0:00
I remember at one point you're telling me in Slack you're like these people just offered me two million bucks for this. Yeah.
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0:04
I'm like holy [ __ ] You didn't We started the podcast my first million you just made your first two million. Yeah.
0:12
Congrats like I can't believe this worked out.
0:13
You're like I'm not going to sell that. And I was like wow. This guy's insane.
0:17
And I was like that's an insane story. All right.
0:29
So I can't tell you how many times I hear this.
0:32
People will DM me every single day and they'll say hey I'm just calling my shot right now.
0:37
Today I'm I'm a small boy.
0:37
In three years from now I'm going to be on MFM.
0:42
I'm going to be on my first million.
0:42
I'm going to make my first million doing XYZ. Yeah.
0:46
Every single day I get a message like that.
0:49
Here's somebody who actually did it. This is Ishaan.
0:51
He was my intern turned guy who's made millions and millions of dollars, lost millions of dollars, and had a crazy journey in between.
0:57
You were the guy who I created this podcast with. Yeah.
1:02
You were the guy who Trick The cover art of our podcast he created it.
1:07
Um The intro song originally the original intro song he created it.
1:09
You know I didn't even know how to record it audio at the time. This guy did all of it.
1:14
Um You went from behind the scenes to now you're on the stage here in my house and we're going to record this episode. So I've made it. You've made it. That's the teaser. All right. Let's tell the story. All right. What's up man? Yeah. What's up?
1:29
I So people don't know this. So you are Ishaan. Yeah.
1:34
Uh I met I've known you since you were 18 years old.
1:36
You still are kind of like 18 years old. I would Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:39
I still look like I'm 18 years old. Yeah. You're 23 now? Yeah. All right.
1:43
So I'm thinking this episode is kind of like Your title was an intern but it's going to be good for YouTube.
1:48
So we're going to be like intern my intern became a millionaire. Okay. Yeah.
1:53
I was a glorified I might title of this title is cheap stuff.
1:55
I mean it's like kind of like intern.
1:56
And by the way, I got a good track record with this.
1:59
I don't know if I'm doing anything, but I'm good at picking people because I worked with you at age 18. Yeah.
2:05
Steve Bartlett, 19, maybe 20 years old.
2:10
There's a guy, another guy named Ishaan, who just tweeted out today that he's like, "Those 4 months I worked with you were super influential."
2:16
He went from like guy just working some place, now he's got an eight-figure agency, so that was cool. Yeah.
2:21
Uh Danny Miranda worked with me for a little bit.
2:23
People know him in the podcast game now.
2:24
He was with us for a couple months before he started creating content.
2:27
So, I think I feel like those two Ishaans, so maybe Yeah.
2:29
getting getting people that like sound similar to your name.
2:33
Yeah, yeah, the closer the better, actually.
2:35
Um all right, so you've had a crazy run.
2:39
But let's do let's do the history. So, how did we meet?
2:43
Uh well, I followed you on Twitter when I was like 12, 13 years old.
2:45
I was tweeting My whole strategy was let me get my like like profile picture in your profile.
2:52
Yeah, I'm going to re-intro that that the One Park, which is Yeah.
2:56
One thing that people don't know is this podcast was started actually not with me and Sam, me and you.
3:03
I hit you up on uh Twitter DMs. Yes, yeah.
3:06
And I saw that you were doing a you were podcast editor for somebody else I knew.
3:10
Um I think Corey or Angel list or something like that. Yeah, Corey Leavy.
3:16
And so, I I had I had this idea, all right, I want to do a podcast. I hit you up.
3:20
I didn't know how old you were, but I was like, "Hey, do you want to do you want to produce for me?" Then we got on a call.
3:24
I was like, "Oh man, this is like a kid somewhere."
3:26
You were at school at the time.
3:27
And I was like, "Will you Do you know how how audio works?"
3:29
And you're like, "Yes, I got you."
3:31
So, the if people see the the cover art of the podcast, yeah, you made that.
3:38
Um the initial like, you know, 20 episodes or whatever, all those intros and all the audio, you made that.
3:42
Then we started doing business experiments together.
3:46
This was at a time where I was kind of like, "I think I want to build an audience. Yeah.
3:49
And I also want to just launch some businesses.
3:51
launched e-com businesses.
3:53
We launched a bunch of [ __ ] together.
3:56
And then we all went off our own ways.
3:57
And then you had a crazy journey after that where you made millions of dollars, lost millions of dollars, and all the rest.
4:02
So, we're going to talk about all that.
4:03
Let's start at the beginning.
4:04
So, I DM'd you, but we you were actually were on Twitter where you said we were what? 13 years Yeah. 13 years old. I followed you.
4:10
I was trying to just get my face like when all these people in cuz I was I'm from Australia, right?
4:16
There's no There's no Silicon Valley.
4:17
There's no like VCs and cool angels and all these people.
4:20
So, I was like, "Let me This is my avenue to get to these people.
4:25
Um and then let me just like even if it wasn't like a lot of value add, I'll let me just tweet random [ __ ] at you guys." And I was doing that.
4:32
So, then if you just go on my Twitter, you'll find tweets of me you know tweeting off to Shawn random [ __ ] And you would respond here and there, but yeah, so that was like when I was yeah, literally like 13, 14, whatever.
4:42
And then couple of years af- later when I was doing the podcast with Corey is where yeah, you DM'd me and I was like, "Yeah, I already know who you are."
4:48
And what's I think your name was I think I found you cuz your name was also Shawn.
4:52
And I was like, "This is my This is This is meant to be."
4:56
I can't find this client info.
4:56
Have you heard of HubSpot?
4:59
HubSpot is a CRM platform.
5:01
So, it shares its data across every application.
5:03
Every team can stay aligned.
5:05
No out-of-sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot, grow better. Talk about the start.
5:13
So, when we were working together, tell me some of the things you remember.
5:16
Cuz I remember I only Everyone's got their own version of history. Yeah.
5:19
I remember in my head like you know, what we were thinking back then.
5:22
But I'm curious and this is our first time catching up in person cuz you live in Australia.
5:26
Um and you're just in town.
5:28
So, I said And you used to live at where I lived.
5:30
I was living in Brisbane.
5:30
You also like way back when lived in Brisbane. Yeah.
5:34
Um So, what's your version of history? What do you remember?
5:36
The first thing I remember Well, I think the first thing I remember is when we were doing the podcast like cover art and stuff.
5:41
I sent you over some like uh you know, like here's version A, version B, blah blah.
5:48
And then you were like, "Hold on a second, you should add your name."
5:49
to the to the cover art, yeah.
5:51
And I thought I thought that was really cool.
5:53
Like that gave like me a lot of confidence.
5:55
Like, "Oh, okay, yeah, this is I'm like I'm, you know, a part of this as well."
5:58
I remember that was that was like a cool thing he did cuz I think maybe there's some learning there with people that hire Yeah, give me a special title. Make him feel special.
6:06
Yeah, yeah, you make him feel so special. Do that.
6:07
So that was also like a really cool thing I remember.
6:09
Um Also remember just like the kind of craziness of like "Let's start a crystal store today."
6:15
And then like a few weeks later, "Let's start this other D2C thing."
6:19
Like make a make the store 72 hours, go off, and and do it.
6:24
It was like It was It was like some variation of like an incubator, but it's just like two guys.
6:29
At this time I'm working at Twitch. I'm earning out my deal. We sold the Twitch.
6:32
I'm now earning out, and I know, okay, in a year I get this vesting check. Yeah.
6:36
But in the meantime, like frankly, I was pretty bored inside of a big company.
6:41
I, you know, it's not I knew that's not my long-term.
6:46
And I was like, you know, on the side here, what can I do to entertain myself?
6:48
The podcast was one cool thing I'd always wanted to do.
6:52
And then the other would be like I would meet somebody and I'm like, "Oh, this person's killing it in e-com." Yeah. Yo, Sean.
6:57
We're making an e-com store.
6:57
And I remember for the crystals thing, I was like I read some article I saw some magazine.
7:05
Like I always try to look outside of Like I don't look at TechCrunch to get tech ideas or like business ideas. I look I was somewhere.
7:13
I remember reading like a People magazine, and it was like Adele was saying she won't go on stage unless she has her like rose quartz crystal. And I was like, "What? Like that's insane.
7:23
Like you Who believes in this crap?"
7:25
And I Googled it, and it was like after Kim Kardashian got mugged, she had like a $4 million ring.
7:29
She got mugged, and it was like, "How did you recover?"
7:32
She's like, "Well, my crystals really grounded me."
7:34
And I was like, and then you see all these celebrities.
7:35
I'm like, if again I just think people are sort of like I have this tweet that's like uh the economy is just smart people paying beautiful people to market to to to sort of like average people."
7:47
And I was like, "If all the celebrities are doing this, then there's got to be a bunch of other people that believe in this."
7:54
And so I remember calling you and you were like, The best part about you was your game.
7:57
That was my favorite thing is like if you hire somebody with no experience who does a bunch of bad things, like I'd be like, "Dude, like I haven't heard from you in 2 days. Where'd you go?" Yeah.
8:05
But then on the good side, it'd be like, he doesn't know any better.
8:10
So I could just be like, "Hey, we're doing this and it's going to be we're going to launch it in 2 days."
8:15
And you're probably just like, "I don't know. This is Is that normal?
8:16
Maybe that's normal, right?" Like Yeah.
8:19
Cuz besides that, like I never I've always been working for like into that people.
8:22
I have never had like a traditional going to an office and like and like I was I remember at the time I was like, "I'm like I'm going to finish uni.
8:31
Should I go and be a consultant for like some bank whatever." Yeah, you asked me that.
8:36
So cuz yeah, I just didn't know what the other I guess I was just scared cuz I didn't know what the other world was like.
8:41
I was like, "All right, this is kind of right normal and doing this."
8:42
So yeah, crazy stuff like just yeah, creating different e-com stores or different experiments.
8:50
We did like a newsletter, the good, terrible, bad, very bad.
8:55
And then dude, I don't know if that was that one.
8:56
Top five of the Yeah, yeah, yeah.
8:58
Milk Road became a successful newsletter company, but I guess before that I don't even remember that.
9:03
We We did launch a newsletter called the the no good, very bad, terrible, something something something newsletter.
9:09
Yeah, I don't know what it was why we called it that, but we basically were launching a bunch of experiments.
9:15
And I remember at the time one one of my takeaways from that is that crystal store for example, I didn't even know what winning looked like.
9:24
So one problem with an experiment, cuz you see you use this word experiment, but the way a science experiment works is you have a hypothesis.
9:29
You're like, "I believe this."
9:31
Then you run the test and then it either confirms it or it doesn't. Yeah.
9:35
But I was using the word experiment wrong, which was like, I'm just going to try a bunch of [ __ ] without actually knowing like, what is the win condition? Yeah.
9:41
What is the success or failure condition of this?
9:44
And so, like, now that I look now that I actually have an e-commerce like like our e-commerce business now, you know, is is doing very well.
9:49
It's an eight-figure e-commerce business.
9:52
Now that I know what an e-com business looks like, I can go back and think about our our crystal store.
9:57
Actually was doing very well.
9:57
Like, I just didn't know.
9:59
So, for example, we were running Facebook ads.
10:03
And the key metric for all e-commerce businesses is your ROAS, your return on ad spend.
10:07
And I think we were getting like 1. 7. Yeah.
10:09
Well, like the rocks I know we were selling these rocks for like 50, 60 Hey, they're not they're not rocks. They're crystals. Yeah, yeah, crystals.
10:17
And yeah, and I remember like like the first few hours we got that that Shopify game. Oh, yeah, it's amazing.
10:21
Like that was I mean, most people start up a store and they they don't have sales for like a couple of days or whatever or weeks.
10:27
And so, yeah, it I think our problem was like just didn't continue.
10:29
We didn't continue, exactly.
10:31
Cuz I was Now that I look back, it was like 1. 7 to 2X. Yeah.
10:36
And I remember thinking, oh, it's supposed to be 3 or 4X, I think.
10:37
Cuz I had heard some idiot saying that somewhere, and I just thought that's what it is.
10:43
And so, I was like, ah, I guess this is bad.
10:44
Turn it like shut it down. Let's do the next thing.
10:48
Uh you know, in retrospect, you know, maybe I'm glad I'm not running a crystal store.
10:51
But at the same time, like there is a lesson there of I mean, sticking to it is obviously a like you can't win without the stick-to-it-ness.
10:57
But one of the things that makes you stick to it is not just willpower.
11:01
It's like knowing your win condition.
11:03
So, like, you do you even know what to look at?
11:07
And do you know what winning looks like?
11:08
Do you know what the benchmark should be?
11:09
So that you can actually assess a successful versus unsuccessful experiment.
11:14
That was one of my learning one of my things I remember from back then.
11:16
The other one I remember is like with the pod, I we kind of like we called our shot a little bit.
11:24
Like, we made this Google Doc Yeah.
11:26
of the plan, the one-page plan.
11:29
And now I call that my kickoff doc.
11:31
But it was like, before we started it, I wrote this out.
11:32
Do you remember that that doc? Yeah, I remember.
11:35
And it was Well, the first thing that you hopped on was like, you need your 1,000 true fans.
11:38
Like, that was the very very first thing that you're like, if we just got this, you can build a pretty big business just with with 1,000 people.
11:44
That was like the first thing I remember.
11:46
And then you had a few things like, we need to get to 100,000 listeners and you had a bunch of other other like, maybe build a business off or like, you know, these ancillary businesses, adjacent businesses across it.
11:57
And I mean, you did all that.
12:00
That was the one thing that you just kind of step back and it's like, I'll share the doc.
12:02
I'll put the doc If you're on YouTube, I'm going to put it on the screen so you can see literally like, word for word what we wrote back then.
