The Simple Newsletter Making $20M+ A Year With 1 Employee

Did you say like thirty thousand subscribers at six hundred dollars a year? Yeah, probably in the 30 to 40,000 range on paid subscribers. You better tell me everything here. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to. I put my law in it like my day song on the road All right, Kevin B. What's going on, man? We're here. So I have I've got to do a quick story on how we met. So about four years ago, I think we're in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the design pickle conference. I just get done doing this talk about how the hustle is like Doing pretty good. We're at a million subscribers, whatever. At the end of the talk, I just walk backstage or I walk in the back of the crowd.

You're wearing a Ramon T shirt. And like shorts and you walk up to me and you're like, Hey Nice little talk you did there. And I was like, Oh, thank you. And you've got this con you've got this confidence about you and you're like, So

How many subscribers do you have? Uh and I was like, uh I think a million. Or something like that. And and you go, Well, you know, that's pretty nice. I got a little newsletter myself. Uh we're doing okay. We got about thirty thousand subscribers. And I was like, Oh, that's that's a good start. And you said

Well, how much do you charge people to read the hustle? And I'm like It's free. Uh I make money via advertising and you're like oh You don't charge? And I was like, You do? And uh you go, Yeah, we charge about six hundred dollars. And I It takes about ten seconds and I'm like Doing the math and I'm like, Wait.

Did you save thirty thousand subscribers at six hundred dollars a year? And you're like Yeah, what do you expect? And turns out you've got this massive newsletter business. And I was like, What's the newsletter about? And you're like, Oh, we talk to uh farmers. It's all about farming and agriculture. And I'm like, Wait.

Hold on, man. You better tell me everything here. And that's when my mind was blown and I was like We gotta get you on. And it took about four years, but finally we made it happen. I appreciate it. Sean, what did you think when you met

the Van Trumps and got it got around his people. Man, I would just call it a series of Amazement and confusion. I showed up and First of all, it's called FarmCon. So I think the conference is gonna be

A bunch of farmers, by the way, at this point in my life, I don't think I'd ever met a farmer. Uh I I had grown up, you know, overseas. I lived on I live on the coast. I had never really met a farmer. So I thought it's gonna be about farming and and and whatnot. And um Instead, it's actually about investing. So that was the first front where I was amazed and confused about was

I walk in and it's a talk going on about options trading, corn futures and And it was so far over my head, and I was like, wow, wait, these guys are actually talking about crazy Wall Street stuff. What what's going on here? And then Over time I met a bunch of people. The conference was amazing. And they were like, Well, what are you doing here?

And I was like, I don't know. I got I don't farm and I don't trade commodities, so I'm not really sure, but I'm here to talk. Uh I have a talk schedule tomorrow. And I'm here to just be out of my comfort zone, be out of my bubble, because I had only been going to tech conferences when I was doing my research for this pod. I learned that you actually kinda did a similar thing, which was that there was a period of your life where you wanted to shake things up and you started just going to different conferences or trade shows that were totally unrelated to what you were doing and what you were familiar with. You kind of intentionally put yourself in that to to just shake up your worldview. Is that right? Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, for sure. That's I meant Sam. I mean we were at this I don't even know what the hell it was my son of Gallum said. Let's just

Make it where we make ourselves go to different things, make ourselves uncomfortable, get out of our comfort zone. He called me and said, Hey, there's this conference in Phoenix, Mom wanted to go to Phoenix and out there and I said, What is it? And he said design pickle. I said what the hell are we They had people speaking uh we're doing like hair. You know, they were a hair drying business and they had all kinds of crazy stuff. I said, Okay, I'll go.

Shit, next thing I find myself walking around the courtyard of this place holding another guy's hand. Like you're shit I never do here in the Midwest. Right is going on. You know, they had us doing some weird stuff. And uh and yeah, and that's where I'm at Sam. And so yeah, each year we try to go to different things. Just to get different perspective, different views, you know, we just believe in In trading and investing, it's all about perspective and you know, you can get blindsided a million different ways and so

I like to be around the younger people to help. broaden my perspective because you know, we always say in our business it's the old bear and the young bull. As we get older. we tend to get more bearish just because we don't Well.

Understand as much as We did when we were younger. You know, when we were younger we were aggressive and We knew the latest, greatest things and now that uh we get older Most of my older hedge fund friends and traders Uh, one more cynical than bearish, just by nature, it seems like,'cause we just don't understand a lot of the newer stuff, so

Well, I'll give you two things that came out of it. Number one after farm con me and Ben at in the lobby of the hotel while one of the talks was going on. It was another corn futures talk that was going over my head. I said, hey, let's just hang out in the lobby real quick. I just think I gotta get out of here. I don't I don't understand what the hell these guys are talking about, anyways. So we go to the lobby. And we had talked to you about your newsletter business. And we go, you know what, we should create a newsletter business around what we're what we're interested in. And we were in very interesting crypto at the time. We had been kicking around this idea, but we hadn't really had the momentum, the energy to just like create it from scratch to birth that baby.

And so only in the lobby of the hotel were we like Let's do this. And we named it Milk Road, which was kind of like a farmy sort of name, anyways. It it all came together in the lobby and then A year later we sold that business for millions of dollars. And so I I gotta credit you in a way because We had had a conversation with you the night before and you told us

You're like, guys, I gotta go back to my room, I gotta write the newsletter. And we were like, You still write the newsletter? Like surely you've hired a team of people You're like no I'm I write the newsletter myself. Um, I've written it I think you had written it for like

Some absurd number like eighteen straight years or twenty straight years. You hadn't missed it, and it was you writing it every single day. Is that right? Well, I have a a girl used to work for the Kansas State Board of Trade, Stacey Craig, she's out in LA. And uh She helps me with

A lot of content and a lot of things. I write corn beans, weed, I write the up top comments. She she helps with those. And then I write the stories down below, so It's her and I usually tag teaming the whole thing to to give her credit and she's been She's been awesome, but Let's explain though a little bit. So your main thing is the Van Trump report. So van Trump Report.com.

It's a daily newsletter that is It's a great read. I actually I have read it for a while. And it's talks about I call it for farmers, but it's way beyond that. So it's agricultural based information, but for farmers, but also for people who are trading commodities. And you have said that

Uh politicians read it to understand a little bit about what's going on in that world. And you've told me, I don't remember exactly what you said, you told me that it was doing something like thirty thousand people paying something like six hundred dollars a year. And it's basically just you writing it, which if you did that math, that's true. That's like eighteen million dollars a year in revenue from a newsletter. Is that right? Yeah, it's just Myself, uh there's about four of us on our staff here.

Uh a friend of mine that used to be a golf bro. Uh buddy that I went to school with, uh Stacy out in California, and my son, Jordan on this side of the fence. My wife does uh bookkeeping with accounting team, but That's really it. Like you said, yeah, I Did the newsletter and just You know, wanted to write about what I was interested in and and everything that kinda interests me and so

You know, that's that's really what we do and what we put out. Yeah, we've got several Congressmen, Senators, a lot of big trading groups, hedge fund people and Yeah. thirty five, we're probably in the thirty to forty thousand range on on paid subscribers. It's also got Like five pages of memes in it, which I love, because I was like, I would read it. And the first part was cool, is commentary on where you think the market's headed. And it's written the way you talk. It's very informal.

