:19
And then they have a SaaS business called SONAR that's in it.
2:21
And they've released a public press release, so you can kind of see some of their numbers. I saw they did that.
2:27
That's very weird that they did that.
2:28
Yeah, they're not a public company, but they sort of like did a public report.
2:31
And I'm not sure what the agenda was.
2:33
Like, I think I'm just sort of naive here. I don't know.
2:34
I Normally, this is we want somebody to buy us or we want to raise money.
2:38
Um or we're prepping to go public, but it's I don't think it's either any of those three uh because of what they said.
2:44
So, they basically reported uh 13 million in revenue for a quarter.
2:50
So, let's call it let's just extrapolate that out in a straight line.
2:52
So, roughly 50 million a year in revenue.
2:53
Um it wasn't a lot in profit.
2:56
So, it was like, you know, um one or two million in EBITDA in the quarter or something like that.
3:02
So, let's say that this business is making, I don't know, four to eight million of profit a year.
3:05
But it's growing 70% a year.
3:07
It's growing quickly, almost double.
3:10
been around, I think, for a little while.
3:11
Um so so, you know, it's done well.
3:13
They had 28 million in cash just like it it on the books on the balance sheet.
3:18
So, you know, the the business was in a in a healthy spot.
3:20
So, I think Craig starts FreightWaves.
3:22
He then separately buys Flying Mag.
3:24
One of the interesting things about Flying Mag is that if you think about who are the readers of a niche magazine like this, you have two categories.
3:36
Uber nerds and Uber nerds who are rich.
3:38
Because you know, you got to be kind of nerdy about this hobby if you're going to be like reading about this.
3:43
Like, we had a guy once who we hired as an engineer that used to had an app on his phone where he would listen to the uh uh what's it called? Air traffic control.
3:50
He would just tune into the frequency of air traffic control and listen to it at lunch.
3:55
And like, I got to tell you, never had a worse lunch with anybody in my life.
3:59
You know, dude, me, him, and his phone on with air traffic control was our lunch.
4:03
And I was like, you know, "Hey man, I'm going to go back for seconds and then I'm going to go kill myself.
4:08
So, you know, see you later. This has been horrible. Thanks."
4:09
I do I do that with the I do that with the police scanner.
4:12
You ever do that with the police scanner?
4:15
police Look, there's a show called Cops.
4:17
There's no show called Safe Landings.
4:19
Cuz that's all air traffic control is.
4:20
It's like There's no There's no show called Which Way Is the Wind Blowing?
4:23
But there is a video game called that.
4:25
There is a video game where all you are is an air traffic controller. Yeah, fair enough. Okay.
4:33
So, anyways, the back to back to my flying mag story.
4:35
So, a big percentage of the readers are like rich people with private planes.
4:39
Or like the You see this a lot in tech for some reason.
4:42
Like um my buddy Furqan did this.
4:44
So, sold his company, immediately starts signs up for flying lessons, wants to get his pilot license to like go this like, you know, five-seater or six-seater or two-seater plane. Um they love that hobby.
4:55
And it's a really expensive hobby.
4:57
Um so, one thing that they did recently that I think is really smart is Have you heard about this?
5:03
This community that they're building in Atlanta?
5:05
so he told me I I'm not going to steal your thunder, but he told me what he was going to do.
5:09
And he he goes, "I'm flying from New York to go see this property I'm looking at, and I'm flying my private plane.
5:15
Do you want to come with me?"
5:17
And I ended up not going because I had to go up to Teterboro, so New Jersey, and then fly back down to Atlanta to see the spot with them.
5:23
But he asked me to go with him, and I almost did it.
5:27
And he was And so, uh I've known about this for about a year and a half now.
5:31
Yeah, that's So, and so the the interesting thing is they're basically building a community in Atlanta.
5:34
And I think the reason people build these communities is like there's like a What's it called?
5:40
Like a landing strip like in the middle of the neighborhood.
5:43
So, you can park your plane, and if you want to take off, you can just like go take off.
5:46
It's like like the driveway of the community is like a a landing strip.
5:49
And correct me if I'm wrong, but It's It's a It's a So, it's a country club with golf with homes around the golf course, but instead of a golf course, it's a landing strip.
6:01
That's exactly what it is.
6:01
So, it's a It's a country club country club for flying.
6:04
And so, you purchase I forget how much a piece of a plot of land costs, and then they build a build you a home, and now you are part of this aviation community. Right.
6:16
And so, they pre-sold the the plots of of land or the plots of for the homes in this community.
6:21
So, they find this kind of bare ground or whatever.
6:24
They start pre-selling the plots.
6:24
And again, remember percentage of their readers are ultra-wealthy people who are like, "Yeah, great.
6:29
I want to have a home on on the East Coast that I can park my private plane in, and that'll be one of my hubs."
6:36
And I'm pretty sure Okay, I don't know the exact numbers on this, but I can triangulate a little bit.
6:40
I think they've done at least 25 million in pre-sales on this thing. That is crazy.
6:46
be it could easily be double that.
6:47
But, um but that is a a really awesome and impressive like way to take this niche hobby, take find a find a kind of media publication that that that works, and go content to commerce, right?
7:00
This is the um What's the uh Chernin Group?
7:03
Chernin Group believes in this that content to commerce.
7:05
So, they they did uh Which which is what Hodinkee did.
7:09
Hodinkee did this for watches, right?
7:11
Watch blog for super high-end watches. Well, guess what?
7:14
As soon as you start selling watches, that business I think Kevin Rose came on this podcast and said it went from 1 or 2 million a year in revenue to 100 million when they flipped that switch and started actually selling the watches that they had been talking about for 15-20 years.
7:27
And um so, content to commerce is this kind of like really interesting play, and I think that uh this is a great example of it being done well. Yeah, look.
7:35
You have BuzzFeed doing it with stuffed animals, which is pretty lame.
7:38
You know, they did that with houses.
7:41
They did it with with houses, and this is baller.
7:43
Uh Craig told me about this about a year and a half ago and I was like this is very bold and he was explaining it to me and he was very confident and it was like no big deal and I was thinking about this and I was like I don't know this kind of seems like a really big deal to me.
7:59
Well I was like I don't think you're going to be able to pull this off.
8:00
I didn't say that but in my head I was like this is ridiculous. He totally did.
8:04
They totally pulled it off.
8:07
We we did this way back in the day.
8:07
I think you had said something you were like ads are lame.
8:11
This is before Hubspot bought the podcast.
8:13
So it was basically like ads are lame.
8:14
We're selling ads for the podcast but like what would be a better business for for My First Million to do and I think at the time people were like you should create like a WeWork like a branded version of WeWork or like a white label like co-working space or something like that. Which sounded crazy.
8:30
But I actually think that there was a version of that that that's a true like basically if we just bought like a eight unit or 16 unit apartment building in San Francisco but it was only you could only go rent there if you were part of our community or you could buy units there if you were part of our community.
8:46
Something like that could work because people would rather live in a community of like-minded people than a community of absolute strangers.
8:52
I think there's a huge number of people that would do that.
8:54
And so then you get into the real estate game.
8:57
These units in San Francisco go for you know a million and a half two million dollars on average.
9:03
You know they they so so you could do these things where you you know in theory a brand like ours could also do that and say if you want to be around other entrepreneurs other business people who are you know share this kind of like this ethos that we have then you know you could do that.
9:19
But there's a problem which is you and I I don't know about you.
9:21
Me I wasn't even bold enough to like consider that.
9:24
I thought that was stupid.
9:25
Now I've got a little bit more experience and I kind of understand like our poll a little bit.
9:30
Now I actually think that that could work but at the time I was like that's ridiculous.
