0:00
It started off simple.
Search this video
0:00
So, he was like, "I need a building where they had like kind of a warehouse or production."
0:03
So, he bought one building. Okay, I'll outgrow that.
0:06
Bought a second building.
0:08
And he's from this very small town, Hamilton, Missouri, I think it is.
0:09
And um so, you know, he buys two buildings, and then at some point they kind of realize, "All right, why do this with like nameless, faceless warehouses?
0:19
What if we could turn this into content or marketing?
0:23
Like the YouTube channel's working.
0:25
So, what if we do kind of YouTube behind the scenes?
0:27
And what if we make this more interesting?"
0:29
So, instead of just buying two warehouses and then just like, you know, operating in stealth, what if we just bought all this land?
0:37
And we bought all the buildings that are in this area, and we turn this into a tourist destination, a vacation, basically.
0:42
So, like it's a themed town in the middle of nowhere, but it's like the quilting Mecca, or like people call it like the Disneyland for quilters.
0:49
And there's like 12 like Main Street is all about quilts.
0:53
This is like quilt shop, quilt shop, quilt shop. All right, what up? We got uh Ben Levy here. Sam is out today.
1:10
But um my business partner, Ben.
1:10
So, we got producer Ben, who's Ben Wilson, and then we got business partner Ben, Ben Levy.
1:15
And uh Ben is here today.
1:15
We got a bunch of topics that we want to talk about, but first, welcome to the pod. Yo, what's up, Shawn? How's it going, man? I'm good.
1:25
Your your dad, who's a regular listener, is going to be pleased cuz he's going to hear you on here, and I'm sure he He always sends you like uh like a huge text message of notes every time you come on. Is that right?
1:34
Yeah, it's more like six emails.
1:35
He'll be like, "Hey, did you hear Shawn say this thing?"
1:39
Or did you hear Sam say this? Or Sou Lee say this?
1:41
And I'm like, "Love the notes, Dad."
1:46
So, you were just in San Francisco um last week, and we did a bunch of meetings, we hung out, worked a bunch, and then we hosted a meet up, we hosted a private dinner.
1:55
Um I wanted to start with that.
1:58
So, I wanted to start with give me as many nuggets of interesting things that that came up, people you met, stories you heard, products you heard about, whatever you got from your trip to San Francisco.
2:10
I'll let you take it from Take it away.
2:13
Yeah, so the first the first thing that comes to mind is one, San Francisco is awesome.
2:17
Uh, but two, went to the went to the Warriors game.
2:19
So, we went to the Warriors game on last Monday with this guy named Al Doan, who I think he's been on the pod about 9 months ago.
2:25
So, for people that don't know, Al is the founder of a quilt company, and he said one thing, so I'm sure you could talk more about Al, but I think the one thing that he said that was pretty interesting.
2:37
way, Ben just said quilt.
2:37
So, uh, cuz you said it in passing, I think people wouldn't even wouldn't even register what you just said.
2:42
Uh, and actually the the way we met Al is pretty interesting.
2:47
Patrick Campbell came on the pod, and Patrick Campbell runs like a he had ProfitWell, which like does like SaaS uh, payments uh, analytics, all that good [ __ ] So, he has data on what companies are crushing it in terms of terms of um, their subscribers and their payments.
3:03
And he had said he had told us that quilting is a huge niche, and he came on the pod, he mentioned quilting, and from that we found Al Doan, who basically runs a multi-hundred-million-dollar quilting business that he co-founded with his mom.
3:19
So, so that's the setup, but uh, continue.
3:22
Yeah, I think his mom and like his four brothers and sisters, so it's a family it's a family affair.
3:29
Uh, so we hung out with him Last time we hung out with him was Camp MFM, and I think Al was an interesting dude.
3:32
One, he's like 6'7", uh, so he like skies over you.
3:37
Every time I see him, I think he could have played in the NBA.
3:41
Uh, but he said one thing that really, you know, one, his business is doing great, but two, the thing that he said that really raised an eyebrow for me was he's in the Harvard Executive MBA program.
3:52
Uh, so most people when I when I hear the word MBA, I think immediately that it's stupid.
3:56
I just think it's a waste of money and you should go build something instead of go get an MBA, but he was like, "Yeah, I just hung out with the heir of Crystal Geyser water."
4:05
So the place of the water you know, the basically every water bottle you ever see in the airport or convenience store.
4:14
And Shawn and I were both like, "Wait, how do you know them?"
4:15
And he What what he said like I think he said it the the the woman is like, you know, basically it's an old French couple or something like that.
4:24
Like he's like, "Yeah, I was hanging out with my friend my friend. She's French.
4:26
She's She's older and blah blah blah."
4:28
And I was like, "How do you have this like old lady French friend?
4:31
Where did that come from?"
4:33
He's like, "Oh, I did this Harvard MBA thing."
4:34
And Al's like personality is not what you would connect with Harvard MBA.
4:40
First of all, he does a quilting e-commerce business.
4:44
So that's you know, like not like fancy pants, you know, Harvard thing.
4:47
Second, he's this big dude with a beard who lives in the Midwest and his he's like super funny.
4:55
He's basically like you know, Will Ferrell {slash} Vince Vaughn.
4:58
And so you just don't see him as a you know, as a suit.
5:03
But he did this suit thing and we were like, wait. Is that a good idea? Should I be doing that?
5:07
That was my takeaway from it.
5:09
Yeah, I was like, we should definitely be doing that. I looked it up.
5:13
I think it's like a $50,000 a year program.
5:14
They take like 30 people and everyone in there has a really successful business.
5:19
So definitely should be doing that.
5:21
I I think he said it's all people whose business Yeah, I think like the minimum bar is like your business does 10 million a year.
5:29
So like you know, that's like the minimum sort of like norm.
5:31
He goes, "It's people from all around the world because international people like value brands higher."
5:37
Like if you've ever seen a Louis Vuitton store that's just full of Chinese people.
5:40
It's like international people really love American luxury brands and Harvard is an American luxury brand.
5:47
And he's like, you know, it's I think he said it's three weeks a year for three years or something like that.
5:52
He's like, but dude, you make the best friends.
5:55
Like, you know, the the people who I, you know, not everybody, but he's like, I made a bunch of amazing friends through that and uh he's like, dude, I'm in the middle of nowhere, Missouri.
6:02
So, I got to do things that will connect me with other people.
6:07
And then even this trip to SF, we're like, "Oh, what are you in town for?"
6:09
He's like, "Well, I live on a farm in the Midwest, so my wife is, you know, down for me to just like take three days a month and just go to wherever, SF, New York, LA, just meet up with friends and hear what's going on in the world so I don't stay like totally disconnected in my bubble.
6:24
Yeah, so yeah, I think that was awesome that he does that.
6:26
Uh way, we should you you should tell the tell the Missouri star uh cuz you you wrote this newsletter uh on on our our personal newsletter yesterday about Al and uh you should tell the tell the highlights of his story.
6:40
Yeah, and the the thing that you didn't mention earlier about Al is the way that we met him is Patrick Campbell mentioned him and then I think I just DM'd him and I said, "Hey, do you hoop?"
6:47
And no other context and that was it and then I was like, "I've never met you, but do you want to come hang out uh in North Carolina?" It's a weird question. Why did you ask that?
6:58
Did you know he was tall or how did you or did you just take a random shot?
7:01
Like, do you play basketball?
7:01
Come to our basketball camp.
7:03
I think I looked on you I watched a YouTube video. Like, I I heard of him.
7:07
I looked at YouTube, watched like a minute video and I was like, he looks tall, seems like he has a good personality in this one-minute clip I found on YouTube.
7:15
So, hey, let's just get to business. Do you play basketball?
7:19
And then And then he was like, "Yeah, I'm I'll come."
7:22
And he was like, "I've no idea who you I I barely know who you guys are, but sure, I guess I'll fly there and see what's up."
7:29
Yeah, and he was amazing.
7:29
Um but his his story is pretty cool.
7:32
So, basically, I think the the short version, the thing you wrote in the newsletter yesterday, if people go to it's it's just my name. com, so shaanpuri.
7:39
com, you You you can sign up for the newsletter, You'll get this it'll it'll send you the story after uh a couple emails.
