Billion Dollar Ad Arbitrage: Opportunities Hidden in Plain Sight

Basically I think you said they they sold like half a million dollars worth of chocolate off this Of this ad. Um and like within a couple weeks or something like that. So it really like jumps Feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my law in it like no day's off On a roadless travel never looking back

Are you um Are you changing anything you're doing right now because the economy just sucks ass right now? Uh no. Um What do you mean the economy sucks out? You mean the stock market sucks? The normal people economy. Yeah, the m the m economy for muggles.

Well, I I don't even well, I don't even think that's that,'cause there's still like the normally the normal people economy is like restaurants, bars, grocery stores, like you know Taxi drivers, you know, stuff like that. Then there's the stock market. So There's like Main Street, there's Wall Street, and then there's like Crypto L S D land. I spent all my time at Crypto L S D land, so I don't pay attention to either Main Street or Wall Street, personally. Well m the my three worlds. are going through craziness. Real estate.

Increase rates. I wonder what's gonna happen in the next six, twelve months. Uh startups. So like these startups that you and I all invested in like six months ago, huge valuations. They had a lot of work to do to live up to it.

Um and funding's now way harder to get just in like three months. Like the macro environment changes in two months. And then finally public equities are just in the shitter. It this sucks, man. I feel bummed. Um yeah, the the guy I think we both have the same guy at um Whatever, Morgan Stanley or whatever and he'd be

Uh tough market, but I'm like, bro, I'm not even looking at this. Why are you texting me about this? Uh You know, I appreciate him checking in and making sure that you know everything's okay, but I don't need to be reminded because I'm not I'm not I don't pay attention to that anyways. I'm I'm too knee deep in my own world. That sucks. Uh my trainer has a phrase for this. He calls it Caesar's World. He's like we there's like you know

You ever heard that phrase leave? Leave unto Caesar what is Caesar's Um, I don't know if you ever heard that, but it's basically like there's kind of like the external it's like the stuff that's A out of our control and B like You know, the world can be going crazy. That doesn't mean I need to go crazy. Like Uh people are outraged about this. That doesn't mean I need to be outraged about that. And so

Uh Sometimes I'll be telling him something and he's like Ca Caesar's world, bro. And I have to remember, oh yeah, like I'm putting my attention and energy into something that's A outside of my control and B like Doesn't really matter. It doesn't actually affect me. It does shouldn't be affecting my current mood and uh I gotta remember, you know, how to keep what's what.

No, I've gotten better, but it still sucks. I just got done speaking at a conference. You know who Neil Patel is? Yeah, the marketer guy. Yeah, he was hosting a conference. Dude, I bet you that guy's just wildly wealthy, like cash wealthy. And uh He's been in the game forever. And do you know um this Naval book? What's it called? The the almanac.

Yeah. So it was Yeah. You know, it's on Naval, but it was written by This guy named Eric. What's his last name? Jorge. Jorgensen. Yeah.

Dude, I saw him at the conference and he came up to me and goes, Hey man, what's up? And I go, Oh, hey, Eric, I I've read your book. You're awesome. He goes, Yeah, uh nice to meet you. You're uh You're way smaller than I thought you were gonna be in real life. I was like, Did you just did you just nig me? Can I remember? Like I was immediately attracted to him. How do I win your approval? Yeah, I need to win your approval, Dad. Dude, he just baked me so hard. And he's like six six. Did you know that? Oh, that's why. Okay, gotcha, he big dogged you. Yeah, he big dogged me hard, dude. He he nagged me so hard. I was like, Oh, I like that. Feisty

Yeah, that's what that does happen. And uh And when it does, it really like rocks you'cause you're so you you're probably so used to seeing the opposite. Oh you're way bigger than I thought. Oh dude, you're you're Jack. You're tall. You're whatever. You know, you're amazing. And for someone to be like, oh Did Is this mini Sam are you Sam's son? Just negate so hard. It got me.

Um I dude, I've got a bunch I've got one interesting topic today. What do you got? Let's start with it. You wanna start with my thing? Yeah, start start with yours. So you're a Thirty-three, thirty-four year old guy. So you probably haven't been to the doctor in like fifteen years, but accurate. Yeah. Yeah. Men don't go to the doctors. My wife's gone and I'm sitting here doing this podcast. I'm wearing flip flops with one Foot has a sock on and underwear that's inside out because I didn't want to do laundry. So like, yeah, I mean I'm a grown child, too. But uh

So listen Uh, have you been to the doctor? Like with your wife or kid and notice that there's like these TV screens in there. I have like in the waiting room, you mean? In the waiting room, but also like in the doctor's office.

Like in the actual medical like in the room. I think them in the waiting room, but I'm Kaiser and those guys are cheap as hell, so they don't put'em in the the actual doctor's office. Yeah, Kaiser would is uh Kaiser's is its own network in hospital, so they they wouldn't apply to this. But basically if you go to most like an independent or like a normal non Kaiser doctor There's TV screens in the waiting room, there's TV screens in the hallway, and then oftentimes now they've got TV screens in the doctor's office. And so have you heard of this company called Outcome Health? I've heard of this once before.

Maybe from you. No, I think it's actually from our buddy Sieva. And I'm just gonna tell you three words I remember. Hundred million dollars. Uh basically like waiting room TVs. And uh there's an Indian dude who's the founder. Those are the three things I kind of know about. Yeah, well you're missing the fourth word, which is fraud.

Okay, gotcha. This was four years ago, so maybe something has come out since then. So I'm gonna tell you about this business and I actually think that it's kind of like pretty morally corrupt, but it's interesting nonetheless. Um and the business model's actually good and interesting, but the guy who ran this particular business sucked. So basically it was called Outcome Health. It was started by this guy named Rishi and he was out of Chicago and he's like this Wonderkin prodigy, whatever, raised money at a five or ten billion dollar valuation, promised that he had or said he had 160 million in revenue. Turns out that was nonsense. It wasn't true. So he got sued and it didn't turn out well at all. But listen to what their business was. It's actually pretty kind

Again, unethical, I think, but fascinating. So basically, Do you what do you watch do you ever watch like cable TV? Yeah, of course. So it's like all Poyota commercials and like

Pharmaceuticals. Right. Back to the earlier point. Dodge Ram. Yeah. It's like Dodge Ramed and like Cialis. And And that's one of the reasons is like on Google and on Facebook and stuff like that, you can't really advertise pharmaceuticals, or at least the rules are a little bit different. And so pharmaceutical companies are advertising like crazy on TV. Something like eighty or eight billion dollars last year spent. It's like the third largest category.

