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I now realize something I already knew, but I didn't have the guts to act on, which was that at any given time you're really only going to get to throw your all into one thing.
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And so, why not throw like if you're going to do that, like choose really wisely.
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We were in San Francisco, we're outside of San Francisco.
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We're doing a a a live pod for the first time in a while. the studio.
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What What is this a music studio? Is that what this is?
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This is normally music studio.
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Did the instruments give it away?
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Uh all right, people were asking online.
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They said they want us to do a pod. We already did my story. It's the second episode.
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Uh now we'll do one on you. All right, let's do it. So, how old are you now? Good question. Uh 34.
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Um and you're from everywhere. Everywhere. Where?
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I was born in Oklahoma, believe it or not. What part? Tulsa. Yeah.
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Uh Denver, Texas, China, Indonesia, Australia, San Francisco. Yeah, that's it.
1:03
And maybe a little bit of London, too. 2 months.
1:06
And you're living in Australia in pre-college or right right college age?
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abroad there and then also after college I started a company with a guy who uh a like kind of a a well-known entrepreneur in Australia.
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And that was pre-college? That was after.
1:22
But and and you went to college in Duke, too.
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So, you went from Duke to Australia. Yes.
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And at Australia you did the sushi thing.
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No, I did that uh just at Duke.
1:32
Like that's where it started. thing was in Australia. No, no, no.
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That was here and then we moved to Denver because um basically you know, like people move to Silicon Valley cuz it's like that's the tech hub and like people move to LA when they want to be an actor.
1:45
If you want to start a restaurant, Denver is the place to go.
1:49
So, Chipotle started there, the first Chipotle started there, Noodles & Company started there, Quiznos started there, Smashburger started there.
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There's like the same amount of like open-minded white people. Yeah, who love lunch.
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Lunches are really big deal there.
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But they like so all the talent, the people who know how to like pick locations and like roll out restaurant operations, all this stuff, they're all still there.
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So, when when it was like where are we going to start, it was like uh Cuz Denver's kind of like a big suburb.
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Like this is how dumb we were.
2:16
We were like we want to be the next Chipotle. How do you do that?
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Well, where Chipotle start?
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And so literally we found the location across the street from the original Chipotle to open our restaurant. plan.
2:26
And so we were like, yeah, and like I guess we'll just do the exact And then we were like, who rolled out the real estate? Oh, these two brokers?
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Okay, well, we'll go talk to them.
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And then who did their this?
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Okay, we'll go talk to them.
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And that's basically that was our whole plan of like figuring out how to start this restaurant.
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And so we just moved to Denver because And it was it was funny.
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My two co-founder, my two two best friends at the time, Trevor and Dan You're not really a co-founder of a of a sushi Yeah, co-owner maybe.
2:54
Yeah, yeah, that's that's a good point.
2:55
That should have been signal one that this was not a great idea.
2:58
It was like founding what?
3:03
You know, like like like my my father-in-law owns a moving company.
3:05
He doesn't call himself like the founder of the company. Creator. He's just the owner. Yeah, that's fair.
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So, me and my two friends were trying to eat sushi and we basically started this thing.
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And they were like we were at Duke, so they were just trying to find a location near us.
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And I had gone I had actually quit the startup.
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I didn't really tell people this, but I basically when I graduated I got a really good job offer.
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And it was $120,000 in Indonesia.
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And so and my sister was working at the place and the guy wanted to My sister was doing a good job, so he was like, okay, I'll hire you know, we need more.
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the guy who ended up going went to prison? Went to prison.
3:40
So, uh I take the job and I'm like I tell my friends again like stupid.
3:45
I was like I'm going to go learn a bunch here and then dudes, when I come back think about how smart I'll be.
3:51
And they were just like, okay, I guess we'll just keep working on it over here. Like total jerk move.
3:57
I just like moved and took this job. And in Indonesia. Yeah, and in Montreal.
4:01
for like a mafia guy who like did like junk bonds or what did he do?
4:04
No, he just he basically what he had done was he he's like a dropout of second grade or something like that.
4:09
So, he like he basically didn't speak English.
4:11
So, my boss never spoke English to me.
4:14
Um only like broken words. Crazy guy.
4:17
Like um you walk into his office and there's four uh like executive assistants or EAs or secretaries or whatever and each of them have a giant TV screen and it's just his email cuz he can't read or type.
4:28
And so they would say out loud his email.
4:31
Uh this person emailed you saying this and he would just dictate.
4:33
He would be pacing around.
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He'd just say, tell them we're not doing the deal unless blah blah and then one would be typing.
4:39
Then the next one would be like, hey, you got a another email from this person.
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So, there's just four screens like that and they were just He's just like the brain.
4:43
Yeah, he's just a talking out loud.
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He literally can't read or write. like his hands.
4:48
And then when And so what he was doing was what his his genius plan was.
4:50
He was like he recognized this arbitrage opportunity that was illegal, which is why he went to jail, which was that US companies wanted to do business in Indonesia.
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Indonesia's like I don't know, maybe the fifth largest population in the world.
5:03
It's got a ton of natural resources like coal.
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And they So, ExxonMobil, uh BP, all the ConocoPhillips, they all wanted this coal.
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But if you go there and you try to get the rights, you go to the auction and they're like uh actually that guy owns it. My cousin owns it.
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And they're like, what Where was the process?
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They're like yeah, the process was done in the middle of the night.
5:23
You don't need to know about the process. with it.
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Basically you got to bribe somebody to get something.
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So, what he was doing was he was like, oh, they want this.
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So, I'll just go and bribe all the local officials.
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Get the I'll get the leases.
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And then I'll just sell it.
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So, he bought up for $2 million total like this huge amount of coal and then he sold each piece for 20 million.
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And he amassed $500 million over the course of like 3 years just doing that.
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And so when But so Like liquid, so he was liquid. He was uber liquid.
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Like if you if you did something if you like did good job with the negotiation or meeting or contract, you'd come into work and he'd just hand you keys to like a a BMW or a Mercedes or a Rolls-Royce and then you he'd be like, that was your bonus.
6:04
Like there's no like But did he have paper?
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Whose Whose Whose name was on the title? Of the car? Yeah. Everything's his.
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Like we lived in this like Four Seasons resort. But it's his apartment.
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But you get to live there.
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Everything he owned and then he owned it under 72 shell companies.
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So, you'd be like, hey, what's this name?
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And then there's like this one woman who owns the file cabinet and she's got all these companies inside.
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And so that's what this guy's gig was.
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And so he was basically he he was like, I don't need to know He's like he would just talk to engineers and technologists and be like, what would you do with this coal? He's like, great.
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Um then when when he would get a like he had like all these geologists on and he'd be like, do a survey or do a report that says this is fit for that purpose.
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And they're like, well, it's kind of fit.
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He's like, make it very fit.
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And they just like basically fudged the whole thing.
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That's my my impression I got.
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you think made him special?
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He was just bold and willing to and willing to cheat and lie and steal.
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and he wasn't cheating like he was just like playing a game.
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That's how business is done in Indonesia.
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You don't get like that's how the property process is done.
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If you don't want to do that, you cannot play.
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think that he was playing by the rules of the game?
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He was playing by the unspoken street rules of the game. Um on that part.
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And then on top of that he was like smart and ruthless.
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So, for example, I met him because he met my dad.
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My dad worked at BP for like 30 years.
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And my dad was known as an expert of this one technology to get value out of coal.
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You do this process, you turn coal that's not that valuable into something pretty valuable.
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So, he meets my dad and my he's like, tell me about this.
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And my dad saw what I was doing.
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My dad's like, do you understand like these things that I'm saying?
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He's like, I understand that BP will want my coal basically.
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He's like, I understand that like companies will believe this thing.
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You're saying there's potential here?
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That's all I need to know.
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And my dad was like, but like should we test it or like He's like, no, no, no, why would we test it? Let them test it. They're buying it. They can test it.
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And like they can see for themselves like you know, if it works or doesn't work.
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Why would I add risk into this by like doing this?
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And my dad was just talking to me and then my dad at one day he goes I think I've told this story before, but he goes he's like he's like, I probably am like a top five expert of this one coal like technology in the world.
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You know pretty much nothing about coal.
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Yet I've worked my whole career and I've been making 100,000, 150,000, 200,000 a year and you're going to make like 300, 400 million this year.
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You're going to make more money than me and I know more about this than you.
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And he goes yeah, of course.
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And he was just like he's like, yes. And um You idiot.
8:30
Yeah, like do you think that that's relevant?
8:32
Basically he was just like so matter-of-fact about it.
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And so I was like, oh, wow.
8:36
So, my job when when I worked there was company comes in.
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He doesn't speak English.
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So, he needed an English speaker to do the meeting and then he would just do the pleasantries and the food and the drinks and all that stuff and like, you know, just like with a translator make that work.
8:47
But he'd rely on us to like go over the presentation what what was his name? Kokos.
8:51
You're like, all right, gentlemen, Mr.
8:54
Kokos would like you to feel welcome here and let you know that he's not here to play any games.
9:00
Yeah, it would be like Mr.
9:00
Kokos and these two young women will now go to dinner with you guys and I hope you have a great night.
9:06
You know, cuz again, that's how business is done there.
9:09
It's like you go to karaoke.
9:09
I don't know if you know about all this like Asian cultures.
9:11
Like you go to these karaoke rooms and there's like, why are there all these cute girls here?
9:15
It's like bottle service at a club.
9:15
What are they prostitutes or something or just I don't know.
9:18
I've never like gotten that far into the the lion's den, but like there's something going on like you know, there's some service or I don't know if it's just flirtation or there's more.
9:27
I don't really know, but like all I know is this guy was getting mad deals done using this like workflow.
9:30
During the day they love singing Don't Stop Believin'.
9:33
Yeah, I'm presenting at night, they're singing songs.
9:37
And so that was but that was a wild experience for me.
9:38
So, how long did this guy go to jail for? Well, he died in jail. He's dead. So, uh Wow.
9:45
Why do you think I'm sharing all this?
9:46
Cuz I'm like less afraid now that I I've never really talked about this.