12:09
And it's not that it it all happened, but it definitely didn't happen on the timeline.
12:12
I remember thinking, we're going to hit Let's get to 100,000 downloads per episode. So, that's the thing.
12:17
Like, per episode, I want 100,000 downloads by the end of the year. So, it's like 12 months. Yeah. Took me 3 years.
12:22
So, like, you know, now we do that, but like, you know, it took 3 years for us to ever hit that mark.
12:29
So, it's kind of this old phrase like, don't confuse a clear view for a short distance.
12:35
It's like, I feel like we had a clear view.
12:36
I just thought things would happen faster.
12:38
I overestimated kind of like, what could be done in 1 year.
12:40
But with that one, because it's so fun, I just kept going.
12:43
And like, sure enough, like, you know, it all We we we That was like the right thing to keep going.
12:47
There was all other things, funny things, and that was like the right one.
12:51
that was making no money, actually costing me money cuz one of the things I wrote in that doc is I plan to lose $10,000 a year doing that. I yeah. Yeah.
12:58
But it'll be worth it because I thought, you know, creates like some serendipity. Yeah.
13:01
And you kind of talked about that, too.
13:04
Like, content creating serendipity or like, just being online and being like, in the mix. Yeah. Just lies fortune.
13:11
Liking a post or replying to something or putting putting yourself out there.
13:14
Who cares if someone is on Like, when you I mean, it's different for you now.
13:17
If you post this, millions of people are going to look at it.
13:18
But like, just for like a regular person, when you post like a tweet and it says like, 116 impressions, it's going to be like, that's still like That's still some people that have looked at it and you don't know who it is, but you know, later down the line that could that could come in handy when we talk about some some of the stuff I'm doing now.
13:33
I can I've gotten all my opportunities.
13:36
Every single one of them has been like through Twitter or like through some like LinkedIn or some email or thing I've sent and late years later down the track it's all come to fruition.
13:44
the story about the billionaire.
13:44
So, what what happened there? That started on Twitter? Yeah.
13:48
Yeah, that was a that was me just like saying I need a I just made this like kickass investment and let me like I want more people to know about it.
13:56
So, I I was like talking to like journalists and stuff like that like, "Hey, write about this story."
14:00
And no one was really taking the time, but there was one dude that was actually yeah on Twitter.
14:05
He I just he wasn't responding to anything else. I went on Twitter. I saw he's active there.
14:10
I was just like I just kept liking his post.
14:11
I didn't actually say anything.
14:13
And then like he checked out my LinkedIn profile and we started talking.
14:16
He's like, "Okay, yeah, let me write about the story." Right.
14:18
And it was like it wasn't like a Forbes or anything.
14:20
It was like a pretty small news site that it's it's so weird that they posted that article a few days later.
14:26
A billionaire read that article and then reached out to you. Yeah.
14:30
Well, we'll tell that story.
14:30
So, even that is like um there's this phrase that I read once.
14:34
I think Mark Suster did a blog post about this called lines not dots.
14:38
Basically, the idea is like a line is just a collection of dots. Like right.
14:43
Mathematically, that's what a line is.
14:45
It's multiple dots just all all connected.
14:48
And so, what he says is like, you know, he's like, "What people think happens is they see on TV that you go in, you meet this investor cold, you blow their socks off with this pitch, and then they write you this check and say, you know, here you go, son. Go go on."
14:59
And it's like that's not what happens. Like that's movies. That's Shark Tank. That's not real.
15:04
And the real thing is dots.
15:04
And so, he's like, you know, many interactions that stack up that when you look back later is a line.
15:13
And he's like investors invest in lines not dots.
15:15
Meaning they're not just going to like it's not the very first interaction typically where it's all just going to happen for you.
15:20
And so, it's following the person, liking the post, replying to something.
15:23
They notice that this person said something smart.
15:25
Not the first time, but the third time. Yeah.
15:28
And then after that, they follow you back.
15:30
And then because of that, they see this other blog post you wrote that you don't even realize that one of your 98 views Yeah.
15:36
was this person who's actually legit.
15:38
And then go, you know, like and then so those little dots stack up and ultimately that's how trust gets built.
15:43
That's how This is the the framework king Yeah, he's actually Watch me close, baby. That's what I do. Yeah, yeah.
15:47
Uh yeah, so that's what I think, you know, what you've done really well.
15:51
So, all right, so let's get to the part where we break up.
15:54
So, at some point we break up.
15:56
We worked together for a while. I got a couple of years.
15:57
Yeah, I think it was actually a couple of years of like knowing each other and like doing stuff like that. Yeah.
16:01
So, we get to the some point where um you're like you come to me one day, you're like, "I want to day trade." Or something.
16:09
And like to be fair, you were actually kind of good at this.
16:11
I remember one time we were on a call and uh I was like telling you like some instructions or something like some action items.
16:17
And then like there was like no feedback.
16:21
And I was like, "Yo, are you listening?
16:22
Like, what are you doing? What what happened?
16:23
Where did Is this thing on?"
16:26
And you were like, "Oh, hang on.
16:26
Um Bitcoin just crashed to $3,500."
16:31
I'm like, "This motherfucker's looking at the Bitcoin price while we're supposed to be working on our very important crystal store or whatever we were doing whatever, you know, scheme we were in at the time." Yeah.
16:39
And I remember being like like two reactions. One, like annoyed.
16:44
Like, "Dude, this guy's like not paying attention."
16:45
Two, "Wait, Bitcoin crashed?
16:47
Like, shoot, you know, he's buying [ __ ] I buy you."
16:50
Like, cuz you told me you're like, "Bitcoin crashed.
16:51
I'm trying to I'm trying to place an order real quick."
16:54
It was down like 60% on just that day.
16:56
And everyone know everyone in crypto like knows that day.
16:57
It was a very like It was like in March or something. It was Yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:00
It was and like it was like you just never see it happen.
17:04
This is like This is not some altcoin. This is like the coin.
17:05
This is like This is Bitcoin.
17:07
And so, when that happened, I was like, I I've seen a few of these and I just wasn't a part of it.
17:11
As I was like, "I'm sorry.
17:13
I I I should be working and listening right now."
17:15
I was like, I need to act right now.
17:17
And so, yeah, I mean, I grabbed all the money I had.
17:21
It was a couple of thousand dollars and I Well, I didn't just buy the coin.
17:25
I was like, the the degenerate in me, I was like, "Okay, let me try and maximize the opportunity."
17:30
So, I went on people that BitMEX, I went leverage long on Bitcoins.
17:35
I took all my money, did that, and when I went And leverage long means what here in this case?
17:39
So, So, if you buy a thousand dollars worth of Bitcoin and you buy it, you know, 20x leverage, that means you actually buy 20,000 dollars worth.
17:45
But, if it if it goes down by even a little bit, Yeah, you're you're you're you're going to get wiped out.
17:51
You'll have You'll experience a thing called liquidation. Right.
17:55
So, getting liquidated is like your worst nightmare.
17:56
And I remember you were like, what, four, five grand?
17:58
You That was my collateral. Four grand. That was my collateral.
18:02
I was 20x or 25x leverage.
18:04
And when I clicked the button to buy, like, everything was frozen.
18:07
And I was like, I was thinking, "Oh, [ __ ] is it just me?"
18:11
Like, I'm I'm kind of freaking out. And I go on Twitter. No.
18:15
That's what I was I was I was like, not really talking.
18:16
I went on Twitter and everyone else was like, "BitMEX just froze."
18:19
And I'm like, "Okay, it's not just me.
18:20
It's It's like the actual exchange."
18:22
And I was kind of freaking out because I thought, "All right, it's gone.
18:26
I've already clicked buy."
18:26
And Bit And I mean, when you were when you were looking at the chart If you look at the one-minute chart, it was just going down like it went down down down down and it just stopped.
18:37
Yeah, you you'd assume that when it like unfreezes, it would have just kept going down cuz who knows?
18:40
This was like a black swan event, right?
18:41
So, we don't know what's going on.
18:43
And so, that's why I was like frozen for a while cuz I thought I was just I'm an idiot.
18:47
I just lost all my money.
18:49
But, when it unfroze, I saw I was up like 40,000 dollars.
18:56
I was like my heart was And yeah, that's when I think you were on Coinbase.
18:59
You You'd be able to Cuz when he told me, I was like, I was like, "Come on, man."
19:02
I was like, "Bro, wait, what? What's the price?"
19:04
And I went and I went and bought 25k that day, too. Yeah.
19:07
And so, which was actually an amazing trade.
19:11
Like, we made more money in that.
19:11
We made more money in that one minute Yeah.
19:15
than we did like, you know, 6 months of experiments together, you know, whatever, you know, 3 months of experiments that we were working on at the time.
19:20
And there is a lesson there which was like um you know, the the best kind of like ideas don't all just come from your head.
19:28
Like, you know, you're at the time I like interim chief of staff.
19:32
But you were like, this is a buy right now. I'm going to do this.
19:34
And by following you, I kind of like got the benefit of that at the time.
19:41
And you know, Bitcoin would have traded up to like 70 grand or whatever since then.
19:44
And then yeah, it's come back down to earth, but My my takeaway from 10x from that day.
19:47
Yeah, my takeaway was there's like there's a very few moments where you can make all the money versus like trying to make a little bit of money every single time.
19:58
And I think like I'm not a day trader.
20:00
I don't think I'd go back to being a day trader or whatever.
20:02
But I think all the money is made when there's like a few key decisions that happen maybe once a year or once every few years, once every few months, or whatever it is.
20:11
Um and you just have to act on it with like I mean, it's a bit degenerate.
20:14
You have to like there wasn't a lot of thoughtful planning around I'm going to buy Bitcoin because of this mathematical equation that's for It was just times like this doesn't happen every Right. at all the time. So let me act on it.
20:29
the moment I was like, this guy's a [ __ ] degenerate, right?
20:30
Like I didn't even I didn't even know exactly how an option trade worked.
20:34
I was like, okay, this is crazy.
20:35
But at the same time, you're right.
20:37
Like if you go read that Buffett quote where he's like, you know, there are moments or seasons where you know, the the the the clouds fill the sky and it's about to and it's about to rain.
20:46
And in that he says in that moment, let us not come out with spoons but bathtubs to sort of like make Hey, there's also you know, Naval has a quote that's similar to this which is he's talking about luck.
20:58
He says one of the versions of luck is being able to recognize an opportunity. Yeah.
21:01
So it's it's the version of luck it's like he goes to level two or whatever.
21:04
Or he's not the inventor of this.
21:06
I I just heard it from him.
21:08
Um But, you know, the the original guy who wrote this, he basically says, you know, it's sort of luck favors the prepared mind.
21:13
So, anybody could have seen that price, and most people when they see something going down, they get scared.
21:18
You were like, "This is Bitcoin, Bitcoin flash crash blink decision that this is a good bet for me, like, whatever risk reward adjusted."
21:29
And you know, you were correct in that.
21:32
Later, I'm going to tell a story, so you come to the States, we fly you out.
21:37
And I remember we go to a restaurant and we invite my buddy Sully.
21:39
And we're talking and Sully's like, "Okay, Sean, like, you know, tell me, like, what what are you excited about?"
21:46
And you go, "I'm excited about this company called Animoca."
21:50
And you had told me about this company three times at this point, and you were like, "Oh, I love the stock Animoca. I like the stock."
21:54
It was like you were like the GameStop guy, right?
21:56
You're like, "I like the stock."
21:59
And I was like, "Animoca, I've never heard of this.
22:00
Sounds like a yogurt, um and then I was like, why do you like it?"
22:04
And then you had told me something that I I didn't really ask, but I was like, "What does it do?"
22:07
And you're like, "Oh, they're making these like bubble games or something like that." Okay, whatever.
22:11
Later, when we're at this lunch, I was like, "Hey, Sully built a mobile gaming company and sold it for whatever, 100 million bucks or more." Um tell him about that.
22:20
What's that mobile gaming company?
22:21
And you started telling him.
22:22
He's like, "Okay, interesting."
22:24
So, I had heard it like four times from you, never took action, cuz again, I was not at that time listening in probably the way I should have.
22:31
That's an investment you made millions dollars off of. Yeah.
22:32
Tell the story of how after we stopped working together, you go from intern to multimillionaire in a very short like, how long?
22:40
Like in Yeah, it's a very short amount of time.
22:43
So, at So, I've known about Animoca, it was a Australian listed company, so it was on the stock market.
22:48
I initially bought like a few thousand dollars worth, and it did well, went up like four X, something like that.
22:53
So, I was like, "Okay, great.
22:54
That's, you know, I've done I've done my done my thing here."
22:57
And I I was looking at it as an investment, so I didn't sell it.
22:59
And then the Australian Stock Exchange, they came after it and they were like, "Ah, you guys are dealing with this weird crypto stuff.
23:06
We're going to have to delist you."
23:07
Well, they weren't crypto initially.
23:09
They pivoted to Yeah, they pivot Yeah, so what about the time when I bought So, I bought them initially because they had an announcement and they were like, "We're going to do a thing called CryptoKitties."
23:17
Um and we're going to work with them.
23:19
And so, I saw that as like This was before like a pretty boring robot company.
23:22
Now, it's like a sexy crypto Yeah, it's like a sexy crypto thing.
23:26
It's like, "How do you value a blockchain game?"
23:28
Like you This is like Thing Things that are like hard to value is kind of what I like cuz like nobody knows what the price is.
23:34
And so, it's like as a degenerate, I like that.
23:37
Um and so, yeah, so anyway, it did well.
23:41
None of this episode is financial advice. This is NFA, yeah.
23:43
Me just laughing at the craziness of this story.