7:45
So, the story is his mom takes up quilting as a hobby.
7:52
And she's just having fun. She's quilting.
7:54
And then she wants to do, I guess, like whatever is a more advanced quilt where you like you got to like send your thing into a machine quilting company. Is that right? Like how does that work?
8:04
You certain certain quilts you got to send in?
8:08
Yeah, I think there's like certain things that just need the machinery.
8:09
And there was like I believe there was a 6-month wait to get some machine-built quote machine-built quilt made.
8:18
And he was like, "Oh, [ __ ] There's a business here.
8:20
How is it a 6-month wait?"
8:23
And there was just like there's too much demand.
8:24
Uh and so he's like, "Mom, forget this quilt.
8:26
Like you need to like" and they bought the machine.
8:30
They're like, "Let's create a service company where we do this cuz sounds like there's too much demand."
8:33
So, they bought the machine.
8:34
And then they make the website where they're like, "Oh, yeah.
8:37
Send us your stuff and we'll do the machine, you know, quilting thing for you."
8:42
And uh and then people started asking them for fabrics.
8:44
And so they started selling fabrics.
8:46
And people started asking them for patterns.
8:47
They started selling patterns.
8:48
Fast forward, they've built this company.
8:50
It's called Missouri Star Quilting Company.
8:54
And again, does, you know, nine figures a year in revenue.
8:56
Profitable, bootstrapped family business. Co-founded with his mom.
9:02
Uh they sell they have like 30,000 fabrics for sale now on the on the website.
9:05
And I was like, "Dude, what was the what was the turning point?
9:08
Like did this work right away?"
9:09
And what did he tell you?
9:11
He like he's like, "Well, I started I he like posted on Facebook like, 'Hey guys, made this quilt website for my mom. Check it out.' He got like two likes.
9:19
Yeah, and I and I went back and looked at all of his Facebook posts yesterday.
9:22
And it's like, "I started a quilt company, buddy."
9:24
And that was like his milestone in his life 15 years ago.
9:30
And they must have figured something out.
9:32
Well, it sounded like the thing that made it take off was he got mom to start making YouTube content.
9:39
So, he was like, "Oh, YouTube was like still pretty early at that time."
9:42
He's like, "Um all right, Mom, record videos teaching people like how to be better at quilting."
9:49
And she they now have the number one quilting channel, almost a million subscribers.
9:53
And Jenny, who's his mom, is like beloved.
9:56
Like the comments are just like, "Jenny is the best. She's so wholesome. Oh my god, I love her. She's a She's a star."
10:01
So, the YouTube thing took off, and then he went and stole the idea from Woot.
10:06
com about having one crazy daily deal.
10:09
So, something that's like 50 to 100% off.
10:11
But it's limited quantity, limited time.
10:14
And they call it the quilter daily deal or something like that.
10:18
And that trained people to just keep coming back to the website to see like, you know, what amazing deal could they get for some new pattern.
10:23
And those two things were like pretty major um you know, like a growth hacks that they pulled off to to to grow this thing.
10:32
And he might just be the most successful like daily deal site ever, right?
10:34
Like in terms of profitability.
10:36
Like Yeah, he Yeah, I don't know how big Groupon is now, but like, you know, it's it's What he did is bigger than Woot.
10:42
So, you know, that that kind of worked.
10:44
And then the other thing he told us about was his town.
10:47
So, explain this town and what he told us like he's think how he thinks about this town things.
10:52
Yeah, so basically uh when we had when he we discovered out, we realized that he had a town.
10:56
It was written about in NPR, uh a few other places.
11:00
And essentially what it is, he had he needed a bunch of production done.
11:04
So, he needed a manufacturing facility for all the quilts they were selling.
11:08
So, they bought a town basically.
11:10
That which means they own a few restaurants.
11:12
I think they own a few gas stations, and they own a few manufacturing facilities, and they made it the quilting capital of the world.
11:20
So, basically it's where people go when they want to learn and see learn and use quilt.
11:23
And they also So, he's basically like really Basically, I think he's the pioneer of towns.
11:27
I think he talked We talked in the pod a while back, but he's all into towns and he yesterday he was texting us even more ideas about towns.
11:37
it it it started off simple.
11:37
So, he was like, I need a building where they had like kind of a warehouse or production. So, bought one building. Okay, outgrew that.
11:44
Bought a second building.
11:45
And he's from this very small town, Hamilton, Missouri, I think it is.
11:47
And um so, you know, he buys two buildings and then at some point they kind of realize, all right, why do this with like nameless, faceless warehouses?
11:56
What if we could turn this into content or marketing?
12:01
Like the YouTube channel's working.
12:02
So, what if we do kind of YouTube behind the scenes?
12:04
And what if we make this more interesting?
12:05
So, instead of just buying two warehouses and then just like, you know, operating in stealth, what if we just bought all this land and we bought all the buildings that are in this area and we turn this into a tourist destination, a vacation, basically?
12:19
So, like it's a themed town in the middle of nowhere, but it's like the quilting Mecca or like people call it like the Disneyland for quilters.
12:27
And there's like twelve like Main Street, it's all about quilts.
12:31
This is like quilt shop, quilt shop, quilt shop.
12:33
And then they have like the Missouri Star one, which is the biggest store, so that's their retail flagship store.
12:38
They use this to create content, to create interest.
12:42
People then like take a a pilgrimage, a trip to go visit here if that's their main hobby.
12:46
If that's their big hobby, it's like, yo, here's the here's the vacation I want to go on.
12:50
And when they're there, they also have a man What is it called? Man's Land?
12:54
It's basically like if you're the dude who got dragged to this quilting vacation, they have one area called Man's Land, which is like really comfy recliner chairs, TVs, food, and it's just like, yeah, you hang out over here and watch football and let her, you know, let let like grandma go crazy at the the the quilt shops.
13:14
And so, creating that town, I think is kind of amazing.
13:18
He said that they have 100,000 tourists come there every year, which is which is, you know, still kind of relatively small, but he's like, yeah, dude, we just need like a developer to build a hotel.
13:28
Like there's just no place to stay."
13:30
And he's like, you know, nobody knows about this area, but I'm really he's really bullish on turning the the the sort of the cost center into a marketing a marketing tool.
13:41
And I think that was really, really smart.
13:42
And what I wanted to tell everyone about the town you were thinking about yesterday? Well, we asked him.
13:48
We were like, "Dude, that's I was like, dude, that's genius. What else would you do?" He goes, "Got it. Babyville USA." I was like, "What?"
13:54
And he's like So, he's got four kids or he's about to have his fourth, I think.
13:59
And uh And he's like, "Yeah, basically, I think you could make a town for all things baby.
14:07
So, let's say you're a pregnant mom or you just um you just delivered.
14:11
You're in your maybe you have a newborn or a 1-year-old, a 2-year-old.
14:13
So, most Traveling is hard, first of all, uh for either pregnant late pregnancy or or you know, early kids.
14:24
Um And nothing is optimized for them.
14:25
Like even places like Disneyland and like places that are like kid-friendly, it's like ages three and up.
14:32
Really is like what's what's like acceptable and useful.
14:37
And so, he's like, "Dude, if we made this town where you could come and it's like some combination of like just a crazy spa for mom. Mom deserves it.
14:43
Like she is her body's going through a lot.
14:48
She's not sleeping, not all this stuff. Let's take care of her.
14:52
Let's have the best sort of most baby-friendly places, whether it's restaurants, retail, whatever it is.
14:59
Let's basically let you try any baby product.
15:01
So, like there's like the the mass stroller store where it's like you're going to get the best stroller.
15:07
We're going to it's like you have the consultants there.
15:11
You have a testing ground.
15:13
You know, this is where you're going to find the best products and you get to test them.
15:16
You get to learn about them.
15:18
And it's like a it's like an expo for all things baby.
15:20
So, you're going to sell a ton of product.
15:21
You're going to uh provide a vacation or a rest.
15:24
You're going to be the most baby-proofed and baby-friendly.
15:29
Everything is going to be optimized for that type of clientele.
15:33
And you can also do a bunch of fun things.
15:34
So, he's like, "Dude, stroller races?"