9:48
I'm mentioning it cuz I think he got like 20 years or something and he died a few years he got cancer died. Oh my god. He was a nice guy.
9:56
He was a nice He was really good to us.
9:57
He was really nice to us.
9:57
I mean I think he was like a Again, I I asked this before.
10:01
You like He was not evil. He wasn't evil.
10:04
doing business by the way that that game was done.
10:06
Whoever was going to own that land was going to do that.
10:07
He just decided it'll be me.
10:11
And he got fabulously rich off of it.
10:13
And all the things that seemed really crazy to me was also like kind of standard practice in India and in China about like how business deals are done. Yeah, you drink a lot.
10:19
You go out to the bars you with the with the clients and like you you you know, yeah, you you have to grease the the the guy who's doing the deal.
10:27
Not necessarily so that you can win, but you won't get it if you don't tip everybody basically that's involved in the process.
10:34
the That's the first time of two times that you buddied up with a billionaire who says like here's my playground, you can run it.
10:40
So you the sushi thing like it was only mildly It wasn't a success. not a success though.
10:45
But you moved to San Francisco and you got a job with Michael Birch, right? That's right.
10:48
And who who who was he at the time?
10:53
He uh by the way, don't let the hot wings are here.
10:56
Would you mind getting them?
10:57
Uh so I don't I told you this when I got here.
10:59
I was asking people I was like, "Yeah, me and Sam are in person.
11:02
We're going to just hang out.
11:02
We're going to have a a good conversation.
11:03
How do we make How do we take advantage of the fact that we're in person?"
11:06
And two the two first two people I said they go "Get a bunch of hot wings. It'll make it hilarious.
11:11
Try to have the same conversation while you eat hot wings."
11:14
And I think Hopefully there's milk. Yeah, there's not. There's no sides.
11:18
Um So I moved to San Francisco.
11:19
Pretty quickly I'm like, "God, this can't be it." Like No, dude, it sucks.
11:26
Every day I'm waking up at 5:00 in the morning.
11:27
I'm driving to like the [ __ ] fish market, picking up the fresh tuna for the day which I'm And it like the business was actually working.
11:32
Like we were we did it as a cloud kitchen and it was basically making money.
11:35
I was like, "This can't be it."
11:38
Luckily at that time my dad had met a guy in Australia who had sold his company.
11:42
And in passing Did your dad is like this hooking it up? A king.
11:46
He met this guy and he was he was like in passing he's like, "You know, what do you What do your kids do?"
11:52
And he's like, "Oh, my daughter does this and my son is doing this like you know, sushi startup thing.
11:55
You should You should check it out.
11:57
They have the They write this blog that's really entertaining."
11:59
It's like I was We were creating a word play We had a WordPress blog that was really just for our own amusement, but like we used to do a lot of stuff to make content that in our mind was like somehow going to help the sushi thing.
12:10
It didn't help the sushi thing at all, but what it did do was anybody who found that really got behind us.
12:15
They like kind of started rooting for us.
12:16
Or they thought, "These guys are good hustlers. They're entertaining. Blah blah blah."
12:19
So this guy who had just sold his company for like 450 million.
12:24
And he was looking for his next thing to do.
12:27
He had a non-compete uh with his current with the business he knew.
12:29
So he knew he needed to do something new, but he didn't know what.
12:33
And he read our blog and he was like, "Oh, yeah, I want to do business with you guys."
12:36
Like So he flew us out to Australia and we interviewed for a job with him and he was like uh this guy Nathan Mitchell.
12:41
So he's uh he's based in Brisbane.
12:45
And uh his family had a drilling company sells a drilling company.
12:47
And so he wanted to do business with my dad.
12:48
He wanted to do business with us and he was like, "Okay, let's put a team together and let's do this."
12:52
Like Dude, that's such a cool way of saying that.
12:54
You just want to do business with you. Yeah.
12:55
Well, that's what I told myself.
12:57
I don't know what he I don't know what he wanted.
12:58
I I can't put words in his mouth.
12:59
But he um All right, here we go.
13:05
So there's three There's three flavors.
13:07
There's like a a sweet spicy, a spicy, and then what they called very very spicy.
13:12
Which one's the very very spicy one? Is it this one?
13:14
I'm not touching that one. You think it's that one?
13:16
I No, I think it's the sweet spicy, spicy, and the buffalo.
13:20
All right, I'll eat the buffalo in a minute.
13:23
So basically if I if we ever answer a question poorly or something we got to eat. I don't know. We'll make up a game.
13:29
going to eat them cuz I'm hungry.
13:29
Um so basically he's like, "All right.
13:31
Um I got a bunch of like smart engineers, but this will be so academic unless we get some hustlers. You guys are hustlers.
13:39
Join me and let's make this happen."
13:40
He gave us a a job offer.
13:40
I was just happy to live in Australia, so I was like, "Great. I'll do this."
13:43
And so we started that company together as a biotech company in Australia.
13:46
As that goes on it gets to a point that I thought was, you know, like kind of the transition point where it's like, "Oh, we signed this deal.
13:54
It's like ready to like change hands or whatever."
13:56
And I was like, "All right, I'm going to move to Silicon Valley."
13:58
Cuz I don't know about sushi.
13:59
I don't know about biotech, but I know I like this early stage stuff.
14:02
So I applied to two jobs.
14:06
Stripe and then this place nobody's ever heard of called Monkey Inferno.
14:10
Stripe would have been pretty sick.
14:10
It was probably 30 employees at the time. Oh my god.
14:15
So if I joined even as just like what I was joining as like a biz dev manager or something like that I probably would have made like 10 or 20 million dollars if I just stayed there. You think 20? I think so.
14:24
Yeah, cuz I I kind of I went back one day and I did the math and I was like I kind of I don't know There's a bunch of assumptions like would you vest out?
14:32
Would you get a promotion?
14:32
Like you know, some bunch of things like that, but based on when it was like 20 uh 2012 early 2012 at the time.
14:38
Which like a lot of people I tell people the story about me and they're like, "Oh, you would have gotten fired."
14:42
And I actually think they're probably true.
14:43
In your case I think you wouldn't have.
14:45
I think you guys would have gotten along great with them.
14:47
Yeah, like you would have seen because that that [ __ ] was exciting and you seem like you would have gotten I don't know those guys, but you seem like you would have gotten gotten along great with them.
14:54
Yeah, like you're you're more of a cowboy. Yeah.
14:57
Like you I think you would legitimately would have made tens of millions of dollars. I think so, too.
15:02
Uh but it all worked out in the end.
15:03
Like I have less than that, but I was able to like got myself into a position where I was able to do more.
15:08
So basically it was like either like self-development or just like getting lucky with those shares.
15:14
Um and not entirely lucky.
15:14
Like I only applied to Stripe cuz I thought that was going to be a winner, but like it still would have been lucky that it got to be such a huge winner.
15:23
Could you tell early on that it was going to be a huge winner? Yeah, I don't know why.
15:27
I think I was just like at the time I was reading a lot of Paul Graham essays.
15:29
I was looking at Y Combinator companies.
15:31
Within Y Combinator those founders I watched some of their interviews.
15:34
I'm a big like you bet on the person type of guy like, you know, the person who who builds all the value.
15:42
I never talked to the founders.
15:42
I I basically blew I I had one interview with this guy Ben. And um he and I blew it.
15:49
Like I had the strongest warm introduction.
15:51
That guy's mentor was also my mentor.
15:53
And the mentor thought so highly of me. He was like it? Were you just cocky?
15:58
No, they did a sell me this pen type of question.
16:03
[ __ ] But it wasn't a pen.
16:03
He was like He told me he's like, "I'm not going to do a sell me this pen type of thing. But I am.
16:07
But I'm going to do sell me this software."
16:08
And I was like, "Okay, what What's the software?"
16:11
And he's like, "You pick. You pick."
16:12
And so I'm like it's my first job interview ever.
16:16
I've never interviewed for a job.
16:16
And I go and I'm like basically dating a Angelina Jolie.
16:20
Like Stripe is my first job interview.
16:22
And I'm like not prepared at all and I'm He's like, "What's a piece of software you like?"
16:25
And I'm like, "Uh I don't know.
16:26
Like So I'm trying to think of what software other people like rather than what I like.
16:29
So I was like uh Basecamp by 37signals.
16:31
I I I knew that was like a popular Those guys were popular, so I thought You didn't even use it though.
16:36
And I didn't use it though.
16:36
So I didn't know what to say.
16:38
But now I'm pot committed.
16:40
I didn't And I didn't want to admit that hey, I just picked random company that I don't actually use.
16:43
Like that didn't make any sense either.
16:44
And so I'm like fumbling and stumbling and I No, the way I got messed up was I started to explain it like I would I'd be like, "You know, so what I would say if I was selling this thing to you."
16:54
He goes, "No, don't don't don't don't don't don't Ring ring. Hello. Go.
16:56
You're selling this thing to me now."
16:58
And I was like, "Oh god."
17:00
And I just like think that's a [ __ ] way to interview someone by the way.
17:04
I think that's I think those games are stupid. Yeah, I don't know.
17:08
Like I guess yeah, I guess I would agree.
17:10
I don't want to say it's stupid just cuz I sucked at it.
17:12
Like that's not a good reason, but this when I've interviewed people.
17:15
The best way to the best way I found interviewing someone is I just want to know if I enjoy being around you.
17:19
And the only way I'm going to judge if like you're qualified is by just looking at your history.
17:25
Yeah, that's that's fair.
17:26
Like I just want to see what you've done in the past and I'm going to talk to your old coworkers.
17:28
And then I'm just here to decide if like this is a good culture fit.
17:32
I I heard of somebody got this guy Kyle Samani. He's like a a VC.
17:37
He's He put out a post or put out some interview or whatever where he said He's like, "Yeah, there's only one way to apply to my firm.
17:42
Uh we I don't look at any resumes or reference call nothing."
17:46
He goes, "Just take one of our existing blog posts and write it better.
17:50
Like write a Write a better blog post than we have on our blog.
17:52
You can take the same topic or a different topic.
17:55
Just write an amazing blog post."