And uh but they spend like Way more. So of the twenty million spent on pharmaceutic ads, like fifteen million of that is spent million. Billion. is spent in the doctor's office. And so they do that by like giving them free samples. By giving them like those like mugs and

Pens and just like shit like that. Just like swag. And so this guy came up with this idea where basically he puts a TV in the doctor's office and the T V is like touch screen and it's free for the doctor and it does some things like They could like put like Uh like

the person's chart on the TV or it's like interactive and be like, all right, so your foot's broken, and if we zoom in here, it's this bone and and But when you're not using it for that reason. It's an advertising thing. Mm. So it like shows ads. And they're not selling the ad.

Because the consumer is not the one whose choice it is of what drugs you're gonna get prescribed. It's the doctor. And so the pharmaceuticals go to Outcome Health and they say, here's the fifty thousand doctors who we're trying to reach. Show me which of those you have your TV in in in their office. and help us reach them. And we'll pay you a lot of money for that.

Right. Theoretically, he this guy was full of it. in like the fourth year business, he was like, Yeah, we're making like a hundred and sixty million dollars in ads and pharmaceutical ads. And now Outcome Health was eventually acquired by another company and they're actually doing it legitly and they're making over

They're probably making over a hundred million dollars. And it's all from pharmaceutical ads on these freaking Screen. What was he lying about? He lied about which doctors yet, or he lied about the revenue, like they just didn't have a hundred sixty million. Jay and J, Johnson and Johnson, they're executives and their their ad salespeople would go to these doctors and they're like, wait a minute.

This fucking company told us that there's TVs here. I don't see a TV anywhere And like it happened like dozens of times. Like, dude, you said that there was TVs and our ad was be being seen by this many people. It ain't happening. And so they basically just lied. They just said that their T Vs were in all of these rooms. They just thought that no one was gonna check. And so their TVs weren't actually there.

And so they build and but they were billing Johnson and Johnson on showing their Sialis ad or whatever. To You know, but it but one actually happening. So he lied. But it's pretty

Dude. Put the TV there. What a stupid reason to lie. It's not that expensive or hard to do to get a TV in a doctor's office. I just think it's crazy though that like This business model is like crazy fascinating though. It is kind of a good business out model, but I think it's The whole pharmaceutical industry advertising is kinda like bullshit.

You know what I mean? It's it's like someone someone's gonna do this for like uh so we saw we talked to that company that was doing this on top, but putting, you know, screens on top of Uber. Uh Uber cars. Which I uh I was totally against. Like I thought that business wasn't gonna work. Was I right or wrong? Did it work? I think It looked like we were wrong'cause they raised a bunch of money, but again, who knows? Maybe there's

Maybe it's a yeah. We got a reshe resheed Chicago situation again here. So I I don't know. But but but that company H did pretty well. Neither of us invested in it. Um There's

Other versions of this. So the question is like What are these captive audiences? Where you can go stick you can go create an ad network, right? So it's like Um, there's like physical places. So like, I don't know. High schools, colleges, like what

Can you just go put this in every dorm? Um, like in the country and then be like, Hey, you wanna reach college kids? There's no more effective place than this'cause like You know, every three minutes we give out like a free, you know Code for like a snapple from the vending machine and then The other you know.

Two minutes are are are just straight ads. And so it's like, you know, can you find captive audiences in other ways and create a network of like Some highly desired um like person. Like if the the key would be, you know, could you somehow Um, could you somehow do this around like

I don't know. Stay at home moms. Probably not because there's like They're spread out. Like that th that's the thing with doctor's office is like there's there's there's a smaller number of them that you need to like get the screens at the high value. There's this company called Cheddar. Do you remember Cheddar?

Cheddar was basically like The hustle. If it focused on all the weird shit. Instead of just like The substance and then somehow sold for two hundred million dollars. That's what I that's my take on cheddar. So you're you're forgetting the worst component is that it was entirely built at first on Facebook Alive.

So right when Facebook came out with Facebook Live, this guy named John Steinberg, who's a nice guy and a He's a bulldog. This guy is like Ari Gold. Like if he he sees what he wants and he's like a he's just it's like a missile. He just do he just captures all it and he just goes straight towards it. So anyway, this guy launches company called Cheddar. And the content was shit and somehow they got like

Well that's the c the pitch. So here was his pitch and how he raised a bunch of money from investors. He said Very similar to what you said. Hey, millennials, Gen Z, these guys are not trying to watch. You know, C N B C or M S N B C or I don't I don't know, whatever the finance channel is. I don't even know it. C N B C the the the pitch was C N B C only has like twenty thousand concurrent viewers viewers at any given point, but it makes like a billion dollars a year. Right. And they're all on Medicare. So it's like okay, so how do how do you get like Gen Z millennials, they're not gonna watch that. What are they gonna watch? And he's like

Social media Social media, right? And all the VCs have nod their head. He's like That's do you have a teenager, do they watch CBC or do they watch social media and everyone's like, social media. He's like, and guess what? They now have live video.

Facebook has live video, Twitter has live video, YouTube has live video. So we're gonna create C and B C on social media and they basically created a twenty four seven Like T V

T V show that was business news that would just be streaming all day onto Facebook Live, onto Twitter Live, onto like YouTube Live. onto all these different platforms. And it was which John and his co that in itself is amazing. Building twenty four. Twenty four seven's crazy. So that is amazing that he could even pull it off. But there was one

factor that he kinda screwed up on which is like No one wanted to watch it. Yeah. Everyone rolled right past it. Yeah. No one so his like He he executed a bad premise wonderfully. Yeah, ten out of ten hustle. Two out of ten idea.

Because Guess what happens on social media? You don't stop and watch the live video for forty minutes. Like that's just not what happens. On most social media. And so, you know, it just didn't really work. And you're right. And twenty four seven, it was kinda boring because It's just not twenty four seven worth of Like interestingness when it comes to that stuff.

And he raised money, I think he raised forty million and somehow a cable company bought it. Or two hundred million dollars. And he told me, I met with him and he told me one time, he was like Yeah, so I'm gonna start this company and in two years I'm probably gonna sell it for two or three hundred million dollars. He he just told me and he just called it a shot. And he's a bulldog and he nailed it. He's an unstoppable force and he pulled it off.