15:37
Uh you know, he's like, you know, we could He's like, "This would be such amazing like funny content uh that you could do around this whole thing baby."
15:44
So, he's like, "Babyville."
15:44
And uh and it's it's kind of true cuz like we just hired a guy and he's like, "Oh yeah, can I start after this date because I'm uh I bought my wife a a push present."
15:55
And a push present for those who don't know is like, you know, after you deliver, you basically It's like, "Here's a gift or a vacation um you know, to celebrate, you know, putting yourself through one of the hardest things ever, which is like, you know, labor."
16:07
And um and so, I think baby moons are a thing, push presents are a thing.
16:12
I think there's already a whole bunch of like the culture around this stuff.
16:15
Uh and so, if you made the Instagram-worthy town for that, I think that could be big.
16:21
I'm I'm really hoping he does this cuz uh I want this.
16:24
Yeah, and I want the baby combine.
16:24
I feel like I'm so competitive and so many of my friends are like, you know, I don't care about my how I stack up to people my age, but I care like, you know, what percentile is my son in height and weight and how fast is he and is he crawling?
16:40
I remember when when when my son was like one, we would just watch other kids on Instagram and decide who looks like they're in better shape. Yeah, just compare.
16:48
Yeah, so I want to I think that's a great idea and I still Yeah, I think that's a great vocabulary contest, baby crawling contest. Yeah.
16:58
A like crazy horoscope thing where we we we give you a scroll that tells you the future of your baby for for $100.
17:03
I I can think of a million things to sell in this town. Yeah, I love that. And like what else? So, we had Al. We go to the game. What else did you got?
17:13
Uh another guy that I met up with was this guy Justin Callback.
17:17
Uh so, for people that don't know Justin Caldbeck, I think he's one of the best angel investors of all time.
17:21
He led the Snapchat seed deal, Pinterest seed deal.
17:28
He does have kind of a checkered past.
17:30
So, I think he was essentially canceled.
17:33
So, he was at White Speed, was basically canceled around the 3 to 4 years ago, and now he's writing seed checks as a as a GP.
17:43
So, I basically met up with this guy, had had talked to him a bunch on Twitter, and he said a few things about investing that I thought were particularly interesting and particularly worth thinking about.
17:50
The first was a question, which was like, are you a good investor?
17:56
And what's your answer to that, Sean?
17:57
Like, do you think you're a good investor?
18:00
I think I I think two things.
18:04
You can't know yet, so I can't say with anything definitive because you only get measured, I don't know, 7 years after you start investing.
18:10
So, the honest answer is I don't actually know.
18:15
I do think I will do well with investing because I have a good network.
18:20
I have good judgment when it comes to what startups have legs and what don't.
18:25
Um and uh and like, you know, I'm aggressive.
18:29
So, like, you know, I what I make what I lack in IQ, I make up for in like guts.
18:35
And so, um so, I think those three will result in uh in a great outcome for me.
18:41
And then the other question that he kind of asked is like, can you defend What did you say?
18:44
He said that, by the way.
18:45
That's a great question to ask somebody to be like, are you even good at what you do?
18:50
Is it is a fantastic question. What did you say?
18:52
Did you Did you Did you butt clench, and did you know what to say in that moment?
18:56
Uh I said I don't think I'm great.
18:58
I think I could be great if I try.
19:00
He said, that's what everyone says.
19:02
Uh I said, yeah, but I think I could.
19:04
Uh And then he was like, well, okay, answer me these questions then.
19:10
Can you defend every deal that you've kind of pushed the table for without saying these two words, great founder?
19:18
He was basically like, I hate when someone tells me they're investing because it's a great founder, because that's the That's something that nobody can argue you on, even if they know the person cuz they're just like, I can argue you on market, I can argue you on product, I can argue you on you know, 10 other things, but I can't argue you on great founder.
19:36
So, can you defend every deal you've done recently without saying those two words?
19:43
Uh, what's your answer to that question?
19:46
Uh, can I defend every deal?
19:48
Uh, yes, I can explain why we did every deal.
19:50
Would I defend every deal?
19:50
No, because I think we made mistakes along the way, and we did deals or deal sizes or at valuations that knowing what I know today, I could say, you know, that that wasn't a good decision, you know, uh, going back I with the benefit of hindsight, I would think about that differently now.
20:08
But I think that's natural.
20:10
Like, there's no way that you could get into anything as a, uh, you know, start a new activity, new job, new hobby, whatever it is, and from day one be flawless. Hell no, right?
20:21
Now, could you but should you have a, um, a line of thinking on everything you did? Yeah.
20:27
Here was my line of thinking.
20:29
Was my line of thinking always correct? No.
20:31
Uh, here's some errors I made.
20:31
And I I could tell you specifically like three errors I made.
20:36
One, I would say, is the, um, oh, but I love this business.
20:40
I hate the valuation, but I love this business.
20:41
Um, I think that is a is a pretty common mistake.
20:46
And even though it sometimes works out, like, um, you know, we invested in a company that was valued at 200 million.
20:55
I invested because I had been trying to invest since the seed round, but I hadn't gotten in, so I kind of had I was like, you know, anchored to this lower price.
21:03
And now it's a multi-billion dollar company, so our our investment's still up, I don't know, 40x.
21:06
So, it's a great investment from a return point of view.
21:11
But honestly, it was a pretty dumb investment.
21:12
Like my only out uh was that this thing would this company would go from 200 million to a multi-billion dollar company, even though at the 200 million I thought it was overvalued based on the way the revenue was.
21:25
And I think even though I think I got lucky on that more so than that was the correct decision.
21:29
Um and I think that's the case for like a bunch of things I did where the difference in your outcome when you invest at a $8 million valuation versus 18 versus 50 versus 80 um is is just really really profound and the better move is to stay disciplined.
21:47
Don't chase the higher valuations.
21:49
Just pass even on a good deal because you just want to deploy all your dollars in at the lower valuations so that you can have when you hit, you hit super super big.
21:57
Um you know, we did another investment that was at a $5 million valuation and now it's at, I don't know, 300 300 400 million.
22:07
And uh it it may be it may end up at the same multiple as the first deal I talked about, but the second one was actually using sound logic and judgment and the first one was uh chasing uh you know, something that I wanted.
22:19
And you know, I only had one possible way to to to get a good outcome out of that.
22:27
Yeah, I think that Yeah, I think I think that makes sense and I think he thinks similarly.
22:30
Like I think, you know, the only thing that he said uh that I intuitively knew, but never really thought about is how many deals he looks at a week.
22:37
You know, he's talking to 100 to 150 founders every single week.
22:39
Which I think is just like a to do maybe one deal a month.
22:46
At most, so maybe he's doing one out of 600 things he talks to.
22:48
Um and the thing that he said that I thought was interesting about that was uh you know, you kind of notice what good or great is.
22:57
You know, most there's a ton of people you meet that are in the good category in terms of founders, right?
23:02
It's like really smart people building interesting things, great backgrounds, but there's very, very few people you meet that are great.
23:10
So, I think that was like a learning for me, which is like really being disciplined to only do deals when you think they're great, which I think applies to more than just angel investing.
23:18
Kind of applies to everything.
23:19
It's like most of the time you know what great is, but you just get impatient and you go for good. Right.
23:27
And I think his his portfolio is pretty nuts, by the way.
23:29
Grubhub, Snap, OpenDoor, Stitch Fix, whatnot, Imperfect Foods, uh uh Boom Aerospace, you know, these are these are some some pretty solid ones, especially if he got in early.
23:43
Yeah, and I think, you know, I think obviously he was canceled there me too for a reason, so like I don't I don't I can't say he's like the best dude personally, but obviously he's a great investor. Yeah.
23:53
Yeah, you know, it's hard to know what happened in certain situations and I don't know.
23:58
I try to for better or for worse, my thought when I meet people is when somebody tells me how great somebody is, I don't assume that they're perfect.
24:06
And when somebody tells me how horrible somebody is, I don't think that they're evil and terrible.
24:11
I sort of take people at face value, so I meet them, I you know, ask them about their situation, I hear the story, and then I see how they treat me and I I observe how they treat other people around them, and I kind of just use that as my filter rather than um getting caught up in this sort of stuff.