9:33
There's there's no way that would work.
9:36
Dude my brain is like a metal detector that's just looking for something that's going to scare me to do.
9:41
I'm just like, where can I get the maximum thrill, the business thrill?
9:44
Like, where we're going to get the maximum reward, plus I'm down with the risk, and saying like if I said out loud that I was doing this, that I think would get other people's attention, but it would also make me a little scared cuz I don't know exactly how to do it.
9:56
Like, I am very attracted to these ideas, and there's that's not always a good thing.
10:01
I think that's a bad thing in many cases, but uh but I'm I hear that and I want to run into that fire a little bit, whereas I think you hear that, you're like, there's a fire, why would I run? No, no, no, no, no.
10:12
Now, now I'm more comfortable because I've seen some I've seen like, well, if you do this, this, and this, the odds of some type of um return is is positive.
10:21
But like before, I was still kind of understanding like that mechanics of business and like investing and things like that.
10:27
Now I actually do see it.
10:29
We're like the opposites.
10:29
Uh we're like the opposite.
10:31
I get excited by that weird kind of like kind of half-figured-out thing, and you're like, well, why don't I I want to figure it out first?
10:37
But then once you do figure it out, you're like you're like, go.
10:41
And you just execute, and you're like locked in, and you just you just freaking go on that opportunity.
10:47
Whereas I'm like, oh, this is cool, it's kind of figured out. All right, cool.
10:51
Um like I'll kind of go there, but oh, there's this other interesting thing over here that's like, you know, half figured out.
10:55
And I I'm not as good at the lock-in as you are.
10:59
after you figured out the puzzle. Exactly.
11:01
Yeah, but for me, I have to figure out a little bit more and like I want like a higher certainty that the puzzle pieces are even going to be able to fit fit fit together, you know what I'm saying? Right. Right, exactly.
11:10
But then once the puzzle's done, you're you're like, my puzzle. I love this puzzle. Dude, This is my puzzle.
11:18
I'll tell you an example.
11:18
So, uh Shawn and I are going to Vancouver Wednesday, I think, and we're doing this little uh meet-up with us and Andrew Wilkinson.
11:27
And this wasn't even that well organized.
11:29
Like they've done a good job of it, but like there's no they didn't have maybe well organized isn't the right word cuz that sounds insulting.
11:33
It was just kind of low-key.
11:35
Like we just have like a tight form that you have to sign up for and that's it.
11:37
And then you pay 50 bucks to show up and I think you get a refund if you show up.
11:40
I think they're doing it to like guarantee seats.
11:43
Like the people listening to the pod, if they say how do I sign up?
11:45
I don't even know where to I don't know where to go.
11:48
Uh we're doing a meetup, but it's in stealth mode for no reason.
11:51
I don't know I don't know what the organizer guy's doing, but it just doesn't make any sense to me.
11:55
It doesn't make any sense to me.
11:58
Yo, um what's the venue and date and time?
12:02
It Oh man, it's all coming together. We're working on it. It's like go.
12:05
Yeah, I don't know I don't know. Fire Festival? What's happening here?
12:08
And then he they refunded the money and I'm like, well, I could have used that money on like my flights and hotel.
12:12
I wish I wish, you know, like I'm paying money to go and do this.
12:15
It would have been cool cuz like that thing it made like 50 or 100 grand.
12:17
I'm like, you know, give me like 3,000 to pay for my stuff.
12:22
But uh when I when I kind of like realized that we were able to pull off some of this stuff, I'm like, oh hey, we can get people The The thing with media what it is if you can get people to buy [ __ ] or leave your home.
12:31
So like if you say I'm going to be at this location at this time, the if you were able to get people to do that, that means you have pull.
12:39
And once everyone's about when we pull that off, then I'm like, oh, we could have pulled this off, something like this or we still could. We still can.
12:45
Then I I I I start to believe it.
12:49
Yeah, that's interesting.
12:49
Actually, that's a good metric cuz um I've been trying to think about on the content side.
12:55
I'm like, you know, I want to set a goal because I think uh I work better when I have a goal Yeah, yeah, yeah.
13:02
You have to give context.
13:02
The context is Shawn is now he's considering or planning or doing to go harder on creating content. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Uh sounds lame.
13:10
I'm not even say those words.
13:12
Content creator sounds like lame.
13:13
I'm I'm going to come up with my own words, but like yeah, the idea is hey, I like doing this thing where I get to just like learn about stuff, talk about it and people seem to like it.
13:20
Podcast is one version of that.
13:22
The newsletter is another version, etc.
13:23
And um Anyways, the point is I was like, "What's a What's a good goal for this?"
13:30
And I was like, "Oh, a million uh 10 million subscribers, fans.
13:32
No, what what do I want here?"
13:34
And I was like and then and I was like, "Intuitively, there's something more like um that Kevin Kelly thing, the true fans, thousand true fans, where it's like uh he wrote this blog post that's amazing that's called a thousand true fans.
13:46
Basically says, "If you can have If you can have a thousand true fans, a true fan being somebody who would pay $100 across the course of a year to They'll buy your shirt.
13:54
They'll show up, you know, for your event.
13:56
They'll buy your tickets.
13:57
They'll do whatever cuz they really like your stuff."
13:58
And like, you know, for an artist, if you're somebody who's just creating, a thousand people who are willing to pay a hundred bucks sounds kind of achievable.
14:06
It doesn't That's not like I'm going to be the next you know, Justin Bieber or whatever.
14:10
Um and it's a hundred grand.
14:10
And like you can make a living doing what you love if you get to that point.
14:13
That was like the one of the original things that I think inspired a lot of content creators online.
14:18
And um I was like, "Oh, maybe something like true fans, but how do you measure a true fan?"
14:21
I guess it's this hundred-dollar spend thing.
14:23
But I think this thing you're saying is actually true, which is uh it's like a a test.
14:27
It's like, "If I just tweeted, 'Hey, I'm hanging out at this coffee shop right now in San Francisco, how many people would show up?"
14:34
And like I think three years ago that answer was zero to zero to two, you know, like maybe just my actual friends who I had who I hadn't caught up with in a while.
14:45
Um you know, now I don't know what that number would be, but probably What do you think if I did that? No idea. Thousands.
14:50
Well, if you if you Thousands would be crazy.
14:52
But if I was like, "I'm going to be here all day."
14:55
So, it's not like If you gave it a If if you gave it a two-week window or a two-week notice, two to four-week notice, I think you could forget that.
15:03
I'm saying same day, I'm just I'm going to be here all day.
15:05
Swing by if you're around. 50 to 100, I bet.
15:10
50 to 100, yeah, exactly.
15:10
And I think that there's a That's probably That's great. That's That's amazing.
15:15
There's some point where it's like uh the coffee shop's like, "What the [ __ ] is happening?
15:18
Uh There There's like There's too many people here, guys. What what is this?
15:23
There's some point where you break the coffee shop and I'm like, okay, there's some way of testing that because I think what most people go is for reach and they get really tricked by these platforms that are like, yeah, your video got 95,000 views. And it's like, cool.
15:39
Um how many of them actually watched this versus just swiped by it or if they what like do the how many of those 95,000 people know your name?
15:46
How many of them know anything about you?
15:48
How many of them care about you, right?
15:49
Like And so I think what most people do is they go they just take what they're fed.
15:54
And they're fed basically the most large vanity useless number.
15:58
And I think for any business you want to find not the vanity metric, but the true metric that actually shows um like the level of engagement you have, the level of love that your product has.
16:09
And so um and and different business different companies have like different ways of looking at this.