But now what they do is if you go to a gas station You don't even go to gas stations anymore, do you? No, dude, dude. I pump my own gas. Yes I do. Uh, if you'll see cheddar all on their little screen. And so they're they're like owning like this weird market of people who want to play like Jeopardy while they're pumping their gas, like You know, it's like Snapple f Snapple facts while you're while you're like doing your gas. So they there you they've got the gas market. Well who was it that we met didn't we meet somebody? I I think I maybe it was just me. I met somebody recently who was like

Yeah, you know in a gas station those screens, like I own the ad inventory of like these like in these like three cities. Uh like I'm like the kind of main guy. So like, you know, how do you think I should sell these ads? Uh He's like I I that's what I own. I own this inventory. Does it make it money?

It w I'm sure he was doing okay, but he was like, You know, what would you do and I was like I was like well The people who want this ad is like the local businesses, right?'Cause they have like l You can actually send them like local foot traffic. better than like a Facebook or a Google or these like scaled easy to use ad platforms can. Dude, selling local ads is the worst though.

There's like These like San Francisco based I remember I had a couple of San Francisco based Yelp friends. And they were like They were like like Like have you seen that scene in the R get Rich or Die Trian with fifty cent where he's selling drugs and like one

g guy goes up to one of the drug dealers and tries to buy like Some crack, but with like quarters and nickels and the drug dealer smacks it out of his hand and finity goes, Hey man, come here, I'll take it. It was like see how hard I hustled, I was willing to take the change. And like The Yelp is like that version of ad salespeople. Like they would like find like a pie shop and sell a four hundred dollar ad. You know what I mean? And they're just grinding to get that done.

Yeah, there's just guys in the Yelp sales office. Dude, I would watch a twenty four-seven feed of Yelp sales office. Cause guys Are the grimiest gr grittiest salespeople on earth. They will shake your local pie shop down and be like Hope you don't want this review that I just posted on your page. Go fucking w write a horrible review on your page and then call you, tell you to go look at it, and then sell you a a premium plan that will get that ad removed. It's like the craziest thing in the world. Yeah, dude. It it's a racket. And and like Put grandma on the phone. Put her on the phone. Grandma. Stop it by We got a problem on Yell. You gotta pay They're basically like the mob. Like Do you want protection?

And then like they do something bad if if they're from us. They are like a mob. Yeah. Totally, totally. It's it is crazy. So those local ads suck, man. I I I've uh when I've got friends who want to start like local ads or local newsletters. And I'm like, yeah, you're gonna get tons of eyeballs. The problem is monetizing that sucks, man. You gotta deal with like You know, like

Bob's steaks and chops down the street and like exhaust well I'll give you like thirty pounds of filet mignon and exhaust It's just hard. I cut this great deal for Milk Road. I was like, okay, what's our fill rate? I think our ad fill rate was like seventy five percent or something last month. I was like, it was seventy five percent? Yeah, and I was like, Ben, what'd I was like, what do we do with this other twenty five percent? And he's like, um He's like, dude, uh you know, he's like, We actually got hit up by a couple of brands that you you have said you liked on the podcast.

He's like they were just like, Yo, we'll take any ad. That you don't have that day. But we'll take it at forty percent of the list price. Um, and I'm gonna give it to you in store credit. Like the worst deal. It's like you know, I'm getting shook down by Yelp here. But I was also like I kinda love that product, so yeah, like let's do it. So like I have like

You know like Right in front of my front door right now, I have like P like pallets of Fit Aid'cause I just like ran a Fit Aid ad for them. And it's like, Oh here's you know, two thousand dollars of Fit Aid you know in exchange for that ad. Thank you so much. And so I'm like, all right, great, my gym has like, you know, energy drinks for the year and that's done. That's actually pretty smart. And it's really smart on their part. It's part of their part. And Ben was like, Yo, tell me like the five five or six products you're like you love the most. He's like, I'm doing mine too.

And like what is We'll give sweetheart deals to all these companies. Like if we've if we actually want their free product, like we really want their free product. This is a great way to do it. And it's like it's a great deal for them too. They just get this like ad hoc. Remnant inventory. I told you this off air, but when the hustle started, in order to get advertisers

Did you notice that when you started Milk Road, when you started having ads, you would get more people emailing you asking to advertise? Exactly, yes. And so I n noticed that early on. I was like if or I didn't notice it, I guess. I was like if we put ads in there, we're gonna get more ads and so I was like, Well like What's like the m most famous brands of people who don't who who everyone knows of, but hopefully their employees don't read the hustle.

And so in the early stages, like f you know, like it'd be like the hustle brought to you by Ford. And I had never talked to anyone in my life. I just put their logo in there and said I was sponsored by them. And I remember like Hopefully Ford, you guys, I'm sorry, but basically we don't listen. I love Ford. I had an F one fifty. I love Ford, but basically that's illegal. I mean that's illegal. You can't do that. And I didn't know that it was illegal. I was like, oh just put like You know, Microsoft in here, like put Ford, whatever, who cares. Like, hey, a free ad for them, right? I'm g I'm giving them something. Yeah. And I would put that in there and then immediately like there you know someone would email me and then eventually I noticed that if I put a brand's ad in there, their competitors would call me to advertise. Right. And this one I won't even I'm not gonna say it, but I would put in certain tech brands. I'm like, dude, this

particular this company X has a a really big ad budget, but they're not emailing me. Let's go and advertise why, which is their a direct competitor. And put'em in there. And then immediately after, and then sometimes what I would do is I would only put that particular ad in the email that was going to that company.

Because with email newsletters you can be like, Oh wow, there's eight people that have an at Uber.com email. Let's send an email with a message just to them. Here's a lift takeover email for them. So I'm like a mini Rishi, a little a little mini outcome health here, but uh yeah, uh That's uh that's kinda counterintuitive, like that Oh, if I put ads, that's actually the easiest way to to sell more ads and then Being sort of you know. You know, fake it till you make it. Yeah, I think that's like the the start up way.

Um there is a line. I don't think I personally don't think you crossed it. No, I don't think either. With the podcast, by the way, it was the same thing. Somebody was like, you know, uh It's like I had this conversation on the way, somebody was like, Oh, dude, love the podcast. And they're like, Uh, how much you making on that? I was like Uh not really Megan Joe.

much here. You know, it's a I do this for fun. But then it's kind of like ate at me and during my Uber ride to the thing, and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna get uh you know, I'm gonna get an ad. It was like the first or second podcast, I'm maybe third podcast. I was like, I'm gonna get like a a sponsor. I was like, Okay, do I really want to go do outreach sponsors? No way. Sounds like um

I just in the middle of the podcast episode I go I go And by the way, today's uh today's episode is brought to you by No one. No one sponsored today's episode. I like made it a joke and I was like But think about it. You could have me right here explaining your product. I could be like

Wow, it does this. And it does that. And I just like did this like fake ad read like for nothing. And I just like, whatever, I just like did that. Dude, the next day I got so many Like as soon as that episode released We got like our first three sponsors just from that like brought to you by nobody uh ad. And so I was like, Oh, that was like The hack for ad sales was uh, you know, just to embarrass myself a little bit on the pod. Well the re and the reason it works, and this is something that I had I learned along the way was marketers a good marketer is a shark.