17:57
And I was actually like, "That's kind of a good test.
17:59
It's a good initial filter.
18:02
I would still want to talk to the person, but like that's a really good initial filter cuz when you see someone write, you see how they think." Yeah, totally.
18:08
how how how good they are at like how good they are writing a blog post is actually a pretty good test for a lot of things.
18:13
Um so so I'm kind of into that as a test.
18:16
What was Oh my god, he's brought milk.
18:18
Is that milk or is it tinted glasses so it almost makes it look like eggnog? It's milk. You all both here.
18:22
Should we uh Should we start with uh with the medium or you want to start with the light? Uh yeah.
18:28
Do you want buffalo or sweet?
18:30
Well, that's the Should we go I want buffalo. I don't want sweet.
18:34
Okay, here's the buffalo one.
18:34
We'll do We'll start with the buffalo.
18:35
The sweet can be our like uh palate cleanser. Ugh.
18:39
Nothing like eating on microphone by the way. Yeah. Hot wings are the worst.
18:43
You're going to hear me gnawing.
18:47
All right, this is the Hot Ones episode of My First Million. Thank you.
18:54
Dude, I'm feeling no milk for a while.
18:56
I mean what what restaurant?
18:58
Shout out to our sponsor Wing It providing these wings today.
19:02
Dude, I used to live in an Asian neighborhood here in San Francisco.
19:04
The in the Chinese and like Hong Kong restaurants would make hot wings.
19:07
They are the worst at making those hot wings.
19:09
Cuz they put like bread It's too breaded and they put like sticky [ __ ] on it.
19:14
You know what I'm saying?
19:15
You know, I don't know what that that crap You know that sauce that like I don't know what you're talking Dude, have you ever had a like lunch or dinner at like one of the Chinese restaurants in the Inner Sunset? Yes.
19:24
Like it's like their hot wings are like breaded like fried chicken, but then dipped in like sticky sauces. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:31
That's what those are going to be.
19:32
I think that's a good I hate that sticky [ __ ] All the Chinese restaurants I go to I was like I was like, "I don't know what that sticky crap is, but don't give me that, please."
19:38
Like I want to know Also I went wing in cuz I knew you would not want uh boneless wing. Yeah, I'm not an idiot.
19:45
I would have done boneless cuz I'm such a domestic cat.
19:49
No, this is this is You're like a feral cat.
19:53
You know the right way to eat these is you just Well, it's easier with the other ones, but you got to stick the whole thing in your mouth and just pull it out.
20:00
Yeah, that's like I've seen so many Tik Toks of that.
20:01
Everyone who shows that is fat.
20:04
100% of people who have a strong opinion about how to eat buffalo wings are fat.
20:12
How is it how are these things to eat? What? Wings? Mhm. This is good.
20:15
This one's not too spicy at all.
20:18
What was Monkey Inferno when you applied?
20:21
So I um I apply and it's basically it's a startup studio or an idea lab.
20:25
I forgot what they called themselves at the time.
20:29
Basically it was like 16 engineers uh designer one designer and then Michael and Xochi Birch who were the like the owners and the the the husband and wife couple that was married.
20:41
And they were sold a company for like $850 million.
20:44
They sold Bebo for $850 million. This is how I do it. Do it into the camera. Wow. Clean. Clean.
20:57
Yeah, it looks like you're having fun over there.
21:02
I'm going to stick to just nibbling on the outside. It's all good for me.
21:07
I like I like my I like my my wing bones like I like my women clean.
21:16
I thought you said in your mouth.
21:16
I was like where is he going with this? Oh well.
21:23
Uh yeah, so Monkey Inferno was basically like this guy's done what I want to do.
21:27
So let me just go work with him. Again.
21:30
Like Well, how did Chipotle start? I don't know.
21:32
Or how should we be successful like the next Chipotle?
21:33
Let's just go where Chipotle started and follow their footsteps. Same thing.
21:36
I was like this guy has built several tech companies like maybe three or four companies that have gotten millions of users millions of dollars and one huge one for $850 million.
21:47
he sold that company, that company is considered I read this article where they said here's the top 10 worst acquisitions of all time.
21:54
Number one was Mark Cuban's thing where he sold to Yahoo for two or three billion.
21:58
Number two was Bebo which sold to AOL for like 850 or a or whatever.
22:02
And when he was doing that deal, he must have seen the numbers and been like, "Oh, Facebook's way better.
22:08
We have like three weeks to get rid of this thing."
22:10
Yeah, he told me that story.
22:10
Basically he was like, "Yeah, Facebook was just growing super fast and they were just better.
22:16
Like they were just better what they were doing and he's like we were just getting swamped with like we had all these like spam bot problems and then we had like you know this other problem and then like VCs wanted us to make money and this this our you know I hired this president.
22:28
She wanted to expand and make money doing these like deals with oh M&M is is doing a takeover of the homepage and like wow, we made like half a million dollars doing that.
22:37
He's like, "But The candy or the rapper? The candy.
22:42
But they actually did have other stuff like they they started a reality TV show called like I forgot what it was called like Joanna or something like Yeah, that ain't going to work.
22:49
But like at the time MySpace was like MySpace was one model.
22:50
They were like the media company.
22:52
They sold for 400 500 million.
22:54
Bebo was looking at that was like, "Okay, we can do that like Hollywood Yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:59
at you know big advertising big marketing thing and Facebook was like blue website no ads just focused on photos, engagement, growth, like all that stuff.
23:11
And they were just growing like crazy because of that.
23:12
And they had a more controlled growth cuz they were doing college college first.
23:14
So they were able to like not have all this like spam and all these other problems cuz they were gated by you had to have a university email address for a while.
23:22
And he sells his company and he has all How much do you think he was worth after he sold it?
23:26
Well, they owned like 70% so you So 70% of 850 and then half to to taxes.
23:34
So hundreds of millions of dollars.
23:36
Hundreds of millions of dollars.
23:37
to America and he basically hires like But he had he was already in America the whole time. He was here.
23:40
He was in the literally this part of the Bay Area. Oh, I didn't know that. So he was here.
23:45
He buys a place in San Francisco and he hires 10 engineers and then they're all just working on crazy [ __ ] seven condos, smashes down the walls to create one huge office.
23:57
And it was the same office that the Beats by Dre headphones were designed in and stuff like that.
24:00
So that was one part of the office.
24:01
The rest were just condos.
24:02
And he builds he leaves one as a condo that was there.
24:05
You saw that the bedroom that was there.
24:06
And then he puts a bar in there.
24:08
He puts a like a whole ping pong kitchen entertainment area and then huge office space where we all worked.
24:16
So day one I get off a plane from Australia.
24:18
I come straight from the airport to the office to interview.
24:20
And I get there a little early and right across the street was a Burlington Coat Factory.
24:27
So I walked I walked to the Burlington Coat Factory and I'm just standing there in the Burlington Coat Factory with a with a suitcase.
24:35
And they're like, "What is this guy doing?" a suit on? Suitcase. But it Oh, a suitcase. What were you wearing?
24:39
I was just wearing like you know tech casual Looking at that like trench coat at Burlington Coat Factory just walking around.
24:47
And I'm standing there for like half an hour.
24:48
And then I walk across the street and I ring the doorbell.
24:51
I go inside and I'm just like, "Wow."
24:53
And the walls were mirrors that were one way.
24:55
So you could if you were inside the restroom, you were looking at a mirror.
24:59
If you were outside the restroom, you could see into the restroom or something I don't know. The other way.
25:03
If you're looking at the restroom, it looked like a mirror.
25:04
If you're inside, you could see out. Yeah, the non-weird way.
25:06
Looked like people could see you but they couldn't.
25:07
So they're like this guy had a good sense of humor and sense of style with different things.
25:11
So I'm just like I don't know.
25:12
I've never seen anything like this.
25:13
That place probably has like a few million dollars worth of furnishings. Yeah, it's crazy.
25:18
That that was a crazy place.
25:20
Um And then I interviewed with him and it was the easiest interview I ever had. Most chilled interview.
25:26
He's just like, "Tell me your story."
25:28
He's kind of amused with my story.
25:29
He seems like a cheeky guy.
25:32
And he's just he'd already decided.
25:34
That's what he told me later.
25:35
He's like, "You would have I'd applied with this like website resume where I was like, oh why I'm the guy for the job." I wrote this email.
25:40
And then I started sending them like ideas for their current products.
25:43
I was like, "Hey, um I checked out the flow for this.
25:47
I think it could be improved here and here and here."
25:48
So I was like trying to make an impression.
25:49
I was I didn't do a job search. I did a job hunt.
25:53
I was like, "This is the job I want.
25:55
I'm going to zone in on it." Search versus hunt.
25:57
And I'm going to go like hunt for that.
25:58
I'm going to try to capture that job.
26:00
That's exactly what I did too.
26:00
And so it that had worked.
26:03
Basically by the time I got there, he was already into interested as long as I wasn't a weirdo.
26:07
I think I wouldn't have blown it.
26:07
And so chill and I got the job working under him.
26:11
And then like six months later, he was like, "Hey, you should run this thing." Basically.
26:17
And you guys started three or two or three products. Um more than that.
26:21
We did like maybe six or seven products.
26:24
that were like Yeah, some would only last a month.
26:26
Some would last What was the two years. What was the MO?
26:29
He said just all right, here's $2 million a year or how much budget did you have?
26:33
a business that was already making about $2 million a year, but it was declining. birthdayalarm. com, right? birthdayalarm.
26:38
com and then we So one project was just maintain it and then at one point as it was just declining cuz like you're just fixing bugs.
26:44
It's like let's turn this around.
26:47
So we did a turnaround and that got back up.
26:48
And that was a website where like my aunt would pay you $10 a year and you would be reminded when it was someone's birthday.
26:55
Yeah, she'll never forget Sammy's birthday and then when it's Sammy's birthday if she's paying, the reminder's free.
27:00
If you want to send a card you pay the subscription.
27:05
Like $14 a year or something like that.
27:08
And it made between two and three million dollars all profit almost other than hosting. Exactly.