16:13
Like Facebook back in the day, one of their metrics that mattered was they were like, yeah, of all of our sign-ups, 50% of them use this every day.
16:24
And that became this thing that was like, okay, it's not that they have the most sign-ups, like MySpace has way more, but man, this Facebook thing like half the use half of the total sign-ups are using it every single day?
16:33
That's got to mean something.
16:35
And the people that were able to identify that inside the company and as investors got mega mega rich, whereas other people were just chasing like a total user count number, but they didn't really like have a the good way to measure it.
16:48
So I think there's something to like finding the real metric that matters.
16:50
At The Hustle, what did you guys use cuz you could have just said said subscribers, right?
16:54
But that wasn't like quite the that wasn't just the thing.
16:59
Like do you have any examples of finding the real metric that matters?
17:00
Dude, I we we would just do replies.
17:02
And so every once in a while, I would purposely either write about something that was a bit controversial or I would purposely have typos and I would just see how many people reply and say that they saw a typo.
17:14
Or at at the very bottom of the email and I told you to do this and I think you did do it.
17:18
I would say um Where where where what city you in right now?
17:23
Send me a Or I would say um I'm working from this brand new desk. It's called this. I love it.
17:27
Take Take a picture of your workspace. Let me see it. Yep.
17:30
And it would be just how many people are going to take a picture and and reply back to the email.
17:34
And there was a time where we at the very bottom of the email we said we're going to send out stickers to everyone that replies.
17:44
And we got like 10,000 replies.
17:44
So we had to like mail out 10,000 stickers.
17:48
And so we would do little things like that where And this we got like 10,000 replies on like 100,000 subscribers.
17:51
And so I remember like anytime we get a reply from an email that's a that's a really good sign. Right.
17:59
And like I see this all the time with newsletters now because Substack has this feature where if you subscribe to one newsletter like I read you something I'm like yeah, I like this. I subscribe.
18:07
It pops up this full screen thing which is just like Sean recommends these five newsletters and like there's only one button and you're just like okay next.
18:15
And you hit that and now you're subscribed to five newsletters.
18:18
And you can see people on Substack they're like wow, my new my growth is crazy.
18:22
I'm hitting 100,000, 200,000, 300,000 subscribers.
18:26
Dude, it's all [ __ ] And so And Substack's like this is awesome.
18:28
When they're showing this I'm sure in their investor presentation. Look at this.
18:30
Now we drive the majority of subscriber growth for our newsletters.
18:35
There's a network effect here.
18:36
It's like no, it's not a network effect.
18:37
It's a giant screen where people click next.
18:39
Like I used to do this with our mobile apps.
18:42
It's like oh if I want to if I want this app to grow let me just pop up a screen where it's your entire contact list, everybody pre-checked.
18:47
There's one big button that says next and there's a tiny black X that's like hidden in the top left corner if you could see that you're going to skip it.
18:54
And like everybody wants to skip it but two out of two out of every 10 people are just going fast and they're just going to hit the button and they just spammed all of their contacts. And guess what? My app goes viral. Is it really viral?
19:05
Are they sharing it cuz they like this product?
19:08
No, they're sharing it because I tricked them into spamming basically.
19:10
And Substack does the same thing.
19:11
They basically trick people into subscribing to these newsletters. This is my opinion.
19:15
They're I'm sure they would disagree and say, "No, no, no.
19:16
People just really want to be referred five news newsletters every time they subscribe to one."
19:22
I I don't believe that for a second.
19:24
Um this happens with podcasts.
19:26
There's a very popular business podcast.
19:28
I like the guy, but I think his numbers are BS.
19:30
It's uh you know, should I say the name or I don't know if I I should say the name, but like Do it.
19:37
Uh let's just say it's not 30-minute VC.
19:39
It's a little less than that.
19:46
No, he's a he's a great guy, and he's done a great job building his podcast up, but he'll tweet out these things where he'll be like 2 million people listen.
19:53
listened to the last week's episode with this person.
19:56
And I'm just like, dude, there's just no way in hell.
19:58
That's Joe Rogan numbers.
20:00
That's ju There is not 2 million people.
20:02
I know we we we have a podcast.
20:05
I can see where we are in the ranks.
20:08
I can see where he is in the ranks.
20:09
I know other people that are at the top of the charts.
20:11
You can look at the reviews.
20:12
You can just see the cult following of certain things.
20:15
Like if you said, you know, the All-In podcast is getting a million views per episode, I'd be like, I think that's true.
20:20
I think that they have they have really tapped into something.
20:22
You could see the YouTube numbers.
20:23
You could you could think about where where the podcast chart is.
20:26
I think it's doing at least a million, probably closer to two per episode. They do once a week. It's super high quality. It's got broad appeal.
20:33
The numbers match the the data matches up to that signal.
20:35
Um but when you're like, "Oh, dude, I yeah, I get 2 million per episode for my super, you know, my talk with the third least well-known partner at this fund."
20:46
I'm just like, there's no no chance.
20:46
And I think I I even asked him once.
20:48
I was like, "Dude, how are you getting these numbers?
20:50
That sounds like off the charts for what like a a business or tech podcast of of of this, you know, size could do."
20:58
And he's like, "Oh, yeah, we have a big audience in Asia or wherever."
20:59
And I'm just like, "Oh, okay, well, I've been in the internet game long enough to know like like, dude, I bought my first 5,000 Twitter followers, right?
21:08
Like, I I know that you can get a You can get any number by doing anything on the internet, and it doesn't mean anything, especially for something like podcasts, which is like music or subscribers.
21:18
the hardest thing ever to hack, too.
21:20
once, and now you're a uh consumer of everything else.
21:24
Like, nobody could even measure on podcasting if anybody's actually listening to these things.
21:27
And so, yeah, I can go get a bunch of people to click subscribe one time, and it'll auto download my feed every time I release an episode.
21:35
Like, there was a guy uh Nathan Latka that was doing this, too.
21:38
He was like, we get this many downloads per month.
21:42
And I was like, oh, wow, a couple million downloads a month, that's pretty good. Huge, yeah. What do you do?
21:46
And And basically, he was like, and I I when I talked to him, I was like, he's like, "Hey, welcome to the show, Sean blah blah."
21:52
He's going like hyper speed.
21:53
5 minutes, the podcast was over.
21:53
And I was like, "This is a 5-minute episode?"
21:57
He's like, "Yeah, sorry, I got to hop to the next one."
21:57
I was like, "How many of these you record in a day?"
21:58
He's like, "I record 80 of these a day, and then we release like, whatever."
22:01
He's on some crazy schedule.
22:03
And then I did the math, and I was like, "Oh, he has like 7,000 subscribers, but he just releases huge volume of random episodes of these 5-minute episodes."
22:12
And so, his total monthly number, because podcasts are just like, you know, if you just do downloads, it just adds up.
22:19
All your episodes times your number of subscribers.
22:21
You can have a small number of subscribers and do a huge number of download a huge number of episodes and get a big download number.
22:27
And so, people, I think, use these vanity metrics all the time, and they're they're BS.
22:30
So, I I'll bring this up cuz we're discussing it, but I didn't research it fully, but have you heard of uh Parcast?
22:37
It's like my name, but cast. So, Parcast.
22:40
Have you ever heard of that?
22:41
Are you Are you spinning off your own solo Did the band break up?
22:43
Band break up, and you're doing your own your own podcast now?
22:48
I I I wish I invented this.
22:48
So, it's a guy named Max Cutler. I think he's our age.
22:52
I think he's uh like 31, 32, 33.
22:55
So, this guy named Max Cutler created this thing called Parcast.
22:56
And the whole idea of it is it's a podcast network, but they um they only have like true crime. True crime. And I'm a weirdo.