It's it's a straight shooter type of vibe, which makes it fun to read, even if it's not your stick. And then it's got a bunch of memes, which made me laugh. And I was like, This is hilarious that that you chose to do that. Was the product we see today, is that basically how you started it? Is that what it was at the beginning? And how did you get it off the ground? What was the how'd you get the initial momentum with that? Yeah, pretty much. So I my Mary my high school sweetheart, we were both from a small rural town here in Missouri. I go to work for a group that was contract with the NFL do camps, combines, clinic. So I'm traveling all around the country. Got a really cool job. Making no money. My wife kinda lands her dream job in Chicago.

And Yeah, we didn't come from any money, neither one of our parents or anything. We didn't have any money really, so to speak, when we were younger, so my wife gets this job. She was gonna run the Eddie Bauer out on Michigan Avenue. they was gonna be their premier store and all this. So we thought, man, this is gonna be great. You know, we go up there and

I didn't know anything and some of my friends in the NFL are like you got to get in the trading business. Shit, I didn't know anything about trading and I said I was a small rural town farm kid. Played last quartz all my life and they said, Well, we'll give you this interview. I go Get an interview with this guy and the guy just kinda looks at me's like damn. You're a big tall guy. Uh, and I s I was probably about six born, three fifty at the time and

They're like You you like to fight? And I'm what the hell kinda interview question is it? You know, like what what the And I said, Yeah, sure, shit. I go out every weekend, you know, magnitude and rumble or two at the bars and They're like, Yeah, you're great. We're you're higher. And I said, Well, what am I doing? I don't even know what the hell I'm doing. They're like, Oh, everybody'll see you on the floor. It'll give us a little edge and an advantage. So, you know, I start at the very bottom. They wanted me to be a phone clerk, you know.

And then Move to resin or getting orders off. So I meet a few people, they start me off by go over and I'm trading Swanks, D Mark, and foreign currencies over at the Merc and Then I flip back over to the board I was trading. Treasury.

Push and shove your way with the with the papers, getting their trade on and they were like your size was actually an asset. Yeah, d d time. The the you know, they'd hire a basketball guy, ex football guy. There'd be fights break out on the bottom on the floored, so Then we got off the floor when we were uh Arbin Minis, uh E minis first came out. We were Arbin minis against Bigger S Ps and then Really my strong suit became really

uh more people got interested in grains, corn, because they started using corn as ethanol. And things like that. So a lot of our big energy traders and friends They didn't know anything about the Midwest, you know, and so it was all just foreign language to them. So they would Keep asking me. Questions and then

I would go back home to my small rural town where the farmers were playing dominoes in the morning, you know, up getting breakfast or caught And you know, they'd be like, Hey City Slicker, you know, tell us what's happening here in the corn bean or wheat market or cattle market. And I would do like you said, shout out. I would just dumb it down to my you know, my backhoe speaking in more of a blue collar. And just tell'em, hey, here's what they're really meaning or saying.

And so in oh seven I just it was before that a little bit when the The government came out with the RFS, that's where they turned. Corn and ethnol, I started writing a newsletter kinda just For myself a journal. I've said, hey, I'm gonna be a better trader, a better investor. I've listened to a lot of people.

Uh I've been broke twice on a couple of deals and it's like Let's do it the right way. So I started journaling and I said, Hey, I'm gonna send my notes out. So friends. And then it started circulating back to me. It was coming from guys at Goldman and different trading firms, it was circling back to me.

And I told my wife, I said, Shit. We were investing trying to do some uh Oh storage units at the time. So I thought Oh, I'll send it out for forty bucks a month. It'll be like a storage unit deal and let's just see if people buy it. Or pay and and it just kinda took off and went nuts from there and we've never advertised and

We're about forty five countries now and All the growth was organic then? Oh, yeah, I would never advertise one time. I love it. And then you have the conference, the thing that I went to, and I think it was originally called the Van Trump Conference. You renamed it to FarmCon. And for those who don't know, you are like A god at this thing. It was really inspiring to see.

Because You weren't trying to be Uh, you know, the the the front and center of it, but you could just tell you had so much respect from the community. People really appreciated this gathering because they were getting a lot of value out of it. And You ran it like a family affair and you got your son there and he's got his swag business.

And so the how did the farm con thing come about? And is that like a big part of the business? Why do you do it? Yeah, you know it's added. Well, it started off just myself and Right. thirty or forty

Friends. investors, we'd get together once a year, drink some beers and tell each other What our favorite trades or favorite investments were. And they loved coming to Kansas City'cause it was kind of an anomaly, you know. But he used to being on the coast in New York or California, so

They'd come here and it would be kind of fun and so They would start to invite their friends and we all had investments in land. uh bigger land investments and different Next thing, they had a lot of hunting and fishing guys were coming and Just people that own big farms and they were flying their private planes in and so yeah, then we just kinda blew up and they started telling more and more of their friends and

Well, next day we start selling out most everywhere we'll have that. You know, it's it's really cool. Yeah, fun time. Can we talk a little bit about Kinda like your empire and what it is now. So you've got the publishing business, the newsletter.

And then you have this thing called ag Ag swag. Which is a merch company, is that right? Yeah. Well back on too uh to be

Click. You know, some of the people grandfathered in, we started charging forty dollars, like four hundred a year. Or forty bucks a month. Then we went about eight years ago to six hundred and sixty. We have some people that white label the report. send it to their uh their businesses and their staff and things like that. So That's all in the mix. But yeah, so I had a friend Uh, Dave Crumholz, he recently passed away. He was uh CEO of Payless Cashways and Dave came back here to Kansas City.

He started a business consulting company and then he got Higher. Uh at a place called American Identity. And I said, Dave, what the hell are you doing?

Coming American identity. I said, Don't they just sell like hats and Tchotsky stuff and He's like, Yeah, private equity company bought him and they're gonna dress it up. They wanna have him, you know, big executive team, so they're bringing me in as a CEO and He's like, I think we'll have a good exit. Well about three or I think it was three or four years they sold to Staples, I believe it was undisclosed, but it I think it was close to eight billion dollars. They sold the staples and I said, Holy shit.

I said, Who what'd you guys do over there at American I did? And he said, Yeah, we made hats, shirts and Chotchke said and I said, Well who the hell are your biggest clients? And he's like John Deere. ADM, Cargill. I'm like, oh shit. I said I know all those people. I know all the you know, all the party I people. And uh

He says, Well I tell you, you know, if you ever get where your guys or goes under the radar, non intrusive business, you know, this this would be a great way to get something rolling. So I told my son Jordan when he got out of college or He's about out. I said, Hey if you ever if you want to try some on your own, I got an idea. I said I've come up with a name Ag Swag and I said, you know, we could probably spin this off and

take care of a lot of our clients and just provide a lot better service and be a lot you know, more fun and friendly and and give people some great fresh ideas. And so we launched Ag Swag and it's you know just a swag company that provides hats, things of that nature to People really specifically in the ag world. We do other things, but that's really our Jordan Swords and uh

He's running Nat. He's hired an art team. He's got about four or five artists. Uh my daughter came back to help him. He's got you know a team of logistics people and I think they're gonna do He said somewhere between twenty five and thirty million. this year. So you know they're They're growing like crazy and uh every day. If we want to pull up on the slide, I can walk you guys through a little bit of the business.