23:48
So, So, let's let's tell the story. So, you You buy more.
23:51
So, yeah, so I bought it. It got delisted.
23:53
And so, I'm like, "Holy [ __ ] my money is gone." It wasn't a lot. It was like 25,000.
24:00
That is degenerate behavior.
24:00
But to you, that was a lot.
24:02
That was Yeah, that was everything to me, yeah.
24:03
So, you you put everything you have, which is 25 grand at the time.
24:07
It gets delisted off the stock exchange cuz the exchange is like, "You guys now do crypto.
24:10
We don't know We don't like crypto.
24:11
We don't know what crypto is." Yeah.
24:12
Now, you're liquid stock. You can't even sell. I can't sell it.
24:16
And so, this was like Tell me this, I'm laughing at you. I'm like, "Yeah."
24:20
I remember you told me this.
24:22
You're like, "Dude, I got [ __ ] on Animoca."
24:23
And you're like, "It's delisted." I'm like, "Wow."
24:24
I thought you'd probably just lose money cuz the stock goes down.
24:28
think you would lose money cuz you just can't sell it anymore.
24:33
But you did something even crazier.
24:33
You double down on crazy.
24:34
So, tell sir Throughout that year, I did a few things.
24:38
I learned about like secondary markets.
24:40
That's something I didn't Yeah, I wasn't really exposed to before. I learned about that.
24:43
I did a lot more research into like what they were doing and I've always been in the And I was the perfect person because I you know, I had a Minecraft server when I was a kid. So, in high school.
24:54
So, I understood how if you turn these in-game items into something that you could sell, this is a win-win for for everyone. So, there's that. I was a gamer at heart.
25:04
So, when you when you and I was in Bitcoin way longer before like 2016.
25:07
So, when you mix all of that together, I was like the perfect person to see the light.
25:10
I was like, "Okay, what they're doing is actually something that I want to get more exposed to."
25:17
And, you know, why buy a bunch of different tokens and companies when I can just buy the get exposed to the people that I think will be the overall winners here.
25:28
And, so once I, you know, got had that conviction, I was like, "Okay, well, how do I How do I I can't market buy the stock." Right?
25:34
So, I was like, "How do I actually buy this thing now?"
25:35
And, this was like a year it's been delisted.
25:36
So, in that time, I was working for you and another guy and I had a few other bets that did really Afterpay was one of them that ended up being a You told me about that one, too. Yeah.
25:48
You we were talking about buy now, pay later.
25:49
And, I had met Max Levchin from Affirm. Yeah.
25:52
I was like, "Oh, this was a great startup idea."
25:54
And, you go, "Oh, we have Actually, Afterpay is better." Yeah.
25:58
And, I was like, "Bro, your little Australian version is not better."
26:00
You were like, "No, look at these numbers. It's better."
26:03
And, uh that stock just went That went crazy. Profit out of that.
26:08
You told me like really early on that one. So, I Yeah, yeah.
26:09
So, I did Yeah, so I did really well with that.
26:13
I also have a pretty crazy story there where I followed one of like like I didn't have a lot of edge being like a kid from Australia investing in a public stock.
26:21
So, I followed, you know, all the C-suite people on Strava to see where they're at.
26:26
And, one of them was like near the Square offices and they never like So, that's where you know, they ended up acquiring.
26:32
So, I got like the little edge there. Brilliant stuff.
26:37
So, that was a That was like a little hack.
26:38
You're like, "I don't have satellites to track cars, but you less legit.
26:42
You follow the guy on Strava."
26:43
Yeah, and then I He was at the Square offices.
26:44
You're like, "They might get bought."
26:45
So, there's a guy from Afterpay, the CEO was at He was in San Francisco and he was like pretty close to Square offices doing his right and I was like this there might be something I didn't know what was going to happen.
26:57
I'm like I feel like a partnership would happen with them you know Square came out and bought them for like 30 billion or whatever and you know the stock go way crazy.
27:03
But anyway, I made a bunch of stuff and money from doing trades like that and working for you guys.
27:10
All right, so how do I buy Animoca?
27:10
I want to buy more and you know the way I went to like Facebook groups initially.
27:15
You told me you were like there's a Facebook group of people just like commiserating. More more wailing yeah.
27:21
Recovering Animoca stock holders were just there bitching and moaning like They were very disgruntled.
27:25
Like they were talking about at one point doing like a like a class action against Animoca or whatever like all this stuff and so I was like okay, this at the time when they were listed they were worth like 80 million or 100 million dollars.
27:37
I was like okay, I could get a huge discount on that and so yeah, I went to Facebook.
27:42
I got a few people and they're like small trades.
27:43
I was like I need bigger.
27:45
How do I get like people that have the big money?
27:46
So I got the list of the top shareholders.
27:48
You can you get a request publicly in Australia.
27:50
Might be the same here in the states, but I got the top holders and I was like let me go through each one of them.
27:54
Which one of them is disgruntled and there was a few that I I still couldn't like the Australian press wanted me to like name these people.
28:03
I think one of them said republic, but they're like pretty big time people that I mean they're already rich money yeah.
28:08
Yeah, they're smart money. They're already rich.
28:09
They had this because they invest in some fund that had some allocation blah blah blah.
28:12
So they were like just willing to get rid of it.
28:16
They're like it's delisted.
28:16
They don't know they probably don't know that they're in crypto they're gaming.
28:19
It's just one of the things in their portfolio that's you know.
28:21
And so so yeah, buying it for like what discount?
28:25
Like 50% 80% It was more like 80 90% discount to what the last And I remember when you told me I have the Slack messages when you told me I'm buying it for you know, 10 cents on the dollar and I'm like bro, you're just lighting money on fire. Like you're going crazy.
28:41
Like what's going to like that's a insane reaction to the bad news bears.
28:43
I was I'm going to like double down. But it worked.
28:49
So I didn't I think I modeled it with the double down.
28:51
I I said yeah, I put everything I had.
28:53
It's about 100k that I just like this This should work out.
28:59
I think well, it's also like I'm if I lose all this money, all right, I'm in my 20s.
29:03
I'll like You told me this.
29:06
You go you're like I'm 20 years old. Yeah.
29:08
I'm just going to I'll just like get a job and I'll save up again and I'll live it I'll just I've got This is the time to do everything take all these crazy bets. Um I don't have kids.
29:16
I don't have anyone that's heads on me.
29:18
So yeah, so I made the bet.
29:21
I did all the transactions.
29:24
That itself was like a bit of a crazy thing cuz they take some time to do to do private transfers in Australia.
29:28
Like the documentation for that the people that they were handling the transactions they were taking a long ass time.
29:35
So one of them actually the biggest transaction after Animoca, you know, announced they're now worth a billion dollars that they did a raise.
29:41
I was like, do I even have these shares cuz they're still they're still taking time to process.
29:46
I'm like I put the money in the escrow account.
29:47
Like wait, obviously ended up getting the shares, but yeah, it was like the this whole new world of all right, I couldn't like I wasn't like an angel investor before.
29:55
I didn't understand how to do this.
29:57
I had to just like going to claw and Do they even know you're like Do these guys know they're dealing with like a 20-year-old counterparty?
30:03
And these transactions like they had no clue that they were Yeah, yeah, that was Yeah, it was pretty like these are these are like pretty serious legit guys that were I mean they thought they were, you know, shoveling dirt onto me and then right I was They're probably laughing.
30:16
Yeah, their perspective was let me give dirt to this person and I thought I was buying a gold mine.
30:21
And so I was like, all right, let me let me do this.
30:23
Um But I remember I and it a lot of this there's a lot of luck involved obviously.
30:29
Um and so when I bought it I you know, I thought this was like a very long-term play.
30:33
Like after 5 years there might be something here.
30:36
Um but it was only after about 3 months.
30:38
So I bought it the valuation I bought it at was like 30-40 million.
30:41
And a few months afterwards they raised it a billion dollars.
30:46
Um and I remember getting a call.
30:48
There was like this Hong Kong fund that reached out to me and cuz I you know I've I've always I had to like flex a little bit to people and put it online that you know I bought this company. So you're up 50x.
30:56
Yeah, I'm up Yeah, it was it was worth like I think $2 million um and I was like holy [ __ ] um let me like let me like I'm not let me like have a think of what to do here cuz people want to buy it.
31:09
And yeah, I had a Hong Kong fund that reached out I was like we'll buy all of it.
31:12
We'll give you $2 million today.
31:13
You're 20-21 years old or something.
31:15
This was actually right before they um actually announced they were raising a billion dollars.
31:18
Some fund probably heard they were going to raise it a billion dollars.
31:21
Then we're trying to get it off me at a like at a discount.
31:24
So it was like I think I think they their initial offer was a million dollars or like whatever and I remember calling my dad.
31:29
I was like holy [ __ ] like this is worth a million dollars and I'm saying like brown parents that you know this is a million dollars.
31:34
You took this to generate but they're like take the money. Like what are you doing?
31:36
Take the money right now.
31:38
Um and so but you said I was like just wait a few months. Maybe this will be more.
31:45
I was like I was like I I don't think that like this is it here and especially cuz I was tracking all the numbers especially NFT like volume like NFT volume sales and I've been tracking this every single month and for like it was like a flatline.
31:58
It was like someone was dead here and then in this month there was a little uptick.
32:01
So I'm like this these little upticks don't just like start and end here.
32:05
There's there's some like craze that goes on here.
32:06
So I was like if this is worth a billion dollars now and this this the hype is just starting now let me like ride this wave.
32:15
At the peak Animoca was worth what?
32:15
At the peak they raised the latest round was 6 billion. 6 billion.
32:19
So they were buying it effectively like a 20-30 million dollar valuation. Yeah. It runs up to 6 billion.
32:26
I remember at one point you were telling me in Slack you're like these people just offered me 2 million bucks for this. Yeah.
32:31
I'm like holy [ __ ] You did it.
32:35
We started I guess my first million you just made your first two million. Congrats.
32:38
Like, I can't believe this worked out.
32:40
You're like, I'm not going to sell though. And I was like, "Wow. This guy's insane."
32:44
And I was like, "That's an insane story." So, you held it. Um What's it at now? Uh who knows? No. No one knows.
32:53
I mean, like I was with uh I saw I met I met Yat. I met the board.
32:57
It was a few weeks ago in Sydney.
32:57
Um and the the real thing here is I I forgot who said it, but they were like, "Never count your winnings unless it's like cashed in back. It's realized."
33:05
Um and so I was like, "Okay, you have to exit this."
33:10
And the way to exit it is either I sell it privately.
33:12
Um all these unicorns, they're at massive discounts right now.
33:16
So, it's like I could do that.
33:17
And it's like, you know, at its peak it's worth eight figures.
33:19
Do I sell now for seven figures and and cash it in?
33:23
That's always like a decision that plays on my mind. Right.
33:25
Otherwise, um you know, they have plans to list and do an IPO and What you told me at the time cuz I was like, "Dude, this is insane."
33:32
I was like, "Hey, man, listen. Yeah.
33:32
As your pseudo father father figure here, you should sell this."
33:37
And you were like I see what you mean, but you were like "What I What do I need two million dollars for?"
33:43
You were like, "I don't have something I'm going to go do.
33:44
I'm not going to change I don't want to change my lifestyle.
33:47
Like, I like my lifestyle." Yeah.
33:50
You were like, "I'm just going to look to invest it somewhere else.
33:51
And if I think this is still the best place to invest it, I'm just going to do that.
33:55
And like you know, if I lose it, I'm so young that like Yeah. whatever.
33:58
I get the story and I'll just keep going."
34:00
Like, you know, I'm not I I And the way you said it, like my meter went from "Oh my god, this guy's insane" to like "Honestly, I see his perspective."
34:11
Which is that two million bucks changes most people's lives, but you were like, "I don't think that That doesn't get me where I'm trying to go." Yeah.
34:18
And in fact, uh you know, if I still believe in this, I just want to see where this goes.
34:22
And for, you know, for a while as crypto as NFTs, you were right, like became the thing that year. Yeah.
34:28
Uh you know, there was sort of like a peak moment in that where it became worth more than $10 million, right?
34:33
So, it was like would have played out very well.
34:34
Timing is always very, very tricky.
34:36
Um do you look at this as I was trying to try I was trying to time a a bubble or do you look at this as I believe in this company and I still believe in this company and that's why I have the stock.
34:48
Believe in the company and also um I was kind of seeing this as like there's there's like a few people that have like these life holds.
34:55
It's like uh you know, you hold these like this is a lifetime hold.
35:01
This isn't like you buy in you sell out whatever.
35:02
Um and also I was convincing myself of that.
35:04
It's like I will I'll buy this and you know, when this becomes like the next 10 cent, I'll have a couple hundred million dollar stake and that's how and I didn't have to do it.
35:13
This was like the only investment when I had to do.
35:14
I didn't have to make all these other investments.
35:16
Um there's still some like part of me that believes in that.
35:19
It's like uh I I still see a pathway where like in the next 20 20 30 years whatever this is like a hundred two hundred three hundred billion dollar company or whatever and it's like I have I've got a pretty decent, you know, stake in that.
35:34
Um and so yeah, that that's what I was like convincing myself of.
35:36
That is a bit less now during times like this, but I still have some thing here where I'm like, okay, if um Is it Is it hard to not just get attached like identity wise to like I don't want to be wrong?
35:48
Yeah, I've made that mistake before.
35:50
Well, I think you know, especially this is such an extreme case.
35:54
There's one specific thing you were so right you were boy genius.
35:58
Yeah, then it crashes, but you're like, am I now boy idiot or am I boy genius?
36:03
Is this the moment where I held through the tough times or did I just [ __ ] up and I need to learn that lesson like Yeah. really hard. Yeah.