23:07
You want to know what I listen to every night?
23:09
There's two podcasts I listen to every one night.
23:12
The first one is just called Serial Killers.
23:14
So, it it's a it's it's it's just a bunch of podcasts about serial killers.
23:18
I can I can tell you all.
23:21
I got to I got I got my fantasy league but of serial killers, you know, with Ted Bundy as the quarterback.
23:26
And then there's another one called you know, it's it's this one's fitting for going to sleep.
23:31
It's called Deathbed Confessions.
23:33
So, it's people who confess about a crime they did when they're dying.
23:37
So, it's just it's just it's it's the best.
23:40
So, this guy started this and it's all scripted.
23:42
So, it has like voice actors and it's all scripted stuff.
23:43
He bootstrapped this podcast company, which is unheard of, and he sold it to Spotify for $200 million after only maybe 5 years.
23:55
And him and his dad owned the whole company.
23:57
His dad was in radio and so his dad was like a radio announcer or something like that.
24:00
And they're producing something like 30 or 40 podcasts a day, like episodes.
24:05
And they're all highly produced stuff. And it's amazing.
24:09
Have you Have you not heard of this heard of this business?
24:12
I've heard of this brand once before.
24:12
I didn't realize that they I didn't I didn't know the business side of it.
24:16
I didn't know that they had bootstrapped it and sold it to Spotify, but I really I like true crime.
24:22
I don't know where to start just like so many true crimes and a bad one is like such a waste of time.
24:26
But um yeah, I've seen some of their shows because I go sometimes look in the section for for like, you know, a good true crime.
24:33
Dude, so true crime if you go and look at So, What's a good one there?
24:36
If you look at I like Serial Killers.
24:38
Serial Killers Dude, Deathbed Confessions is awesome.
24:42
I'll send you a good Deathbed Confession one. They're so awesome.
24:43
And true crime it's if you go to the podcast app and you look at like what are the top episodes or shows, it's always like 30 or 40% true crime.
24:54
And which is it's mostly women who listen to it, and it's all we and so like uh Dateline, I told you about this Dateline from NBC, which is a show that's been around for 20 or 30 years at this point.
25:04
It's still usually a top podcast every single week.
25:09
And so these true crime folks, they kill it.
25:11
And this guy bootstrapped this company um to a I think it was a hundred million cash and then a a hundred another hundred million earnout.
25:18
All off of these true crime podcasts. He killed it.
25:21
It's a really interesting story.
25:23
I'm going to have to I'll dive deep and do some better research on it, but I was reading about it uh this weekend.
25:27
It's it's a pretty amazing outcome this guy had.
25:31
So I just read an article.
25:31
This might be maybe wrong or maybe you're wrong, I don't know.
25:34
Spotify confirms it paid 56 million for podcast or Parcast, sorry.
25:38
Uh then maybe I got my numbers wrong.
25:38
It I think it was 56 and then another like 75 outcome.
25:42
It was a nine-figure uh uh uh another another There was a retention.
25:47
According to the Parcast Wikipedia, which reads as if Matt Max Cutler, the founder, wrote it.
25:53
Uh it's very like congratulatory.
25:53
Uh it there it says there's like a huge earnout. Yeah.
25:58
I don't know if I trust anyone that does true crime, by the way.
26:00
Uh these guys are natural storytellers and like liars. Dude, all right.
26:05
I've got an interesting thing to bring up.
26:07
This is a uh something that we talked about a while ago.
26:11
I think you brought this up in 2020 or 2021, I forget.
26:13
Right when when we were recording in the original Hustle office.
26:17
So, do you remember that company Crumbl that you brought up? Yeah.
26:21
Well, first of all, I love a good I told you so, so I'm already I'm already glowing.
26:24
Uh yeah, I remember you got Crumbl Crumbl Crumbl cookies. Crumbl cookies.
26:28
Crumbl cookies. So, when you originally told me about it, the story was something like these two brothers or two cousins launched this thing, and for some reason in my head I'm thinking like a family like cooking making cookies in
26:40
their like kitchen, and they start this like pandemic thing, and it gets popular, and basically once a week they tweet out a new menu, and they have a drop, you know, things that like typically Supreme does or like these but they're doing it with like outrageous flavored cookies. Well,
26:53
Well, that's not entirely true.
26:56
They What is true is they do do these drops, but it's a massive business and some sources are saying it's close to like 800 million a year in revenue.
27:04
And the reason I saw it was someone shared this on Twitter, but basically over the last like couple months, it's been growing and growing and growing.
27:12
And so the other day it was like the number fourth most downloaded app in the week. And so they have an app.
27:19
And so their app now has 2.
27:19
3 million ratings or reviews with like with a 4. 9 average.
27:24
And what And right now they're they're opening brick-and-mortar and they're opening a new store every 5 days.
27:30
They have something like 730 stores at the moment.
27:34
It's one of the fastest growing chains in America.
27:36
And so these guys check Listen to these numbers.
27:38
They have 800,000 followers on Twitter, 3. 4 on on Instagram, 6. 5 on TikTok, 1. 2 on YouTube.
27:46
And they create these commercials every single week for a new cookie drop. And it is crushing it.
27:52
These guys are killing it. It's so fascinating.
27:54
I never in a million years thought this was going to work as big as it has.
27:58
But basically every Sunday at 6:00 p. m.
28:00
they do like a new drop in their app just spikes and goes way up the charts.
28:04
And they are they're up there with like Uber Eats and all this stuff like that. They're killing it.
28:08
And so I remember you brought this up.
28:10
And in my head I was like, oh this is like a little like mom-and-pop small business. Like oh that's cute.
28:14
Big big Yeah, like oh your aunt made cookies. That's nice. Yeah, no. They're sharks. They're killing it.
28:20
Uh and so you called that pretty early on and now it's a franchise.
28:25
So here's like here's some stats.
28:26
In 2021, uh the highest revenue store did something like 3. 6 million.
28:30
Other stores did The average was like 1. 6 million.
28:34
The store with the highest net profit was 600,000 with the lowest being 33,000 with the average profit of being around 350,000.
28:42
And um according to the founder's Twitter, they did over a billion dollars in revenue.
28:47
And you have to come up with $150,000 and then you can open up a franchise and they send you all of this traffic via their, you know, their Instagram and their app.
28:55
Super fascinating business.
28:57
Yeah, this I think in the franchise world, this is like the hottest franchise right now is Crumbl Cookie because they're just exploding and they're just super pop super popular right now.
29:07
I do feel like this is not like the most sustainable franchise like uh Like at one point in time wasn't like I think I feel like FroYo franchises were like growing like crazy like this.
29:20
I don't know if it was Pinkberry or whoever else like uh Yeah, there's these waves where this becomes the the treat but like I don't know how many people are going to like Anything that's drop-based, there's a natural fatigue that sets in for the buyer and uh and there and there's like a vicious cycle.
29:36
Like Drops when everybody's into the drop get even more fun cuz it's like the hunt and you either got it or you didn't get it and you feel special.
29:42
But as soon as that starts to as soon as the drop fatigue starts to kick in and now Oh, notification's there but if I don't get it today, I can go get it tomorrow.
29:52
Like as soon as the scarcity's gone, the drop like plummets in value.
29:54
And so I think that that's a a challenge for for something like this. But uh I agree.
29:58
But look, here's the deal.
30:00
I have a You and I have a friend who buys broadband companies.
30:04
So broadband companies are basically internet service providers and a lot of people who are listening in the city will have no idea what I'm talking about.