24:29
And I I also have friends that I think are like, you know, um great in one area of their life and I can learn a lot from them in that area, you know, whether it's investing or business or fitness or whatever, and they're not so great in other areas of their life.
24:42
Rather than sit there and judge them, I just try to I if I find somebody that's great at one area of their life, I just focus on that and I try to learn from them on that and I move on, you know, I don't really get too caught up in the the full picture.
24:54
Yeah, 100% and then in terms of you know, the other thing I I took away from San Francisco was There was one other thing that we did that I took a lot away from, which was We had a small dinner with about 10 people.
25:05
Uh had no idea really what to expect.
25:07
Like I I went in cold, basically knowing none of these people.
25:09
Uh So, Sean, you want to set the table for what that dinner was like?
25:13
Yeah, we hosted a dinner at f.
25:15
ink, uh which has a great office in um in Fort Mason in San Francisco.
25:23
Uh we invited about 12 13 people, something like that.
25:28
Uh I would say some of them knew each other, but most people didn't.
25:29
So, it's one of these like San Fran very San Francisco things.
25:32
It's like one person curates the guest list, and they're basically saying, "Trust me, these people are cool."
25:39
And then everybody else just goes on that on that assumption.
25:40
And if you ever violate that, it's like, "Dude, I went to this one dinner this guy hosted, and then people were not cool."
25:44
You're just like, "All right, they're out."
25:46
But as long as you can successfully curate this, you can sort of build a a really cool community and brand around it.
25:50
So, inviting some people uh conversation was basically I think, you know, I saw your face at one point cuz in the most San Francisco thing possible, the conversation quickly shifted to like drugs, but like not like uh party drugs, but like um you know, people in San Francisco love this like, you know, sort of like, "Oh, I microdose this thing, or I do ayahuasca, or I do DMT, or I do um mushrooms, you know, for productivity."
26:20
And like all this other stuff.
26:20
Like, "I do this instead of therapy.
26:21
I do this in addition to the therapy.
26:24
I do this in addition to or to help my productivity."
26:29
And it's like, "Bro, can you just drink coffee?
26:32
Like, why do we have to do all this? Are you sure?"
26:33
That's like, you know, my feeling cuz I'm a I'm like a uh more straight-arrow guy.
26:38
Like, I just I don't do I don't do any of this stuff.
26:41
But that was the you know, that was pretty heavy part of the conversation at the beginning, and then there was, you know, it transitioned from there.
26:46
But what was your take on the the drug convo?
26:51
Yeah, I mean, you know, I've been someone that's all I haven't done anything, but I'm not like incredibly opposed to it.
26:56
I you know, my take was just seemed like that's what most people were focused on like uh every most of the people in that room were really successful and the thing they were focused on was figuring out in some ways how to be happier.
27:08
Uh like that's kind of what it boiled down to is like how do I be happier and how do I have better relationships with the people that matter.
27:15
Uh and it's always odd to be in you know, I always find it kind of odd to be in those rooms where everyone seems like they have everything they possibly want, right?
27:24
Like I'm probably the least wealthy person in that room, the least well-known person in that room and uh yeah, so I find that interesting that people are resorting to that type of thing and maybe there's a lot of great to be had.
27:38
Uh the other thing that I took away from it is everyone talked about this thing called touchy-feely, which is a thing that happened.
27:45
I think it's like a Stanford class where basically you boil down leadership class.
27:50
So yeah, so everyone was talking about how to be a better leader uh and how to really connect with people.
27:55
And the one thing I wrote down in my phone was uh I'm an [ __ ] So I remember it like basically the their their take was this is like really what all these things boil down to is recognizing that you're the [ __ ] at every situation.
28:09
Uh then I remember afterwards I was like I don't know, maybe I'm just an [ __ ] for to everyone for these kind of reasons.
28:14
I think the line was uh every great marriage comes down to one realization.
28:21
I am an [ __ ] And once you realize that and you accept that, it humbles you, but it also uh it it it sort of like you understand the other person's side cuz damn, they're dealing with this [ __ ] And I thought that was like a really I don't know if I believe that, but I thought it was a great line.
28:38
Um there was one part on the So the the the drugs part I thought was interesting cuz it was like some of these things that are taboo today become very normal 10 years from now in Silicon Valley is usually at the the front of that curve.
28:51
And you're right, it was stunning.
28:53
I mean, this is a very successful group of people.
28:54
There There wasn't a person in that room who wasn't wealthy, successful, all that stuff. And I would say what?
29:03
40% of the people at that table had experimented with some version of a like I don't know what you would call like hallucinogenic type of drug in order to try to be happier, uh you know, happier, less anxious, or better in their relationships.
29:16
And um that's just a crazy ratio to me.
29:19
You know, that's a that's a wild ratio.
29:22
That's a very San Francisco uh a ratio that you get.
29:25
And sometimes San Francisco is just off the reser- off the reservation, and sometimes they're ahead of the curve.
29:31
And it's pretty hard to figure out which one's which.
29:33
You know, it's just These are the same people that in, you know, 20 2012 were were talking about Bitcoin.
29:39
And this is the same group of people that, you know, um whatever.
29:43
They're like, you know, experimenting with AI 4 or 5 years ago.
29:48
Um you know, so they are the hard part is you can't write it off because often these are people that are that are right in a bunch of areas.
29:54
Yeah, the touchy-feely thing I thought was cool cuz they said that one framework for communication.
29:59
Uh I think that's probably worth worth saying, which was uh So, they're talking about how great this touchy-feely thing is.
30:04
And of course, my natural question was like, wait, so like like what?
30:09
Like what what did you like what's an example?
30:10
You're saying how great this was and how it changed everything for you. Like what's an example?
30:13
And uh our friend Siki uh Siki Chen, who now runs Runway, gave this great uh framework.
30:21
He goes, they teach you that there's What was it?
30:25
Five layer five layers of communication.
30:28
And so, let me see if I can remember this off top of my head.
30:29
So, he's like, the first one it when you deal with people, you're going to be at one of these five layers.
30:33
So, it's like uh level one or layer one is ritual.
30:35
This is like, you know, you walked you're walking in the office. Hi. Hey. Hi.
30:40
you know, hey, what's up? What's up?
30:43
You know, like just like it's automated.
30:46
It's not like it's just a ritualistic thing.
30:50
You're just quick a quick hello.
30:52
Then there's number two, which is extended ritual, which is hey, how's it going? How's your day? Uh you know, what's new?
30:57
These things that you you say it's an extended version of the ritual.
31:01
You don't really care or you're not really asking the question, not really expecting anything.
31:07
Nor are they really telling you what's going on in their life.
31:10
It's sort of this uh like just this dance we we do.
31:14
The third level is you're talking about some content, but it's surface content.
31:19
So, at the third level, surface content is you're talking about a project.
31:22
You're talking about um something you're working on or something you're doing, uh something that's happening.
31:29
You're talking about the game.
31:30
You're talking about the you know, the project, whatever it is.
31:34
Um and what he basically said was like, you know, most of our communication just happens at these three levels every day.
31:39
But the problem with it is um imagine in every interaction there's two tracks.
31:44
So, on the on the your left hand is the track of like the content of the conversation and on the right is the relationship between the two people.
31:53
And at these first three layers, the content might be moving, but the relationship is not moving.
31:58
Uh relationship the relationship uh is not being invested in.
32:00
And so, if you want to be somebody who's better at building relationships, like you don't you need to get out of just these first three layers and get to number four five four and five.
32:09
Four is feelings about the content.
32:09
So, how do you feel about what's going on, right?
32:16
Uh I feel stressed about this project.
32:18
I feel worried about this thing.
32:20
I feel so excited about um this game tonight, you know, whatever it is.
32:24
And you're sharing a little bit about what's inside for you, how you're feeling about the thing, not just talking about the thing.
32:30
So, that's that's better.
32:32
That moves it forward cuz you're there's some vulnerability there.
32:35
And then the last one is feelings about each other, which is Dude, you know, I felt disappointed when I expected this was going to happen, but actually this happened.
32:45
Or I felt annoyed, or I felt frustrated that we keep ending up in this same loop.
32:52
And being able to share that is obviously the the the the saying how you feel about the other person.
32:57
And I said negative ones, but it could also be the other way.