36:09
How do you deal with that?
36:11
Well, I think um well, I went into let me just like do something.
36:14
Um so, I was like I'm still investing some money for on behalf of other people and I was going around and meeting meeting founders and stuff like that and that's why I'm like I'm doing something else right now.
36:24
So, Well, okay, yeah, you have other bets.
36:27
Yeah, I've got other bets.
36:27
So that's what got me through it.
36:29
I was like, if this goes away, I need to make sure that this is the next big bet.
36:32
I don't need to be like I don't need to be right on this one.
36:38
Like for you know, if it ends up the way it's going, I could I've got time to make more bets and be really right on something else.
36:44
Yeah, and also you had done so much degenerate trading that like you don't emotionally mood swing like most Yeah, the money well actually it becomes play money in a way.
36:52
Well, aside from Adam Locker, I had a bunch of other token investments, especially when when Facebook renamed to Meta.
37:00
Remember, I was buying up all the Metaverse coins, Decentraland, Axie, Sandbox.
37:04
And so I experienced, you know, making millions of dollars like liquid cash.
37:09
I also I learned a lot of lessons there.
37:12
I also lost a lot of that money when you know, I didn't manage my risk post post up, but I I experienced like the numbers just became like you're looking at the screen, I have no attachment to it.
37:21
Like those days where I'd be up a couple hundred thousand dollars.
37:26
I'm like holy obviously I spent a lot of it.
37:28
I was like I was you know, all my boys were treated well. We went out.
37:33
I When I we all eat Yeah, it was like I was a pretty shy nerdy nerdy guy, right?
37:38
So I I didn't really know how to talk to girls, but if you want to learn how to talk to girls, get rich.
37:44
I had this like a it was like a huge confidence booster.
37:45
I was Yeah, I was It was just gives you the confidence It's just the the confidence for you, which is Yeah, it was I think it was the confidence.
37:51
It was like even if she rejects me, I'm still I can go look at my Meta basculator and feel good about myself.
37:56
Yeah, it was it was more like Yeah, it And also for me like having two million dollars in a bank felt like a billion dollars to me.
38:03
I'm like I'm spending a lot and it's just like it's not going down because because I'm like I don't have kids, I don't have family, I don't have any I have no obligations whatsoever.
38:10
Even a lot didn't put a big debt.
38:12
What did you What did you do anything stupid?
38:14
Uh so yeah, I got in the private. I got a I got a Tesla.
38:19
I spent like there'll be weekends where I'd get like limos out for and my boy we'd get like I'm like my birthday. We got like three limos.
38:25
We drove down to the a golf course which is like, you know what golf course is in Australia.
38:31
Um, I'm so happy to hear this cuz when I like I don't know what I was paying you back then. It wasn't much.
38:34
It was like The very first thing was it was 30k a year.
38:38
I think it was Yeah, we started at 30k.
38:39
I think it went up after that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To maybe like 80 to 100.
38:44
Like that's what I was paying you then?
38:47
And that I remember at the time being like, oh this is not going to work.
38:48
This guy is getting like super rich like crazy investments on the side like it's not going to make sense for him to have a job at some point which is great.
38:56
Like my goal wasn't to have you work for me for 20 years.
38:59
It was like, here's a young entrepreneurial guy.
39:01
Come get some reps with me.
39:03
Come like just get you off the traditional path. Yeah.
39:07
And then like I hope you go do big [ __ ] and like, you know, I could be your biggest fan and and all that.
39:10
That's kind of what's happened and I'm Yeah, I've had my popcorn, you know, watching watching you do this stuff and and it's being totally entertained the whole way yeah cuz you definitely like had like a roller coaster.
39:21
Um, you're kind of like those like Wall Street bets kids basically like Yeah, I was on Wall Street bets like since I was in like high school.
39:27
Like I was yeah, I was always on that forum.
39:29
There's an equivalent in Australia.
39:32
Um, there's a thing called hot copper which is like the equivalent of Wall Street bets and on that I was like the most active person.
39:36
I had got and my nickname was Mr.
39:38
Silicon Valley cuz I was just investing in tech stocks. Right.
39:42
And I'm like if you go on like everyone can look at my profile.
39:43
It's like I'm oh, I'm tweeting about Animoca.
39:45
I'm like talking about Animoca on that platform and there's another company called Brainchip.
39:49
Ended up becoming like a multi-billion dollar company cuz of the AI craze and stuff like that.
39:52
Um, I was constantly looking at anything to do with what is like the next 100X stock cuz for me it's stocks right I kind of invest in. He told me some story.
40:01
A billionaire takes you out to lunch and is like what's the next Animoca?
40:06
Have you he reads the article and he's like, I got to meet this whiz kid. Takes you out.
40:11
He's like, what's the next one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. your pants immediately.
40:13
You're like, I don't [ __ ] can Yeah, cuz at during that time like I'm I mean this was zip era, right?
40:19
So I'm like everything I'm telling people to invest in it's going up and up and up and you know, I'm a genius. Yeah, I'm a genius.
40:27
And so I was like, oh [ __ ] But I truly believed I was like Animoca could just raise it a billion dollars.
40:32
I was like, you should you should invest in Animoca. Animoca is the thing.
40:35
That's that is the next thing.
40:36
And he was like, okay, whatever blah blah and in the next few days he didn't say he's like, god damn I love that confidence.
40:42
Yeah, next few days he ended up becoming like a top 10 shareholder in the company, bought out tens of millions of dollars of the stock.
40:48
And then obviously, you know, Animoca then stopped at a billion.
40:49
You know, so he made, you know, over nine figures in that.
40:55
So that then that's tip you a little bit on the on the way out or tip the dealer and Uh there's no comment. Fair enough. Yeah.
41:01
So um all right, so you go through that crazy journey.
41:03
One of the things that comes out of that was you were then on behalf of this guy plus other people you were doing other investments. Yeah. One of them is Shuffle.
41:13
Let's talk about Shuffle. So Yeah.
41:15
um you had flagged me a while back and you were like, hey crazy story.
41:21
I think on the pod I was like, can't say who told me this. Right. Yeah.
41:24
Now it's all now it's like way more public.
41:27
At the time you were like, hey there's a company called Stake. Yeah.
41:29
That is making unbelievable amounts of money.
41:33
You were like, they had like a whatever $800 million dividend last year.
41:36
Like that's just that's the profits they took out.
41:40
You're like, this guy one of the owners I don't know how old are they?
41:42
They're like They're in their like late 20s, mid 20s.
41:44
Yeah, like 27 years old bought a $50 million house in Australia. Yeah.
41:48
And then the other guy bought like a whatever $100 million house.
41:49
And it's like that's how you know someone's like rich by the way when they're yeah buying like Look at the real estate.
41:56
Yeah, that is like, you know, that when they're buying an asset like that like they have Cuz people didn't know.
41:58
The articles are basically like mystery you know, mega millionaire buys $50 million home.
42:06
And then it was like, they had two companies.
42:08
They had like a software company that makes like digital assets and for Yeah.
42:12
It's like makes like the gaming software to go play like the games and then they have stake which is the casino the like basically crypto casino and they're like you know intertwined companies or whatever. Yeah.
42:25
Well Alameda you know FTX you know I'm getting some vibes here as I describe it aloud.
42:30
But either way like stake has been you know it's become like huge and they have Drake playing and and whatever gambling [ __ ] like that.
42:35
So you meet these guys who are doing a competitor to that in a way. Yeah.
42:40
Um how do you describe Shuffle and tell us about like this crazy space cuz I only know what you told me about the stake thing at the time and then since a bunch of news has come out like kind of validating what you said.
42:51
Um tell me about the space and tell me about Well at the time so I was so I was traveling around Australia meeting other founders and I was at this dinner and at that dinner the guy there was a guy there that was like pretty good friends with the stake co-founders.
43:03
And he would like say these numbers this is before the articles and stuff like that.
43:08
So he'd say some insane batshit crazy numbers and I'm like if these numbers are true this is the fastest growing tech startup in Australian history like this is like maybe in the world like this is like very I mean they were founded in 2017 and they're going to do a couple billion dollars in revenue this is like some kid in their 20s right?
43:23
So initially hearing all that I was like okay and then already at that time I I remember messaging you about I wanted to start like a crypto trading like let people do like I want to start a titled the document I want to build like the world's largest casino. Right.
43:39
And um I remember this document.
43:39
Yeah and the way that that product is actually like a huge product now um I don't know if you've heard of Rollbit but they have like a crypto's trading thing I was looking to do with that but that's like regulatory just like a nightmare it's like an unlicensed thing and and so I was like okay but I see this gambling stuff it's it's huge stake is you know they just did a billion dollars in net profit in a you know single year.
44:01
How do I get some exposure to that um and this going back to like how I find these opportunities, I just remembered there was another like kid in uni that lived in a whole different city to me in Australia that posted his research on Afterpay.
44:15
And this was like a couple of years ago.
44:17
And I don't know why he popped up in my mind again.
44:19
So, I went looking for that article.
44:21
I found his name and I hit him up a message on LinkedIn like, "Hey, like, you know, what are you doing these days?
44:27
Let's catch up and whatever."
44:31
And yeah, we caught up and then that's when he started telling me about like these other crypto kids in Australia that have like made it pretty big doing all this degenerate stuff.
44:38
And they're starting a crypto casino and it's going to be a competitor to not just Stake, but there's like there's this thing, the market is so huge.
44:46
There's I could you know, there's there's a few other competitors that are also doing a billion dollars.
44:52
And this is not really reported on, right?
44:53
It's kind of like a yeah, kind of shady industry.
44:55
So, I was like, "Okay, I For me, you know, coming from pretty small town in Australia, when I when you meet other people that are kind of like you and we all had a like success in our own domain.
45:07
I'm like, if we just come together, we're going to hit something big.
45:12
And I just want to be around those people.
45:14
And so, it was more like a bet on this group of Yeah, just like also ambitious, smart, slightly degenerate or very degenerate autistic Yeah, like 20 young 20-year-olds, basically. Yeah.
45:26
And these are all people that And we've all we've all kind of been through the same thing of making a lot of money, losing a lot of money.
45:31
So, we can kind of like lean on each other in that way.
45:34
They we understand each other in in that.
45:35
So, um By the way, this happens in like it's happened in online poker.
45:39
I remember it like the rise of online poker and the kind of poker kids who all made it and they all kind of lived in houses together and figured out how to like each like beat the game together, basically.
45:51
Uh same thing happened with social media.
45:52
So, like the TikTokers or the Viners who all went and lived in the same building in Los Angeles. Right. Yeah, yeah.
45:58
Collabed with each other, plus traded tips, plus like got brand deals for each other, and they all like rose up way faster than the people who were on their own or didn't have the kind of connection. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
46:11
Uh so, um yeah, so that that's how I met them, and I was like we all kind of agreed uh a lot of the background of the Shuffle team, they come from like the big exchanges.
46:19
FTX is one of them, BitMEX, crypto. com.
46:22
That's all their backgrounds, so we all The hard earned uh standard of the uh of the sketch world.
46:30
That sounds like we we all and you know, obviously I I've traded in all of them, and we all just had like we all agreed on this macro thesis of every single cycle there is like this one clear big winner, which is the exchanges, right?
46:44
They their business model is every bet every degenerate bet you take, they have a little fee. Right.
46:48
It's called transaction fee for them.
46:50
For us, it's called gas tax, but it's the same exact thing. Same model.
46:53
The same model uh struct- the legal structure is actually really similar as well.
46:56
They will like get a license out in Seychelles or or you know, FTX was in the Bahamas, crypto etc.
47:02
is there in the Dutch Caribbean in Curacao.
47:04
So, it was like there's all these similar Wait, what is that?
47:06
There's like some place that's like they just made it their business some some country. Wait, not Seychelles? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Curacao.
47:12
Yeah, that's the that's the Where the hell is Curacao? What is Curacao?
47:15
It's in the Dutch Carib- It's just a place uh where you can I mean, anyone if you want to get a license to do like an online crypto casino, um you could probably spin one up in like 6 weeks.
47:26
And it's very And that's their model.
47:27
They're they're like, "We're open for business for casino online casinos, basically."
47:30
And like that's where everybody goes to get their Yeah, like we're we're we're like in the same structure as Stake and you know, all the other guys.
47:37
Um we're all under the same license, and there's some risk to that, obviously.
47:40
Like, yeah, what happens to that license, how long can you sort of play this game, and you have to uh you sort of calculate what what amount of risk you want to take there, but yeah, that's that's it's exactly the same as these exchanges that were out out out um you know, in the Seychelles or or Bahamas, and so we saw that and we were like, "Okay, um here's a clear difference between exchanges and casinos though.
48:00
Exchanges are raising at tens of billions of dollars and that they've got all the fame, um whereas, you know, in if people just understood, if this was more public on how profitable these casinos are and how they're very similar businesses to to exchanges, then, you know, there would be some re-rating of valuation for these for these for these uh casinos."
48:19
And so, that was like that's the lot of these investors and funds they have like a no vice clause, right?
48:25
They just can't invest in weed, they can't invest in gambling or porn or whatever, even though there's money to be made there.
48:32
So, I think like that's one of the other reasons is like Yeah.
48:34
some people just either themselves individually morally say that or their fund charter basically prohibits them from doing those things.
48:41
So, they're just like out on it, even if they know it's a great business.
48:43
I mean, who doesn't think a casino's an amazing business?
48:46
We we we raised a seed round and that was like the hottest fearless.
48:52
I biggest regrets was was not investing.
48:54
I tried to invest in them but I was like, "Oh, it's like one entity here, here."
48:58
And I was like, "Oh, god.
48:58
Like if I have other people's If it's my own money, fine. Yeah.