30:11
But where I have my country house, I have like a this ranch way out in the country and if you live out in the country, it's not like you're getting like Spectrum or Google or Warner or whatever the big service providers are in New York City, you're getting like a small internet provider that you pay a hundred bucks a month for and they prob that company probably does ten million in revenue and like five million in profit.
30:30
And you and I have a friend who goes out and buys these companies and everyone says to him, "Well, what about Starlink? Yada yada yada."
30:35
And he was like, "Yeah, they'll they'll come eventually but like until then, I'm making five million dollars a year in So, with with this cookie thing, yeah, maybe they'll plateau, but a billy a year is a nice plateau.
30:47
I don't mind sitting on that plateau for a while.
30:48
And that's kind of And that's kind of That's like how I feel whenever I hear some of these stories like, "It's not going to grow." I'm like, yeah. That's cool.
30:57
Sorry, I couldn't hear you.
30:57
The money counter was whirring a little too loud in my ears.
31:03
Yeah, so if anybody asked me why I sold for 200 million, you're getting a slap.
31:05
Like, you know, just don't ask don't ask the stupid questions.
31:10
Dude, and and the founder one of the cousins or one of the brothers, they he previously worked in tech and he had a Facebook app that got to like 120 million followers.
31:18
So, these guys are like viral guys.
31:20
They know how to do this. But interesting story.
31:23
Yeah, looks like he was director of product at Ancestry, which is like one of the like you know, just one of the gems of internet companies that's like really big, but nobody knows anybody who's like works there.
31:32
Nobody Nobody claims to use it even though it's like really really popular site and did a bunch of cool like viral things and like they basically did a bunch of smart product stuff along the way to like make that business work.
31:43
Dude, Ancestry is funny too because they're a Utah-based company and they're founded by Mormons.
31:47
And By the way, this guy's first business first business byu. com You hear about this?
31:55
No, what Here's what it says on his on his LinkedIn. byu.
31:56
com was a social network for Brigham Young University students.
32:00
We We grew the network to include half the campus in a very short amount of time, but was ultimately crushed by Facebook. So, he did this in 2005.
32:04
I think Facebook launched in 2004.
32:07
And so basically he was doing the like, you know, the the Harvard social network.
32:12
He was doing that just on BYU's campus, but like the Facebook wave, you know, swallowed it.
32:18
But that's you know, you're putting on the green.
32:20
You you're landing on on on the putting green right there.
32:23
If you're If you're creating a social network back in 2005 for college campuses, like god damn, you were close to being on to something, you know?
32:30
Like, I'm not surprised that this guy ended up being really successful.
32:35
No, it's a really fascinating story.
32:35
Um but uh anyway, what do you what what do you want to go? You want to drive?
32:40
Can I Can I Can I tell my Crumbl story really quick? Ben has a story.
32:45
So, obviously, you mentioned they're a Utah company, so of course I know uh well, so the story is uh this guy adds me from Utah State University.
32:54
Uh looks like he's just graduating or about to graduate.
32:56
Uh I have a bunch of mutual friends with him on LinkedIn, so I was like, "Okay, I'll do this kid a favor.
33:01
I don't know what he wants." So, I click add.
33:03
And he immediately starts posting cringe.
33:05
Like uh I'm starting this company, it's going to be huge.
33:09
And then he keeps posting stuff that's like I don't know how to describe it.
33:13
It's very um like Adam Grant or Dumber like business like "Did you know that you can increase your productivity by 20% by having a team offsite?
33:24
So, we're having a a hashtag team offsite this weekend."
33:26
And uh I was just like, "Who is this kid?"
33:31
He says he's starting a cookie company.
33:33
What honestly, when they opened their first location, I was like, "I am amazed.
33:36
I didn't think this kid would ever actually get even a location open."
33:40
And uh and it was Sawyer, the the founder, the COO of uh of Crumbl, and uh this kid who just posted cringe to my LinkedIn timeline Oh, no, that just totally like breaks my frame.
33:49
I just always assumed that if you're that mega cringe, you won't win.
33:53
And now now I have to consider the possibility that every hashtag user could actually be a winner.
34:03
Cuz I I had to blink and rule.
34:06
If you're a Mormon guy and you're telling me you're going to start a a a cute cookie franchise, I'm in. I mean, come on.
34:11
Of course this guy's going to crush it. does Trump cringe.
34:13
So, like if you're Mormon I have to I you know, the checkbook's already out.
34:19
I'm just waiting to hear, you know, how many zeros I need to put my my number here.
34:24
That's based on the idea. So, yeah, you're right.
34:25
That that actually overwhelms the cringe part cuz it's like this guy's going to sell. He's going to sell.
34:31
This person knows how to sell.
34:34
Yeah, the Well, that sucks, Ben.
34:37
Yeah, you missed out on that one. Yeah, I know.
34:39
Should have just hit him up and like, "Oh, this looks really cool."
34:42
But, uh you know, live and learn.
34:44
I can't find this client info.
34:44
Have you heard of HubSpot?
34:47
HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application.
34:51
Every team can stay aligned.
34:53
No out-of-sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot, grow better.
35:00
Um Sean, I have a couple things. What do you want to do?
35:02
Um okay, I have a quick little idea.
35:05
So, I was watching the Super Bowl and um Uh did you watch, by the way?
35:10
Uh uh I watched the halftime show. Yeah, I watched it.
35:15
I watched No, I uh I I watched like quarter three.
35:18
How long did it take you to figure out Rihanna was pregnant during the halftime show?
35:24
Quick Quick on the uptake or no?
35:24
You know, it was one of those things where my wife loves her and like, you know, you don't want to be rude when you see a lady with a lump and you want to like you know, and I was like first.
35:34
That's I'm not I'm not talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
35:37
So, I I had her go first, then I asked.
35:39
But, she was doing some pretty uh raunchy stuff as a pregnant lady, right?
35:44
No, I thought that was tame for Rihanna.
35:46
That's like That was PG to Rihanna.
35:49
Dude, I'm a I'm a Rihanna fan.
35:49
She's in my like top five like most beautiful women on Earth.
35:53
I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm on team Rihanna, but I when I saw that she was pregnant, I uh it was That was surprising.
36:00
I think she just had a kid, too. Yeah.
36:04
That's Yeah, she just had a kid like 9 months ago.
36:06
I don't know I don't The math doesn't even make sense to me in my head.
36:08
I don't know I don't know whatever.
36:10
I'm watching the football game and um one thing you notice if you're watching the game is that when the Chiefs were scoring, they were scoring with these like incredible plays where the guy was just going untouched into the end zone like three or four times.
36:21
was that thing where they like Well, they get in a huddle and they do like ring around the rosy and then they like run to the line. That was crazy.
36:25
Is that like What is that?
36:29
But amazing that they tried it, right?
36:31
Like that is That was an awesome play.
36:33
So, I was thinking about it and I was like But it did stand out.
36:35
They had They had two or three touchdowns where it was just like brilliant play design, right call, and like totally worked.
36:43
And then you know, I I've gone you know, I love sports and I've watched tons of sports documentaries and shows like Last Chance U.
36:49
You can just see the life of a coach and a coach is like a really specific character in my head.
36:52
Like a football coach at a high school, college, or even pro level is like it's the same type of dude in most cases.
36:58
And their life is football, they live and breathe this [ __ ] They're preparing all week for, you know, the Sunday game and then they start again the next week and they're just like they're just live in this playbook and the Xs and Os.
37:10
They all have the same value system about toughness and grit and whatever.
37:14
And um and I was like, "Oh, this is another job that AI's going to replace."
37:19
Cuz I was like this is this is an AI problem the problem of an offensive coordinator in the NFL, which is basically what play should I call here to maximize, you know, my expected return.