32:59
Like, you know, I feel you know, I love working with you.
33:01
I love or I you know, I had so much fun.
33:04
I felt you know, tons of joy when we were doing XYZ.
33:09
So, you can sharing how you actually feel about the other person is the hardest one, but when you do it, that's what moves that other track the furthest.
33:16
And and they talked about like the little nuances.
33:19
Like, instead of saying I feel like blank blank blank.
33:21
Anytime you say like, you took it away from how you actually feel.
33:26
It's just I feel blank, or I felt blank.
33:31
Um is the right way to do it.
33:31
So, I thought that was pretty cool because that stuff it's hard to learn anywhere, like school or whatever.
33:35
And it sounded like that you know, you talked about the Harvard Business School thing.
33:38
That was one note, and the other one was the Stanford touchy-feely thing as like, oh, that sounds pretty cool.
33:44
I should check that out or you know, I want to get better at that.
33:49
This data is wrong every freaking time.
33:52
Have you heard of HubSpot?
33:54
HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated.
33:55
Well, I can see the client's whole history, calls, support tickets, emails, and here's a task from 3 days ago I totally missed. HubSpot, grow better.
34:08
And and you told a great story basically about your experience doing that same thing at the prison yard.
34:14
You should tell that story.
34:17
Yeah, so All right, so once once upon a time I I get an email from my boss, and this is a guy Michael Birch.
34:25
So, he was basically the the main investor in our company, and he's kind of like my mentor.
34:31
When I moved to Silicon Valley, I moved here to work with Michael Michael uh Birch.
34:34
He built multiple successful internet companies.
34:36
That's what I wanted to do.
34:38
So, I was like, I want to learn from this guy.
34:41
And um I always I don't know if other people feel this way, but whenever I'm around somebody who I really admire or I really like like I feel an intense pressure to um just like do good in that do good in that setting.
34:55
Like I just always wanted to like put my best foot forward.
34:56
Uh if it was a meeting, I wanted to look smart.
35:00
If it was a a social situation, I wanted to be Mr.
35:03
Charisma and like be the be the They brought me to this event, I want to have the best conversation.
35:08
And sometimes that's okay, that's natural, but often it felt forced and it was just a lot of stress.
35:13
So, anyways, he's he emails me this thing says, "Hey, come with me to this uh this I did this event and I want you to come to it.
35:19
You know, don't ask too many questions, just come."
35:22
He's like, "It's Friday at this time, just show up." And so, I show up.
35:26
And what he signed me up for was uh this group called Inside Circle, I think it's called.
35:32
And basically, they take a group of kind of like Silicon Valley CEO type people, a group of men from from the business world, and they bring them inside of Folsom Prison.
35:41
And they take you to meet inmates who are uh in prison for life.
35:47
So, they have a life sentence.
35:49
And um so, you go to this sort of like I don't know if it's maximum security whatever, but you go to this like intense prison and you're going to meet with people who are in prison for life.
35:58
If you're in there for life, you did something that's you know, murder or you know, sort of equivalent.
36:01
And and so, I'm like, "Oh, shit."
36:04
And he's like, "Yeah, it's a two-day event.
36:05
It's like an overnight event."
36:07
I was like, "What the hell?"
36:09
Uh all right, thanks Michael. So, I go to this thing.
36:11
We walk in and um I don't I still don't really know what to expect.
36:15
I'm like, are we giving a talk?
36:17
Is this like an an entrepreneurship talk?
36:18
Like what are what are we trying to do here?
36:20
So, I'm prepared for like some presentation or something like that. But instead, we walk in.
36:27
Uh the guys all get uncuffed. We all walk in together.
36:31
And, um, we all sit in a circle.
36:31
And I'm like, oh, this is a feelings thing.
36:33
Oh, [ __ ] This is like, you know, this is like AA or something.
36:37
I don't know what I got myself into. But my brain is racing.
36:42
And when the guys were walking in, uh, you know, I'm I'm like kind of like scoping everybody out.
36:47
And there was one guy who walked in that just stood out right away.
36:50
He was wearing sunglasses and he had a cane. But he wasn't blind.
36:55
So, I was like, I don't know how this dude has this privilege to like be able to have a stick that he walks around with and sunglasses.
37:04
But this guy's got clout.
37:04
Immediately you could tell.
37:06
And he was the only guy who was like not smiling, not talking to anybody.
37:10
He had like two guys around him who like kind of escorted him to his seat, brought him a a cup of water.
37:14
And I was like, oh, [ __ ] This is the guy who like runs the prison. Got it.
37:17
I've seen movies about this [ __ ] I know how to like spot the alpha. This guy's the alpha.
37:24
And so, the event basically starts as follows.
37:27
They go, "Break up into like smaller circles.
37:30
Uh, you know, groups of six.
37:30
And, um, and you know, this guy who's been here, he's the facilitator. He'll he'll begin."
37:36
So, break up into groups of six.
37:38
Of course, I get paired in a group with this the tough guy.
37:39
And, um, I'm like, all right.
37:42
What do I have to do here?
37:44
How What do I need again?
37:44
What am I trying to trying to do to like, you know, do well in this situation?
37:49
And basically, the group was sort of like what the the activity was sort of like you just Each person goes around, you say what's on your mind.
37:56
First guy gets up and he tells this super intense situation that he's in.
38:01
He's like, uh, right now I'm feeling, um, frustrated, man. I'm feeling pissed. Feeling angry.
38:09
I'm like, oh, [ __ ] He's like, "I'm feeling angry because, uh, my daughter who's on the outside told me that, you know, she had been, uh, sexually assaulted.
38:18
And I'm pissed that I'm not there to beat that guy's ass and then you know protect her.
38:24
And and so this guy tells us like really intense thing.
38:27
And then I'm like oh [ __ ] And then the next guy says an even more intense thing.
38:31
And third guy says this really traumatic ex- he's working through this really traumatic experience.
38:37
By the third person I'm no longer listening.
38:39
I'm in my head and I'm I'm doing the math.
38:42
I'm like okay I'm three people away. What am I going to say?
38:45
And like I mean look at me I'm wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt right now.
38:49
I'm like you know My parents love me. My life is pretty good. I'm healthy. I'm happy.
38:52
And all of a sudden I'm like god damn it.
38:56
Parents why did you have to love me?
38:58
I don't have [ __ ] to say here.
38:59
Like I I couldn't you have just had a drug problem and made this a little easier for me.
39:02
Like what am I supposed to say that's not going to stand out like a sore thumb.
39:08
Like I can't be like the biggest problem in my life right now is we have this deadline for this thing we're trying to this new feature we're building by Friday and I I just don't know if we're going to hit it guys.
39:16
Like you know that's it's not going to fly here.
39:19
So I'm like [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] I'm panicking and I'm not listening at this point.
39:23
It It keeps going around the circle.
39:24
Finally it gets to me and I'm like okay I just got to tell this like this kind of like this the most traumatic thing that's happened in my life. Whatever.
39:32
I guess I'm going to say it to these strangers and I'm going to kind of ham it up a little bit and and really like you know just try to deliver this.
39:38
I essentially start performing.
39:40
And so I I tell this thing about some family thing that happened in my past and I'm like doing these dramatic pauses and I'm like you know not like pretending to cry but I'm definitely pretending to feel it a little more than I was actually feeling it in that moment.
39:54
I tell the story and I told it good. I'm a good storyteller.
39:58
And so I'm like I brought my A game cuz I was under pressure. I told a great story.
40:04
And I'm like all right thanks you know thanks you all for listening and on to the next.
40:07
And then the hard guy goes Man that's some [ __ ] And I was like oh no. What? What's happening? He goes and I go "What?"
40:17
And he goes, "Man, that's some [ __ ] man.
40:19
You're just saying that shit."
40:21
I go, "No, that really happened."
40:21
He goes, "I don't care if that happened."
40:24
He goes, "You ain't really feeling that."
40:25
And so, this guy basically instantly sniffed me out in a way that very few people can really tell you know, when I'm BS-ing like that.
40:34
And now I'm feeling like, am I going to get beat up?
40:36
Like, what's going to happen here?
40:37
This is a worst-case scenario.
40:39
The hard guy is like just like went out of nowhere.