Well, yeah, let's do it. You know, this is just a simple example. You draw you know, you have your your scale of uniqueness on the left and your scale of total value on the right. And so If you go to your far right.

You have high value and low uniqueness. Right. And you're asking what the hell would that be? And that that's like a tire business. I always use an example, like, you know, people have to have it.

So it's not unique. But there's high value. Nobody wants to kill their family and any damn tires on their car, so they want it till they get that if you see your business in that aspect, you know you're in a low gross business model. You know, you're gonna have to be a a low cost provider. You're gonna have to do volume. And you know, that's gonna be your play.

If you get up into the upper right quadrant And this keeps me out of a lot of bad business deals. Here you have Low value but high uniqueness. Um, you know, you start to ask yourself what

You know, what is that? Remember when Snap or Google came out with the glasses, those glasses, or I was back in my day, like a laser disc. You know. You you know you you're gonna be cost a lot of money to educate the masses. It's gonna cost a lot to get it to market. And there might not be any longevity in it. So you gotta be careful in

You know. Not a lot of value, but how you need this. That's a tough spot to play in. Now you get over to where Apple likes to play or some of the others, you go high value, high uniqueness. That's something like an iPod. Ten thousand songs in your pocket. You know, that was their main stick and it's like

That's where you can create high gross. That's where you can create high margin. And that's where you can make a lot of great things happen. Obviously lower left corner, you're you're an idiot. I if you're somewhere in there. No value, no uniqueness.

You know, and I always say on there, people buy value, not price. And this one's a hard one to understand for a lot of people. Because if I went into uh Walmart and I put a whole bin of laser disc in there and I put'em for sale for Mm. Five cents. I mean

Back, yeah, nobody's gonna buy'em just because there's no value to'em. You know what I'm saying? Now maybe there is a little now'cause people are looking to sell some of those types of items, but I'm just saying You you have to be aware people buy price people buy value, not price. And so You can make the price as low as you want to go, but i if it's just

Not good. It's not good. And I see people get trapped in that a lot in real estate and some other things, so You know, this is where we try to We try to categorize the business deals when they come down the pipe. where this is at and how this is gonna play out. Cause it's never the soldiers I send in at first. Right. It's never the first

Money we send in on the deal. It's how many more soldiers are gonna get called into duty and uh And maybe never come back home into my bank account or come back, you know, miss the limbs and arms. And so it's like Yeah. Yeah.

You have to be careful, I think, in that aspect. You know, it's it's that 'Cause I'm my wife all the time's like, My gosh, we'll write more capital call check. But We kinda know when if we can categorize in this way, we know what we're getting into. Where we went with Axwag.

What's critically important, we believe, is knowing Your funnel. So your light users, there's obviously you're gonna be able to get more market share on your light users. As you move down the customer continuum, that would be your heavy user. So as Sean pointed out, that would be John Deere. Or that would be a cargo.

Now we What do you have to understand in all businesses, you're always gonna be pulled to the right. So you're always gonna be pulled to the high user. and low gross. They're gonna try to get you over there. If s if people like what you have. They like what you're doing.

They're gonna take you over there. more to the right and you know trying to beat you up on your price, try and beat you up on gross because they say they're a heavy use. That's why it's really imperative for most people. You don't want to get an order from Wall. You know, you don't want to go that way.

Because it's next to impossible to get your business back. To the left. And to the left is where you're gonna see a lot more Profitability, a lot more high growth. And and so we tried to position Axwag.

in the middle away from the John Dears and ADM. So we've had calls from them wanting Their play is for us to, you know, store all their merch for the year. We ship it out, it becomes a logistics business. the growth shrinks up to nothing and we've got a you know a real Yo you know, we're running a real people business then where we've got a lot of hands and a lot of touches. So we've tried to stay out of that space.

as much as possible early on so we can create and build more Smaller accounts, smaller business owners. In people like that where there's more fragmentation for us. So You have these other slides that I really like. So you had this uh This poker versus chess one that I loved. Um, can you can you talk about this one?

Yeah, you know, I just think, you know, they talk a lot about life being like chess, or a lot of times you'll hear people talk about those things, you know, um You know, I say life's more like poker than chess just because the cards are face down and a lot of luts involved a lot of times. So You know you can be the greatest have the greatest skill in the world and I've met some

The most brilliant, brilliant people, but If they don't catch any breaks or don't catch any luck and you know, it it becomes tough. So I think you have to remind yourself, and that's what we were kinda talking about earlier. If you think you're a genius then you're you're just smarter than everyone else. I think you run into a ton of problems and a ton of roadblock.

That's where I think, you know, you have to look at it more like poker, like Yeah, you're gonna catch you're gonna get lucky every now and then and get on a run and get on low heater and And sometimes, you know, that's when you really have to to push and go all in, is is when When your when your life's going your way. When when you feel like he Some of the little things are going your way, you got to pull way back. You know, that's not when you double and triple down. That's when you kinda hunker down and

Let the storm clouds pass and then hopefully our luck will shift and turn around a little bit. It seems like there's three Three parts to the poker thing, right? There's The cards are are face down, so there's a lot of unknowns. Unlike chess.

Then you're talking about luck and variance. That's the second part. But then the third part was You said that the the amateur players just play too many hands. A pro only plays, you know, fifteen to twenty percent of their hands, but an amateur is playing half the hands. And so the trick is actually just to pass on the average opportunity to save room. For the huge opportunity. That's that's the other one. Doug, and I think Warren Buffett calls this waiting for the fat pitch. He's like, There's no called strikes. You can let 50 opportunities go by.

And just pass on them. Even if there were some good ones in there, it's okay. As long as you just when you do swing, you swing at the right ones. Hundred percent. I I a hundred percent agree. I mean You know, we use that analogy. We use the Ted Williams thing all the time. There's Ted Williams has a batting chart. And Ted Waze was one of the first persons to go and document all of his

where he would hit balls and where he could, you know, what his percentage was if it was high and outside, low and inside. And he figured out Where his sweet spot was. And Williams would just sit and wait for his bitch and What he got it, he don't knock shit out of it, so it's similar to what you're saying.

You you talk about uh luck and you say passing on the average opportunity to save room for the huge opportunity. in with your trading, uh, what have been opportunities that you've thought were huge that you pounced on, as well as maybe some that You didn't because you thought they were average. Yeah, tons. I could go through those like crazy. And uh, you know, but I I agree with that. And we've we've talked about this myself and a lot of my trading friends. It's that as we've gotten older, we've we've learned. We can look back through

All right. documents, tag documents, everything. I mean The more trades we made the worst year we had, it seemed like. The fewer trades

By far the better of the year. And You know, now we're trading even less and less and less. And I know I think some of our readers kinda probably get scared of these they want the action and everything. But You know, it's like wrestling, you know, as a great wrestler uh a high school college wrestler, they're super patient. They wait for the

The market in this case to make a mistake. Late for the market to get out of out of a line or over leveraged or over tilted. And then you come in. And you try to make a play. Uh you know, most of all your money is made the greatest traders will say all your money's made city. You know, sitting and waiting. And it and it's incredibly hard to do.