And what they do is they spend most of their time seeking out underpriced new platforms and new places to advertise. The way that marketing typically works is you find one thing that works, you spend all the money and you crush and destroy it and you strangle it. And then you go Alright, that's exhausted. Move on. Next.

And so you are constantly seeking out the middle step. Then you go Tell everybody. Абага з ад чинал із крущень. You uh you get well known, you sell a course on that. Meanwhile, you've moved on to the next channel that's not saturated, and you go do that, and then you're silent until that one stops being like fruitful. And then you do the same thing. You sell the course, you talk about it, and then you move on again. And you do the same thing. And so whenever you see like a new podcast that you think has potential. Or you see a newsletter or like um

Uh well TikTok ads were a good example. Like it you're they're probably gonna crush once they open it up. Um which they are. And That's how marketers work. And w the smart marketers early on would approach me and they go, Hey, can we just buy it out for the year?

And at the time I was like, Yeah, definitely, I'm poor. I need everything And then I realized, Oh no, that's stupid. Because we're gonna grow a lot and I know what they're doing and they're smart. Right. Have you seen, um did I send you this TikTok ad for uh Tabs Chocolate.

I don't know. You've been sending me all these messages. I didn't realize it until two nights ago that I even had an inbox on TikTok. All right, I'm gonna show you what I think is the best ad um I've seen in like I mean I don't wanna say my whole life, but I can't really think of a better ad. So I'm just gonna give this guy mad props about the ad, okay. This company, Riverside, just raised like forty the we're so right now, Sean and I are using this podcast thing called Riverside. They just raised like forty million dollars, so It better work.

Go go watch that TikTok. Let's w watch this TikTok. Tell me this is not the best ad you've ever seen. And I'll and I'll break down why. Mm. Get it. That's a good idea. So first explain what it is for somebody who's not watching the YouTube channel. They're not gonna be able to do that. So there's this attractive

Nineteen year old right, or twenty one year old woman and I don't know, dude, I'm not that precise with it. Like a college age to young adult, uh attractive, but not like uh doesn't look like next girl attractive. It's ne girl next door attractive. Yeah. And she says, Y'all, let me let me put you on and uh this is a special chocolate that will change your love life seriously. It shows her and her boyfriend

Each taking a tab of the chocolate. And then it shows her again. Uh, with her hair having sex hair. Like it's implying that she just had sex. And uh and then it it just says it works at the end of it. And uh okay, so this ad has

Six hundred and fifty thousand likes went viral. Um It got featured in Vice and a bunch of other places because The brilliance of this. So why is this ad brilliant? So first the hook. The first hook is her she's cover she's got her hand covering her

face partially, which is like with like the kind of like, Oh my God. And then it says But it's real. This is a real Like this is like a real thing. This was a this was

I think he created this ad. This wasn't No, w what I mean is it doesn't look like a highly produced thing. It literally just looks like a woman holding a selfie. Yeah. She's holding her phone. Okay this this And then there's a g there's like a whatever, a viral song.

Right after that. And it looks like she's saying, Oh my God, let me tell you something and then The s it it zooms in on her eyes and she's just like Moving her eyes in that way of like that m like sort of a m mischievous thing. And then the next scene is It shows the packaging.

But there's also like a little like there's like another thing on the table. So you kinda don't it doesn't again, it doesn't scream ad at you, right? Like It's not like this beautifully Like a normal marketer would say, Well get this like, you know, candle that you have out of here. That's g confusing. And she's like, No, like make it look like a desk. And then like put the put the packaging of the product and it says

This quote unquote special chocolate We'll change your love life. Dot dot dot. Seriously. Okay, so now I'm like intrigued. It zooms in on it.

And then it goes. Shows the guy and the girl each breaking off a piece, like half and half of the thing. So A, that looks kinda fun to do. Um And then It doesn't tell you anything about it except for it goes to her with the disheveled hair.

Uh the JBF hair, as they used to say in college. If you know what that stands for. And then uh it just says it works with a shocked face. And then it's again her looking around like, Oh my God. Dude, what does it I actually don't know. What does JBF mean? I didn't go to like a cool Just been just been F. Uh um So so

So so so basically you Why is this amazing? This is amazing because To me, the best ads Have Three components.

They have The hook? Which is like just a thing to like draw you into even get you to pay attention, which is in her case the her with the hand over face. The second thing it has is the promise. So it has the the promise that gets me curious, and in this case is this quote unquote special chocolate will change your love life dot dot dot seriously.

And then it has The It skips to the end, right? I have moved straight to the end. It has the implication of it working. So it doesn't tell you

How it works. H why it works, the you know, what it does exactly. It's just the the end state. It takes you straight to the happy ending of This is life if you use our product. And um most people don't

Like most people don't know how to do a hook. They get the usually they get the how to do a promise and then Very rarely do people know how to use the implication. Which is Th this is this is if this works, here's what happens to your life. You kinda just show the ending.

And people just want to get into that anyway. And so they kind of put Put two and two together about you know, how how this might work and they wanna click to learn more. So that's why to me this is an amazing ad. And this is called Tab Chocolate. If you look at the rest of their TikToks, they're all doing the same thing. It's all like um

You and your husband when you first get married and it's like them like wanting to have sex and then it's like Ten years after marriage and it's like the wife trying to be sexy and the husband ignores her. And then they show now here's you with tab and it shows them wanting to have sex. It's so like an easy thing to advertise for. Well, kinda easy, but Uh what's this company about? Are they killing it? Yeah, so they basically are a D to C company. I wanna give the founder a shout out. I I think his name's Oliver. Wanna say Oliver. Let me see. Uh and what's in this chocolate? What it what what makes you horny? I don't even know.

Dude, I don't know, probably nothing. Doesn't matter. Uh yeah, this guy Oliver uh I I see this guy Oliver on uh on Twitter. He's young. I think this guy's like twenty one. I think they said they sold half a million dollars. What does he know about this then?

Bro got his f his first first wood and just decided to create a product. Bill he still has his first one. What if like well Well, you're twenty one, I mean things work great. Why why why why do you need that? Um But basically I think he said they they sold like half a million dollars worth of chocolate off this Of this ad.