27:10
Um and so that was the cash guy that funded the whole lab.
27:14
And then on top of that if we you know if we needed more expenses, they would just invest money into it.
27:18
So I think it funded I think it funded half and he put half just cash.
27:23
And his his mandate was like uh we don't do B2B and we don't do real world like t-shirts or Uber or things like that.
27:30
We don't do like physical world stuff. from Bebo probably.
27:33
He was just like, "Yeah, like whatever.
27:34
You got to pick a lane and like we're pretty broad.
27:36
Like it could be any idea, but like of the lanes, let's not let's do only consumer and let's do only software."
27:41
How many engineers did you have there? Like 16-ish 18.
27:46
When I went there, I was like, "Oh, this is a tech billionaire's country club."
27:50
That's what it felt like.
27:50
Not even a country club cuz nobody else was there.
27:53
It's just like his play It's like his man cave. Yeah, playground.
27:55
Just like yeah, man cave is a better word.
27:57
Because you had like old Mac computers as like art and you had like really nice actual real art and like it was just like, "Oh, if I'm a billionaire nerd in San Francisco, this is exactly what I would do as well."
28:07
So instead of like owning like old Ferraris, he just hired 16 engineers to make dumb [ __ ] He had those too.
28:13
He just didn't keep them in the office. Oh, he had those too. Yeah.
28:18
Uh and so all right, so He had all the Yeah, he's got an island. He's got cars.
28:22
He's got you know, his own projects.
28:22
He owns his own hotel, his own private jet.
28:26
think he was happier than you?
28:26
Do you think he He's happier for sure.
28:28
Do you think he was happier for back then when he was a you know, billionaire?
28:32
He was probably in his late 30s at that point, maybe early 40s. 40s, yeah.
28:36
Do you think he was happier than you are now?
28:43
He's definitely more at peace.
28:43
So I think I'm pretty joyful like on a day-to-day basis I'm kind of bouncing around.
28:51
And he's more stoic than that.
28:51
Like he's he definitely has a good sense of humor and and laughs a bunch and just doesn't take stuff too seriously.
28:57
I get I'm more easily excitable.
28:57
So I'm excited about random stuff, anything.
29:00
I can get excited about anything.
29:02
And probably still want to prove yourself.
29:05
But I have this inner not peace. I'm not just at rest.
29:08
I'm like trying to do something, prove something, be something, make something, earn something, win something and like I he just didn't have that that same Because of the acquisition?
29:19
Because of that and I think just wisdom.
29:21
Like I think he saw, "Okay, you know, his whole cohort of friends mostly became super successful.
29:26
They were they were the who's who of Silicon Valley.
29:31
And so he told me once he was cuz I was like I was like, "How come you don't blog?
29:35
Like I feel like all the VCs are blogging."
29:37
At the time that was like the big thing.
29:38
And I was like, "Why don't you like Well, I just don't feel like I have anything like that interesting to say.
29:44
And And thought that was the funniest answer cuz I was like I could have heard him say, "I should." Or I do.
29:50
And then or he could have said, "No, I don't want to do that because of this like I play the game this way instead."
29:57
But it was so humble to just say I just don't feel like I have I have the like if I don't have something interesting to contribute, why would I just blog in your face? Like That would be rude.
30:06
Dharmesh Shah, the founder of HubSpot, he's you know, this billionaire guy who's like Uber successful.
30:10
He told me he was yeah, I'm speaking at Masters of Scale, Reid Hoffman's thing, his conference.
30:16
And uh He was like, yeah, it's like um you know, the founders of Stripe Bill Gates, uh the CEO of Uber whatever.
30:24
Like kind of the who's who of all these big shot.
30:28
He's like, I'm so humbled and honored and I can't believe like they're having me.
30:31
And I was like I said I said I go, "Really?
30:32
Can you really not believe that?
30:34
Like it seems like it seems like pretty believable.
30:38
Like you're like uh like that seems like a very believable thing." evidence, yeah.
30:40
Yeah, like I I I don't I don't like from an outside perspective, you're like a billionaire, you're HubSpot at some I don't I don't know what the cutoff of a Fortune 500 is, but like it's definitely there or right around there.
30:52
You know, at times it's worth 20 to 30 billion dollars and you made it.
30:56
I I mean I I can believe that you'd be there.
30:58
He's like, "Well, you know, they're just uh I'm just honored and I just and and like I uh you know, I I I cannot believe I'm actually going to be there."
31:06
And I was like, "Well, I don't I don't know even what to say.
31:09
That's just so hard for me to grasp because from the outside you guys all seem like the same thing." Yeah. You know what I mean? Totally.
31:15
Uh but I thought that was weird.
31:15
So, you're this I'll give you I'll give you an example of a way where I saw that he was more at peace.
31:20
Like uh we had a product that was launching and the press was covering it.
31:23
TechCrunch was covering it.
31:25
And it was like, oh sweet, TechCrunch wants to do an article.
31:30
And they sent over they they either sent over the draft or they sent over like some bullet points or whatever. No, no, no.
31:35
It was good, but it was like um They'd said something that was like more than it was like they'd said 200,000 and actually it was 20,000 users or whatever. Like whatever.
31:43
Some number was inflated. And I was like so happy. I was like, yes. This is great.
31:49
Like they're just going to say a great thing about us even greater than reality.
31:52
Like but I was a sort of like I wasn't going to correct the record.
31:55
Like that's on them, right?
31:57
You know, like I in my mind I was like, this is a good thing.
31:59
They're over giving us credit. yeah.
32:01
They're giving us more credit than we deserve and he was like He's like, well, we should just correct it so it's the real number.
32:06
And I was like, but then it's like worse for us, right?
32:09
He's like, yeah, but like, you know we don't need to we don't need to do that.
32:15
And that was the first one.
32:15
Then the second one, he was like he was talking about um I think he had a bad experience with his VCs at Bebo and when and we had some VCs interested in funding us at Blab.
32:26
And he was just like he was sharing some stories and he had told me he was like um I was like, do you think that they'll follow through?
32:31
He's like, "Oh, they'll follow through.
32:33
Like Silicon Valley he's like He's like I he's like I would never not follow through.
32:38
He's like I if I commit and Even there's not a contract.
32:42
I realized that, oh it's not going to work out for this I committed. I'm in.
32:46
He's like, because this this is a town where you play the game for like 30 years with the same people.
32:52
And if you make a move that's like self-advantageous now um like your reputation is worth more than whatever that's whatever that is.
33:00
was that I did that as well. approach.
33:00
And like actually I there's many examples of people who are like sure, my reputation is bad, but like I banked 40 million or 80 million or 100 million.
33:08
There's like all these examples of that in Silicon Valley too. And you you know what?
33:11
Like they won in their way.
33:12
But when he said like he was just so high integrity and I was not as high integrity.
33:17
And I realized the reason why I wasn't high integrity is not cuz I'm evil.
33:20
Not cuz I'm a bad dude or because I like I just don't have morals. thinking.
33:25
I was just short-term oriented and I was I was afraid of failing.
33:27
I was like, you know, so it was like okay um what can I do to like increase my odds of winning?
33:36
Where he was just more confident.
33:36
He was just like we're going to win and we don't need to we don't need to play the game in any way other than the the straight way to win.
33:45
And like I hadn't really uh internalized that, but once I saw that that was really sick to see because then I was able to like adjust my knob and be like, oh yeah, I'm just never going to lie.
33:54
Like I just don't want to lie.
33:57
Even though my instinct was to exaggerate or my instinct was to not correct if somebody else believed something about me that wasn't true.
34:04
Like whereas, you know, he would just he was just totally comfortable in his own skin.
34:07
So, is he happier than me?
34:07
I would say yes, because he's more comfortable in his own skin.
34:12
He's more comfortable with where he's at.
34:13
He's more at peace with where he's at.
34:14
He's not like at this like inner inner fire or war to whatever.
34:17
But at the same time, I'm sure he misses like the adventure and the thrill of like building something and having it succeed and having that mean something.
34:25
Cuz now, no matter what he does, like it's very hard to have it mean something unless it's just like intrinsic motivation.
34:31
Like I just love the product or it's helping impact people.
34:33
But like the thrill of winning is kind of gone cuz he's already won it like such a high score you know, if you go to the arcade machine and you set the high score and it's so out of reach you know, like Like you could play it or whatever.
34:44
You can play and have a good game, but like you're still going to never touch that that high score again.
34:48
And I think he knows that.
34:50
You guys like launched two or three things, but the last thing was the last thing was Blab, which I remember so that's where we became friends when you were one or two years into being the CEO, I think. Yeah.
34:59
Uh and I was like, what do you do?
35:03
And you're like, well, we're launching this thing and then you kept jumping from thing and I would criticize you.
35:07
I'm like, dude, you just got to stick to this one thing.
35:10
But You're probably right.
35:10
Well, who knows who knows.
35:12
I I now I I used to firmly believe that was the way, then I've seen some of the things you've done.
35:16
I've seen some of the way some of our other friends have done.
35:18
I'm like, there's tons of ways to get things done.
35:21
Um what was the final thing that sold?
35:23
The final thing that sold was we after pivot after pivot after pivot we got to a thing that was like a e-sports app.
35:30
So, basically e-sports is just like trend where people are playing video games and stuff. it was just starting.
35:34
Uh it's like it's it's still just starting.
35:36
It's like you know, it was around but whatever.
35:38
But it was really just starting.
35:40
I mean, Twitch was like only six or seven years old at the time.
35:44
No, no, I yeah, I guess I don't Twitch was Twitch was around.
35:46
Twitch was big, but it wasn't that wasn't really the thing.
35:49
It was basically the the last idea we had, the one that we got acquired for.
35:52
We basically built an app that was like the way a high schooler could go and play you could sign up for basketball or soccer or whatever.
36:00
Like some game you could go play in a league for it.
36:01
And you would pay your league dues and like there's little league baseball and then there's like, you know, AAU sports.
36:08
There's all these youth leagues.
36:08
Youth sports is a big deal.
36:10
There was no youth e-sports. That was the whole idea.
36:15
And so we had had a bunch of technology.