The decision To do nothing is a decision, and in our world Uh, a lot of times it can be the best decision you can possibly make. So You know, and as far as like Sam said, you know, we like I said, we were early with Bitcoin, we were early with Tesla. I was trading when Amazon first came out and we had thirty thousand shares of Amazon like right out of the hole.

And I went negative on it. I'll never forget the story. My wife and I shit. We didn't have enough money to pay attention at the time and We were sitting there they I had this position on It wouldn't get me and I said, Man, if this thing just gets back to even and Amazon trade like three or four bucks a time. It got back to even and I blew out. And I mean it would have been like, you know, the craziest trade of all times if I'd have stuck with it.

But I wouldn't have stuck with it probably, you know, I'm a trader, so it's like you can't you can't beat yourself up saying, Man, if I would have just stayed in that or not stuck with and I think a lot of people do that to themselves. You know, it's a psychological game and You you just want to try not to beat yourself up and not get down on yourself'cause that then it then it gets hard to fail and and recover. So what's the case for being a trader versus a investor?'Cause If you read about the all the investing greats, they all kind of poo poo traders a little bit. They're like, Oh, you don't want to be a trader, you wanna be Uh, you know, a a a buy and hold guy. You want to buy, find a great asset, and then sit on it for a long time. Am I just only reading the advice from the investors and that's why, or is there something to what they're saying?

No. You're absolutely right. I mean there's plenty of trades I've been in that I've become an investor because They went against me and we just kept holding and holding and holding, right? So it was meant to be a short term trade, but turned into a long term uh Yeah, just ass kicking. So it's like No, I agree.

My job though, I was a trader. So you know, I was at the floor, I was at the exchange, I was at Kansas City Board Trade guy. You know, and so My whole job revolved around trading and fairly quick movements in the market. I was never I did own a day trading firm one time. Uh, and you should have seen, you know, the success rate on people day trade. It was just a miserable business. So we don't day trade, so to speak. We'll be more

Swading will be multi-days in a trade. You know, the commodity markets are a little different. For every buyer, there's a loser, and they're a little different than stocks. And and there's expirations on the contract, so You know, we're we're more short term oriented, but we're also longer term investors, like you would say, Sean. I do think I advise my kids, my own kids exactly what you're saying.

You know, no, unless you're gonna be full time and you really want the belly aches, I wouldn't advise probably you know, trading or trying to time market movements, uh like said, I I'm more with Buffett. You know, I I think you know, everybody's trying to beat the indexes. I mean, everybody's trying to beat the S of the year the NAS second. Yeah, you're in and you're out, that's stuff to do.

And you know, so I think, you know, as a passive investor Uh long term hold is probably a a a good plot for for the majority of most people. Uh and and that's the way to build wealth. How many years have you beat the index? How or how long you been doing this? Twenty or thirty years. How do you think that you've beat the index? You know, I mean the years that we beat it, we beat it by a mile because we'll get lucky in some certain position or some certain stock and the year like this year, I'm I'm trailing.

I have decent amount put over into uh You know, we're still in a lot of C Ds at five and a quarter or five percent. And you know, a lot of our wealth building has come from real estate. That's just buying land, farmland, or what are you buying? I and real estate you know, we have everything from commercial properties to single families that we've turned into various Airbnbs.

Uh yeah, land, farmland, regular land. Those have been our biggest winners. Has the majority of your net worth come from the income that the newsletter has produced, or has it been from trading? So I think there's two ways you can do it with your business.

You know, when you're making money, you can either take the money And reinvest it back in your business. Which we didn't do. That was kind of my play. I'm like, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna take my money and then I'm gonna put it out and see and try and invest in other people's businesses.

And you know, and we've We're we're partners with a uh firm uh private I firm called ISelect. So we're early investors in Ag Tech startups and some biotech. And so We've had a ton of losers.

But they've all m led to meeting new people. uh learning new things and then that in turn comes to something else. So You know, we try to grow our revenue and then take that revenue. And invest it in various other vehicles.

And other sources. What's the uh like sentiment like amongst the people that or reading the newsletter or would come to the conference, you know, are people bullish right now? Are they optimistic? Are there big headwinds or tailwinds? What's going on in the food producer world? Yeah, you know, it's it's pretty dark right now over in our world, so so to speak. The the big jump in rates.

was obviously uh kind of a real pitch for a lot of our Ag Tech startups. And a lot of the people just in agriculture in general. So you've had a big jump in rates. And then we also have, you know, a little bit of uh glut right now. We have a pretty burdensome supply of corn, over two billion bushel supply of corn. you know, we got five hundred million bushel supply of beans coming down the pipe and sorry, that that means that Last season overproduced.

Yeah, you know, we had a good year last year. Uh, South America's coming off a a pretty good year. Argentine, like for example, Argentine production double. from what they had. They had a big drought uh last year, had some production problems. Brazil's got a little bit of they're down from a little bit. But China like so China right now hasn't been a buyer of US uh new crab beans, haven't booked any any cargoes, uh which is unusual.

So we're worrying We got this election coming up. I anything can happen. We're not sure how China's gonna play it with Trump. coming back into the mix, are we gonna have a bigger hit on tariffs? So when Trump was in office We had bean prices go break break pretty considerably'cause the we got into a pissing match with China.

And you know, they're the number one buyer of beans in the world. So it's We're kinda trying to weigh this thing out here and see how things are gonna shake out. But we do have some new things on the front. We got sustainable aviation fuel, so soybeans are now gonna be used to make sustainable aviation fuel. Which is gonna be a big one. We're trying to push to get corn.

to where the corn production is gonna also be used to make sustainable aviation fuel. There's a few pipeline issues that need to be addressed and some things like that. We're moving For more than the Food for fuel is becoming

more a little more prevalent, so we're seeing more countries move to that for cleaner energy sources. So we're seeing More utilities and more usage. or traditional crops. We're seeing more utility and more usage for land.

We were just seeing A ton more buyers and bidders come in for WAN. People wanting to put in solar. You know, solar fields. Uh to create energy. Wind fields.

Uh, there's just a lot more utilities being used now for data centers we're seeing a big push through the Midwest. on companies wanting to build these massive data centers. uh really through the glut of the Midwest and we think it's kinda like Cushing's Oklahoma where we store our Oil.

Now we think data is gonna be kind of the new oil. And so we're gonna try and store our data here in the US centrally into the Midwest. So we're seeing a big push. In some farm ground being gobblem up for uh big data center. My father is a a produce broker, so he owns a small brokerage where Like let's say that over the course of twenty years he's sold a hundred million dollars worth of onions.