Um and like within a couple of weeks or something like that. So it really like jumps jumps up. Is it a bootstrap company? I mean, just tab.com would cost half a million dollars. He has tab.com, right? So one of the guys, Jake His things as freshman at University of Michigan, which is just kind of insane.

And that true? Uh, let me find this other guy, Oliver There's no way that do you think it's founded by it? So th this guy I'm gonna show you this guy's uh Twitter, which is just hilarious. First of all.

So this guy's uh handle is Oliver Oliver underscore be one or something like that, or maybe two underscores. But His name is Oliver B. Then it says slash I sell sex chocolate. That's his name. On Twitter. Then you know he's got his photo, which is like here with his bros.

Um And yeah, he's he's been tweeting out like you know how um you know, how it's been doing. So, you know, they did seventy three thousand dollars this week. Um He's like, I have this army of user generated content creators. So like

He's like, I basically have um You know. Uh I think he's got like an army of like twenty creators. And he'll pay them between five hundred and three thousand dollars. And then they make thirty videos, um they make thirty videos a month or something like that. He's being a little uh loose with that word army.

Maybe a a gaggle. He's got a gaggle of Gotta stop. Supper Supper party. Yeah, he's got like a he's got like a like a full he's got like a a full NHL team. They'll have a good touch football.

Uh football game worth of uh creators. That one know about army. It would be twenty. Uh, but honestly, this guy knows more about marketing than like half of the uh, you know, marketing gurus that you see on social media. Just go look at this guy's content. No, they're they're like um I think they're bootstrapped. I d I don't know. I don't know much about that. I'm kinda making up half of the stuff I as I'm going along here, but I know enough.

That's This is that's an amazing ad. These guys are young. These guys understand marketing at a pretty deep level, especially on new channels like TikTok. And um

And that they've done, you know, like a pretty decent amount of sales. But I was looking at like his like Uh he had said something he was like bragging about his ROAS or something like that and uh It actually wasn't super that part wasn't super impressive, so I I didn't understand why he was bragging about that. Did you

So This is kind of an interesting topic of like Basically. to reach like a young audience, you're trying to look cool, then you go and you hire like a young cool person and you're like Make us look cool. Which

It's one of two. things might happen. One, they think that like Uh they're trying to make something that just can't be cool cool. And Like, dude, you you it's really hard to make like this particular software thing. Who cares if you're not cool? Hey, fellow kids.

Yeah, I hey fellow kids, that's what it's like. Um and so it's like dude it It's just not that neat. Or the second thing they do is they end up being just totally Do she. It's like you're i they make jokes like Elon Musk, where he like makes like a four twenty joke. It's like

Right. Um Have you Higher. Any like kids for that reason?

And what's the outcome? Yeah, the best example was when we Well, I hired Steve Bartlett. And uh he's gone on to do some amazing things. We've talked about him before. Uh if you

Don't know. Ended up creating a marketing uh like a whatever, a marketing company, marketing agency. That um Did like over a hundred million dollars in revenue, ended up merging with the company, went public. He's like a dragon on Dragons Den. He's got a real popular podcast. Bunch of stuff.

To me, he's the young black Gary Vee. That's like the best description I can have of him. It's it' and you think he's uh he's totally the real deal? Yeah, he's the real deal. Um He's the real deal in the sense that like, uh, you know, I don't know in the same way that we were like Dude, Gary V's awesome.

Um You know, does he kind of put on for the camera? Of course, that's the game. Does you know, is Vayne Media the best business I've ever seen? No, it's not the best, but it's a great you know, it's still a business that works and it's like at scale. Um so Uh, you know, real deal can mean a bunch of things, but I think Steve's The real deal in

All of those terms, meaning I've seen his talent firsthand. He's really super talented. Uh so I recruited him from the UK. He flew over, he lived with us and and worked with us in San Francisco. And then he then after that he ba basically went and spun out his like marketing agency and like that's how he kind of Got his start. And uh

And my whole thinking was like this guy gets social this guy gets social media, he's a hustler. And like if we're gonna build these social apps, we need somebody who like A They're They're not like an Engineer Neckbeard, like who's like

Oh yeah, people want to share photo galleries because why would I not want to share one hundred twenty eight photos instead of one? It's more It's like no dude, people don't want to share 128. They want one disappearing photo, actually, because I'm trying to send like you know something, you know, inappropriate to my friend. I don't want this permanent record, right? So like there's there's a big difference of like What how an engineer will build a social product?

versus how somebody who's you know, social. We'll build a social product. And and so I wanted to have basically like somebody who was young Who is a user of every social platform to be like Hey, dude, just shit test some of these ideas and be like, is this good or is this not good? And then secondly.

Uh, when we have something good, be able to like blast it, promote it on social in a way that's not like uh cringe. And he did that. Like and so when we were we were like all right. Let me give you an example. At the time he had this like network of pages he was like look I have all these uh

I either own or know the owners of these Twitter accounts. that uh have, you know, together like whatever, fifty million followers. So when we're ready to launch, we'll post it there. And I was like, great. And so again, the engineers were like all right, we're ready. Um And so I was you know, my brain went to like Cool. On all these accounts post like

Hey, love this new app. It lets you do XYZ. You know, love this new app, Bibo. It lets you do blank, blank, and blank. And then the engineer's like, Oh, and make sure we can track the attribution. So we're gonna use this like This URL with this UTM parameter and they give me this URL that's like nine thousand characters long. It looks ugly as hell, but it's like super trackable. They're like look at this in the dashboard, we know exactly Who clicked and which tweet and all the stuff.

And then Steve was like, um Like, all right, thanks for the suggestions. But um Not using that link. In fact, not using any link, cause

Uh nobody's posting a link. And nobody posts links on Twitter. We're like what? Like then how will they go download the app? He's like, they'll go download it if they hear about it a bunch and they feel like they're missing out. And I was like

Yeah, but that's like more work. He's like Yeah, but again, they're gonna feel like they're missing out, not that they're being sold to. And then he's like And we're also not gonna tweet Hey, check out the new Bebo app. It has these features. He's like

We're gonna tweet out memes like um You know, uh My teacher when she sees me, you know, like My teacher when she hears about B for the fiftieth time today and it's her throw it's a gif of a teacher throwing a phone out this class window. And like shattering the window. Or like

You know, um My feel my MFW, my you know, my face win or my feeling win. Um I see Bebo uh trending on Twitter, you know, after ten years. And it's like

Um, and I was like, But that sounds bad for us, right? They're annoyed at us. He's like, Yeah. Get it? It's like they're annoyed'cause they've been hearing about it so much. And so somebody who's not hearing about it. It's gonna be like oh shit, I'm out of the loop. What is this? And they're gonna go Google it and find it. And I was like nah this

This is stupid. Guess what? He we did it his way. We launched, we hit number one on the app store charts. Hit uh I don't know how many down I think we hit Two hundred fifty thousand downloads in like the first month or something like that. Something crazy.