37:33
And I think you could somebody's going to build AI that basically ingests a bunch of data that says in this situation, third down and seven um you know, maybe even take into account the teams and the talent, you know, equation, this is the best play to run with the highest expected value.
37:47
It's basically like what Madden does when Madden suggests like, "Yeah, run this play."
37:52
But like Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I thought.
37:53
good version of Madden now that we have like, you know, computers are geniuses.
37:58
And so um so I'm pretty sure that there's going to somebody's going to build a uh uh basically like a play caller AI play caller that will help cuz these guys are you just look they're literally looking on a cheat sheet like, you know, like a like it's a open book exam or whatever when it's like, "You can bring in one 8 by 11 piece of paper."
38:13
and everyone's writing in like size two font to squeeze as many things as I can on it.
38:19
That's That's guys use when they're calling plays and it's like they have you know 10 seconds to pick the play.
38:25
This is just a job that computers are going to be better at and um it just reminds me of like how crazy AI is going to be that like even these like total non-tech situations, not even big markets, but it's just going to be like when now when humans play against a computer at chess or or or even you know go or poker or whatever, where the the computer is just so much better than the human.
38:47
That's what's going to happen in this play-calling situation.
38:48
It just kind of reminded me about man, AI is going to be going to be nuts cuz it's going to take over all these things that you wouldn't really have expected or in the line of fire for AI.
38:58
Is football as like you know, there's obviously the famous Moneyball thing where he's like, "I don't care what who's a superstar, who's not.
39:04
I'm just going to look at the math and we're just going to pick people off spreadsheets."
39:10
And then famously, although I think this is highly exaggerated, Chamath was like, "Oh, I'm going to buy the Warriors and we're going to do that same thing with basketball.
39:17
So, we're only going to shoot threes."
39:18
Or whatever I I don't pay attention.
39:19
But whatever their their stick is.
39:20
I sorry, I'm ruining this, but and and I but the reason I have a feeling it's not true is I have a feeling big team.
39:25
And also like I think he said that though, right?
39:30
Uh I don't think so, but uh fair enough.
39:32
Oh, well, I made that up then.
39:34
But uh Other people did it in basketball.
39:36
Daryl Morey famously was like the big, you know, proponent of this.
39:40
The reason why I don't believe that is I have a feeling like teams were always doing this.
39:43
Like maybe it's one of those things where like um um like for example, my favorite copywriter, he was like I wrote these famous ads for the cat What's it called? The Casio watch.
39:52
And he's like, "We talked about how we use space-grade aluminum and crystal quartz to make this watch."
39:59
And he's like, "Little do they know, every watch does that."
40:00
Like that's just like table stakes. Like every single watch.
40:03
But I'm going to explain it because I know that the audience doesn't know.
40:06
And so like you have a guy saying like, "Look, we use state-of-the-art technology."
40:10
It's like an Excel sheet that like everyone else uses.
40:13
It's like, "Yeah, I guess it's state-of-the-art."
40:14
But anyway, um We have a premium license to Microsoft Excel. Yeah. Unlimited seats. Unlimited seats. We do not use the trial.
40:26
But is football the same way where you could just follow the math?
40:29
So there's actually there's actually a great question.
40:30
There's a Daryl Morey went on that guy I forgot his name but the Invest Invest Like the Best Guy, Patrick Patrick Shaughnessy. Yeah, he's cool. He went on his pod.
40:39
Actually it was a really really great podcast.
40:40
If you like sports and you like kind of business stuff, it was it's kind of an amazing one.
40:44
He talks about like baseball is basically the almost like the perfect game for modeling.
40:47
Like you could basically cuz it's like stationary.
40:51
It's like one pit one batter versus one pitcher.
40:53
And and then you know like it's a like it's a contained problem.
40:57
He's like whereas in basketball you got five guys on the on each team on the court.
41:01
So you got 10 guys all moving around free form.
41:02
At any given time the ball is moving like crazy.
41:05
It's much harder to model but we could still model the impacts of like one player in these certain situations and so it's like the data thing has had a pretty big impact in basketball but less than it did in baseball.
41:16
Baseball was like a math became a math equation.
41:20
Basketball became more of a math equation than it was before but still it's never going to be perfect.
41:24
It's too complex and high skill There's too many variables.
41:28
to be to be perfectly modeled out or or whatever.
41:31
But still it it was improved which is why you see like they they'll post like a 20 years ago here's what the shot chart looked like and it's just dots all over the the the court like as you kind of expect.
41:41
Like people shoot from everywhere.
41:41
And it's like here's what it is in 2023.
41:44
It's like people only shoot layups or threes cuz optimally like basically a three is worth you know whatever 150% more than a two but there's percentage difference of shooting it is only like you know you know 5 to 7% worse than a two pointer or whatever.
41:59
So you know you get like way higher expected value for shooting a three so that's why all these teams shoot threes now or layups.
42:04
They try they tell their players don't shoot this in between shot cuz it's the wrong combo, right? So so like that.
42:10
And then he's like football is going to be the hardest one to to game because you have 11 players on each side.
42:15
And on any given play, everybody's moving in different directions, and you can't really figure out like the net effects of this guy running in this lane, what did that cause this other guy to do?
42:25
You know, it's much harder to do.
42:26
Um, but I think that's that's true at a like because the reason these general managers care is because they're trying to they're trying to like basically, it's like a stock picker.
42:35
It's like they're trying to find undervalued assets.
42:38
So, the way you do that is you say, "This player is not like yes, his traditional stats look like this, but his game impact is different because of whatever."
42:47
And so, you're trying to figure out the value of one player.
42:51
But is the game impact because of locker room stuff and leadership, or is it because of the they're looking at just the on-the-court movement.
42:56
Like, you know, in basketball, for example, there's an assist.
42:58
If I pass you the ball, you score, that's an assist.
43:00
But if I pass you the ball, I've I've made the whole defense shift to me, and you pass it to the next guy, you get the assist.
43:07
The stat sheet doesn't show that I actually was the one who created this whole play, this opportunity by by caving in the defense.
43:13
So, the stat sheet's like the traditional stat sheet's limited.
43:16
So, what these guys have done is figure out like advanced stats that like better better show an individual player's impact, not including locker room stuff.
43:26
And he's saying football is even harder, more players, more movement, more whatever, less plays total, uh, so you have a smaller sample size.
43:32
But I think that this play calling thing is bigger bigger in football cuz in basketball, you don't call many plays.
43:38
Um, but in football, every play is called in by the coach.
43:41
And so, if you can make the coach 20% more intelligent by suggesting a better play, that's going to like that's going to shift the you know, the balance of power towards that that team because they're just going to get that many more first downs and touchdowns.
43:53
So, I think this is like, I don't know, it's kind of like really really niche here, but I think this is an example of how uh AI is going to touch a bunch of areas and kill a bunch of jobs you don't expect.
44:02
Barsh up, you got something. Yeah, okay.
44:04
So, last night the game was dictated on that terrible call that um you know the the Eagles defender you know got called on like a pass interference that basically made uh ruined the game. Chiefs win.
44:19
That should have been decided by a AI ref.
44:22
Like why are there not AI refs?
44:22
Why is any call up for debate, you know? I agree.
44:28
Well, there are in some sports.
44:30
Like in tennis they put a chip in the ball.
44:31
So, like when the ball lands out you see they always like instantly cut to this like silhouette of the ball and it's like it was out or it was in and everybody's just like it's unarguable. And why is that?
44:40
Cuz they have a chip in the ball and a bunch of cameras that triangulate it.
44:43
So, they could tell you exactly whatever.
44:44
Dude, but that that makes it so boring.
44:48
Well, that's the problem.