40:42
He didn't say this to anybody else in the group, but for me, he's like, "That's some [ __ ] man." And he was like out. He was like out on me.
40:50
And he goes, he said something.
40:50
He goes like, um He goes, I go, "What do you want me to say?"
40:55
He goes, he goes, "I want you to say what's on your mind.
40:57
Uh well, you know, what you're really feeling."
41:00
And I go, "I'm feeling nervous." He goes, "Why?"
41:02
I go, "Cuz, um I want you to like me."
41:07
Like, the truth came out.
41:10
I was like, "I want you to like me."
41:12
Which was It was the honest and such And I'm like, "Oh my god, what did I just say?"
41:17
The lamest possible thing one man could say to another.
41:25
And he paused and he just goes, "That's your truth." And he like accepted it.
41:29
He goes, "That's your truth, man."
41:30
And he got up and he like got it and he like came up to me, whatever, and we like, whatever.
41:35
Uh he's like, you know, "I I appreciate you for telling your truth."
41:38
And he hugged me and he sat back down and I was like, "What just happened?" He's laughing now.
41:43
This guy hadn't cracked a smile the whole time.
41:44
And he just thought it was so funny that obviously he scared me shitless, which he did, and uh he got me to break, which he did, but it also showed me like like you should just uh you know, lead with the truth.
41:55
It's a lot easier than uh trying to perform.
41:59
But, uh yeah, that was my like touchy-feely uh touchy-feely like intense experience.
42:05
Yeah, that's basically what touchy-feely is, right?
42:06
It's just like trying to get to the core of what you're actually feeling or thinking, right? And sharing it.
42:12
Yeah, I I mean I don't know.
42:12
I haven't done it, but it does seem like it's about being a little more more honest, more authentic and less of the surface level autopilot [ __ ] that like we get used to doing kind of in the real world.
42:25
Um All right, what else we got?
42:26
So that was your San Francisco trip. Any other big ones?
42:30
Otherwise, let's do a couple of cool ideas.
42:33
The last one from San Francisco is uh the other person that came to dinner was this guy named Kendall.
42:36
So he bought the Milk Road uh with Mike.
42:38
Uh so Milk Road is a crypto newsletter that Shawn and I started and sold.
42:43
And I think from I worked with them for 3 months pretty hands-on.
42:48
Every time I see him, it makes me think of this, which is, you know, instead of asking what would she just do, I ask what would Mikey Kendall do?
42:56
Uh And they do two things really well that I try to embody whenever I ask that question, which is like one one Kendall himself is really good at spotting an opportunity.
43:04
So he's basically he's thinking and fishing all day to find what they should go attack.
43:11
And then Mike is really good at consistent intensity.
43:13
Uh so what I mean by that is let's say you're trying to figure out Facebook ads.
43:17
Every single day for 10 hours, he'd be looking at it, try to see what's working, what's not, and doubling down instead of being like, "Oh, Facebook's working.
43:27
I'm going to go work on Pinterest now.
43:29
I'm going to go stand up a Twitter ad."
43:31
So I think when I saw Kendall, it just reminded me like be more of Kendall and Mike uh in anything cuz that's a winning combination to be like great at spotting things.
43:41
And then once he spots something they want, like take in incredible intensity to get it done.
43:49
Yeah, so these guys each have basically, you know, Kendall's built and sold companies for something like just under a hundred million dollars, two companies.
43:57
Um Mike's last company I think sold for nearly two hundred million dollars.
44:00
So obviously very successful.
44:02
But when we met them, you know, I always look for, okay, what what was it about this person?
44:08
What what contributed to their outsized outcome?
44:12
Cuz usually the [ __ ] ain't an accident.
44:13
Uh you know, we always say you got to have some attributes.
44:17
So it's like what are the attributes that this person had that led them to that?
44:21
Some people it's they're amazing engineers. Okay, great.
44:25
They built some crazy [ __ ] Some people it's like um they're amazing investors.
44:30
They are great at spotting opportunities um and and whatever.
44:32
Some people they're great um sales people.
44:37
You know, they're they're this guy could sell ice to an Eskimo.
44:39
I can see how they were able to grow their business really fast.
44:43
Uh so this person, you know, somebody's really high IQ.
44:45
They're they're just a super super smart.
44:46
They, you know, they they built this thing that I could barely understand half the words about, you know, but they understand that industry and they they navigated it.
44:55
With Mike and Kendall, I felt like with Kendall I was like, you wouldn't want to compete with this guy because he's just going to figure out the loophole in the game.
45:02
Like he's going to figure out the cheat code in the game.
45:05
He's going to figure out, oh, in Mario, you run onto this block that you just hold down and then you fall behind the screen and you run and then you get the magic flute that lets you skip nine levels.
45:14
And I feel like that's Kendall.
45:16
Kendall will find the magic flute that lets you skip levels, whereas you're sitting there trying to beat every single level and he he was just like, no, that sounds painful.
45:23
I'm going to find, you know, I I think I heard or you know, there's got to be this like solution where I can get ahead faster. What is that?
45:32
Who's making the most money and then how do I do what they're doing?
45:34
So he's he's good at sniffing out that thing.
45:36
And Mike is like um Mike is smart, but he's not like he's not like he's the smartest dude I've ever met, but he is one of the most intense dudes I've ever met.
45:45
Like uh we'll have a meeting and then we'll go out for drinks, but somehow in between he ships like a a notion doc with all of the action items tagged and like referenced uh cuz he's like, well, obviously that was a good plan.
46:01
We should write it down and then do it.
46:02
And I'm like, yeah, well, don't say it like it's common sense.
46:06
Like, you know, uh we're going to get a little distracted over here and we're going to, you know, we'll we'll we'll stretch it out, we'll procrastinate a little bit.
46:12
And he's like, well, why would you procrastinate?
46:14
Just do the whole thing right away.
46:16
It's like, I don't know, cuz I'm not you. I'm not a machine. And he's a machine.
46:20
And so, I think it's really useful to just be around somebody like that.
46:24
And I think we had this theory when we sold the Milk Road to them cuz we were considering different offers and it was like, I don't know, dude.
46:29
I think we're not It's hard to put a price on we're going to get to hang out with these guys who are going to make us better as entrepreneurs. That's a factor.
46:35
And so, yeah, I think we've noticed this in a bunch of people as we meet people.
46:41
Me and Ben always call each other and debrief after meetings.
46:46
And I think one of the more common ones is they have this like intensity is often the most common trait that we're seeing in these successful people cuz they're so different in all these other ways.
46:57
But, the one thing they have is like, once they see an opportunity, they're pretty effing relentless and focused on doing it.
47:04
They don't procrastinate. They don't wait around.
47:06
They don't, you know, half-do things or quarter-do things. They like overdo things.
47:12
And they do it with it like the intensity knob is is cranked past the 10.
47:17
They broke the knob and it's on 12.
47:21
I feel like that's been common for a bunch of people that we've we've hung out with over the last few years. Yeah.
47:25
Yeah, and I think like now that I see great, I'm like, okay, I wasn't great. I can be great. Yeah, he's great. Right. Right. That's true.
47:34
The other one that was funny was uh we bumped into Rahul Ligma at the Warriors game.
47:41
So, if people don't remember this, when Elon bought Twitter, there was this guy that went and was standing outside the Twitter office with a giant cardboard box and he was like, yeah, I'm a data science engineer at Twitter. I got fired.
47:55
Yeah, came in, he fired me.
47:57
And you know, and then the reporters were like, "Ooh, tell us, you know, what what are your thoughts on Elon?
48:03
And and how does it feel to have this?"
48:05
And he's like, you know, he said like So, this guy didn't work at Twitter. It was a giant troll.
48:10
Uh and he's friends with some friends that we have.
48:12
And he he had sent a text like an hour earlier being like, "Dude, there's hella people outside of Twitter.
48:17
I'm just going to take a box and pretend I got fired. You want to come?"
48:22
And him and his buddy went, took an empty cardboard box, and tricked reporters from CNBC and all these places.
48:28
There's all these articles about with the these these guys featured.
48:31
He said his name was Rahul Ligma, as in, you know, Ligma these nuts.
48:35
And uh and like, you know, his other guy, Daniel Johnson.