And um Yeah, it was like insane. And we spent zero dollars. So it was awesome. How did you get the Influencers. So Steve owned a bunch of them. So me hiring Steve was like

Me getting to use Steve's like assets and then he Because he had clout in like the social like meme world of like the people who own these pages. uh he like pulled a favor. It was like, yo, post this on this day. If we're gonna get this to trend. I need this. He was like a twenty one year old trying to prove himself. So he's like, Yo, I need you to do me a favor here, put put this thing up here. So I maybe we paid like I don't know a few thousand dollars total, but like You know, nothing to get like

hundreds of thousands of downloads and number one rank in the overall app store charts. Um and we did that Was he a pain in the ass to employ though? No, no, he wasn't a pain in the ass, but I'll I'm gonna tell you first why I knew we needed to hire Steve. So When we wanted to we were building this app and we were like, all right, this social app definitely leans towards a younger audience. We're like, all right, we gotta be like In t like in touch with, you know, high schoolers, basically.

So I told Jason and Tyler I was like guys we need to be like we need to be able to pitch our app to high schoolers and see what they think about it. And I was like, All right, well, how the hell are we gonna do that? So first they were like coming up with all these schemes. And I was like, guys, like um I came visit him like an hour later and I was like, All right, what's the what's the plan? How many high schools you got? Like nine. We're we're like coming up with a PowerPoint deck on like how we're gonna do this or something like that. They're like coming up with a plan.

And I was like, All right, like Let me put it differently to you guys. Here's a better question. In the next hour, how can I show our app to like Two high schoolers. Go let's go make that happen. And they're like, uh okay, all right. And then they've they got it. They got what I was looking for. So they first were like, all right, my nephew's on the line. So we got the two. And I was like, Great.

How do we get twenty high schoolers now in the next hour? And they're like uh okay, there's a bunch of high schoolers over here at the mall near our our office, like So they went over there with a sign that said, you know Uh test our app, get a free burrito. And they got like immediately like 20 people. And they're like, okay, that was cool, but there was only twenty people there.

It's like how are we gonna do this regularly? And so we Found a high school nearby. And so we went over there. First they started the same thing. They had a sign outside, free burrito if you try to wrap and People were signing up like crazy. We didn't have burritos, by the way. It was just like I promise. We're like, I don't know, we'll we'll figure out how to get you a burrito later. And um and then there so we got a bunch of people to to like try it out.

And then Uh a teacher came out and was like, Hey guys, what's going on here? They were like, Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, we're not creeps. We're just like we're trying to t get beta testers for our app. D you know what that word means? Uh And they were like Oh cool, you're a startup? And they're like

Come on in. And they invited us to come speak. They're like, Hey, you know, like you can just like take over my class for the day. I'll just sit down and play Sudoku and you just Teach my kids about startups. This sounds like the most naive trusting teacher, like to a fault. It was. It definitely was. Oh, you're you're are you a little kid lover? Great. Come on in. You must love kids so much you build apps apps for them. So you're a kid lover. It was definitely worrisome, like why it was so easy. But literally that's what happened. So for seven seven hours straight that day, like a class would come in, fifty kids. We would teach them about stars for fifteen minutes and then we would pitch them our app for fifteen minutes and then we'd be like next and we and W but just by doing that, you know.

to take you know, basically thirty kids per class. Time seven, we're getting two hundred and ten kids a day. in the same school to download our app so that like all their friends were on the app. So it was a great it was like this great way to like Take over a high school in a day and see if it goes viral. Once we get that seed community.

But in one of them we uh so the first day we go and it's me and Jason. I'm like, dude, it's cool. I'm cool. I st And I was like I start talking, I'm I'm like, Yeah, that's tight. And they start giggling and I'm like, Oh shit, tight was a cool word when I was in high school. That's I was like, it's lit. It's super lit. And they're like, you know I was like I was already out at it's like not cool by saying and so I got like humbled big time. I'm like realizing and the and by the way, if you go talk to kids like high school classic

They just don't give a shit. They don't pay attention. They'll just be like straight talking to somebody else while you're talking. And you can't control them at all. And so I was like, Oh man, this teaching is so hard. And then I'm like and so I'm like, Okay, whatever, let's skip to the end. Let's skip to the part where we test our app. So I was like, all right, you guys want to our app? And they were like Nobody says anything. I'm like, okay, um You know, the first person who downloads our app, like, you know, you get candy from this bowl and they're like, All right, what's the app?

And I was like And I was like they're like what's the name of it? I was like, oh, it's not in the app store yet, it's on test flight. And I and I could just feel the blood draining from my body as I said that. I was like, what the fuck were we thinking? And then I was like You weren't. So just I was like, uh I'm gonna put the link up here on the projector, just like type that in and it'll take you to the thing. And this kid in the back, little no joke, he goes

Links are gay! Dude, I was so embarrassed. And just I just got wrecked and I started laughing so hard. He could have stopped laughing. And I was like And literally at the office from there on out we were like Hey HR, we're we don't mean this in a bad way, but it's the funniest thing that just happened. The whole company is in on this joke. And so anytime somebody was like, Yo, send me the link, like in Slack, and somebody else would be like Link third Because it was the most like you thought you got nagged, I got straight bit slapped by this like thirteen year old.

And it was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. By the way, the other thing, every high school kid has just a cracked screen. None of them have a phone. There's like the screen intact. They all got cracked screens. You know what I think about every once in a while? So do you remember this company called uh Chubby's? Yeah. So basically they uh made short for they made like short shorts. And they were great guys.

But like their customers And We're just like bros, like hard like Chad Bro chill, like the hardest. The hardest like bros you can think of. And uh

Which is like That's fine, but I don't wanna be like forty years old and having to like make ads like Uh about summer and spring break. Like you know I don't like. Oh yeah.

You know what I mean? Like I don't I don't I I I don't relate to that at all. At least I don't if I'm like forty. And it's kinda like the uh Barstool guys. It's like Man, you're losing your hair. You still you want to be doing like these beer bongs like and I think about like to build a a social app Or even like other

Products like Chubby's in that space. And to be a grown adult doing it. It's kind of uh If that doesn't work, it's super embarrassing.