49:01
But when I have other people's money, you know, I have to like, you know, think twice.
49:04
And just in that time they like closed or whatever. Yeah.
49:07
Yeah. But anyway, like that's we we all agreed that uh in this like next cycle, whenever it is, could be 5 years down the line, who knows, but in the next cycle for crypto, um we believe that there will be one to or three casinos in the top 20 of of all the coins and that's billions of dollars of of value that we think that you know, we could we
49:26
could do it and a big difference with us is like like I'm on this podcast right now, like we're not anonymous, like we're not like these people that all these crypto casinos usually they're like very anonymous people and um I mean, if you're putting your money into a platform, you want to know who's behind it, right? You want to know who
49:38
You want to know who these guys are, but How do you um like all the F Do you Do you follow all the FTX stuff going on right now?
49:44
I'm like really into this trial.
49:45
It's like my soap opera right now that I'm paying attention to. It's your Roman Empire.
49:50
That's uh It's my Roman Empire, exactly.
49:53
Do you have you been following it?
49:53
And also like how do you feel about that?
49:56
And how do you think like cuz it seems like crypto casino is like risk times risk in that sense of like I don't know, something be between, you know, malpractice to like, you know, the craziness that comes with with just that amount of money flowing through something. Yeah.
50:12
Um and you said you have people that worked in some of those places.
50:15
What did they I guess what stories have you heard?
50:17
And I guess I don't know, like not like the son spokesman uh you know, like the not you professionally if we can, just like my friend.
50:24
Like the how how do you think about that stuff? Yeah.
50:25
Um it's like it's I mean, being in crypto already, you already you have like an appetite for speculation.
50:33
Um and so anyone that's already in the industry, it's like you're you're taking some that you're taking some risk on, okay, there is some like regulatory risk already that one day this license might close down and your business is like, you know, screwed up.
50:48
Like And so you have to be kind of smart and calculated about that.
50:50
It's like, okay, what are the other licenses can we start build building it out?
50:53
Like we have to build our entire platform like in a modular way.
50:56
So if something happens to one license, we can split off, let's say our casino and then put a license to sports book and offer it in a different region.
51:04
So It's like lost It's like we had to move the island. Yeah, yeah, yeah. it. It's like we moved it. Yeah.
51:08
So there's some regulatory risk.
51:11
There's some It's funny like products have most startups have product market fit risk. Yeah.
51:17
Like we don't know if anybody wants what we have. Yeah.
51:19
But you see you have you have no market risk.
51:23
Then the second tier is technical risk.
51:25
It's like uh if we can make a um whatever self-driving car, Right.
51:28
people are going to want it.
51:30
There's no market risk, but there's technical risk.
51:31
Can you even build a self-driving car? Yeah.
51:34
But this there's no technical risk either, right?
51:35
It's like I mean, obviously you have to do technical work, but it's not that's not the risk in the business. It's all regulatory.
51:42
Uh it's all regulatory risk in this.
51:44
Which is so different than like 99% of the other startups I look at.
51:47
Yeah, very few times do you just just get regulatory risk.
51:50
regulatory risk. There's also just like actual risk that you have to manage of your book like limits that you like we will sweat sometimes like when we cuz we had to start upping the limits you know there's some high rollers that come and go like we I want to do a 10K blackjack hand I want to do a 25K blackjack hand
52:05
and you're just like okay, holy [ __ ] We have to what you know if they have a few good runs you could be all of a sudden down a couple hundred thousand dollars that is your revenue is not always guaranteed that that's also like the biggest difference in this in the casino Let's talk about the traction. So you
52:17
So you guys launched out of nowhere in February of uh this year. Yeah.
52:20
What's the what can you share traction wise?
52:22
Uh so you know we're probably going to do a half a billion in volume uh like this month um and you know this is generating a few million in revenue a month uh and hopefully this month will be a few million in profit a month.
52:35
And you know we this is also another thing that like these businesses are built to strip out the cash flow.
52:42
It's like you you you build the business and then you have you pay this out.
52:46
This is not like you're not praying for some exit.
52:48
We all went into it knowing that no one's going to buy a crypto casino. Right.
52:51
You build it to make a lot of money and then you know strip strip the strip the money out um and pay it out to all the holders of of the business. So Right.
53:00
Um that's also like yeah it's a very like yeah it's great.
53:05
Yeah it's a good problem to have.
53:05
So yeah we've it's only been a couple months but um yeah it's yeah probably 50 million run rate is probably where we're at right now. Super impressive. Crazy.
53:12
Um any good stories about like I don't know how did you bootstrap it?
53:18
So where did you go get your first customers?
53:20
How did you cuz that was your job. Yeah.
53:23
Yeah so Cuz you'd be like oh I'm in [ __ ] Asia right now uh you know meeting people.
53:28
I'm like what are you doing in Asia?
53:29
You're like I'm I'm building the brand.
53:31
I'm going to figure out how to get this thing out there.
53:32
Well this is like a really and the the first thing that I I don't know why I didn't really know this but the people that come and play on your site, if they like to gamble, you know, they probably also have some other vices and like they're probably not Some of them are probably, you know, can get very angry very easy cuz the whole thing is about either you make money or lose money.
53:54
So, when they make money, obviously they're happy.
53:55
But when they lose money, you know, Right.
53:58
This place especially this beyond like I'm going to find out where you live and I'm going to find out like So, that was like the When you talk about your first 10 customers, like your first 10 customers are pretty rough people that you have to do.
54:09
So, um I mean the first thing we went to was we're all a bunch of crypto kids that made a bunch of money and then we gambled it ourselves.
54:16
So, we're like we already had a lot of other crypto kids that made a bunch of money and you know, like to gamble.
54:21
So, we went to those guys first and like hey, come come, you know, play on our website and and test it out.
54:25
And we would, you know, there's little tricks and stuff of like stuff with like deposit bonuses and like Yeah, like just standard kind of just standard like sports promotions and stuff like that.
54:36
Um one thing that I think we did that was Oh, that That's pretty interesting that we found out was Okay, we should stop spending so much time trying to get thousands of people who will deposit like $10, $20 or whatever cuz they'll come on.
54:48
They'll come on your site and then it's good for them to, you know, play, but they will lose $5 and then, you know, spend 48 hours in your support, you know, I'm going to kill you.
54:58
Where Where do you guys live?
55:00
I need my $5 back versus like Okay, let's Let's maybe try and find customers that uh you know, not like that.
55:08
And we got pretty lucky in in some parts of Asia, especially Japan, right?
55:12
Like they are They are people who bet really big and they're very respectful.
55:18
And they're very like They don't waste any of our time.
55:19
Like they will lose money. They play with honor.
55:21
Yeah, so it's like Okay, these are the customers we want.
55:24
Now we know the customers that we want and it's good for the business.
55:27
Um and yeah, we started making some pushes there and and trying to find uh you know, this is a pretty heavy like affiliate business.
55:34
You want to find You want other people to go out and do the work cuz you can't do Facebook We can't do Facebook as we're prohibited from doing Google, so you can't do PPC.
55:41
So, you have You have to find really creative ways of trying to acquire customers, and yeah, that that was Yeah, well, this is why I like Stake I think bought or they created Kick.
55:50
Yeah, and they're basically like paying Twitch streamers, you know, gobs of money out reportedly like 50 million 100 million-dollar contracts to come play cuz they're like, "Oh, these are popular people."
56:02
One of the things they'll play is we'll give them money to gamble on our platform.
56:06
They gave Drake like tens of millions of dollars of like go play show people that you're doing a 20 million-dollar bet. Yeah.
56:12
And or you know, gamble a 20 million dollars one night.
56:16
It makes you look like a baller.
56:18
It creates great content that's going to go viral and get you likes.
56:20
And all those people are going to see that gambling on Stake is fun and Drake does it, right?
56:24
Like that's like their Is that accurate? That's my hypothesis.
56:26
So, Stake pioneered that model.
56:27
Like they're like, "Uh we can't bid on these other channels with all these other crypto Oh, like other casinos.
56:34
Um and so, let's try and find other ways."
56:36
And the streaming model like they pioneered that thing works famously.
56:39
It The thing that's genius about it also is that instead of like an influencer posting a picture say, "Hey, come play on Stake."
56:45
They're playing the product.
56:47
They're showing you how it works.
56:49
They're seeing the reaction.
56:49
They're seeing the reaction in picture like the whole thing.
56:52
So, it Not only are you educating people about how to play it and how to Like the this like next level in terms of um I guess like play of value as well.
56:59
Like Like they will deposit and you know, they'll play, they'll lose, and they'll they'll watch their favorite streamer play again.
57:06
They're like, "All right, time for me to also deposit again."
57:07
So, we found out like the affiliates or the influencers that are really like they have a Discord channel or they you know, they have a you know, they they're constantly like live streaming.
57:16
Those people make the most of So, they you said like uh we would not like rather than have you have a million followers, we want you to have, you know, 2,000 people like active in a Discord that you talk to all the time.
57:29
That's more valuable, right?
57:31
Like And I I think this doesn't just This isn't just for like uh casinos.
57:33
I think like for e-com and they're like there's people that are in Facebook groups and anywhere there's like a concentrated like you have like those thousand, you know, loyal fans or whatever.
57:43
Um those customers are worth yeah, all the money.
57:47
We did a influencer campaign.
57:47
We spent $100,000 on influencers.
57:51
Probably the first like paid influencer campaign we'd done. Yeah.
57:54
So we put out I was like, "Let's try it.
57:55
$100,000 and we're going to spread that across these like I think we did um seven influencers, I think. Right.
58:01
And so these are people who have like, you know, let's call it 250,000 to like three or four million followers on Instagram.
58:12
And I [ __ ] you not, some people Some of those people who have a lot of followers literally had zero conversion. Zero.
58:19
Like Dude, I could post on Facebook and get one conversion. Like it's crazy.
58:21
Some people kicked ass and then I was like, "What's the difference?"
58:25
I noticed that you know, the Instagram has this one feature which is like when um Not everybody has it, but like you can broadcast.
58:31
So like I don't know if you've seen this, but like Instagram has this like almost like one-to-many group chat. Oh, yeah, yeah.
58:37
You can send a message and they can only emoji react.
58:41
They can't like It's not like your fans can chat back.
58:42
But it looks like a chat. Right.
58:44
And I noticed that the people who have active versions of those where they'll just be like, "Oh, you know, my favorite mug." Yeah.
58:49
It'll get like 3,000 like likes there. Right.
58:51
That's a way better signal for who can actually convert versus like just a generic post or story or follower count. Yeah.
58:59
Which is like, you know, neither here or there.
59:02
And I think that really move product, you can tell like the difference in that.
59:05
It's also just about them being like very high intent.
59:07
And so I think about the people that would go into that broadcast channel in the first place.
59:12
It'd be like a small percentage of like that person's like most loyal like fans or whatever that are active and you know, all right.
59:18
Yeah, so I think for like that that could be applied everywhere.
59:22
Wherever you can get like Who cares about trying to get, you know, four million impressions?
59:27
I just want to get I want my product in front of like the thousand most Uh, I keep using the word degenerate, but they're not degenerate.
59:35
Like, you know, whatever the thousand people that are By the way, I I used degenerate positively, too.
59:38
When we were hiring, we used to You know, companies have like corporate values. Yeah. And it's like integrity. Yeah. And um honesty.
59:46
And like it was like the Everybody has the same values.
59:48
It's like don't kill somebody or something. I don't know. Ours was degeneracy. Yeah.
59:51
And people were like, why does it say you should be a degenerate tour here?
59:55
And we were like, that's what it is.
1:00:00
Like, that's what we want.
1:00:01
We want people who are who like when they work on something Like, there's just two people types of people.
1:00:05
There's some people that like, you know, they work to live and some people live to work, right? Like right.
1:00:08
We are the types that when we do a project, we go all in. We love doing it. Yeah.
1:00:12
We obsess over making something [ __ ] awesome that's going to take a lot of work and late nights.
1:00:17
We don't want to feel like we're like asking for a favor every time we try to go above and beyond to do something cool. Right.
1:00:24
And but it wasn't about working hours only.
1:00:26
That was just like one aspect.
1:00:28
The other thing we we used to say is like we noticed that the people who were the best earlier in their life had a degenerate like obsession with something that wasn't like the thing your parents would reward you for or the school would reward you for. Right.
1:00:41
So, for a lot of people it was gaming.
1:00:43
It's like, oh, yeah, I just spent like an ungodly amount of hours in in Ultima 4 or like, you know, RuneScape or something like that.
1:00:49
That was such a strong signal to us that like this person's going to be great now with us because they have that switch where once they get really into something, they practice to like to master it and they get obsessed.
1:01:01
They want to beat the game.
1:01:03
And like, they're not doing it for the because people told them to do this.
1:01:07
They're They're doing it cuz they can't not do it. Yeah.
1:01:09
And so, we found that people who had early obsessions in life were the best people that we wanted to work with.
1:01:13
You also want that in customers or an influencer who's got people who are die-hard fans.
1:01:18
Like, why do people love Taylor Swift? Like, Swifties.
1:01:19
They just they identify in that a tribe is what you want.
1:01:24
you want. And I think that like whether people like the idea of a crypto casino or that makes them feel like really crazy or whatever, I think that the marketing lesson about how these guys market themselves is like one of the best like
1:01:37
marketing hacks that created a multi-billion dollar outcome was this one realization that hey, let's pay these influencers and celebrities to specifically do live streaming on Twitch which is not the main marketing channel Right. of other brands. of other brands.
1:01:52
And let's give them money to gamble so that people can watch the the the sort of thrill of victory and the agony of defeat Yeah.
1:01:57
live in real time and that is the best marketing for our product. I I respect that.