48:37
So, it was Ligma and Johnson who were pretending to be to be fired.
48:40
And so, they they kind of went viral in Silicon Valley as like Silicon Valley loves when people you know, trick the media or beat the media or point out that the media is stupid.
48:49
Uh and the media loves the opposite.
48:51
They love to point out when Silicon Valley is stupid and overrated and over hyped and over funded and all this stuff.
48:56
It's like a little war that goes on.
48:58
Um and so, Rahul was like, he won he won a key battle in that war.
49:03
And so, we're at the game.
49:03
I'm like, "Dude, that's that's the guy.
49:04
That's that He Again, he's a random engineer, startup founder that nobody knew like, you know, a few months ago.
49:11
And now, he was sitting courtside at the Warriors game with two like billionaires."
49:15
And he was just hanging out.
49:18
And I was like, "You know, this guy probably went to college, studied hard, spent 150k getting a degree, you know, was trying to make his startup successful.
49:29
And the thing that like catapulted like at a random inflection point in his life that catapulted him was this random troll he decided to do.
49:36
And I think that's just kind of amazing and very uh I don't know, there's a lesson to be learned in there.
49:41
What what was your reaction to that?
49:42
Yeah, one I thought the troll was incredible.
49:44
Like, I think when you know, I'm not an anti-big media guy, but I have seen, you know, when you're on the inside of a story and what they you know, how they spin it uh to make a great headline.
49:56
So I have one great troll.
49:56
By the way, the best part of the troll, he's holding up a Michelle Obama book.
50:00
It It was a cardboard box and he had a the Michelle Obama book and then they go, "What do you think about you know, getting fired after Elon?
50:08
You know, is is was that right?"
50:09
And he goes, "This would have never happened under Michelle Obama." Which makes no sense. But it's so funny. Yeah.
50:16
And they didn't somehow pick up on that that this guy is just a you know, this guy's lying. Yeah, so good.
50:23
I think it's just like do things that make no sense.
50:25
Like I think a lot of a lot of stuff I try to do like makes no sense why you would ever do it.
50:32
You can't like map it to anything going forward.
50:34
You're just like, "Oh, it sounds fun and funny. So [ __ ] it. Like let's do it."
50:40
Yeah, we've talked about that before.
50:42
The do cool [ __ ] budget, which is do you have a budget of both money and time that you allocate towards things that don't have a clear ROI except for that sounds fun or like do that would be hilarious or that would be that that's amusing or I don't know.
50:55
Like I've never done that before.
50:59
And I think you know, the way Google had Google had 20% time where basically if you worked at Google, you could spend 20% of your time on anything that you thought would just be cool for Google.
51:09
So they you know, they're like, "Hey, we're going to pay you on 1/5 of your time you can spend not on any project that we assign you or that has a ROI."
51:16
And like Gmail came out of that.
51:16
And Facebook had these hackathons that were the same thing.
51:20
It's like these late night hackathons.
51:23
They would take away a bunch of productivity from engineers, but they were like, "You know, this is fun.
51:26
This is good for culture and good [ __ ] can come out of this that we can't predict."
51:30
And like you know, the like button was built during one of these hackathons for example.
51:34
You know, with the like button is obviously you know, massive for Facebook.
51:37
And so I think that everybody should have this do cool [ __ ] budget.
51:41
So how do you put take 10 to 20% of your time and your money and put it towards things that are just for you know, shits and giggles. Um I know I do that.
51:51
Uh I think we should do that with our companies.
51:52
I think everybody should really do that.
51:53
Yeah, I I mean the one thing I try to do consistently is just talk to a bunch of random people that, you know, there's no real ROI, but a lot of interesting stuff comes out of all those conversations.
52:04
Yeah, you should explain how you do that cuz um I gave you access to my Twitter and I was like, yeah, I don't know. I get a bunch of DMs.
52:10
I can't keep up with all this.
52:13
And you kind of took that and turned it into an asset.
52:14
So, like, what did you do?
52:16
And you you basically just blocked off like what?
52:17
Thursdays or something where you just have back-to-back random like four random meetings with people that you think are interesting with no agenda.
52:23
Is that like That's my read of it. Yeah, man.
52:25
I think, you know, a long time ago I started by basically saying, oh, people think Sean is awesome.
52:30
So, how do we DM them and just get on calls and meet interesting people and have no agenda and just shoot the [ __ ] Uh so, we just DM people and say, what's up? This thing is awesome.
52:41
Uh and you get like a 90% response rate.
52:43
Sometimes it is a little weird cuz people will be like, thanks.
52:47
And then you're like, all right, I don't know what to do with that.
52:50
Uh but then a lot of people give you an opening.
52:52
They're like, oh, cool, dude. What's up?
52:54
And uh so, I I would be like, how do I parlay those into conversations and talk to as many random people as possible.
53:00
Over time, I started do it for my own account.
53:04
Uh and the main idea is just like no agenda.
53:07
Talk to someone about what they're working on.
53:08
Ask a bunch of questions.
53:10
Almost every single time uh I learn something that I didn't think about before, whether it be like, oh, wow, this company is huge or this thing they're working on is actually way more interesting than it appeared than it appeared when I first saw it.
53:24
Uh and now I try to send them interesting things as I see them on Twitter.
53:27
I got I think my best one of my best skills is I'm always on Twitter, see interesting things, then I just send it to a bunch of people, and uh over time it tends to lead to good outcomes.
53:38
Uh like I think almost everything I can count to or I say in my life is because I'm good at that on Twitter.
53:45
Yeah, like when I think of oh, this person's great at networking, I think about, you know, you know, some like, I don't know, tall dude is good at shaking hands and making small talk and like, you know, some smooth operator politician type dude.
53:59
And that's not You're an amazing networker, but you are you do nothing like that.
54:05
And your method is, first of all, it's all online.
54:08
Uh secondly, you're just like you I feel you don't overthink it.
54:10
Uh if I was to kind of reverse engineer what I think is good of what you do that's good is you find interesting people, you compliment them on what they're doing that's interesting.
54:21
You then send them things that are like kind of helpful.
54:22
Like, oh, did you see this? Or check this out. Or you might like this.
54:26
Or dude, I met this guy, you should talk to him.
54:27
And you just like add little nugget one, two, three.
54:30
And by the third nugget, they're like, "Well, I like this Ben dude.
54:34
This guy's This Ben guy is all right, you know?
54:36
He seems to He likes me and he's helpful to me and like, therefore you're interested in them and therefore they're interested in you."
54:44
Whereas, I think I always took the reverse approach which had terrible results, which is I want you to like me, so I'm going to tell you all the interesting things about me.
54:52
And like, no matter what how interesting I am, I'm nowhere near as interesting to them as they are to themselves.
54:56
And I think you do an amazing job at like just being interested in them and being like helpful, not asking for anything in return.
55:04
And uh that's how we met and then that's how I feel like you've built for all the people I meet, you end up with a better relationship with them.
55:13
And so there's something you're doing that's amazing and I'm trying I'm still trying to figure it out.
55:17
I think the other thing is like introducing them to other great people.
55:20
Like, I think that's always an easy win to be like, you should you're having this problem, meet this person who can help you.
55:24
Uh that's like a great way to do it.
55:27
And in college I used to be like, oh, I just need to always check in and see how someone is doing for them to like me and want to talk to me.
55:34
Like, now if someone did that with me, I'd to be like, "Bro, what do you want me to say? Like, I'm good."
55:40
Or I'd be like, "Oh, you went to Duke.
55:40
I should write that in my notes and like send you an email when Duke wins a basketball game."
55:45
Then I kind of realized like, what are you going to think, you know, like, what would If someone sent me a note every time the Suns won a game or I'd be like, "Okay, like, what do you want me to say?
55:55
Like, thanks for like thinking of me that the Suns won a game."
56:00
So, I was like, how do I just actually understand what they want?
56:02
And like, when I see the interesting thing, I just send it and maybe it's useful, maybe it's not, but they know I'm thinking about that in that moment in time. Right. Yeah.
56:13
That's I think I think that skill goes a long way.
56:16
Julian Shapiro has a interesting version of this that he does that I kind of love, which is he'll just send you an email with one image in it.