36:16
We'd already been doing stuff in streaming and gaming.
36:17
And so we took the all that tech and we made an app that let any high schooler sign up and play in a Fortnite league.
36:23
Fortnite was the big game at the time.
36:24
It was like Fortnite was ripping.
36:27
And there were more people that played Fortnite in the world than played basketball.
36:30
And so we were like, that's crazy.
36:32
This has more players, but there's no organized league. There's only the pros.
36:35
There's no like amateurs.
36:38
Um and so we created the high school Fortnite league and we had an app that you would sign up. You'd make your team.
36:44
You could invite friends and then you would compete against other teams and you'd get like ranked.
36:47
You'd play in tournaments and all of it was streamed, which was cool cuz it would make it turned into like a spectator sport. big did that get?
36:54
It It was the biggest e-sports league, but it was small overall.
36:56
We were only maybe six or nine months into that version of it.
37:01
It maybe had 10 to 25,000 players, active players at the time.
37:09
Um which was big cuz it like in youth like you know, in theory those people would pay us like you put if you I go take my daughter who's three and put her in a soccer league, I'm going to pay 99 bucks or whatever for her to be in that league. So, same thing.
37:21
If we charge if we started charging for it, it would have this like SaaS business that was going to generate I thought millions of dollars a year, but maybe tens, probably never hundreds.
37:31
And so that was the problem.
37:31
I was like, oh if we do this really well and we succeed at this, um it'll get to maybe like 10 million a year, maybe 20 million a year in revenue, but never really beyond that.
37:43
And Dude, isn't that sucked up?
37:44
That's not what we signed up for.
37:45
That's not the way the game is played.
37:48
I it's not it doesn't suck because I agree that that well, that's just the game.
37:51
That just sucks at that because yeah, if you owned 100% of that, you could have made a maybe a similarish amount of wealth as Mike Birch. Right. Yeah, exactly.
38:01
You know, but it wasn't structured that way. it sucks.
38:05
And so once once I kind of got that feeling and I was six or seven years into the whole Monkey Inferno experiment with creating products with that same team, same group it was like, let's sell this and let's shake things up.
38:17
You know, I had a I was lucky, a friend Sully like Like on the outside everything was amazing. Office was amazing.
38:24
I met you, you were like, I'm making 150 grand a year.
38:26
And I'm like, oh my god, you're like the wealthiest person I've ever met.
38:29
It's like, you have a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year? That's crazy.
38:33
And you're only in your twenties.
38:35
I remember you told me that and I was like shocked.
38:37
I was like, and you have this sick office. Like you're set.
38:41
I felt that way at the time.
38:41
And then over time your expectations change.
38:43
You meet other people who are doing better, better and you're like, oh man, hundred I was like 160. 160, that's nothing.
38:49
Like I'm way underpaid and and in general I was just like I just wanted to get a win.
38:53
I don't think you were underpaid.
38:56
Well, for a startup founder I wasn't underpaid, but if I just worked at a job I would have still still the equity.
38:59
That the equity was what mattered.
39:01
And so um I owned 20% of that of that of of the business.
39:07
And so anyways, we decided to sell and then that was, you know a crazy process and Life-changing? Yeah, for sure.
39:16
Financially life-changing?
39:16
Yeah, cuz you go from no millions to millions is, you know, that's life-changing.
39:20
And you actually stayed there.
39:22
Am so Amazon bought the company and you stayed there for two years, right? Yeah.
39:26
You and are you happy you stayed?
39:29
Um Like I don't really think about the past.
39:31
Like what's like am I happy I stayed? Yeah, sure.
39:34
Like, you know, fine with it.
39:36
In retrospect, if I could go advise myself now I would have stayed only one year. I stayed two.
39:42
Um but I also got a bunch of other benefits like I popped out two kids and was able to like spend time with them and didn't have to stress about Yeah, you like collectively had like 10 months of paternity leave. What's that?
39:53
I mean you had like 10 months of paternity leave.
39:55
No, actually stupidly I only took 2 weeks with the first kid. What were you thinking?
40:00
I did I fell into all the traps you could fall into like at a big company it's like oh they put me on the special project and the CEO really loves it and cares and now's the critical time and and also being at home honestly as a like being at home is harder than being at work so it was like actually kind of easier to go back to work in a way but like I should have taken more time and I just sort of like didn't.
40:18
And I think a lot of employees fall into this trap in companies they don't take it's like the company has unlimited time off you don't take it.
40:25
Uh you you could take this much for paternity or maternity it's like oh you feel pressure to cut it short cuz you want to get back to your team or your whatever stupid.
40:31
Um but the second year I was way more chill and basically When did did very little work.
40:37
When did you start the e-com thing?
40:39
Um somewhere around that time.
40:41
And you we don't talk about it on purpose. Yeah.
40:42
And so we won't talk about it much but what do you want to say anything about it? Uh It's a big business.
40:49
think we'll yeah I think we'll start talking about it soon.
40:50
Um maybe that'll be a special episode.
40:54
Yeah, it does like 15 million a year profitable. Damn dude. Bootstrapped.
40:58
I remember you told me you were doing it and I was like why would you ever do that?
41:02
And are you happy that you did that or not? Same thing.
41:06
In retrospect I would go advise myself don't do this Because you already had like clout a little bit and now so during the sale of the first company you started this podcast and then that's when the Hustle and this podcast kind of collaborated.
41:18
But this podcast people ask me how to grow a pod and I'm like I don't know because Sean like started doing it right away and it kind of worked day one.
41:27
Like we got like I think the first episode was 60,000 downloads.
41:31
The first one was just hey there's a new thing and people will go check it out right?
41:36
Yeah, but it was it still was good start.
41:38
But it got to a good start and then when we switched it to this format it got even better.
41:42
It like took off in a better way and then just time time like time is basically Yeah.
41:48
And so the thing I've learned so so why do I say I would go back and do it differently is because I now realize something I already knew but I didn't have the guts to act on which was that at any given time you're really only going to get to throw your all into one thing.
42:05
And so why not throw like if you're going to do that like choose really wisely.
42:10
So for example um when we got acquired by Twitch I didn't want to throw my all into that.
42:16
Um that wasn't like going to be my my my baby my future was to be an employee at Twitch.
42:20
Uh I wanted to earn out the deal and I was feeling like I needed to get that check right?
42:26
So there was like a desperation to secure the bag.
42:30
Which by the way is the right move I think. Maybe.
42:31
Like I think selling out is the way to go.
42:33
I had asked a buddy who was more successful at the time and I was like what would you do if you were me?
42:37
He was like I would quit on day one.
42:39
He was like I would sell so that your team is fine and your investors are happy and then I would quit on day one.
42:43
I go why like it's so much money if I just stay even 1 year 1 year no big deal.
42:46
And he's like uh he goes the surface area of opportunity is too wide. Who said that? Suli. He's so smart man.
42:54
Cuz I went I remember we went for a walk and we walked for like an hour and a half in the mission.
43:00
We just walked back and forth through the mission on the streets and it was like everything's closing mission's ghetto as hell.
43:05
And we were just like imagine like pacing furiously we were doing that and we were just talking through what's next and I said I really want to do this pod I want to create a podcast. He's like podcast? I was like yeah.
43:11
I was like I think if I could just be in a million people's earballs every morning that's like that would be the most fulfilling thing for me and it would be awesome.
43:19
That it would just be awesome. of the way there maybe.
43:22
Yeah, like I don't know million is now I realize like very aggressive of like every morning but like you know you if you just keep going for 5 years it could happen.
43:30
Like that that that's realistic now.
43:33
But I remember thinking that's what I want to do and I couldn't explain why I was just sure I wanted to do it.
43:36
Which in in retrospect is a really good signal like that's the type of stuff you should go do. And I did that.
43:41
Um but then the other thing he was just like yeah I would just quit from day one the surface area of opportunity is too wide and and I looked at it and like uh and I was like well what would I do if it wasn't this?
43:50
And he's like again the surface area is so wide anything.
43:54
And I was like give me an example.
43:55
He goes all right I got a company for you we could do right now I'll co-found this with you And he totally talked you into it.
43:59
Because the Suli was all he had just sold an e-com business that he had just No no this is a different idea not even the e-com business this is a different thing.
44:08
He goes he goes in e-commerce there's this company called Klaviyo they're email sending company Yeah they're really really taking off. He goes Klaviyo for SMS.
44:18
And I go doesn't Klaviyo do SMS? He goes no. I go won't they?
44:20
He goes yeah they probably will.
44:22
Uh aren't there these other companies?
44:23
Yeah sure but he's like you're focusing on the wrong thing.
44:25
I'm telling you I'm in e-com and SMS is like it's like email but better people open it.
44:32
And he's like a 90% open rate.
44:34
you just need to build like if we just build SMS for e-com I think we can go get like 100 brands that matter and this would be a valuable company and I was like okay it kind of sounds like I don't know it was just like this idea.
44:44
It was almost boring because it was like here's a ready-made idea there was like nothing else to think it was like anything I said was basically a distraction. he was right?
44:50
He was absolutely right cuz uh so we talked about it we went kind of down that that rabbit hole for like a little bit we tried to find maybe a different operator to come come run it and then I see this company in YC called Postscript.
45:02
And I send it to him and I go hey this is they're doing Klaviyo for SMS.
45:05
He goes all right I'm going to invest.
45:06
So he goes and him and his brother invested in it.
45:07
And Postscript is now like a multi-hundred million dollar company in the same it's the same period of time right?
45:13
So like that was a path sure maybe it wouldn't have worked out for us but like I don't know I would guess it probably would.
45:21
physics has allowed it to happen.
45:21
And like it it it it it played out and so whether it's that one or even just the e-com thing if I just started it at day one.
45:29
Like the e-com thing is more valuable than what I earned out at Twitch like it will be and so like again the surface area of opportunity was very wide and I was one thing was a guarantee and it was right in front of me everything else was unknown.
45:41
And so I've learned now that like you should just keep going until you like go don't like turn down a thing that's known if it's not what you want if it's not the real thing that you want.