1:02:01
I also think for those guys, I think they're really they're like one of the most like fascinating entrepreneurs to come out of Australia because I think for Kick it's not it's actually I think the goal here is all right, they've now you know, made this five to ten billion dollar like crypto casino.
1:02:17
It's like where's this they want to go more now they you know, Twitch was valued at 40-50 billion.
1:02:21
I think these guys legitimately just want to go in and you know, although it was valued at 40-50 billion they want to yeah, they want to use the money to like this is their next thing to get them to like I think they want to leverage they were already working with all these streamers paying them you know, millions of dollars to gamble.
1:02:34
It's like well, let's actually just also pay you guys millions of dollars to stream but on our platform and so I I think they saw a sort of gap here.
1:02:42
They they came at the right time but I I yeah, I don't think it's just for gambling.
1:02:47
I think these guys truly um you know, love streaming.
1:02:51
There's no way that works cuz streaming doesn't make that much money. Yeah, yeah.
1:02:56
There is no way that that works in the sense that you know, they would really have to be betting that they could and you know, okay, so I don't think it could work but here's the case where it maybe could.
1:03:08
So I remember so TikTok now is obviously massive. Yeah.
1:03:10
Do you remember when TikTok came out?
1:03:12
So like Yeah, it was musically and then they did like a Musically and Musically was doing good, but then like make it to like the full mainstream.
1:03:20
It was kind of still seen as this like kiddy lip-syncing kind of It wasn't like Tik Tok today, you can go learn [ __ ] You can You know, people make you laugh, you can promote your business, you can sell products, you can You can do anything.
1:03:31
But at the time, Musically was literally like tween girls lip-syncing, right?
1:03:35
That's like all it was, right?
1:03:36
That was like more of what the more of what the product was.
1:03:40
So, then they rebranded to It's like they get bought, they rebranded Tik Tok, which like I remember laughing about the name, like what is that name?
1:03:45
And they literally spent a billion dollars marketing that app to make sure every teenager has it installed on their phone. Yeah.
1:03:53
And like I We had a kid who was working for us at the time that was in high school, but he would come and work at our office.
1:03:58
I was like, "Dude, what do your friends think of Tik Tok?"
1:04:01
He's like, "Ah, it's like the joke, but he's like, I got to say like everybody knows Tik Tok."
1:04:05
He's like, "There's no one Philip person in my school that doesn't know Tik Tok."
1:04:08
He's like, "We don't think it's cool yet, but like I got to give it to him, like 100% of every kid in my school is aware that there's a Tik Tok app that they want you to download." Yeah.
1:04:19
And like they actually brute force like created the network effect.
1:04:23
I guess there's a world where Kick could do that.
1:04:25
But it's also I think they're banking on um maybe they do something where the friction to buy something on live streaming is lowered and it Yeah, that's a whole new like avenue of I I think this I think they know that the traditional model is not going to ever work and that let's just get all the eyeballs and then maybe they can flick some somewhere um and you know, like Instagram Reels makes like $10 billion a year. I don't know how.
1:04:50
Like you can plugged into the world's greatest ad engine in the world.
1:04:51
Yeah, I mean, Facebook's ad engine is the greatest ad engine.
1:04:55
Maybe Google's one or two, but like it's plug in the Reels makes that much money cuz it's plugged into one of the greatest money makers ever.
1:05:02
Um And live streaming is live streaming commerce is like a pretty huge thing in Asia.
1:05:06
Um it really And so, if they can if they can somehow work in western markets, I think like there's something I think there where they could flip the switch and then you know, this is this is how they go from we're already worth a couple billion dollars.
1:05:19
How do we get to 10, 20, 50?
1:05:19
And maybe they don't care about how much they're worth, but what's like the biggest impact?
1:05:24
Yeah, what's like the next They've already won one game.
1:05:26
It's like how do we how do we get to the next?
1:05:27
So I think um yeah, that that's super like I think more people should probably know about these guys though.
1:05:32
And are you like I'm going to be a degenerate forever or do you like you know, I'm just going to do this for this period and then I'm going to do something else.
1:05:40
Well, I'm I'm just I really wanted to be a part of something that could be huge and that could grow really fast.
1:05:45
Um and so I I want to do that with Shuffle and yeah, we'll ride this wave.
1:05:51
Um like will I do another thing in sports betting or gambling whatever?
1:05:56
I don't know, you know, maybe not, but um I like like I mentioned to you earlier before it's like you make your nut and go to your noble mission.
1:06:05
I I think I think I might might Justin Meers' quote. I love that quote.
1:06:10
Um I love that quote not because I think it's right, but because so many people when they hear that they're like that's what I'm doing. Yeah.
1:06:16
It's a easy out to like just point anything that you're doing in the moment cuz you're like I'm going to do the noble mission later.
1:06:22
And so I love it cuz it's hilarious how much people love that quote.
1:06:26
I don't know if it's good wisdom or bad wisdom.
1:06:27
I can't tell, but uh What by the way, what uh ideas do you have?
1:06:32
So Yeah, you know MFM, you know, that's what we do here.
1:06:34
I'm going to I'm going to get out my notes out really quick. I'll tell you.
1:06:37
And we've already talked about some.
1:06:38
Just Uh really quickly, there was um before we were talking about kids that were playing RuneScape and stuff like that.
1:06:44
I literally have already one in here.
1:06:46
I had incubator around kids who are building businesses within games. Um I like that.
1:06:51
Cuz I think everything Austin Yeah, everything So I guess during my era like I'm I'm a bit older now.
1:06:57
During my era it was kids that were building Minecraft servers or um I know for the guys that did stake, they were RuneScape kids.
1:07:03
They they built a casino in RuneScape first and then they did their own thing.
1:07:06
So, it's like Runescape, Minecraft.
1:07:08
I think now it's like Roblox or like maybe like Fortnite creative maps and stuff like that.
1:07:14
Like, if you're building business within games, every single person I've met that's done that, they're all like super successful millionaires. I 100% agree.
1:07:22
I think I tweeted this out.
1:07:22
I go, what people think that like winners' backgrounds looks like Yeah.
1:07:27
and you know, what the world tells you is like, you know, good grades, he goes to a good school, Yeah.
1:07:33
has good internship, and like, you know, after school activities, runs for student council, but it's like, what I've seen is like what the real winners are are like the kid, the guy who's running his own gaming server when he's 14. Yeah.
1:07:46
Kind of cuz he just wants to be able to buy games.
1:07:49
He's not like even running it as a business, right?
1:07:51
Like, the sneaker head, like sneaker flippers, basically.
1:07:56
You know, people that are like hardcore gamers that are like become best in the world at a video game that's like super competitive. Yeah.
1:08:03
That type and like, you know, which requires skills, strategy, communication, like to like obsession.
1:08:10
Those are pretty translatable skills. Yeah.
1:08:12
You know, speech and debate is another one.
1:08:13
Like, there's these like un- unorthodox backgrounds.
1:08:15
Runescape is one that's crazy. The Runescape mafia. Yeah.
1:08:19
The number of rich young people I've met that the common denominator is, yeah, we used to be like I didn't play Runescape, but they're like, yeah, Runescape has like the the marketplace or the bazaar or something. Yeah.
1:08:31
And they were like, yeah, we used to run we used to run the plaza or the marketplace.
1:08:34
And I was like Jesus, this is something.
1:08:36
I have an idea around that, which is uh I was like, I want to create kind of like the outcast conference.
1:08:40
So, basically, what I want to do is be like, these are actual hotbeds of talent that nobody's really talking about.
1:08:48
I want to invite like the people who do that.
1:08:50
It's like, your point of entry is like, you you need to hit one of those criteria.
1:08:53
You run a gaming server or like Yeah.
1:08:55
you're like elite at this like, you know, I found this one they call mind sport.
1:08:58
It's like some place you go that you play It's like Olympics but for nerds.
1:09:02
So, you don't do like you don't run, you play chess and then you play backgammon and then you play like you play like this like advanced version of chess like you know you play go, you play like all these games and whoever's like the best across these like 10 really hard strategy games is like the Mind Sports champion.
1:09:19
Yeah, and you know that guy's a freak.
1:09:22
You know those guys are all going to be amazing.
1:09:23
As soon as they decide like okay, it's time for me to have a career now. Yeah.
1:09:28
As long as they just get to like funneled in the right place and don't just go be a a McKinsey drone like you know those people are going to kick ass.
1:09:35
So, I'm like oh I want I want to make a thing which is free for them to attend but you got to be the best of the best.
1:09:40
And I want to just be able to like curate that talent and be like I'm going to place my bets on these people now.
1:09:45
Like hey, if any of you ever start a company just remember this goodwill of me bringing you here paying for all of this because I want to be your first investor.
1:09:53
Like I I genuinely think that's going to be like one of the hard highest ROI things that I could do.
1:09:57
Well, I think a lot of them so a lot of them get lost to like or something like that and then there's a lot of them as well that they just don't have guidance coming out of the first thing that they do and so they [ __ ] around for maybe like a few years and then like That's why I'm calling them outcasts cuz like they probably feel like oh kind of like I'm a little bit I wasn't doing all the [ __ ] that the other like achiever kids were doing.
1:10:16
But I don't know trust me.
1:10:19
Let me show you 10 other people that are like you and then they're like oh, I see myself in them. Like I can do it too.
1:10:25
This is this is the basis of like a lot of sports like you see a guy that's from your hometown and now you start to believe you can do it too.
1:10:33
Why do you like Australian entrepreneurs so much? Like yeah. What do you care?
1:10:36
It's like because they're from Australia I'm from Australia if they made it I can make it.
1:10:40
That's that's cool but had you never heard of any you would probably also be you know banking somewhere you know And also like I think a lot of them when you spend your time with your childhood whatever like in a room doing all this stuff you're whatever you're making money or like you learning business skills but then you start lacking in other areas. Like Maybe.
1:10:58
So then like that that's setting up setting yourself up for failure to waste some time with whether it's then afterwards, you know, you have some girl troubles or afterwards you don't know how to do something with family or whatever blah blah blah that yeah, I think that that's why I Oh, that's a great idea.
1:11:13
I'm I'm just going to have a kissing booth.
1:11:15
I'm not going to have a high girl.
1:11:16
It's like yo, if you haven't had your first kiss, just let's just do it now.
1:11:20
And we're going to get that all out of the way.
1:11:21
We're going to kill we're going to crush these like lingering thoughts in your head.
1:11:25
Uh but yeah, that that was one of them.
1:11:29
Um I mean I will but what was your idea? Was it I I Totally.
1:11:32
I The idea was like just like a like a like a I you know, giving these kids like mentorship and like just like incubator program.
1:11:37
Yeah, just like a little like a little Y Combinator thing for for these weirdos. Um what else is there?
1:11:40
There's a I was just at a conference.
1:11:42
I was just really surprised.
1:11:44
Um I mean, something within conferences where I think maybe more people should uh make conferences for like cashed-up niches um because especially if you do like the exhibitor model where it's like oh my god, like they you know, and some of these people are the one I just went to they're paying a couple hundred thousand dollars for for for a booth.
1:12:03
So maybe that starts off as you do your newsletter or you do like the the low effort thing first, the low price low effort thing of newsletters or whatever, build that audience and then just immediately go into like I'm surprised you guys haven't done a conference yet cuz I feel like that would that would make like an MFM one. Yeah, like an MFM one.
1:12:20
Yeah, we're just lazy but yeah.
1:12:20
Um Another one that actually kind of related um I think this is kind of boring, but like a CRM for again like cashed-up niches.
1:12:29
So we're right now looking for like a new CRM platform and you know, everyone goes to like Salesforce or whatever, but they operate in like a hundred different verticals, right?
1:12:38
And so who's going to get our 10K a month?
1:12:40
It's going to be the one that is still yeah, built specifically for iGaming, which is our niche whatever.
1:12:46
So right now like we're making the decision and we're going to go with some other smaller company.
1:12:50
We're not going with Salesforce.
1:12:50
We're going with this other one.
1:12:51
They're going to get up, you know, 10 grand a month or whatever Um because they're specifically they're specifically for iGaming, right?
1:12:58
So, that's like another one that's a little bit boring, but it's like if you can just find like some niche that one of these other cash up niches.
1:13:03
So, like one for example, I think is like farming. Right. Yeah, yeah.
1:13:05
I know I mean any real estate is another one, right? Yeah.
1:13:11
Within that, you could even be like senior living or HVAC.
1:13:12
You know, like things like that where you know that everybody there can spell EBITDA.
1:13:17
Well, it's I think for anything that were the interactions or the behaviors of your customer is high value.
1:13:25
Yeah, it's very high value, but it's also it's very different to like maybe like an e-commerce like or like just a transaction like on our one it's like you you have a bunch of games that you like and you spend, you know, we want to know exactly if you've lost this amount of money in the next few hours, we want to like make some contact with you and stuff like that, right?
1:13:46
We can't really do customer behaviors like that with like a Salesforce or whatever it is.
1:13:48
Or or like what whatever else CRM platform because it's it's very tailored to a very broad niche.
1:13:54
So, anything that has like So, you're saying high value customers and then basically figure out like first principles, what should this look like for this niche? Yeah, yeah.
1:14:01
I think something like that. That's pretty good. I like that.
1:14:06
I think that's a very like that's a very good sandbox for somebody that wanted to explore.
1:14:10
And we we just went out to support there could be someone that does like So, if in in the gaming biz, there's, you know, VIP like VIPs make up your whole entire business that we're talking about.
1:14:21
There's actually other verticals as well where VIPs is like your thing.
1:14:24
It should actually every single business probably has VIPs that they're just like not interacting with.
1:14:29
So, maybe like VIP medicine software for e-commerce for whatever, you know, even for like retail businesses or whatever.