44:48
Cuz in baseball you would have been like oh great like the umpire calls strikes by squatting behind the catcher and trying to like eyeball this.
44:56
Like that's insane for this billion dollar sport.
44:58
Like why why are they doing this?
45:01
And it turns out if you just used computer to pick that to like perfectly call pitches, I guess the the reasoning must be I don't Ben you Ben Ben Leavitt might know better.
45:10
But there must be something where people preferred that their human had the like final say here versus cuz like the technology is there for a computer to call balls and strikes.
45:20
There's really no need for that umpire anymore.
45:22
I'm not romantic to the early part of the game.
45:25
I'm romantic to fist fights. That's what I want.
45:26
And that's the best part about baseball is when like they get mad at each other.
45:30
I mean that's what I watch.
45:32
I don't watch any of that other crap.
45:33
I want to see them fight.
45:34
There's a demo I I I sent this to Ben. I'll show it to you.
45:37
There's a demo of cuz this there's actually a bigger problem fighting.
45:39
Like dude, how many fights like I don't know in the UFC fight this fight this weekend.
45:44
Did you think the right guy won?
45:45
I thought he I thought the right guy won, but people were Me too, but a lot of people did not. People did not.
45:49
And there's this big problem with like it's these three judges that are going to decide who won the fight.
45:54
And um and it's like how do you call it?
45:56
Oh yeah, how do you judge you know what if this guy made the wrong facial expression?
46:01
It's like did he get hurt?
46:03
How am I assessing damage here?
46:03
Whereas there's an AI demo of basically the like um like the the striking tracker where it's like this guy did a left hook and it landed with this like with this level of of impact or this like clear like it was deflected partially there or it was a clean shot.
46:18
And they're like, we should have basically like perfect tracking of the fight game.
46:22
But for you as a fan, would you want that?
46:25
Would you want the computer to basically say who won the fight or do you want these three old judges to to scribble a scorecard?
46:31
I want the three old judges because a lot of fights a lot But here's why.
46:38
First of all, when you watch WWF and WWE in like fake wrestling, WWE is called now, the best part is when they like hit the ref or they like distract him.
46:44
Like sometimes they'll have like a hot girl come and distract him and he turns around and then like something bad happens and that's like the best part of the show is like when there's drama.
46:50
Um but also um in UFC um they have a new thing where they measure uh aggression, you know, like who's like pushing who's pushing the plot.
47:00
Um and I think they do that so it's more exciting and I don't know if you can entirely measure like aggression with uh AI, but that's why I don't like it.
47:08
Um but uh no, I I I'm okay with having uh humans do it.
47:15
I think it makes it more exciting. More exciting. We're talking about it.
47:18
They're almost always like they're they're only ever in the conversation when they do it wrong, right?
47:21
Like it's never more exciting cuz man, they really the refs really uh added to the to the fight there by by scoring it.
47:29
Like they didn't they don't they don't add anything.
47:32
They only subtract when they screw it up.
47:35
Uh I'm I'm surprised you don't want like the actual accurate uh score.
47:37
The only thing that I want I want them to tell me the scores of a fight in between rounds and have that be the official thing because I want I want the person to know when they're going into round three or round five that I'm down and if I don't knock this guy out, the fight's over.
47:53
And so that would be the only change that I I want.
47:54
I want them to know the real score as it's going.
47:56
I got one more random topic.
47:59
Let's do one more even though we're a little over time.
48:00
Well, if you're going to do one more, are you going to do this guy this Amad? That that seems meaty. All right, go for it.
48:07
Yeah, it is kind of meaty, but let's do like a fast version of it.
48:09
So uh So this guy Amjad who's the founder of Replit, um which is an awesome company, uh is he tweeted this out.
48:16
He goes, "You know, um some of the biggest companies that were built, Airbnb, Uber, etc.
48:20
, um were built because they took an underutilized asset and were able to get more utilization.
48:28
So for example, Uber or Airbnb said, "Well, there's extra There's an extra bedroom in your house or extra rooms You have extra space.
48:37
Today it's not doing anything, but you could rent that out and we could actually have more rooms to stay in um and more options for a customer."
48:42
And that became Airbnb, this multi-billion dollar company.
48:45
And Uber was the same way.
48:46
He goes, "What are some other underutilized assets?"
48:49
I think this is a great, you know, framework for trying to figure out, you know, where where a marketplace could be or where a um And and I think people were doing this maybe 5 years ago, 7 years ago a lot more.
49:00
There was like a People realized this and started jumping on it, and that's why you got Wag, the dog walker app, you know, which becomes worth a billion dollars, and Airbnb, and then and then a bunch of others.
49:11
Um And I have some examples here, but but what do you think about this framework and uh what examples stand out to you? I think it's brilliant.
49:17
I see on here you have stay-at-home moms.
49:18
One of the best com- or one of my favorite companies that I've been eyeing is called SquaredAway, and their whole niche is uh virtual assistants, and the virtual assistant is a military wife.
49:28
And that's like for some reason in my head I think they're going to act a certain way, which who knows if it's true, but I think that's one of the best ways of like a quote an under- underutilized asset. I love that.
49:39
Um but the problem is there's a lot of people like I knew a guy who started a thing where you could do It was like self-storage, but in other people's garages. Right.
49:47
And I'm like, "Dude, this is the stupidest [ __ ] I've have heard of."
49:50
And it was in fact really stupid and it completely didn't work.
49:53
Um and so I think that a lot of people approach this poorly.
49:57
Yeah, I think the the there's a lot of things you can think of like I know another one that people have tried a bunch was like chefs.
50:03
So it's like, "Oh, why do you only order from restaurants?
50:07
Like what if there's a lady who lives three doors down that makes an amazing, you know, Thai red curry?
50:11
You could just order from her and she would get she you know, she'd get revenue for her cooking skill and then she could deliver it to you and it's closer and you know, it wouldn't just be limited to restaurants, but it's like A, operationally these businesses are usually absolutely brutal.
50:23
B, there's like a whole bunch of like safety and quality concerns and like um uniformity of the quality concerns that that come up.
50:33
So I think that's that's another problem.
50:34
Uh and then the economics like uh people do you know, is there enough dollar value for there to be you know, for the customer to pay, the provider to get paid and the middleman to get paid and the delivery person to get paid?
50:47
Like you need enough value in the chain, which is why Airbnb works.
50:49
It's like a high-ticket thing uh versus others.
50:54
And there's one for pools that I hear is killing it. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
50:57
Share like rent rent a swimming pool by the hour, right?
51:00
Cuz I have a pool, we're not using it 95% of the time.
51:02
So if somebody could rent it from us and we make a few hundred bucks, yeah, yeah, that that's great.
51:07
Um I want to give you some of the best answers that came from the thread.
51:11
So the first the number one is cars.
51:11
So cars I think are parked like 93 or 95% of their of the time.
51:17
And so once we have self-driving cars, um that car shouldn't just stay parked.
51:23
It should go go be a taxi for somebody and earn you money.
51:26
So I think that's like one of the big unlocks that people you know, people who know about this, they're like, "Oh, yeah, that's obvious and that's going to be a big deal."
51:33
But I would say the majority of the population doesn't realize that your car is going to turn into a worker for you.
51:41
Um and people are going to just you're going to be earning revenue when your car is idle instead of it just sitting in your drive or your garage.
51:47
Dude, Getaround, which I used to use all the time in San Francisco.
51:50
I think they raised almost a billion dollars in funding and they went public recently-ish.
51:55
Their market cap as of right now, $59 million. So, Wow.
52:00
no one quite has figured it out yet, it looks like.
52:02
Well, that's that's a little different.
52:04
That's still rental cars.