You know, over the course of twenty years the the the the margin is like five percent. Like so he he'll he'll make five million dollars over twenty years or whatever if you sell a hundred million dollars worth of onion. So it's a huge quantity, but in that space he's a small dog, you know, really tiny. But I remember during a wait. Like I remember I was only uh seventeen or eighteen. I was watching the news and I was like You know, Dad, why do you seem like you're making more money now than

Than before where everyone else seems to be going broke and he was like Well look at the corner of our kitchen. There's onions and potatoes there. Like People are still gonna buy this stuff no matter what. And then when the economy's going well, like you're gonna go out to eat and I'll crush it then too. So it's like I'm I'm in a good business and I remember thinking like

As I got older. I kinda forgot about farming and I forgot about food and agriculture and I just I didn't really think about it, but What I've learned is that over the years that America is really good at two or three things. One of them being culture. So we export culture like amazingly well. So Hollywood is like

our biggest export, I would say, or or culture. The second thing that we do really well We are so fucking good at growing corn. America is so good, Ecker Cord. And I forget how important agriculture is to our to our our way of life in in America. So when you're talking about some of these things about what China's doing, what Brazil's doing, if China's buying stuff from us.

How big is like this entire industry that you're associated I mean, what percentage of the GT GDP or economic value is it creating in America compared to other things? Oh, massive. I mean it's you know one of the And we're seeing more and more of the wealthy get into agriculture and that's where I'm saying It's a really hot area and you're seeing Yeah, the Gates Foundation, Buffett's group, uh well Warren uh son. uh Howard, he used to be a big farmer, uh and he had just recently gotten out and uh

Still on the ground, but they're having some other people farm it and do some things like that. But yeah. Seen a big, big push in more and more people being interested in ag and interested in food and where it's coming from. We're seeing Shall Rassa say is more people going direct to the farmers. Uh, just recently in the last few weeks we've seen more ranches come online kind of form a little coalition. There's a group about seven, eight

good ranches down in Texas that are now selling direct to the public. You know they were getting maybe They were getting minimal for their beef, uh uh, you know, and now that they're selling direct, they're they're really doing well and people like buying direct and so did you just buy off their website or or they there's some startup that's doing this? Yeah, they have auction. I think it's called Bid for Beef. Uh huh.

Thought that was a dating site. Yeah, yeah. You know, yeah. It could be. Whatever you're into. Yeah. Yeah, but you know, they're starting to make more traction and we're seeing that across the board with other plays. What's going on with like Farms that are Kids don't want to take it over. What does the succession plan look like? And and is somebody solving that problem?

That's a huge issue and that's being discussed heavily in in the ag world that uh you know, so you have Um This this big succession. uh rollover, I think I don't know what the number I can't remember off the top of my head. It's okay, eighty percent of the farms are owned by people over sixty, you know, and it's

It's a really aging demographic and a lot of the The kids You know, or have other jobs or went off to great colleges and grade schools and they don't necessarily want to come back. So Yes, there is there is a a a big issue. And And a lot of the people in the farming world keep their cards really close to their chests and they don't really talk a lot openly with their kids or

They don't have a lot of great succession planning in place and We're seeing that a lot, I think. Uh, you know, we've tried to be super open with our kids and and discuss everything and show them everything and say, Hey, here's where everything's at. Here's where you need to know. Here's where you need to be.

And uh, you know, hopefully Yeah, we tell our other friends, uh to similar type things. So yeah, succession planning is is very important. Uh and I think it's, you know, something that we all have to address as we own businesses. So Well Well what what do you think's gonna happen? Like uh if if eighty percent of these are owned by people over sixty and a lot of the kids are going, like is this just gonna be private equity owns all the farms? Like what what what happens here? We are gonna see a lot of rollover and a lot of turnover. So in the farming space or when you're buying acreage There's a there's two betters that are gonna come against you. The person whose farm butts up against you

they're gonna be willing to pay a big premium'cause the land may only come available once in their lifetime. And so they're gonna be bidden heavily. So whoever's in close proximity Because as you know, driving the combines or driving the heart it it makes a lot of sense. To get a continuing piece of bread. And now you're also having like

California teachers. Benching. fun bidding against you. You have other high profile Uh fun people bidding against you, so yes. Who runs it?

They just place somebody to go live on the farm and then sh Sean, have you ever been on a farm? No. So I don't know where I would go to find a farm. Where do you guys somewhere where my uh my aunts and uncles and cousins are farmers in Oklahoma and they have like two or three thousand acres and they are I guess they're ranchers. And so they own like fifteen hundred cattle, I believe. And a bunch of their cattle are Uh, Sean, you've probably never heard this term. They're buccin bowls. Have you heard of you know what a buccin bowl is?

I do not. So what they do is they uh the P D R Which is the Professional Uh Rodeo Association. They're If you get a good bowl, a good bowl can be worth I don't know, Kevin, what, like fifty grand all the way up to a million dollars. And yeah, more than that. Some of them. And uh These good bowls you get you make money in two ways. You make money because at the rodeo, the writer gets paid. So if you stay on a r uh bowl for a certain amount of time, you win and you get paid.

But the bull that bucks the hardest also gets paid. And that's like a like a rating rating system. And so there's like famous bulls that are known as like really hard bucket bulls. Who's the Michael Jordan of bulls? It's Bushwhacker. I don't think it's Bushwagger. Bushwhacker Bushwhacker's been the best for a long time. No, Bushwhacker's a famous bull. Uh the guy who uh like dominated Bushwagger, what's his name? J R or something? He like just retired, I believe, right? What was that guy saying? My son played football with a couple of kids that were PR bull riders, everybody, you know, So my cousin and the family, this is what they do. And so I went and stay with them every once in a while and we get up at like Eight.

And starting at like ten, you go to the feed store and you buy a huge amount of feed. You bring the feedback, you call the bowls and you throw it all over like the like you like scatter it out throughout the the the area and they come up and they eat it. And then on the weekends They drive these balls. From Oklahoma to Texas, which is like twelve hours. And these bowls when you put'em into the truck.

You would think a bull that you birthed and raised, like they will literally be there when they birth this bull, but once the bull hits puberty, I guess, or it has balls. It wants to fucking kill you, no matter what. It doesn't matter if you raise or birth this bull, this bull wants to murder you every chance it's gets. And so just to get the bull onto the truck, it's like a life or death situation every once in a while. Like this it's a 1500 pound thing that won that you got to get into this truck. And they would drive these. Balls all around the country. And they get paid, I think. four grand just to sho as an appearance fee or something like that to show up in the T VR. And then the other the cows, the uh the females

And so they make their money by raising the cows that they sell for beef, and then the bulls, they either sell'em to get bread or they make money directly from the rodeo. And It's like a huge cash business. So my cousins and aunts and uncles They'll always have a a lot of cash because they'll go to the auction and it's just like a really heavy cash business. They get, let's say, 10 grand for selling ten

ten cows, they take that ten grand and they spend eight of it like that day on more cow feed. And so it's like a really heavy I'm probably getting some numbers wrong, but there it's a really heavy cash business. And it's fucking hard my cousin Sam would drive around and he'd be drinking like natural light while he's driving his truck checking on all the like on all the cows. Dude it it ha It's a hard living.