1:14:36
Like you probably have Yeah, you probably have like customers that will come in.
1:14:39
Let's say I started getting into like the hot cold exposure therapy stuff.
1:14:42
So, I I I going like How tech bro of you.
1:14:45
I was like, I started going to these places like, you know, three, four times a week.
1:14:50
But, um you know, if these guys just would have know that like I'm paying this much amount of money, like come up sell me on something else or do something else.
1:14:59
Like, I think that even like retail businesses like just if you were to focus less of your time on trying to, you know, broaden and like getting paying on these Facebook ads to get the next thousand customers, what about the 10 that's going to spend like, you know, you know, whatever five, 10 times more on the business.
1:15:15
Um so, that's probably I need some VIP management software for these guys.
1:15:19
That would be that would be it could sit on top of whatever whatever niche you choose.
1:15:22
It could just sit on top of the current software and just be like, yeah, but this one is all about your VIPs.
1:15:27
And we're just going to extract the data that we need and then give you the actions or the recommendations or the the triggers in order for you to like When should when should we reach out?
1:15:36
What should we give them? What do they like?
1:15:37
It That could That could be one.
1:15:39
Um This is probably not so unique, but I think I don't I I don't know if you've used these used people like this, but like uh agencies for content that do It's like full service of like thumbnails and um editors and I like I don't know how hard that is to find.
1:15:55
Like people that really know their [ __ ] about, you know, creating online content cuz it seems like every single person wants to like, you know, be a personality or brand right now.
1:16:03
Um and so, people that I mean, a lot of these are like unique kids that know how to do this.
1:16:07
Um but it's like exactly how to connect those middle Yeah, they be the middle men for the unique Which is nice.
1:16:14
It was like done for you. So, D- DfY. Yeah.
1:16:16
So, like people who do this e-com now, honestly, I think they're pretty scammy, but they're like, "Hey, we will just hand you the e-commerce business that makes cash flow." Right.
1:16:27
Anytime someone promises you passive income, just like run away. Yeah.
1:16:29
But like, um that's what they're promising.
1:16:31
And a lot of people These companies that are promising this are making a ton of money.
1:16:35
And one of the reasons why is it's tempting to Instead of just saying, "Here, we'll teach you Facebook ads."
1:16:40
But now you got to go figure out the rest. What product? What's the supply chain?
1:16:43
What's What's Google Ads?
1:16:45
They're like, "We're just going to give you the whole thing." Yeah. Uh turnkey.
1:16:48
And so, you know, there's a version of that like there's video editors and content.
1:16:52
There there's, you know, copywriters.
1:16:55
But like, you kind of want the whole thing, the sort of like done-for-you package.
1:16:58
Yeah, I think like a full-service uh agency for all that sort of stuff might might work out.
1:17:04
Trying to think of what else. Uh Let's see.
1:17:10
Uh this one's kind of related to like maybe uh what you do with Shepherd, but um so recently we like we we started to had to expand to Japan, right?
1:17:17
Um and that is like none of us speak Japanese.
1:17:22
It's like we don't know how to scale in that country.
1:17:25
And so, what what we had to do was like first let me research what other companies have done.
1:17:29
And I remember reading, I think maybe it was like a Tim Arfidi when he was at Facebook.
1:17:33
And he was like, uh we hired some MBAs, and they flew over to Japan. They came back.
1:17:39
And, you know, a few months went by. We weren't growing.
1:17:42
We're like, "What's going on?" We fired those MBAs.
1:17:43
We got this like young woman from that who was actually living in Japan.
1:17:47
And within the first month we were seeing growth. And we're like, "Wait.
1:17:50
What Okay, what are you doing that these MBA people haven't done?"
1:17:52
She's like, "Well, I you know, on on the Facebook profile, like we don't care about your relationship status.
1:17:57
We care about your blood type."
1:17:59
And it's just like stuff like that that you would only know localization translation.
1:18:04
And to find those people is like it Yeah, it's it's pretty hard to to do that.
1:18:08
So, maybe if there's some agency where um like so we hired uni kids that are that speak native like fluent English so we can communicate with them, but also they're fluent, you know, in Japanese.
1:18:19
And doing that like, you know, our growth has been like 10x of just like they know the market in terms of They like they But none of them knew anything about like gambling.
1:18:28
They don't need to know that. We can teach them that. Right.
1:18:30
Basically, they know like what are the people like, how to communicate with them, how do we uh yeah, localize all that content, or everything um to to cater to this market where and it's in certain markets very important that you are respectful and you appeal like you're not you appeal like you're not a foreign company that's trying to attract the customers.
1:18:50
You appeal like you're born out of that country. Right.
1:18:52
Um so so doing that whole process for me was very hard to find like the right people that spoke English that also was native in Japanese and and do all that.
1:19:01
So maybe if there was some like shepherd-like uh agency to help you cater your expanding into this country.
1:19:08
Here's like your you know, growth assistants that are native to that language and can do all these things. Um that's cool. I like that.
1:19:14
Um Yeah, there's two crazy things on that.
1:19:16
One, if you look at the Facebook growth chart, like one of the key things for Facebook was getting the site translated and localized across like and they did a they had to do some crazy Wikipedia-like [ __ ] to get the whole site translated cuz there's so many different I mean, the Facebook site was com- complex at the time.
1:19:32
And so um I remember seeing that.
1:19:34
That was very impressive to me.
1:19:35
Second is there's a subversion of this which is just to do business in certain places you have to establish an office. Yeah. Uh like China.
1:19:42
You can't do business there unless you have a local office.
1:19:43
You can't do business certain places.
1:19:45
Can't pay You can't pay local people unless you have a thing or whatever.
1:19:48
And just that can take like a year. Yeah.
1:19:54
And so like I remember with Twit- when we were at Twitch it's like, "Oh yeah, we're trying to put our servers here.
1:19:58
We're trying to do this here."
1:20:00
Um we're using They we had to use Amazon's people to do international expansion even as a multi-billion dollar company didn't have like that expertise in house.
1:20:09
And they would be like, "Yeah, it's going to be 12 months."
1:20:10
And they'd be like, "We're finally live in whatever so-and-so country with our office." And I'm like, "What?"
1:20:16
And like and they're like, "Yeah, that this has been a year of effort." And that's insane.
1:20:19
Like that seems like can we turn that to software somehow?
1:20:23
Like the way that Stripe Atlas did for company incorporation?
1:20:25
Like is there a Stripe Atlas for the world in that way?
1:20:28
I've got a little funny story about the localization stuff.
1:20:30
So, um like everyone probably listening is probably thinking like, "Ah, but why don't you just get AI to translate your stuff?"
1:20:38
And it's it's not there to the point cuz we were using just ChatGPT, a bunch of guys that were non-Japanese speaking English ChatGPT.
1:20:43
And yeah, we're talking to like very high-value customers, right?
1:20:47
And you know, the AI hasn't really caught up in like tone or like certain like nuances.
1:20:51
And so, apparently like, you know, we were talking to a VIP like they were a kid.
1:20:57
Like we were saying, "Good boy."
1:20:57
Like something like that.
1:20:59
And yeah, it was Yeah, some of the people are into that [ __ ] I was like, "Hey, these people like And then, you know, yeah, definitely these people definitely weren't.
1:21:06
They were like, 'They stopped playing with us.
1:21:07
They were like, Yeah, yeah, like disrespecting the people last.'"
1:21:10
So, um yeah, so getting like native Yeah, getting like for especially languages like that, like getting like native people to know how to speak, um yeah, no work.
1:21:19
We So, what one of the one of the projects I worked on when I was at Twitch was like we were trying to grow like crazy in Brazil.
1:21:23
Like And so, I was like, "All right.
1:21:25
Luckily, we had a a group of people like There's four people in an office in Brazil that like no one was even talking to really.
1:21:30
They were like, They were so at arms length from the headquarters.
1:21:34
And I was like, "Hey, I'm here and you guys are like my key people."
1:21:38
They're like, "Oh, awesome. We have so many ideas.
1:21:39
Like, can you help us do them?" We're like, "Yeah."
1:21:41
Well, I was like, "What sorts of ideas?"
1:21:44
And they were like, "Well, you know, our Everybody here uses YouTube.
1:21:47
And so, subscribe is like how you follow people on YouTube.
1:21:51
But on Twitch, subscribe is you costs money.
1:21:53
So, everybody here, they open the Twitch app and they click subscribe to follow the someone they find interesting, it says pay $5. Right. Yeah. "Dollars? First of all, five?
1:22:00
That's a week of groceries.
1:22:02
And secondly, this side you have to pay to watch people? Screw this.
1:22:06
They don't even know that it's free to watch." Right. Yeah.
1:22:08
It's like, "Can you just change the text on that button?"
1:22:11
And I was like, "Oh, damn.
1:22:11
How many more of those are there inside this app?"
1:22:13
And another one was like, We were like trying to come up with like these marketing campaigns.
1:22:17
We had like marketing like our marketing experts were coming up with these ideas. I asked the local team.
1:22:22
They were like, "Hey, can you buy the Can you just like give me your credit card?
1:22:25
I want to buy five iPhones. I was like, iPhones? Why?
1:22:26
He's like, in Brazil, an iPhone is like a gold bar.
1:22:31
He's like, this is like he's like, we're just going to give these away?
1:22:34
Trust me, you'll get like 20,000 people watching this stream. I'm like, what?
1:22:37
He's like, this is a gold bar.
1:22:37
Imagine somebody just giving out like golden bars.
1:22:41
He just kept saying that and then he did it and it was just exactly that.
1:22:45
It was like, all of a sudden it was just number one most watched guy on Twitch that day. It was Right.
1:22:48
the guy giving away one iPhone.
1:22:49
And he he milked it for like 4 hours.
1:22:51
He's like, I'm not giving it away until we get like 30,000 people in here. Yeah.
1:22:57
He's like, and it worked. It was insane.
1:22:59
Yeah, there's yeah, stuff like that that we that we find out like every week of like, oh [ __ ] you guys are should do it this way and by us Have you heard about what Mr. Beast does? With this?
1:23:08
Uh is it like the dubbing the videos?
1:23:11
So, first he exploded his growth by just being the one of the few American YouTubers to like create his Brazil page, create his Philippines page, create his Indonesia page.
1:23:20
He created separate accounts for all those, localize them, hired somebody who speaks the language and like, you know, like when we were over hanging out with them, some lady walked in speaking Portuguese and I was like, Like what the hell's going on?
1:23:32
And he's like, oh yeah, she manages like my whole page for for Brazil. Yeah.
1:23:36
Uh you know, like you have to have somebody who speaks the language and knows it.
1:23:39
And then what they did was I was like, so do you dub it?
1:23:41
He's like, yeah, we dub it, but we hire like voice actors.
1:23:45
I'm like, but why don't you you could use AI.
1:23:46
I'm like excited to be like, you could use AI.
1:23:47
He was Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you can.
1:23:49
But like he's like, what we do is we go and we find the guy who did the Spider-Man voice in Brazil and he does my dub for like pretty cheap.
1:23:59
And then every comment is, holy [ __ ] it's Spider-Man. Yeah.
1:24:01
And like he's getting crazy engagement cuz they're like, that's Spider-Man.
1:24:05
And he's like, yeah, it cost me like an extra five grand, but like look at what it did to my page.
1:24:10
I think they turned that into like a agency where they like they like they they do it for other people as well. Like it's Yeah.
1:24:14
They do the done for you thing.
1:24:16
They're like, if we did this for growth, we should do this for 20 other YouTubers.
1:24:18
And I was like, dude, of all your businesses like Feastables or whatever, Yeah.
1:24:22
this is like the most underrated one because I'm like this is genius.
1:24:25
It's selling your sawdust, your your byproduct. Yeah.
1:24:29
Stuff you already built in the house, you're just making it available for others.
1:24:32
Like that's a no and you're Mr. Beast.
1:24:34
If you just said "Hey, every YouTuber, like you can use what I use."
1:24:39
They'll all sign up, right?
1:24:40
So, it's like instant customer acquisition. Ping.
1:24:43
And they take like they're like, "Dude, you don't even have a page in the Philippines.
1:24:48
We're going to run it We're going to create it.
1:24:49
We're going to run it for you. We get half or whatever. We get 30 to 50%." Right.
1:24:53
like they don't just take like a monthly fee.
1:24:55
They own like, you know, the majority like, you know, like a huge chunk of that channel.
1:24:58
I'm like, "That's a really good model." Yeah.
1:24:59
I wonder if anyone has done like a roll up of YouTube channels and brands or whatever.
1:25:04
Like that seems like seems like every niche ends up being like you get rolled out of Yeah, you get rolled up and do that.
1:25:09
So, I don't know if I don't know if you've heard of Spotter.
1:25:12
No, I haven't heard of it.
1:25:14
So, they're kind of doing it.
1:25:14
What they're doing is they go to the creators and they say, "We'll buy your back catalog." Right.
1:25:19
So, they say, "We'll give you $2 million today.
1:25:20
You can invest that in your videos now to make better videos.
1:25:24
And they're like, "We can just see with AdSense we'll make our money back in 2 years and then after that like forever we profit off your back catalog."
1:25:30
That's like the equivalent of like Taylor Swift selling exact masters or whatever. Exactly.
1:25:35
So, they This company is like, I don't know.
1:25:38
They raise a lot of money.
1:25:39
I don't know you know, the key is underwriting.
1:25:40
It's like I don't know if they correctly underwrite these deals or not. Yeah. But like Mr.
1:25:43
Beast sold a bunch of his back channel of back catalog.
1:25:47
A bunch of other people have.
1:25:48
So, I think they've like either raised at a billion-dollar valuation or we're close to it. doing that for YouTube.