52:05
This is going to be just like No, Getaround's other people Well, yeah, you're right. You're right. Right.
52:10
Like this is this is So, so, this is what Tesla is basically betting on.
52:14
This is what Elon's betting on.
52:16
He's basically like, your car is going to go from a depreciating depreciating asset to a revenue-generating asset for you, which will make the car worth five times more than it is today once it once it's able to just run all day for you and just go do rides. Okay.
52:29
That's that's bold, but that'd be cool if it works out.
52:31
Uh clean structured data.
52:31
So, basically, there's a bunch of data that in a bunch of different companies just sitting around and if you could kind of organize it and clean it up, um that data is actually an asset that can be used.
52:42
And like we talked about earlier, the FreightWaves company that's doing pricing data, um you know, how many companies have pricing data about like what they bought recently, how much it cost, how much what volume and from what provider.
52:56
If that was available in a structured way and you could sell that to a middle like a network like a a data aggregator, um you know, that that becomes a valuable asset that today is worth zero to the company that has the data but is not doing anything with it and it's not their main business to be able to do something.
53:10
So, I thought that was kind of an interesting one.
53:11
Um Dude, someone wrote the sun. Yeah, the sun.
53:15
So, they were like, the sun is basically providing all this energy, but until we have solar and batteries to capture it, uh it's massively underutilized.
53:23
Like we're getting free energy from this giant, you know, uh nuclear fusion reactor that's in the in the sky or whatever, uh but you have to be able to capture and store it and uh it's underutilized for that reason.
53:36
Um Another one I thought was kind of interesting uh so a A one, nightclubs.
53:40
Nightclubs are really like only useful, like, you know, for like 5% of the time, you know, at night on, you know, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or whatever.
53:48
Um what can be done and they're usually in kind of prime real estate in cities.
53:51
And um I've always thought it was cool when I lived overseas in Indonesia, they used to take nightclubs and during the day turn them into like fitness day bars.
53:59
So you'd go in, the dance floor and the mirrors would turn into basically like a cardio session, and then the bar would turn into a smoothie bar.
54:07
And I was like, "Oh, this is so smart.
54:09
They're getting like double utility out of their nightclub."
54:11
Um I don't know why I've never seen that in the in the United States for some reason.
54:16
Um so I think nightclubs is a fun one and then another one that was on here was a specialist talent.
54:19
So like What's that mean?
54:22
Like think about somebody who's like a really great 3D animator or something like that.
54:25
So like if a company hires you, that's great.
54:27
Uh but I would actually say like you doing the thing you're world-class at, you're probably only doing like 10 to 15% of your time when you're in a big company.
54:37
Um a lot of your time gets spent sort of like waiting for approvals or feedback or doing meetings or doing whatever other stuff that's around it.
54:46
There's probably a case to be made that like people with really specialist talent, you know, financial modeling or design or whatever, they would be better off being freelance to companies, but it would need to the market needs to be more liquid and fast-paced than it is today.
54:59
Like um you you would need like like Naval has talked about this.
55:04
He says the future of work is basically like Ocean's 11.
55:05
It's small teams of people that are with in each team there's like highly specialized, you know, that guy's the the guy who's a pickpocket, and this guy's the guy who can break codes, and this guy's the guy who can do acrobatics or whatever, like Ocean's 11.
55:18
Like that's what they do.
55:20
There's like highly talented specialists that gang up together to go on this mission for a heist.
55:26
They then they split the money, they go on their way, they rest until they get the next call.
55:29
And he's like, "That's what and he's like, "That's what work is going to be.
55:32
It's going to be pods of people that work well together, highly specialized.
55:36
They're going to get a beep on They're going to wake up in the morning, they're not going to have a job.
55:39
They're going to wake up in the morning and check their phone for possible missions they could go on.
55:41
They could choose to do none of them and just chill that day or take one cuz they're like, oh, that's a juicy bounty.
55:46
They could go do that mission.
55:48
When they're done, the employer rates them like like a Uber ride, like five stars.
55:52
You rate the employer five stars.
55:54
The the money gets paid out to everybody's cell phone and you go on your way and you do you wait till the next job.
55:58
And I just thought that was a really sexy view of the future.
56:01
It hasn't happened quite yet, but like you could see like I guess Uber kind of works like that and I guess there's like, you know, TaskRabbit and these other things that kind of work like that.
56:11
And I guess freelancing is becoming more popular.
56:12
Maybe this is Maybe we are moving in that direction.
56:17
I hate when people make these claims like this is the future of blank.
56:19
Like if you say that like the future is electric car, yeah, I buy that.
56:22
But if you say the future of work is like Ocean's 11, my reply to that is like, no.
56:28
Maybe the future of criminals is Ocean's 11, but like that's not like it's like the future of people getting money is to rob banks.
56:36
No, maybe like a group of people will do that, but I just don't think that like But why?
56:43
Okay, take the Ocean's 11 analogy out, right?
56:46
Like Yeah, that's leading you to bank robberies.
56:47
What's wrong with the actual premise?
56:51
Because I think most people Now, it's like saying, well, most people are just going to freelance.
56:55
No, maybe 30% of America will, but I think that 60 to 70% of America, they want to go to work at 9, they want to get off at 4 or 5, and they want to play softball.
57:05
That's what they want to do.
57:07
They don't want to like go on a heist where they like are having some exciting mission.
57:11
They just want to clock in and clock out and do the same thing every day.
57:15
Maybe we think that's cool.
57:17
Maybe think our listeners think think it's cool, but I think when Naval says something like that, I think that he is in this small bubble and although he's smart and gets a lot of things right, I think it's too grandiose to say this is the future of work and and it's really dumb.
57:30
Like when people say, "The future of media are the creators like doing X Y and Z."
57:34
I'm like, "Oh my god, dude.
57:36
Like maybe that's like a new band that you're assembling, but that's not like the That's not like how everyone's going to operate.
57:41
I think you're just You like to smell your own farts.
57:43
It's so I don't Like I I I think you're just You're out of your You're out of your depth here."
57:47
That's That's what I think when I hear stuff like that.
57:51
Yeah, but I think uh nobody means 100% of people are going to do this when they say the future is X.
57:55
I think they mean like a lot of people that way.
58:00
Yeah, but no 100% of people don't do anything today.
58:01
100% of people don't do 9-5s either.
58:03
So, you know, not even 80% of people do 9-5s.
58:06
So, I think that's kind of I think it's a given, right?
58:08
That's like a It's a given to be like it's not catchy enough.
58:12
If you can't You can't say anything is the future if you say everybody's going to do it.
58:15
There's still people who use AOL to get on the internet. Like, yeah. My mom.
58:19
You know, like of course you can't say that everybody's going to do it.
58:23
It's It's not a That's not a realistic thing, but I think it is real to say uh Shit's going to change, trends are going to shift, and you know, huge chunks of the economy or the workforce is going to look different than it is today because this whole idea of go to a go to an office for a 9-5, that's also kind of new.
58:43
And that was also a shift from what was before.
58:45
So, I don't think that's like just ingrained in human That's not like biological. That's not physics.
58:53
That's you know, society and economics.
58:56
And a society and economics tends to change.
58:59
It's not sexy enough to say the future of work is this group of people that's a nice small enough niche that you can go and capture market share while also being big enough to support a multi-billion dollar company that can return capital at a 55% annual return. I get it.
59:16
That's not That's not as catchy.
59:17
Yeah, but it's shorthand for the future. Yeah.
59:23
But uh yeah, that's cool.
59:25
Uh I have some more topics that I'll save for later. Yeah.
59:29
But uh uh this was a good one. All right. That's the pod.