Yeah. No conclusion here. Yeah, you basically were like like yeah You're kind of a loser. That's embarrassing, man. Like it's like it's totally it's cool because TikTok worked. But imagine a bunch of like like a forty five I think the guy who started

TikTok or whatever what's it called? Bit. Uh The owner of TikTok. I forget what it's called. I did.

Like a this like Forty three year old Chinese guy trying to make products for like America American girls like young fourteen year old American girls, it's like, yeah, it's cool because it worked. But man, this was like this could have gone either way. Like this could have gone either way. And

And like that's kinda that's kinda scary to me. Not scary, but that's like another one. We built so after that app So we go through that process. I get humiliated, I'm like, oh my god. I go back to the team, I'm like, We are so far disconnected from like

Like We thought we could go in there. Teach them about startups as if they give a shit. And then Tell them to download our test flight app from a link. And like, you know, y we all heard how that went down. Okay, so so so you know, I got basically like I was like a character in South Park that day. So I I got honed and I was like, all right, well

Let's s so we pivot and we try this other app that was like The idea was like uh it ended up being what House Party was. So us and House Party were at the same time where it was like An app where it's like oh I don't want to call somebody, but like I'm gonna you know, like I'm down to hang out if somebody else happened to be like free at the same time. And so it was this app where you could just kinda say like

You know If you could just say if you're available and if other people aren't too, you can just get into kind of a more of a spontaneous conversation. versus the phone call where it's like, dude, what do you need from me? Um But I was like well

So they made the app, they make the prototype real quick. Engineers are great again. And then the front screen, they're like, Hey, we need some text for this, like'cause right now it just says like, you know. Initiate. And I was like, oh no, that's like we we don't want to write like initiate. That's not gonna work again, teenagers.

They don't like links. Uh what are they like to do? Netflix and chill. And so I was like, Oh, just make it like a swipe like Tinder. I was like so So we just said Swipe to chill. And like literally like the first version said swipe the chill.

And the The we had one guy, Johnny Dallas, working for us and he was a teenager, so he was like s a sixteen year old programmer. And he saw swiped chill and you could just see him being like Do I have to share this with my friends? Like you guys. with other people before I said this to my friends because it says swipe to chill on the front.

And like that's not a thing people say or do. So So it was all bad, dude. That sucks. Okay, so then let me tell you Steve Bartlett's story. All right, so so I'm like we need we need some young blood in this in this office. Steve Bartlett cold email me, a great cold email. I'm like, this guy's awesome. Fly him and his buddy out. And we're like, you guys work for us now. You're our kind of like our youth department. And uh how did they stay in America?

Oh, there was no like visa. No, it was just not a tourist thing. They came, they could stay for three months at a time and then they would go back and they would come again. And did they live at the office? They would live the they got we got them a hotel, but it was like they were staying for a while. So we were like, All right, just stay at the office'cause there's an apartment built in. And like You know, just I don't know, make it work. Dude, but

Did you ever think like what did Steve tell his parents? Like can you imagine twenty year old or nineteen year old you like uh explaining what's gonna happen? Yeah, I would have been like this is awesome. And I knew Steve was wired like that. So he was also like this is awesome. He didn't he didn't bother telling his parents. He was like living his life. So he he thought this was great. So Steve's there and our if you remember our office at San Francisco is kind of a baller pad. So Steve basically went from like living in like a dump and like in a tiny Yeah, like he was a college dropout in the UK making no money.

Two He comes to the US and now he's living in this like baller pad that has like a bar built into it, a private chef. All these like perks. It just looks like it's designed like a straight out of some like British magazine. And um

And Steve would take advantage of that, so he was living there. And um so he would like, you know, people would leave the office six, seven PM. And then he what he would do is he would like Go and um Yeah, he didn't invite friends over, he was on Tinder, Tinder was active.

And so we would come into the office in the morning and like I remember one day I came in and like some girl was like leaving, doing the walk of shame, holding her heels in her hand. Of like walking out and like, you know, we we had women working in the office who were like Who's this girl? Like why and why is she like hung over leaving the like the bedroom in the office? Like, what's going on here? And then Steve would come down and be like He was like you know proud of himself in a way. Dude, I'm winning at life. And so

So that was a little bit of a problem and then the I remember they were like what did you uh say to him, like, hey, y you know, you you can't even this yes, you are living here, but you can't live here. Yeah, I think I told him once, but I remember just like even in the conversation, it was like Ah man, he feels like he's in the principal's office, and I feel like the principal And like I could tell this is lame'cause he wasn't doing anything out of any malice, right? Like It would just be like they would just he you know, they'd be hanging out drinking, you know, at the bar we have in our office. But they were kinda like

leave the bars kinda sticky and with beers ever they didn't know to like You know, just like some professionalism stuff. Like ah, it's a Tuesday night, I should just like Let me just at least make this look like we weren't here drinking and hanging out all night and playing the music and the neighbors get a noise complaint. Stuff like stuff like that, right? Nothing h nothing harmful, nothing like uh bad, just like Slightly annoying to people who felt like they were parenting them in the morning when they came in.

Um And like I remember one time The funniest one and the one where I was like, uh this is just not working out. Um Dude, they had like order.

They're like uh or I was talking to our office manager and I was like I promised I talked to Steve, they're d they're not gonna like play the music too loud. And like they'll clean up the beers or whatever. And like that happened one day and then the next day No beers, no loud music, it was all good. And then she opened up like the supply closet. To like get like some new pencils and like sticky notes for the meeting we had, like the board meeting we had.

And like just a giant pizza box fell out. Why would you put a pizza in this closet? Like just throw the pizza in the trash. And she was like, These kids like I've I I can't do this, Sean. I can't do this. And I was Did you fire him? No no no I didn't fire him but I was like I kind of knew in my head I was like You know what? Birds gotta fly. I was like, these guys, they're talented. They need to do their own thing. The them conforming into like our office like set up and like It's just not like a fit, you know, like the they don't need to run these meetings, like these daily stand up meetings with the engineers. It's like

That's not their skill set. That's not what they need to do. Like they're good at like taking something that's dope. And making it like pop in the market. Like, and they just need to do that. And then basically that's what their marketing agency did. They would just find cool brands to work with. And they would figure out how to tell that story and make it big and trend in social media.

And it turns out they were great at that and they made went and made like you know hundreds of millions of dollars doing that. And so that was like a successful outcome, but I I kinda knew in my head, I was like all right. There's all these advantages when you bring in these sort of like These non domesticated cats.