56:22
No no subject line, no text, and the image is a random meme, but it's like Julian's sense of humor is really weird, and so it'll be like a picture of a parrot, and then the and the on the on the on the parrot's chest it says, "Look in the top right corner."
56:38
And you look at the top right corner and it says, "Not this one, the left corner."
56:40
You go to the left corner and it says, "Not up here, idiot, down there."
56:43
You look down, it goes, "Go to the right corner."
56:45
You finally go to the bottom right corner and it says, "I love you."
56:48
And it's like, he'll send you that and nothing else, or he'll just send you like eight straight random images of like, you know, I don't know, whatever, gorilla's eating cake.
56:59
And you're like, "Julian, what's going through your brain right now?"
57:00
And I don't know what this is, but it makes me laugh and it's just different and it's it's really quick and easy for him to do this, and it's like, "I don't know who this guy is, but he's interesting and he's fun and he makes me laugh."
57:11
And like, he does this like, you know, we talk about these things that like Sam does his, you know, "Let's fuck" when he gets into town and he he wants to meet somebody who he only knows online or he's friends with.
57:22
Um and that's just like a better like more fun version of like, "Let's hang out."
57:27
Uh Julian's like random meme thing is interesting.
57:32
Your your thing where you send a little helpful nuggets of hey, did you see this? I think that works too.
57:37
Everybody's got their own style, but uh you know, the style I think doesn't work is me me me me me, which is the the style that I had originally taken, which was like, well, I'll just focus on what I want and what I think is cool, and then people will be interested in that.
57:49
It's like, no, I'm not really.
57:51
Yeah, and for and for a while I'd be like, you know, in college there are a number of people that teach you in college, like, oh, make a LinkedIn post about your internship for getting a lot of people are going to care or like send people updates on what you're working on.
58:03
I'm like, I don't know who cares that I got an internship at Walgreens, you know?
58:06
And like if someone sent me that, I'd be like, instead send me something like interesting or cool or ask me an interesting question or like uh send me something you found interesting about what I'm doing.
58:16
Uh that's way more I think that's way more valuable than like what the other person wants. Right. Right.
58:22
We should We should end this on a few ideas.
58:24
We should do like 5 minutes of rapid-fire ideas. Okay, you go first.
58:30
Uh first idea I've been thinking about is something related to your DTC business, which is wholesale.
58:35
Like one of the things I've think been thinking about is wholesale.
58:38
So, for people that don't know, basically, you have a Shopify store, you want to sell more in micro store micro boutique, so let's call it uh the local clothes store in your city.
58:49
Right now, that's really hard to do, so I've just been thinking about someone could build something in the space that makes it really easy.
58:54
Uh we talked to a company doing this that basically makes it really easy to spin up and run your sales channel as wholesale.
59:02
Anything to add to that one?
59:05
Uh that's a great idea and a no-brainer.
59:07
We have a person in our for our e-comm brand who We have one person dedicated to kind of doing this process. It's very manual.
59:13
It's like, find a list of all the mom-and-pop boutiques.
59:18
Uh great, now reach out cold in this script, and it's all managed through Gmail and or you know, some sales tool.
59:24
And then, you know, so it's like sourcing them, um reaching out to them, managing the payments and invoices, um keeping track of your analytics, who's actually who's do who's a big spender for you, who's a who who's falling off and churning out you should reach back out to, you know, all that stuff.
59:40
Making it easy for them to shop uh cuz they're buying in bulk.
59:44
All that stuff I think can be uh I would love a tool that does this and uh by the way, we should reach back out to that company that we talked to about this and be like, "Hey, we got to do this."
59:55
Yeah, what All right, give me give me one of your ideas. Let's do two more.
59:58
All right, you told me about um NIL, which is the college um name and likeness thing.
1:00:04
Where basically college athletes can now get paid.
1:00:06
So, up until now, they couldn't get paid.
1:00:08
Now they can get paid uh to do, you know, appearances or merch or different things like that.
1:00:15
Um I love businesses that are built around rule changes or law changes because it takes something that was impossible and now makes it very possible.
1:00:24
And there's great examples of this like Oscar Health was built as soon as Obamacare came out.
1:00:31
Um and so uh one I think that somebody should do is if I'm like, you know, 21 years old or whatever I'm 18 years old right now, I would be like, "All right, I now have access to a bunch of influencers that are in college that want to get paid and the and the marketplace is not efficient yet.
1:00:47
Meaning, they have more sway than their priced at just because people haven't abused this channel yet.
1:00:54
So, I'm going to be the one to abuse this channel.
1:00:55
I'm going to be the one to grow like crazy off this.
1:00:56
The way that the Movement Watches guys built a luxury watch brand using kind of cheap watches uh because they were like, "Yo, Instagram has these people who are popular influencers.
1:01:09
We should send them all watches and pay them to to promote."
1:01:10
And they built a hundred million-dollar watch brand before Instagram influencers became a big deal.
1:01:15
Um so, I think somebody should do this and it's like, "All right, you should work backwards from what do who follows college athletes and what do they need?
1:01:25
So, let's let's assume for a second that it's other college students at that college or fans of that college that follow them. What could I sell?
1:01:32
And so, what are the best products?
1:01:34
And so, you know, maybe it's financial services, like credit card type stuff, or maybe it's like a beverage brand, like an energy drink, cuz I remember in college, like people would drink Red Bulls and 5-hour Energies staying up late studying.
1:01:43
I think you could create a new 5-hour Energy off the back of NIL.
1:01:49
Or you could create a new condom brand.
1:01:51
Like, I don't know how big Trojan or Durex that these brands are, but you know, they've been around for a while.
1:01:56
They're kind of stale, and they don't they're not that fun, and I think somebody could build the uh the college condom brand or the college energy drink brand using these NIL influencers.
1:02:03
Yeah, I think in general, NIL, like uh I tried to book someone before using like OpenDorse, which I think today is like kind of the waiter of the NIL marketplace, basically the idea of I can book someone on demand for anything, whether it be an appearance, autograph, etc.
1:02:22
I think there has to be a startup out there that is doing this now in a really good way locally.
1:02:29
Uh so, we should find that startup too, that like is attacking the NIL marketplace in a different way. Right.
1:02:34
Uh all right, that's going to be it for the pod.
1:02:36
Thanks, Ben, for coming on.
1:02:37
And actually, if you um if you like Ben, you want to see some of his stuff, one thing he's working on right now is we took every episode of My First Million.
1:02:45
So, we've done 400 plus episodes now.
1:02:49
Um and we had somebody go through and pull out every idea, every framework, and every tool that's mentioned.
1:02:57
Um and we're categorizing it.
1:02:59
We put it all into a giant air table, so that you could basically see like, "What are all the ideas they had?"
1:03:03
And then you could sort by like, you know, the ideas that were, you know, um all about AI or all about crypto or all about SaaS or you know, uh side hustles, right? For example.
1:03:15
And then I took the top 10 for each both frameworks and ideas and I'm writing about them and expanding them and saying, you know, here's the idea, here's what I would do uh for each of those and we're putting it together.
1:03:26
So, this is going to be uh like I don't know, some super PDF type thing.
1:03:30
So, if you want that, go to um go to my website, go to shaanpuri.
1:03:34
com, drop your email in and um you know, I don't know how long it's going to take us to finish this, maybe another week or so, but uh that's where that's where I'm going to send it out.
1:03:44
So, um so go there, sign up and if you want basically to take the best of from the pod and then kind of updates uh you know, I'm going to update and give my commentary on on the sort of the best ones uh from there.
1:03:56
So, I think that's going to be an awesome resource for people.
1:03:57
If you're a fan of the pod, um you know, I don't know, it's a no-brainer.
1:04:02
It's kind of a must must have if you've been listening all the way through.
1:04:05
There's no way to keep track of all the different ideas that we've we mentioned on here.
1:04:08
So, so I think that would be that's going to be awesome.
1:04:11
So, I'm excited about that.
1:04:12
Thanks for being for coming on and uh again, I'll put the link in the in the description on YouTube and in the podcast, but it's just shaanpuri.
1:04:18
com and then you can put your email in in there. All right, guys.
1:04:22
Uh thank you for uh thank you for listening. That's it. That's the pod.