And it's really fun. I've like spent time on there. It's been it w it's fun for me as a visitor, but it is a hard job to do this shit. You are working and walking constantly. Yeah, you're right. And you know, I lost I lost a good choke of my not a big choke, but I did what you said. Some buddies of mine said Hey, let's start raising these bulls to be PBR bulls, you know, rodeo bulls. Shit. I d I don't think I ever cashed one check. I think it just

It was a lot of fun. A lot of like you said, a lot of drinking daddy light and driving around the pickup, checking on him and you know Yeah, it like it it's like fun, but it is fucking hard. And y it it's a very capital intensive business. Hey, I'll give you one. I'll give you one That I that it was a big miss. Now a guy came to me and saying we're gonna kick out. Yeah, I came to your house probably twenty years ago and uh

You know, the internet was just getting going. He said, Man, I got this great idea. And that the guy came in and he was all suited up and I said, Well, he needs an English major and all He says, What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna build his websites and I'm gonna hire a couple of other English majors And we're gonna write really eloquent.

Descriptions of these cattle. And these bulls and their stems, the stem they call the sperm, you know, and he's like Then I'm gonna sell this sperm all over in Japan, all over the world. I said, dude, you're nuts. This shit ain't gonna work. You know, this was early on. Dude blew it up. He blew it up. Wha how do you eloquently describe the sperm of a bull? What's his website? You know, the background, the lineage. I don't know. I have not followed him for a number of years, but I remember he came back through and some people were like, Man, this guy just

Hey, I'll tell you one, we were at the Louisville farm show. They had me come down there to speak it's U S's world uh largest indoor farm rate show and so I go down there to be the keynote speaker. And there's this little boost setting up next to us. They got all these choleroids. On this little pen by ten booth, T. And I go to a tight guy, I said, What the hell is this thing? He's like

It's called farmersonly.com. And you guys have seen all of the ad Man, I'm not shitty, Sean. We're like all making fun of him and then the next year he comes and he has like a Twenty by twenty booth. And then The next year he's there and shit his booth damn near the big as John Deere. I mean his booth is massive and we're like

The hell then he's got Super Bowl ads. It is just holding.com. You're looking to marry a farmer, you know, that thing just blew up and he Shit, he turned that into great deals. When you uh so let's say I wanted to become a gentleman farmer and I wanted to go buy a farm. Walk me through that. So first, where would I find a farm? Uh do you is this like sold like on Zillow or is this uh brokers only? How do people find farms to buy? You know, some people are now investing fractally through uh I'm an I'm invested in their company, Acre Trader. AcreTrader dot com.

So we buy farms. We even have farms out in your deck of the woods, Sean. Um Out and we had nut farms. Uh Album, California. Uh we have regular uh other round production farms. Through Bakersfield in that area and through there. Um

You know, and all over the United States they have various farms grow various different products. So a farmer is selling a fraction of their of their farm What happens at Acre Trader, we go in and actually buy the entire farm from a family, say they're Well now or the succession planning and they wanna leave. So we'll buy the entire farm. And most of the time we'll have a farmer in that area that has call us about the farm.

and said, Hey, we don't have the money, but if you guys would want to put up the money, we'd be happy to farm it for you. And do revenue sharing, crop sharing. Or some type of uh you know, split i into the revenue. We're looking to just hold the ground for appreciation over ten, twelve year period. The years you have good years, you have some really good years.

Some years though, you you're gonna have some some losing years. But over the course of time, ten, fifteen, twenty years, your appreciation on the land's gonna be that's really gonna carry you forward. And that's what the that's what a lot of the hedge funds are looking for. A lot of the funds are looking for that longer term appreciation. Well what do these trade for? Like if I go buy a farm

What is the multiple you pay on a farm typically? Or would it be just price per acre? Rice per acre. And it's gone nuts lately. I mean, my buddy just sold his mom left him a chunk of ground that they had in their family. And he said, Hey, what do you think? And I said, I don't man, it's a great time. This was about seven, eight months ago.

I said um Farmers are flush with some cash, maybe it was about a year ago. And he ended up getting twenty thousand an acre. Down here outside of Missouri. Now that's pretty rare off the books. You know, acreage around here

Typically go for Yeah. Five to twelve to fifteen. But if someone needs the ground or wants the ground and it's a continuing piece of track,

to their farm, you can see guys get them bidding more. And so you get bidders. Yeah, you can go out anywhere. Look up farm grounds, you want to you know, there's a lot of things you want to look for. Like in Kansas, you can't drill any wells any you can't drill new wells. And so Kansas and Nebraska.

There's a lot going on with the underground aquifer and there's a lot of problems with With water you see. And so You know, we we believe though we like C and B grade ground. We like ground that's maybe in a floodplain. We like ground that's

Uh water to fish it. Because we believe that all the technology and the money from Gates' foundation or Buffett. They're they're really putting their money into New technology that'll help grow crops.

in third world countries that have really poor soil. See you know Iowa has the best soil. Iowa and Illinois, they'll argue with each other who's got the richest soil. And they've got great soil and great farms that you really don't have to do a lot to. Uh you get to some of these peripheral areas, though. You get a biker jacket, but you got no bike, right? That's m that's more of my my vi my lane. So I just need to know I'm asking questions just so I have the lingo in case I ever get pressed so that I I can sound like I know what I'm talking about without actually knowing anything. Uh yeah, you uh you have to get some land to match that car heart coat that you want to get.

I get I get that. Well, what about the other tech? So like I've seen people do these like Fitbit for cows where they're like, uh, you know, like cow's valuable, you know, asset and uh you don't know if it's sick. You gotta keep driving around, keep checking on it. What if you could know before it's too late what tech is working? Yeah, we we it is, and we're investing a few companies to do that and they'll tag'em. They'll tag the cattle. You know, because there is a push to have less antibiotics, less You know, less ki uh, you know, shots and things into into our our food supply. So If you're able to identify when they have a fever earlier, you could get'em segregated from the herd, get'em away from the herd.

Give'em the give'em the medicine that they need in a more timely fashion. So yeah, all those are great. You know, Zoetis a publicly traded company, they're a leader really, probably in the animal health space. you're looking for something longer term play. We're invested in Zoetis. I have a business, Sean, that my friend's working on that might interest you too, Kevin. So basically he's putting he's put R F T Rf D, R F T, R F R F I D, sorry, tags on chickens and cows.

And you know how like a chicken will uh like when you buy eggs, it says free range. And you just kinda trust. You're like, I guess that means a chicken was just like out walking around, which is better for me because it's somehow healthier. And it's also like if you're if you care about animals, you're like all right, at least I know it had like a better life and whatever. But free range, I think that's a technical term actually, where they it has to have a certain amount of space, but I don't think that it's actually necessarily always followed. And so what he did was he's putting these these tags onto cows and chickens. And so you know the beef that you bought. the tag number and you could actually go and see

How much did it walk around and where did it go? Which sounds a little morbid and weird. But it's actually supposed to be like reassuring where it like look. My farm is now you can hold my farm accountable to know that this meat was actually raised in the way that I promised it was going to be. And that's like an interesting idea because I think Sean, you said this. I think you said uh in like some period of time, twenty or fifty or sixty years, we're gonna look back at the way that we treated cows and we're gonna be like, that was pretty unfortunate. Like this it shouldn't have been done that way where an animal is just born in a pen and never leaves and then we eat them.

And I I actually agree with that. I agree with that sentiment where like the way that we treat certain animals I'm cool eating them. But it's it's better to better to them have a certain life. And so This idea is kind of interesting to me.