45:54
Because only when you turn that down then do you get the opportunity to go find the thing you want. It's like dating right?
46:00
You're dating somebody who you don't want to marry but they're okay they're good it's just not they're not the one and you might try to talk yourself into it but like if you're talking yourself into it you're already losing.
46:09
And then like you got to you got to break up in order to meet the next person.
46:12
And like six or 12 I forget when you started the Milk Road 8 months ago?
46:18
We launched in January yeah so.
46:18
And so and that's actually going really nicely.
46:23
You have 150 to 250,000 subscribers. Yeah over 200. Wow okay.
46:26
And maybe you'll run that forever maybe you'll sell it who knows.
46:31
Have you ever thought about what you want to do for the rest of your life?
46:35
I think about that all the time.
46:35
I want to brainstorm that with you.
46:35
Okay what what what what what would you like to do?
46:39
Well um Assuming that Milk Road's not a thing.
46:41
Yeah assuming that Milk Road's not a thing and assuming that uh the e-commerce thing is not a thing.
46:44
So let's assume two things right there cuz in the spirit of what I'm talking about um if it's not the one then you got to find a different way.
46:56
So let's say that there's something else that's the one. What would it look like? What would it be like?
47:00
I I think there's one version of it that's like this podcast just more like like what if this pod if this podcast was 10 times bigger would I really care to do anything else?
47:13
Financially 10 times bigger?
47:16
Uh either way audience I think translates to to money so Is there a is there a an amount of money like whether money is important or not it is kind of you have you I think you should have worked backwards from that. Yeah.
47:29
Is there an amount of money that you'd want per year?
47:31
the target currently is 50. In net worth. Yeah total net worth.
47:35
That's not like in tied up in one company that's like can can die next month like in of you know assets you own kind of like liquid you know but it could be a little bit more Like loanable against.
47:48
Yeah like not concentrated into one paper valuation of one company.
47:52
a podcast would more so be a or a media company for you would be more so an annual income thing I would imagine than So it could stack up to 50 or it could just wait and then sell for 50 or or or net 50 in the end in some way.
48:07
Well I think that you so the way 50 is just a random number. made it up yeah. So It's a lot.
48:13
maybe we should start there.
48:15
Maybe that's the wrong number.
48:15
No I think that's a good number. I know what you like.
48:18
You like nice [ __ ] you like spending a lot of stuff.
48:19
I think 50's a good number for you.
48:21
I think the difference between 30 and 50 for you or me is actually not a significant amount but So shoot for 50 and then wherever you land.
48:30
think that's a good number.
48:30
The difference between anything above 100 is enough at today that you would really really have to work hard.
48:37
Like you'd have to be you would purposely have to be a jackass to go through it.
48:40
That's mostly true for 50 10 you can go through you know that's just like a big house and like a medical emergency and like you can like kind of blow through a bad investment Yeah I mean it is you know I mean and you can go and you'd be a lawsuit you'd be back under two or three like pretty quickly.
48:55
Uh 30 is in the range of where it's enough that like you can't screw it up.
48:58
100 for sure like your your you you would have to have like some crooks around you or a like a stupid like your dad's smart enough to be like hey man um can we have a can we talk about this?
49:12
Uh I think you're going too hard you should you don't need a Lamborghini yacht. Uh you know what I mean? Buffalo buffalo time. Um So anyway Hot one? We'll do a hot one. Dude talking money now. 50 50's enough.
49:23
I think that's a good goal.
49:26
But and I think that I've seen you grow to be this like tech person to a media person.
49:31
You are better at media than you are tech. I I that.
49:36
You are better at investing than you are at running things. I believe that.
49:40
better at starting things than you are running things.
49:42
And you are horrible at managing like I don't theoretically at managing 50 plus people. Yeah, I don't even know.
49:50
I think you'd be awesome at leading them, but horrible at managing them. I just don't want to.
49:57
Um Yeah, but you're really good at being like a leader.
49:59
I bet you'd actually be a really good CEO, too.
50:00
I think you'd be a horrible Just like what?
50:03
Like inspirational speeches?
50:04
Yeah, you're you're naturally inspiring like what Jerry Jerry Seinfeld said comedy is like a secret weapon that most people don't understand.
50:12
It comedy is kind of and storytelling and just charisma, the ability to capture someone's like imagination and make them believe something or or capture emotion from them.
50:22
Or make them feel certain emotion.
50:22
You definitely have that. You have that.
50:23
You everyone a lot of people ask me like was Sean always good at this?
50:26
I'm like yeah, he was actually always good at it and then he's gotten better.
50:29
So I think that you you have that.
50:30
So I would say you could be a CEO, but you're you you actually got really lucky and Ben Leavy doesn't publicly get enough credit, but that's like your partner in all these things. Yeah.
50:40
He 100% is your yang to the yang.
50:43
And if I was you, I would go way harder on that partnership with him and potentially launch more things.
50:49
Um and let him operate Who's having the most fun?
50:54
Like who's got the who's having the most fun with uh I mean you. life stuff.
50:59
You are doing pretty good.
51:01
Okay, besides me, who else?
51:01
Um Rob Dyrdek was pretty amazing.
51:06
I think they're like like you're more of a Rob Dyrdek than you are Mark Zuckerberg, that's for sure. You know what I mean?
51:10
Like if it like just like one guy, one company, hardcore tech versus like little here, little there, little here, all based around like a personality.
51:17
Yeah, you don't Um What is like okay, you exited recently.
51:24
You had to think about what you're going to do next. Yeah.
51:27
How did you think about it?
51:28
What I I actually gave this advice to someone.
51:29
So what I did, I sold So I sold for enough that I'm You don't have to do anything. have to do anything.
51:34
Not enough that like I'm going to go and buy crazy jet enough that I still am ambitious, but enough that like a a fairly luxury level of needs are met forever.
51:43
And when I did I did that and I realized okay, for the next 12 months, but it could be longer, all I'm going to do is research and think.
51:53
And I never give anyone that advice because I say you just got to start and do stuff and by the end of this weekend like have something live, but I'm like no, I already I know I do that. I I have that ability.
52:04
So for the next 12 months or however long, I'm going to feel this sounds like I'm [ __ ] Oprah.
52:08
I'm going to be not guilty about like Yeah, this is so Oprah.
52:13
It's like some woo woo [ __ ] is that actually from Oprah?
52:15
No, but I just like it sounds like it cuz like you feel guilty not doing [ __ ] You're like oh, I'm missing out. I'm missing out.
52:21
I'm like no, this is like really Oprah.
52:23
I'm going to I'm going to let I'm going to forgive myself. Yeah.
52:25
Yeah, like it sounds like I need one of those Coachella hats that chicks wear.
52:30
Uh like I I I was like I'm just not going to be guilty about doing stuff.
52:33
I'm just going to research and I'm going to read and when the feeling feels right, it's going to feel right and I'm going to go all in.
52:36
But until then, I'm not going to I'm not going to say maybe to stuff.
52:40
I'm not going to say yes to anything.
52:42
I'm going to say no to everything.
52:43
I'm just not going to I'm just not going to worry about it.
52:44
And I just read and I researched and I think that I actually think you suck at sitting still.
52:51
Yeah, that's why I got to I got to do it and forgive myself, give myself grace. Yeah. Have grace for myself. you have to.
52:59
You've got to chill because like someone like you, you can execute.
53:04
Like you you already you can do stuff, right?
53:06
But then okay, so you chill, you read, you do other stuff. Talk to people. You talk to people.
53:10
You I mean And then I get to do stuff.
53:14
the business that I'm talking about, the business that I end up doing now, I interviewed them on the pod.
53:18
Like multiple I was like I'm just going to talk to you.
53:21
Like I got that Go and interview people.
53:23
So So you do that, but how did you resist the temptation to okay, how many ideas did you have before this one? None. That you were None.
53:30
You weren't tempted to do anything before that? No. No, I No, I was not.
53:37
This was the first idea that you were like I I'm going to do it and then you just did it.
53:39
It was the first one that I felt okay, I did investing.
53:41
So I did angel investing.
53:43
I realized that's stupid and I hate it. I hate angel investing.
53:46
You're good at it and you love it.
53:48
I think I'm only good at it because I'm popular, but I don't like I don't like it. Uh and I hate it. It's so boring. Dude, it's so stupid.
53:54
So I did that and we invested $15 million in one year into 70 companies.
54:01
And so I kind of like went fast on that and then I realized uh-uh, I'm out. I hate this. So I bailed.
54:08
Uh and so I like tinkered with that, but that wasn't like a full-time thing.
54:10
We only worked on that 10 hours a week. Yeah.
54:15
So anyway, um I dude, I just read like crazy and talked to people.
54:20
I think you should do that.
54:20
Why wouldn't you just take a like 18 months and just like That is my plan.
54:22
Not 18, but like Just however long it takes. 12.
54:26
Uh basically it's like let's take 12 and I'm like listen, here this is what this analogy or this visualization will help.
54:30
Imagine your life is this line, all right?
54:34
You're about a third of the way through, maybe 25% of the way, maybe if we live a long time.
54:40
This amount of time, this like 1 inch on this 15 inch segment, this 1 inch of time can was going to impact the rest of the 10 inches.
54:48
Do you know what I'm saying? Right.
54:50
It changed the color of the line.
54:51
It changes the entire trajectory.
54:51
So why not spend like a ton of time early on really focusing instead of because there's a chance that had you done that previously, which you didn't have the luxury to, but had you done that previously or I maybe you did have the luxury to, you would have made better decisions.
55:07
and you would have gone all in on one thing which would have cumulatively made more than all the other stuff combined. Right.
55:14
And so the question then is the fear I have is how do I make sure that's not just a kind of like like sort of like a how will I know?
55:21
Also um how do I do it in a way that's not just absolutely meandering or maybe that's all right.
55:29
Maybe it is supposed to be meandering.
55:31
your personality and so just by meandering like it it's almost like it's almost like most people we have to tell them to hit on the gas harder.
55:39
With you, you're a car whose back wheels we lifted up and you're already going all the way as hard as you can and all we're going to be doing is just figuring out which direction we're going to place that car.