Uh and they're gonna like They're gonna be real with you about what w about the market. They're gonna like have fresh ideas. They're gonna be good at like Playing the social media game. But like, you know, they're not gonna be the best at like, you know running this like, you know, agile software like, you know.

uh meeting. This is not what they're you know, they don't need to be product managers. They need to be like out in the out the out and about. I remember I read a profile about him when he was still pretty young and it was working. And it was like BuzzFeed or something. I think it was BuzzFeed and he must have been only twenty three or twenty four. And they were like basically the office has like a slide in there.

And like it was like everything yellow. Like a McDonald's play pan play face. And he was like, They've got like forty employees here and I asked him how much each person's getting paid and it was like twenty five thousand dollars a year. It was like nothing. And but they like love it because it's the first time a twenty one year old is able to like be the head of HR. And like just figure out stuff as she went. And other things. I don't know about those numbers, but I do remember at one point it was like They had twenty three employees and

I think twenty two of them were under the age of twenty two. Like it was like all twenty one year olds and they were like And that was the the Vice article or the whatever Vox article or whatever it was. It was just like Meet the twenty-one year olds who are running the internet right now. And it was true, like they were really they owned all of the popular Instagram and Twitter accounts In the in Europe. And so they just had like

crazy ability to influence the market. And They had the right people to do it, right? Like that's who knew how to build those. That was the business. The business was brands would pay to advertise on those Twitter and Instagram handles. Uh Initially, that's how we used it, but the and that was a part of it. We were like we created this like idea of like this the thunder clap, which was like getting all those pages on the same day to be talking about

I remember saying it. I but I think other people use that term. So I don't think in my head I invented it, but I'm sure I learned it. I heard it somewhere, I'm sure. Um But the thing what they were doing was then they were they would just like a brand would be like Hey, how do we what's our social strategy? So then it They quickly got away from just like

Hey. Pay to post on our pages, because that's kind of like transactional. To to like Hey Netflix, do you wanna know how to do your social like why don't we just be your agency of record for social media?

For your social media marketing. And like That became with a fat retainer and like ongoing campaigns and then like And then they would like do like proper videos and like kind of viral video stunts, things like that.

whole strategies for these brands. So that's what it became. And then they launch their own brands too. We've been getting Uh the past few episodes we've been getting more into just Trying to just tell him funny stories. I'm very eager to see Uh if this is the route that we should go.

It's way more fun, that's for sure. Yeah, it's fun, but after every episode I have to like Do like a cancellation check in and be like Was I um sexist, racist, homophobic, uh is there anything that I said that could have been construed as hateful in any way to any group of people? That is going to be like offensive. Like

I tweeted out this thing the other day that's like And by the way, they're never. They're always like a compliment. Uh but like I tweeted this thing which was like, you know, my investment criteria. You know, big market, good traction. Founder is Mormon, Russian, Jewish or whatever. I like

Said something, but it was like positive. It was like 'Cause I think those founders like on balance are awesome. Like I've had a joke. And it was a joke, right? And people were like, What does race have anything to do with who you'll fund? This is what's wrong with And I was like Yeah.

First of all, it's a joke. To be clear, like did you think this was serious? And secondly, like It wasn't a joke saying I don't fund these fund you know these random niche minority groups. It's like No, I think Mormons are awesome at sales and like, you know, just as a As a general like positive prejudice.

You know, I am I'm inclined to believe that these people are really smart or really talented or really gritty or really whatever Um And you know, uh but of course like there's no winning, right? Like The audience that like gets that and thinks it's awesome is like so small compared to the like the other audience that's like, I will make it my life's mission. To like get you canceled now. For for this for this uh this joke you said. The um the Nelk Boys, which is like those YouTube guys now, they got this they've got a new podcast.

It's only good because it there's they're not like good at asking questions, but they're good because they're so famous that they get like the best guests. So the Kelk Boys had Donald Trump on. You know, like the one of the most famous people in the world. They had um You know, all types of like they had k uh Habib on they had Dana White on they have like All these like hugely famous people.

And when they were talking about Day Portnoy and they were like uh Yeah, like we're uncancelable because like Everyone's expectations of us are so low. Right. And like we're just degenerate. So like if they don't everyone's like, Yeah, of course they did that thing. Like there's no surprise there. These guys are idiots.

And uh I'm not sure if we're there yet. I don't know if we're maybe we can be but it's like you know, for example. Yeah, do you wanna be, right? Like I call it the cancellation vaccination. It's like Do you want to be vaccinated against cancellation? Here's what it entails. You need to consistently be provocative.

Never apologize. Like cater to your base and ignore the rest. And like that's the that's the cancellation vaccination. That's what Joe Roger does, what Donald Trump does, it's what the milk boys do, it's what Any group of people, Dave Chappelle, it's any group of people who like Like, look, I'm gonna say what's on my mind.

There's gonna be some people who are offended by this. That's not my audience. There's gonna be some people who understand the point of view where I'm coming from. They're gonna understand what's a joke. They're gonna understand when I'm saying something positive about somebody. That doesn't mean it's negative. About somebody else. Um

And they're just like, and they're like, I'm consistent, I'm willing to do this, I'm willing to take heat, I'm not gonna apologize, et cetera, et cetera. And um And so, you know, I I that's like the the cancellation vaccination. Now, I think you could do that. I think you also need to be financially independent or directly fan supported.

And like, you know, for example, this is a HubSpot Podcast Network Podcast. You work at HubSpot. I don't think they're gonna love some of the jokes that you tell, like Even if that person individually thinks it's funny, they'd rather us just take no risk, right? Why? Like Well the for them the risk reward, you know, calculator is like

Oh, just take no risks and it's fine. Just like do your other stuff. It's great. Whereas for us, it's like, dude, no, like I'm here to have a conversation with Sam. I want this to be like a conversation we would actually have. I think that's how you get super fans because they feel like you're being authentic. You're not You're not like separating the real you from like this like record pop public podcast version of you. And I know my intentions are pure. I know I'm not actually a bad guy. I'm not sexist, racist, or homophobic, or any of those things.

And if I say that I think Mormons are awesome founders, I think that that is should be a I think that should be a totally fine thing to say, right? Uh you know, I don't think that's a controversial thing in my books. And so I'm like, you know, I'm part of the common sense party and I want other people who are, you know, like can use their common sense and are not like easily offended around me. But That's a

That's a risky path to take. That's good speech. I'm on board. Uh-huh. Good very good speech. Um

Alright, I guess that's the episode. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my law in it like my day song On the road less travel never looking back

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 3 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.