Yeah, we think that that's gonna be Prevalent throughout. We think you're gonna blockchain to farm is what we're calling in our world, you know. You know, blockchain a farm meaning the fertilizer companies and the input companies are gonna have to report all that and you're gonna know What was put on

Whatever it is you're eating or, you know, and The reason they want to blockchain it is just like remember when Spulte was having those issues several years back. you know, with some things. They want to be able to go right to the field, right to the spot. know exactly what happened and what was put on and what time and where it was at. So yeah, I agree with you, Sam. I think that's definitely where the world's headed and

And you know, I think Christian farmers make that transition more and more. They're a lot more tech savvy than people Give them credit, obviously in the world. They they're very tech savvy, as a matter of fact. And nobody treats their animals I mean my opinion I have never been on a farm. In my entire life. That I

seen any abuse to animals. I mean nobody treats their animals better just because It's generally typically the way they make their own living, the way they make their their money, and they teach their kids to take care of the you know They love'em and show'em at four H's and go all around it it It's sad that they do get it such a bad rap in the media, uh when I've Personally never come across it.

What's your take on the alternative meat? movement thing where In Silicon Valley there's a bunch of startups that are trying to grow beef from cells so that you won't have to farm the animal, you won't have to harm the animal to to be able to have the same genetic it should be virtually identical, genetically identical. Uh what's your take on that movement? And is that where you think that things are going? I think there will be a segment of the space that continues to grow and I think you're gonna see it continue to gain market share, I think as as

Population. Shifts and moves out. Uh, you know, as the baby boomers continue to age and move on, we get more people, I think. You're going to see alternatives. Types of pro protein can be developed. And I think

As they get more money in the labs, they're getting better at Reducing the cost and creating better flavor. And I think as those two things continue to move forward. Just like with Tesla and Elon Musk, you know, it's it's only a matter of time. Uh how's everything happen gradually than all at once. And you know, it's like the electric vehicle.

I think you have, you know, a lot fewer moving parts, it's a lot better than the combustion engine. I think you're gonna see things, you know, gradually gain more and more market here. Well have farmers taken to like I always read the comments of like in Texas message boards and things like that. They it it doesn't it seems like it's fifty fifty if like the rural community thinks electric vehicles are are worth it. Yeah, right now at the time, no, because just the distance traveled, you know, a lot of folks have travel massive distances out in rural America. And so it doesn't make a lot of sense to them at the moment. I think eventually, yes, I think

They'll see it have better torque. You know, better low end uh get up and go out of the hole. And I think you'll see it A lot more transition. I Like anything. No nobody wants to I guess let go of their heritage and their roots and uh you know, it's same with the fake meat.

You know, a lot of farmers just bash it and want to go nuts about it. I I I think there's definitely gonna be a place for it. I think there's it's gonna be able to gain and grow some Margaret Jared. You know, probably, you know, as as they get cost lower and lower I think it it'll be You know. A way that we see things happen.

If you were twenty four years old again. And you have the entrepreneurial energy to go do something. What would you be what would you advise that twenty four year old to go to go to go do in this space? Where do you think the opportunity is? I think there's gonna be a big push with air quality.

Yeah. You know, just the quality of air from this whole whole virus, uh just to testing for the viruses. And we're seeing a lot more testing tape played in general. Uh Just over the entire space. So I think there's gonna be a big push in

Things to do with air and creating good air quality. We're seeing a lot more kids. that have asthma, asthma related problems and I think, you know Not just here in the United States, but I'm talking globally and taking it. What's an example solution what's an example solution of that from an agricultural uh Uh perspective. Well, s you know, well, we're big right now into the uh carbon market. So, you know, we're trying to reduce carbon footprints and no one really reduces it much more than

Nay. Yeah, a giant cornfield. The cornfield. Plants, you know, things of that nature. And so You know, yeah, I think there's a big play and a big push into the carbon trying to reduce Like I said, trying to reduce the footprint. Anything that'll help save energy

Improve our water usage, improve water purity. You know, I think anything to do with the natural resources They're just gonna become more heavily relied upon. If we transition all this to electric, I mean the rare earth minerals are gonna be

They're gonna be scary. I mean There's gonna be a lot of plays in in Yeah, what we see on the uh On that whole side and that whole front. So I think you know, natural resources, things to do with natural resources, things to do with air, water, like I said.

Food quality. You know, we really love the blue collar space. I mean, I think we love, you know, like what Cody Sanchez has going on or some of the other things. We like the thought of Fine. blue collar businesses, uh rolling'em up and uh, you know, kind of packaging them up and selling them. Why do you like that? Because they're they're retiring? I think they're retiring. I think we didn't see near as many kids go into the trades as we had in the past.

You know, my dad and my wife's dad, I mean, everybody was in trade back then. Yeah, it was everyone's goal to go to college. So, you know, you just had a big lull. Or big. I guess you know. Where they're just a short supply of good skilled

People now. We think you can go into that space and we've tried it uh a couple of times and you know, where we can build out some things and I think you provide people with good quality service and an onboarding process that you know you can cut your customer Retention rate down to a

I I think there's just The sky's the limit on growth. You know what I mean? Do you use Kevin, do you use TikTok? I'm on it. Yeah, I see it. Have you guys seen the like popularity amongst young people and the trades? Like it's it like deep they glamorize it in in a in a in a cool way. Uh and I think an accurate way, which is like I'm making however m a hundred and fifty or

Hundred twenty thousand dollars that I I just went to trade for two years. It goes so well on TikTok because it's an it's like a novelty. It's like going to the zoo. It's like wow, you made that? You know how to do things with your hands and that's what a carrot looks like when he when it comes out. Like that's incredible. Uh swipe all right, on to the next one. Then that was easy. But but I actually think that some of these young people are actually being influenced by this because they're like, Shit, I graduated with a hundred and fifty or two hundred grand in debt and I don't make anything remotely like that amount of money and I'm sitting on my computer all day. Like this might be a little bit more intriguing. And I don't have the any data, but it does seem like young people are more open minded to the trades than at least Sean and I's uh like graduating classes. Yeah, I'm seeing that as well. We're hearing that from some of the younger kids that are opting not to go to college and are going in and be a pipe fitter or going into the pipe fitter's union or the plumbing union or electrical union. So yeah, we're we're definitely seeing

AI ain't gonna replace plumbers or or electricians or HVAC people. Maybe one day, but but no time soon. Uh and like I do think that stuff's getting more popular. And I think that's really cool and fascinating. There's like It's also like Ripped buff dude. So it's always like chicks like commenting like about like Have you seen that guy, Sean, who just cuts wood?

Yeah, the lumber yeah, the lumberjack guy. He's incredible. I love that just checked. I I I I'll sit there and I'll watch that video twice. It's just an incredible video. It's this guy that uses an axe and he's sometimes shirtless, sometimes not, and he's just like You know, obviously a ten out of ten. Just chopping wood and like everyone's like I need this in my life. Therapeutic. Um Have you been a part of any roll ups? Uh I always find roll ups to be a really interesting

business strategy. It seems like it's a lot of money to be made in a in a successful roll up. I'm curious if you've been a part of anything. I have not personally, no. I usually either exit ahead of time or You know, get a little nervous or we It blames out that I have a couple of friends that yeah, that's their whole their whole way they've created all their wealth. You got one of the Joe I'm speaking of right now, he's doing it with uh Crane. He's buying small cream companies.

uh that'll have two or three cranes. And he's buying them and he's putting them all together. And uh You know, and he's gonna sell that out. And he's done it with several other things, whether it's restaurants or Different things in the past. So yeah, I thought it was interesting on the crane play.