1:25:52
I have a friend that I work with who manages Speed's I You know, you Speed the the kid? Uh he manages his IP.
1:25:58
I don't know what to call it like uh whenever there's a video of Speed going viral on YouTube or TikTok or whatever, they will claim it and then they make revenue off They'll they'll actually they'll run ads on it. Ads on it.
1:26:11
I think I think very quickly like just Speed alone has generated like a million dollars so far.
1:26:15
And he's like, "We should just be doing this for like not just being like all these different creators you know, create like a big business that So, that might be also like another like within Because the way that works is if your video, if your IP is being played by somebody else, you can claim it and either they take it down down, yeah.
1:26:32
or you get all the ad revenue. Yeah, exactly, yeah.
1:26:33
And I I think he should just do Yeah, he would a lot like a do that.
1:26:37
So, cuz they found like they were like just like for people creators like Speed like a lot of the eyeballs that are that is on him is not on his videos.
1:26:46
It's on the millions of clips and yeah compilations and stuff that are that's that's going unclaimed.
1:26:52
Like you're you're just like easy money that you could be claiming and and getting.
1:26:55
So, um yeah, that's probably another thing that people should you know, look into and do this so good. Uh this is great.
1:27:04
These are Yeah, some some These are fun ideas.
1:27:06
Um I'm glad we did this, man. This is awesome.
1:27:09
And uh yeah, Ishaan, where should they follow you or go What can they do?
1:27:13
Uh yeah, you can follow me on Twitter.
1:27:15
Um Ishaan Yeah, Ishaan Haque.
1:27:18
But the last two letters of my name is kind of s- s- h a q.
1:27:21
So, and you're you're s h a a n Yeah. I'm i s h a n h a q.
1:27:24
That's that's my Twitter.
1:27:28
Nobody else has a h s in America.
1:27:29
Uh h Uh but yeah, follow follow me on Twitter if you're on LinkedIn or it's Look me up.
1:27:36
in the in the description. Uh Dude, amazing. I'm proud of you.
1:27:38
Um you know, this has been amazing to Yeah, yeah, you you know, I I also say it. I I am super impressed.
1:27:45
I just I'm so glad you kind of you've taken, you know, the ball you've run with it and you're taking just such interesting shots on goal. Yeah.
1:27:53
And like whether any of these work or not right now is pretty secondary. Like Yeah.
1:27:59
By the time you're 30 your scoreboard is going to be filled up.
1:28:03
You're going to have made all the successes you whether it was this or that or I don't know which one. Yeah.
1:28:05
By the time you're 30 you're going to have it all done in terms of like, you know, the achievement side.
1:28:10
But you're also just going to have had so much fun. Right.
1:28:13
like, you know, these lessons you're learning about like hiring these kids in Japan because of this Yeah, those are the real lessons of business and so I'm so glad you're you're getting them, man. This is so cool to see. Thanks. I appreciate it.
1:28:23
I've got one last question for you.
1:28:26
I remember you said so you you I forgot like your one life goal was like I think it was like you want to educate was it 1% of the world or or whatever?
1:28:32
I I What I said What I said at the time was I want to be like for 1% of the world I want to be their favorite teacher.
1:28:40
Yeah, like, you know, which was at the time I think like 60 million people or something like that.
1:28:44
I was like if if 60 million people thought like cuz like for me, I'm like, oh, like I learned so much from Tony Robbins or Tim Ferriss or Naval or these people like I'd love to just be that for for people.
1:28:57
I think that's like Yeah.
1:28:58
I know what they kind of have done for me.
1:29:00
That'd be so cool if I was that for other people.
1:29:02
That'd I think that'd be like the highest calling for me. Yeah. Yeah.
1:29:05
And do you think so is that A is that still the case and then B like do you still want to do that?
1:29:09
And then B like what do you think will be the What do you think will be like the avenue that where you achieve that?
1:29:14
Like is it Is it because you're already in the ears of, you know, all these people but whatever those stats are now? Yeah.
1:29:21
A very different sort of stats than I started. Yeah.
1:29:25
Do you think you'll be podcasting or something?
1:29:26
It's done actually that goal That goal I think was arbitrary.
1:29:30
Like who cares if it's 60 million Who cares if it's 1%? It was ambitious.
1:29:34
It like it sounded good in my mind. Yeah.
1:29:36
It sounded good, but I'm like I only need to say this to myself.
1:29:39
Like I don't I I need to believe it for myself what this what this actually means.
1:29:44
And that's not something I like needed to die to do.
1:29:46
You know, like I didn't like feel like it was do or die to do be to be able to pull that off.
1:29:50
It was something that like sounded better than what I really meant.
1:29:53
It was also kind of virtue signaling like you know, um I don't even know if like teacher's the right word, but I guess the thing that I think about now is uh almost like the D I I I stripped the ambition out of that and just made it really simple, but more true for me, which was I want to be somebody that if I was 21, I would look up to this person.
1:30:14
Like I'd be like that is what I want to be. That guy's awesome.
1:30:18
And that's a combination of things.
1:30:20
So, for example, part of it is making content, being out there.
1:30:23
Otherwise, I wouldn't have even known that this guy existed.
1:30:25
Part of it is do cool [ __ ] so that like stuff that like I respect more think is cool in some way.
1:30:32
Some of it is like build a cool business.
1:30:35
Some of it's like uh you know, this Outcast conference. Like that's cool.
1:30:39
I'm like I like his reasoning behind that.
1:30:41
I like that he went and did it.
1:30:42
Or like, you know you know, just giving somebody, you know, a bunch of money cuz you believe in them and like my version of philanthropy.
1:30:49
It's not like donating to the cause and going and sitting on the board of some nonprofit, but like if you see somebody who's got a dream, like fund it and like make that happen.
1:30:58
So, I want to do cool [ __ ] that like I would respect.
1:31:00
And the last part is the way you come across.
1:31:03
Like I I know that my favorite people were charismatic, storytellers, they were funny, they were likable.
1:31:08
They didn't feel like they were bullshitting you.
1:31:10
They had moments where they were honest and like they could have just not shared that or they could have said a sanitized version, but they chose to just be real.
1:31:18
So, I'm like those became my like scoreboard is like would I at age 18 to 24, like would I have thought this guy's the man?
1:31:27
And like I know even at that time, I was like if I saw somebody that was awesome, like Elon Musk. Oh, he's amazing.
1:31:33
I remember watching some documentary about him on the plane before he even started like uh Tesla, I think.
1:31:38
Or it was like long time ago.
1:31:41
And I remember thinking this guy's awesome.
1:31:43
But he had like had four marriages at that point.
1:31:45
I was like that's not winning to me.
1:31:49
I like that he's an outlier in this one domain.
1:31:50
But like I didn't want to replicate these other three.
1:31:53
So, like, you know to me, I'm like the thing I would have respected is somebody who's like who's like they're really good dad.
1:32:01
Like, for example, one of the things I want to do instead of instead of doing another business or write a check is like I want to go coach like a high school basketball team like Mighty Ducks style for a year or 2 years or something like that.
1:32:12
And I'm if I'm I remember if I had if old me if young me had heard that some guy was do some rich guy was doing that Yeah.
1:32:19
I would have been like, I don't care if he's not the richest or most successful. That guy's awesome.
1:32:25
Yeah, but And so I just kind of want to be the person like that What's that quote like?
1:32:28
Be who you needed when you were younger? Yeah.
1:32:30
Not needed, but like be who you would have admired when you were younger. Right. And uh that's the goal. Yeah.
1:32:35
Uh not the like exact goal I had before, which I don't know if it's better or worse, but like it's more true for me.
1:32:41
So I know uh I think you'll say on some pod you're like you I think you went to LA something you met a bunch of like rich people and at this point now I've met a bunch of billionaires and other cool people and for the most part like a lot of rich people are like miserable and um they're and like we mentioned before about the kids that stay in their room and build these businesses they lack other Right.
1:33:00
components of life and I see that reflected throughout all these people that are Yeah, they're they're they've made a bunch of money or they've done this one cool thing, but they've neglected every other part of their life and it's like okay, it's there's yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't you know trade I wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to be in in those shoes.
1:33:18
Um it's similar to what the I forgot who it was, but some guy talked to the Instacart CEO and he was like uh are you how old are you?
1:33:24
And he was like, I'm 33 and he's like, I would be his And this guy's worth billions of dollars and he's like, I'd do anything to be 33 again.
1:33:30
Um And like I hear trade trade all his money.
1:33:33
So it's like I see that a lot more now and I you know I'm hopefully maturing.
1:33:38
Well, like years before I was like, yeah, I just want to get all this and get the money and stuff like that.
1:33:42
Um but yeah, I think that's something cool.
1:33:45
And one thing that one of the probably the most important thing not important, but like effective things that I learned working at a year um was I mean everybody maybe it was maybe you're talking to Sully or Sully taught you this was like aggression like just being like aggressive and like getting getting things done and what you want out like I think most people don't don't do that like they don't follow up
1:34:05
or you know they don't they don't be annoying like they don't they don't try to be annoying um when I when I started applying that I was like okay things are moving away way way faster um Yeah I remember probably like cuz I used to kind of you were like my dear diary it's like I would come home and I'd be like I don't even know what time it was your time you know I I 3:00 a.m. yeah yeah m. yeah yeah 3:00 a. m.
1:34:26
and I'd be like hey I'm ready to work and like I'd be like I met this guy or I noticed this thing and I would like kind of like use you as my sounding board to like play some of these lessons back so it's cool to hear what like stuck but yeah that that idea of like intensity is the strategy meaning like Yeah.
1:34:41
this guy's not smarter than me he's not Yeah.
1:34:44
more knowledgeable than me about this he's not like there's no special aura around this person what is it that's made this person so successful and what what do I what's the difference between me and them?
1:34:55
And I just noticed I was like oh he doesn't have these like imaginary walls where it's like you stop here Right.
1:35:01
he's just like no like okay we want to do this let like I remember one time we wanted to do a deal the guy who we wanted to invest in this company and he was like yeah I was kind of on the fence and he was like what if we just wire him the money and I was like $2 million and he's like he's like yeah like let's wire him the money he's an honest guy like we met the guy he's like not like a crook Yeah.
1:35:18
um he's like let's just wire him the money and then like I feel like that'll tip the scale once the money's in his bank account he's not going to like want to like wire it back and I was like this guy's insane and like we had another moment like that
1:35:29
where we were working on a one of the founders was like oh I really need to raise this round and they're telling us this urgency I really got to do this we're running out of money the the pitches are not going well the first few pitches didn't go well can you guys help? We're like yeah we
1:35:41
We're like yeah we can help we can help right now sounded like an emergency oh well we got a thing I'm like you got a thing you just said this is like so important okay whenever you can they get on they get on the call with us.
1:35:53
We go through the deck before we we said send the deck in advance.
1:35:58
There's like 40 minutes before the call. What do most people do?
1:35:59
40 minutes before the call this we'll talk about it in 40 minutes. Yeah. No, no, no.
1:36:03
Sully was like, by the time the call happened he'd already emailed back like slides 9 through 13 suck eliminate them.
1:36:09
Slide four is backwards put it in slide one slide one needs to say this.
1:36:14
He'd already given them the full first round of feedback. Yeah.
1:36:16
They were like, what the hell?
1:36:17
So they were like looking at it and we're like cool, let's just make these changes right now.
1:36:20
They're like, no, no, we don't want we want to be respectful of your time.
1:36:23
He's like, the thing that's respectful of my time is like showing that you're like full force going for this not Yeah.
1:36:30
that you're not going to use my time. I'm here to help.
1:36:33
But like let's do the thing.
1:36:33
Yeah, you want to make this awesome? Let's make it awesome.
1:36:36
So they start working on it.
1:36:38
And they're like, okay, we we we know what we need to do next cuz we need to go pull some data do whatever.
1:36:43
And um so we'll check back in with you whenever.
1:36:45
He's like, uh you know, it was like noon.
1:36:47
He's like, cool, like let's check in at 6:00 p. m. today.
1:36:51
And they're like, two calls in a day?
1:36:53
And even I was like, two calls in a day?
1:36:54
I've never done that with somebody.
1:36:56
Have you ever scheduled two calls in one day with somebody? Like never happens.
1:37:00
It's not that it's so crazy.
1:37:00
It's not like running into a burning building, but it's kind of the business equivalent of running into it.
1:37:05
It's like, woah, that's unusual.
1:37:06
That's like a highly intense way to do this. Yeah.
1:37:08
And you can tell they were kind of shocked by it and then they did it. And at 6:00 p. m.
1:37:13
it was like still not not like exactly where we needed it to be or we realized something. Right.
1:37:16
And we're like, cool, night and tomorrow let's do it again.
1:37:21
By the third day we were like, this deck is in great shape, but these guys were like worn out. Yeah.
1:37:25
And Sully was like, dude, I'm just getting warmed up. This is great.
1:37:29
This is like what I live for is find the thing and laser in and just go for it.
1:37:34
And like, what who says we can't meet twice in a day?
1:37:37
Who says that they said no to the first proposal?
1:37:41
Well, let's what if you know, there is some number they'll do this at? What's that number?
1:37:45
And like, you know, he'll just think about it differently. Yeah. That stuck with me.
1:37:49
I'm glad that kind of that idea stuck with you.
1:37:51
I say it out loud so that somebody out there listening will be realize like, "Yo, my intensity now I've been stuck at six." Yeah.
1:37:58
Like, 10 isn't more hours.
1:37:58
It's just like more focus and it's more intensity at the main issue and not self-limiting and self by by fake imaginary walls that don't exist. Yeah.
1:38:11
Yeah, you got to bring the energy uh no small boots up. That's what I yeah. All right, that's it. That's the pod.