55:49
And then when we're ready, we're just going to drop it. That's a good analogy. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
55:52
Most people we got to feel feel cool, too, cuz I'm like a really fast car or something.
55:55
Well, like most people we have to like fuel that car and like no, go harder. You're good. You're good. You're good.
55:59
Like all right, you're already moving a little bit. Now go even harder.
56:01
With you, it's like no, that dude, that gas is down already.
56:02
Like we might as well just find out the right place to put it and then we put it, you're going all in. Yeah.
56:07
That's exact So that's how I would look at it. I like it.
56:09
Like people who are who are whose oven burn hot, that's what I say like they're they're going to be burning [ __ ] It's just like pick the right thing. Yeah.
56:15
Like you know what I'm saying?
56:17
Remember I made a joke that people made fun of me, but I actually stole it from the The Departed.
56:19
They're like John Lennon, give him a [ __ ] tuba and he's going to make art. That's what he does. You know what I mean?
56:25
That's kind of how I That's kind of how I feel about like whatever our stupid industry is.
56:29
It's like I don't know, man.
56:30
Just like give me a computer, get out the way and I can figure out how to like be cool because not be cool, but like make something at least somewhat intriguing because that's just what I love doing.
56:37
And I think the same 100% with you. All right, I like that. That's good. Right? What Yeah, I like it.
56:43
Also you last podcast, you have me 100% convinced that AI is the thing. So I would go into AI. Yeah, that could be it.
56:52
I just think that that's like a huge pond and you just cast anywhere out in that pond and you're going to have a winner. Yeah, that's fair. You think so?
56:56
Um it seems that way at the moment, but I think it's more like if it's like if I was going to meander or wander around, I'm definitely spending some time in that neighborhood to see what's up.
57:07
I'm trying all the different bars.
57:10
early enough I'm asking people where the best tacos are.
57:11
I'm talking to people being like what was here before this?
57:15
And that's that's what I would do in in that space before I just do something.
57:19
Dude, it's still early enough to where you could take time. Like you take your time.
57:22
You could take 6 to 12 months off and and just relax.
57:24
I talked to someone the other day who works at OpenAI.
57:27
And I was like you're and this guy is like a little bit naturally of a pessimist.
57:31
Like he's like not he doesn't just believe in hype.
57:33
Uh and I was like hey, is this legit?
57:35
And he goes yeah, it's legit.
57:37
I was like should I do I have to be worried that it's going to like take over the world?
57:40
He's like no, I don't know when that will happen or even if it will happen cuz we are a bit away, but like in terms of just like replacing like developers' jobs or um just like making life easier and like just like for art, making new types of art, it's 100% legit and it's almost here. It's basically here. Right.
58:00
And so I think that's like that stuff's pretty amazing. Should we do a hot one? Yeah. I guess. let's try it. How hot is it? I don't know. know.
58:09
I've never tried these before.
58:10
want to get like a panic attack.
58:14
Where is this place That'll make a good thumbnail, though.
58:16
Where is this place from?
58:16
I don't I I DoorDashed it. Boom. Is it hot? No. It's not hot?
58:20
Maybe this is not the hot one. Let's see. No. I don't think so.
58:26
This I think this is supposed to be the hot one, but not that hot. That's not hot, right? No.
58:31
This one is hotter, I think.
58:32
I don't want to eat like a a ton of it and for it to like kick in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like it's not hot.
58:40
I don't think it's bad at all. Yeah. I think you got got. Yeah, it's all right. Taste good, though.
58:45
Rick Ross probably owns this wing place.
58:49
Does he have a wing place?
58:49
Yeah, he owns like 30 Wingstops.
58:52
He's you know, he's like the rap version of Shaq.
58:53
You know what I'm saying?
58:55
Like he owns like Five Guys and [ __ ] Should we just do that?
58:58
I don't like 30 Wingstops. No, dude.
58:58
So I've been in the Airbnb and like real estate game. It's that's whack, too. I thought that was dope. It's whack.
59:05
It's just it takes too long. It's just too slow.
59:10
Like I I will come up with an idea and want to do something and like you don't get results if you're building something for 18 months, 24 months or with like a rental I'll like let's do this, this and this and like I don't know if it's any cool for 3 months or if it's like, you know, if it's actually a good idea.
59:22
No, I think real estate's stupid.
59:23
I think it's really cool to invest in, but like as a creative person, it's whack.
59:30
Yeah, I It's like no dopamine rush, either.
59:33
Yeah, but people are like, "Oh, buy boring businesses, invest in boring businesses."
59:37
I'm like, "I don't want a little boring business." It's in the name.
59:39
Yeah, like I It's also in the name, guys.
59:41
Yeah, like where's the buy exciting businesses at?
59:47
Yeah, they talk about boring businesses.
59:49
They're like, "Bro, What you want is something that's boring to other people, but not boring to you.
59:51
If it's also boring to you, like, come on, you wasted your talent. want boring life. Yeah, exactly. I see that stuff, too.
59:58
I'm like, "Man, I don't want I don't want to work with the guy who runs a dry cleaning company.
1:00:00
I just like me up I you know, I'll be like sitting outside on the corner like King of the Hill like, "Yep."
1:00:07
Like, I don't want to have that conversation. You know what I mean?
1:00:11
I don't want to talk about it.
1:00:13
Yeah, I want to like do stuff.
1:00:16
Um yeah, these are all right.
1:00:16
That's not hot though, is it? Yeah.
1:00:23
Our software is the worst.
1:00:23
Have you heard of HubSpot?
1:00:25
See, most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous.
1:00:31
I think I love our new CRM.
1:00:34
Our software is the best. HubSpot. Grow better.
1:00:38
Um where do we want to go with this episode? Uh I don't know.
1:00:41
What would make it interesting?
1:00:42
You're looking swell, by the way. Oh, thank you.
1:00:44
You want to finish with like a a rapid-fire hot seat questions? Yeah.
1:00:51
That I think that's a hot one. This one, right? Yeah, this one's hotter. That one's hotter.
1:00:57
Um That one actually is hot for me. There we go.
1:00:59
The milk is coming into play. That one's hot.
1:01:03
All right, let me dip this one in.
1:01:05
Oh, this is almond milk, by the way.
1:01:10
All right, what's the rapid-fire?
1:01:10
Um all right, let me think of a couple questions.
1:01:14
All right, hot seat question. Uh here's number one.
1:01:20
Would you rather be three times as famous and half as rich as you are today or stay as you are? Stay as I am. Why? I'm married.
1:01:31
Being famous isn't that cool.
1:01:33
I mean, what's the point It's for single people.
1:01:35
Yeah, what what What advantage does fame have at this I Some people just feels good.
1:01:42
And then also, uh you could argue that if you were three times more famous, you could actually earn a bunch more, too.
1:01:49
So, you know, it could make other things easier.
1:01:51
I'd rather be two times as rich.
1:01:55
Twice as funny and half as ripped, or twice as ripped and half as funny?
1:01:58
Being funnier is better for for like picking up girls and having guy friends, probably. So, funny.
1:02:06
Well, you said you're married.
1:02:06
Why are you trying to pick up girls? I said me guys, too. Did I say that? I don't know.
1:02:14
Being ripped seems to do it, too. Both of those.
1:02:16
Dude, there's Being funny is better.
1:02:18
Being funny is way better.
1:02:20
What would would you rather be Funny. I'm all in on funny.
1:02:23
What about the fame or wealth?
1:02:24
Being half as funny, that would be like that would be really sad.
1:02:28
Like, you could be half as fit and you could kind of recover.
1:02:32
If you're half as funny, there's just no recovering from that.
1:02:35
That's like the end of the game for you.
1:02:36
And you were you were half as fit three years ago, and you were doing fine. Yeah, exactly. I've been there before. Hello, my old friend. Nice to see you again.
1:02:47
What uh what about the other one?
1:02:51
Um Tell me a story Okay, what's the highest-stakes negotiation you've ever been in? Selling the company. What about you?
1:02:57
Well, when did it feel high-stakes for you?
1:03:00
Was there every single day?
1:03:01
I'm almost positive every single day there's a chance I can kill a deal.
1:03:05
Uh the HubSpot CEO Did I tell you this? No.
1:03:07
You know he got into a Oh, the car uh the skiing accident the day after, right? it was even worse. Brian was on the pod. He told you about it.
1:03:15
Uh he him and his son were snowmobiling in Vermont or wherever people snowmobile, I don't [ __ ] know.
1:03:21
And like, his son hit the gas instead of the brake, and they ran into his dad, Brian, and they fall over a cliff, and it was either like 12 or 24 hours that he just sat there.
1:03:34
He's like and he said goodbye to his son, and he's like, you know, "This might be it." Yeah, this is it.
1:03:38
And suddenly they get cell phone service, and someone comes and finds them.
1:03:42
And then afterwards, he comes back and quits. and closed the deal. Did you text Sam today? One more thing.
1:03:58
Well, dude, that happened two weeks after the deal closed, and like I think that company is big enough that him like frankly dying a pause on it.
1:04:08
Yeah, like would I don't know if that would have Like, I don't know if that would have Hey, guys, not to be insensitive, just wanted to check in if we're still on for the whole acquisition.
1:04:19
RIP Brian, but so uh Sending out the DocuSign in case you guys are still ready.
1:04:28
So, that totally understand if you need a day.
1:04:32
Anything could have killed it. No no pun intended.
1:04:34
Anything All due respect, Brian. I love Brian.
1:04:39
So, I'm only joking, but any anything could have like destroyed that deal.
1:04:43
Yeah, so that was stressful.
1:04:45
So, that was the highest one. What was yours? Well, I had two.
1:04:47
One was I think I Did I tell the auction story when we bought the Bebo brand back?
1:04:51
Did I tell the story before?
1:04:54
Uh so, Michael tells me at one point he goes, "Hey, we have an opportunity to buy Bebo back."
1:05:00
Oh, yeah, and you had to go like looking like a schmuck so no one knew who you were. It's how I look. Thanks, though.
1:05:10
But they We go to a courthouse, basically.