Yeah, he kicked me about it investment. Night, we just didn't do it, but uh Yeah, I'm sure he'll hit a huge on one with it. Dude, Sean, I think the shit that Kevin's doing is way more exciting than the shit that our friends are doing. You gonna quit and go do it? I no I don't know about that. It sounds like a lot of work. Sounds like a lot of lot of words then if you're not gonna go do it. No.

I like hanging out with these types of people sometimes. That's what it means. Yeah, and it gives you guys uh you know, I think it gives both of us I like hanging out with your group of people'cause I think it gives me different perspective and learn different things that you guys have going on that I can make applicable to my world as well. And so, you know, yeah, there's a good synergy there between all And how do you do that practically? Because I think you do a good job of Getting yourself into positions like we talked about, going to random conferences that are totally outside your industry that you didn't need to go to, but you wanted to go to to to shift your lens a little bit.

Or hanging out with younger people who may be demographically just doing different things, culturally doing different things than the guy who made it and is at a country club now might might be disconnected. From Whatever the sh culture shifts are. How do you tactically go about doing that? How do you put yourself in those positions? What questions do you ask? Honestly just make myself. I always he yelled at the kids and

We were growing up, so I'd played sports at a high level and had several friends of one World Series and Yeah, Super Bowls we always talk, you know, we You get a bad coach. Yeah, everybody get a bad coach or things like that and it's like Look, man, you gotta be able to steal something from the guy. The guy was a great player. He was a you know, you gotta go in there with an open mind and you gotta be able to take away some things.

That they've done well and that they've done positive and then use those and put those errors in your quiver, so I just always have the kids looking for new crazy weird conferences or things to go to and And from there I'd make myself go. The last couple of years I didn't want to go and I'm like But each time I went, I'm I I took away several little gold nuggets that we

implemented into our business models and hell, we've made Make returns on'em, each one of'em. And you know, I didn't think I'd get anything out of going to the car, I was just like this is gonna be a waste, but I just sucked it up and did it, you know, it's like going to work out or you got a rut or something. It's like ah shit. I guess I just gotta go do it.

Yeah, we had a friend when we were going to farm con who was supposed to come with us. It was me, Ben, and our buddy. And the morning of we're like, Hey, we'll meet you in the lobby, um You know, your flight was yeah, you you landed like an hour ago, right? And he basically woke up, looked at and he said, Kansas City He looked at the flight time, then he's like oh

You know what? He just bailed. And I was like, man Uh, but uh but of course I I felt that. Everybody feels that in the moment, like uh, do I really want to go do this thing that I don't have to do. That is unknown, right? It's it's back to your thing about are you willing to sprint. For an unknown distance.

And um we didn't know what value we would get out of it. That was the hard part. That was the challenge. And doing it when we didn't know what would come out of it was really, really valuable. Um, and it's ironic'cause that same friend He um He gave he gave me a great analogy one time. We were talking to a younger friend. This guy was the youngest VC in Silicon Valley. So

Nineteen, twenty years old, he was investing, I don't know, ten million dollars into The things he was like he got written up as the youngest V C in Silicon Valley. So we're we're meeting with this guy. But now five years have gone by. And it was like You hadn't seen him really progressing at that same rate that you would expect somebody who

definitely had that sort of phenom type of uh upbringing, uh where it seemed like he had all the potential in the world. And I was like, man, what do you think he's doing wrong? Well w what would you do differently? He goes. Oh, it's it's like windows and doors.

He goes, he's only willing to do something if it's a window. If he can immediately see through and see the what's on the other side of it, then he'll do it. But anytime there's a door and it's opaque You don't know what's on the other side of it, he's not willing to knock on a door. And open it up and see what might be inside. He's only looking at doors and he's uh windows. He's never willing to go through a door. And if once he starts going through doors, he's this guy's career's gonna take off.

And I remember hearing that and really taking that, you know, to heart because I thought that was very, very wise. That's a great analogy. Yeah, I've never. So I've heard a lot. That's a yeah, that's a great one there, for sure. So Sean, the reason why you like a lot of these folks in the Midwest and some folks in the in the south is because You love phrases. You love phrases like windows and doors. You love cool sayings. And you know what? I love them too. And that's why I'm happy I'm friends with both of you guys. I were at a dinner.

So at FarmCon, you invited us to like a private dinner at the end. It's like 10 people. This guy stands up and he delivers two of the coldest lines I've ever heard. So he stands up. And if uh we're doing our intro is like a and so I stand up and I give some super vanilla intro. Hi, I'm Sean, I live in San Francisco and I'm uh I'm interested, I'm a tech founder and an investor. All right, sit down, forgettable. This guy stands up, he's got a big presence and he goes, um I forgot I don't remember what his his name was exactly, but he he said Because you know

Uh I don't know a lot of things. I don't know the I don't know the score of the game right now. There's a big game going on. He's gonna I don't know the score of the game right now. I don't know anything about this. And he goes. He goes, Hell, I don't know where the remote is in my house half the time.

But I know deals and I made a lot of deals. He's like, I'm a private equity guy, and he starts talking about his deal making. I was like, wow. He goes, I've been around for a long time. You cut me open, you can see a lot of rings in the middle. I was like, wow, that's one way of saying it. He's just on fire. And he goes, Somebody go somebody asked them, they go what if well what if they don't What if they don't go for it on this deal? Sounds like you really need them to s to say yes. What if what if you they say no? What if you get rejected? He goes, I'm not afraid of rejection.

He's a big big old dude. And he goes. I've stood in front of women in my life naked before. I've heard no, no, no, no, no. I'm okay with it. I was like, wow, this guy is like half comedian, half businessman, and I loved it, but it was just It was just another day at the office for him, but for me coming from from our world That was like The charisma levels and the the the

The the gift of the gab was so was so incredible to see. I loved it. Yeah, it's definitely wild dubs. Yeah, and you got there too a little bit, uh, that I like just hearing what you have to say, Kevin, and uh For the people listening, maybe maybe we'll get you some new subscribers. It's the van Trump Report dot com. I I like your uh you always you do something cool, where you'll just like have a selfie with you and your wife and you're like say, Today we're on vacation, here's what we're doing, and you'll say something kind of funny and cute.

And uh I love it. But we should just get like a group of twenty of our of our listeners, the a select small group to go to farm con and we'll all go together as a field trip next uh next time you guys do it. When is it? First week in January, January eighth and ninth this year, Covenant. How much is the ticket?

I think this year we're like twelve hundred bucks or something. And you've sell a lot of them too, right? Yeah, we'll sell uh whatever they give us, you know, I could Capacity. Well, we sell out the hotel every year.

Yeah. We appreciate you doing this. You're the man. Thank you. And thank you for uh years of being uh a cool dude. You've always been a great guide to me. So thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it. Good luck, both you guys and your families and that's the pod. Thank you very much. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to I put my law in it like my day's off On the road less travel never looking back

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