1:05:12
So, so he tells me we're going to buy it back, and we And my in my mind I'm like, "Awesome.
1:05:19
What are we going to do with it?"
1:05:19
And he's like, "I don't know.
1:05:20
We got to figure something out."
1:05:21
He's like, "But it's a good domain.
1:05:22
You get the email list, you get the domain, you get the hardware, and you get like the legal ownership of the IP." What hardware?
1:05:29
Like, whatever servers or whatever They had.
1:05:30
So, um and so we we were like, "Okay, what is this worth?"
1:05:33
And so we came up with it.
1:05:34
We were like We sat in this room trying to speculate.
1:05:38
And then Michael just like put down the hammer at one point.
1:05:39
He's like, "I don't think we're going to be able to buy it for less than a million, and I don't think I really want to pay much more than a million.
1:05:45
So, let's go with a million. That's your bid." So, we fly to LA.
1:05:49
It's me, our lawyer, and our COO.
1:05:49
And we get to a courthouse, and I'm like, "Is that a courthouse? What are we going to do?
1:05:55
We stand in front of a judge?"
1:05:55
Like, and the judge goes, "Okay, are there multiple multiple parties here to buy it out of bankruptcy?"
1:06:00
Um Yeah, and then we don't know who else is going to be there.
1:06:04
We don't know if anyone else is going to be there.
1:06:06
And there's two other groups that raise their hand, and they she's like, "All right, go to that room, and you're going to auction against each other to see who wins." I was like, "What?"
1:06:14
So, we go to this tiny room. Just going to fight. And yeah, basically.
1:06:18
And one person from each It's like a rap One person from each team got to sit at the table.
1:06:23
Everyone else is behind them like, "Oh."
1:06:25
And so then it's us, and then it's Match.
1:06:27
com, and it's some other social Well, like IAC.
1:06:33
They own a bunch of internet properties, so they wanted to buy They're just kind of like vulture-ing.
1:06:36
Yeah, they were like, "We're going to harvest the profiles and use them for dating." It's like, "What?"
1:06:40
Like, "The SEO, we need that SEO juice."
1:06:43
It's like, "Damn, I hope you guys don't win. That sounds awful."
1:06:44
Um Were were were the people kinder one another, or were they like pulling up You just sit down, and it's like, "Bid."
1:06:51
And we're like, "Oh, here.
1:06:53
I'm the representative from this, this, and this." All right.
1:06:56
So, it starts, and it's like, "We'll start the bidding at at 100,000, and then it'll go up at 50,000 increments um up to 500,000, and then it'll just be free form after that.
1:07:04
We'll be here as long as it takes to finish the bid.
1:07:06
And you get like a minute in between or you get like a minute between a minute or two minutes or something like that in between bids to decide if you're going to bid."
1:07:14
And so it goes 100, 150, 200, 250, so on and so forth.
1:07:17
It goes up to 700,000, and then the guy one guy drops out.
1:07:20
So, then it's just us and Match. He calls time out.
1:07:25
He's like, "We need to go make a phone call right before 7."
1:07:27
Dude, that's like getting in a fight with someone and being like, "Time out." Exactly what happened. You can't do that.
1:07:30
It's exactly what happened.
1:07:30
He got punched in the nose, and then he's like, "Time out." So, we're at 750,000. And they go outside.
1:07:36
They have to make a phone call to their boss.
1:07:40
And I was like, "Oh, must suck having a boss."
1:07:42
Yeah, and you like tattled on him.
1:07:44
You're like, "Uh sir, is that So, I try to go eavesdrop. I walk outside.
1:07:48
They immediately stop talking.
1:07:49
I just go to the restroom twice just to see if I can pick up anything.
1:07:52
And then the And I come back in.
1:07:52
I'm like, I talk to our lawyer.
1:07:54
I was like, "Okay, they're calling at 750,000.
1:07:57
They're probably getting authorization to go up.
1:07:58
That was probably their max.
1:08:00
They're probably getting authorization.
1:08:01
Probably the highest they can go is a million."
1:08:03
Um and I told the like auctioneer person.
1:08:05
I was like, "No more time outs.
1:08:07
Like, that can't We can't do that again."
1:08:08
And so she they come back in, and she's like, "There's no more time outs." I'm like, "Okay, cool.
1:08:11
The pressure is on them now."
1:08:13
And bidding goes 800, 850, 900, 950.
1:08:18
When you were going when you make your bid for 900, do you say like, "Ugh." Well, that's the thing.
1:08:22
So, we'd been acting like that to be like, kidding me, guys?"
1:08:25
And then I then I told the lawyer in between "I built this thing. It's not worth that."
1:08:30
I go with I go, "We got to just act like we have an infinite bankroll so that they just feel like they can't win this auction."
1:08:37
And so I said, "As soon as they say a number, just top it.
1:08:38
Immediately top it with no hesitation.
1:08:41
Just like not like, we're here all day.
1:08:43
I I could sit I could I could go on and on and on."
1:08:45
And so that's what she did.
1:08:47
She changed up her demeanor, started doing that.
1:08:48
And basically, we got to a million.
1:08:50
And at a million, she pulls a great move.
1:08:51
She doesn't say a million. She goes, "1,025,000." To just up it.
1:08:58
Cuz you know that they were all were stopped at a million.
1:09:00
We knew they had gotten authorization for a round number.
1:09:01
So, I think it was actually 1,000,010. I think she did. She did 10,000 above.
1:09:04
And they just go, "You guys can have it. You guys can take it."
1:09:08
And they were like, "Yeah, our our our max was a million."
1:09:10
They just smacked them the [ __ ] And so we got it, and then we like came back.
1:09:17
But that was like the most high-stakes like hand of poker I've ever been involved in, basically.
1:09:20
Um All right, we'll do we'll do one more.
1:09:27
I can't read it from back here.
1:09:27
What What the questions that you told me?
1:09:30
Another one was like what is the um I don't know like what's the Oh, something that you thought you were onto something but it turned out to be completely wrong.
1:09:40
Yeah, you thought you were onto something you turned What's yours?
1:09:43
We had one when building Blab basically like when we built Blab it looked like it was taking off and this was now like four years in and imagine you're four years in and you feel like you might have just like made the next big like basically what Clubhouse and it became that's what Blab was and we started seeing this like rapid growth and people loved it and everybody felt it was new and fresh.
1:10:04
Everything else we had made people like oh this is just like Snapchat.
1:10:05
Like no matter what we did they're like this is kind of like Snapchat.
1:10:10
And we're like god damn it like the next thing we build is not going to be like Snapchat no matter what.
1:10:12
That was Blab and it takes off to 200,000 users pretty quickly gets to a million users and VC you know Founders Fund wants to invest and all this stuff and it felt like we did it like this is going to be the next social thing and we own it.
1:10:25
Like we are actually going to own one of those things.
1:10:30
And then it got to about 4 million and then it started to just we started to realize why isn't the number going up as much it's like I don't know sign ups are still up it's like oh it's super leaky the retention like the retention has been getting worse and worse.
1:10:40
It started out okay and now it's just pretty bad and this was all in the span of like like an impossible problem to solve too.
1:10:47
It's not like you do it like even if you operate at an A+ level it's just like a you just Retention is like the pro retention is the thing that's worth anything in business.
1:10:55
And retention is the thing that's also the hardest to solve because like it's like dating like you if you wanted to pick up somebody that's like just getting users like you could change the way you look you could teach you two pick up lines and like you know Yeah, but finding gets you some you know a shirt that fits you a little bit better and like you know whatever pick the booger out of your nose.
1:11:14
You can get the you can go get their number.
1:11:17
But you can't make them date you.
1:11:17
You can't make them marry you and like that's what retention is.
1:11:20
It's like are they going to marry your product or not?
1:11:23
And so once I knew that was a problem I was like oh god we tried so many things to try to fix it and it was just like not not moving cuz it's more fundamental it's like is this a thing people want to do all the time or not?
1:11:34
It's very hard to like spam them with notifications to try to get that number up.
1:11:37
So the year we sold the Hustle you know we sold in February so we had a whole year ahead of us but I think we probably would have done around 20 million in sales.
1:11:46
And I started the company wanting to hit 100 million in revenue before year 10.
1:11:52
And we sold it between four and five I think. You're four and five.
1:11:56
So we're kind of on track.
1:11:57
have got there yeah probably.
1:11:57
We could have maybe could have gotten there.
1:11:58
And I knew I could like I started the company with just an email even though people said it's stupid because I was like I remember telling you it was stupid.
1:12:06
I was like do video dude do Facebook video. Snapchat Instagram.
1:12:10
the math is such that like I'm pretty sure that like you know people are kind of dismissing this as like a hobby but look if you like just change a 10,000 person email list to like 5 million like the numbers add up to 100 million dollars.
1:12:24
Uh no one's real I don't know anyone who's ever done that but I'm pretty sure that could happen.
1:12:27
Like I understand the math and like each seller of advertising would sell 1.
1:12:31
5 million dollars of ads and there are already people that do that so if I just hire like you know 100 of them like things add up like this could all work out fine actually but I didn't truly believe my own prediction even though I knew like this list lines up.
1:12:46
could tell everybody else but telling yourself in your head is different.
1:12:49
like this works actually this works and I didn't entirely believe it and so I sold right when I got like a pretty decent offer because I wanted to secure the bag but in reality I made a mistake.
1:13:00
I didn't make a mistake cuz I actually would have done the same thing again.
1:13:03
But I could have achieved my goal. Right.
1:13:06
Now looking back at it I know Morning Brews kind of doing that right?
1:13:09
They're like 75 hundred million something like that.
1:13:10
Well they're at um they're probably 80 million in sales. Yeah so they're close.
1:13:15
like getting close and and I knew and him and I Austin are good friends now and we both talk and I'm like he's like yeah you guys actually would have been there like they're a year older than us in terms of company but like you guys actually would have been there even better because you had subscription revenue.
1:13:28
And he was like you're and he's he was like I'm actually amazing at operating things but you guys were always way better at like inventing new [ __ ] and we would just copy you and or you know he said something like that and he is really good at operating though and uh I uh that was my biggest mistake.