Million $ Quilting Empire, Babyville, USA, And Rapid Fire Business Ideas

It started off simple. So he's like I need a building. Where they had like kind of a warehouse or production. Okay, outgrew that. Bought a second building. And he's from this very small town, Hamilton. Missouri, I think it is.

And um So you know, buys two buildings and then at some point they kinda realize All right. Why do this with like nameless faceless warehouses. What if we could turn this into content or marketing? Like the YouTube channel's working.

So what if we do kind of YouTube behind the scenes and what if we make this More interesting. So instead of just buying two warehouses and then just like, you know operating in stealth. What if we just bought all this land and we bought all the buildings that are in this area and we turn this into a tourist destination, a vacation, basically. So like It's a themed town in the middle of nowhere, but it's like the quilting Mecca, or like people call it like the Disneyland for quilters. And there's like

Twel like Main Street is all about quilts. It's just like quilt shop, quilt shop, quilt shop. Alright, what up? We got uh Ben Levy here. Sam is out today. But uh my business partner, Ben. So we got producer Ben. Who's Ben Wilson, and then we got business partner Ben.

Ben Levy. And uh Ben is here today. We got a bunch of topics that we wanna talk about, but first welcome to the pod. Yo, what's up, Sean? How's it going, man?

I'm good. Your your dad, who's a regular listener, is gonna be pleased'cause he's gonna hear you on here and I'm sure he he always sends you like uh Like a huge text message of notes every time you come on, is that right? Yeah, it's more like six emails. He'll be like, Hey, did you hear Sean say this thing? Or did you hear Sam say this or Sully say this? And I'm like Love the notes, dad. So you were just in San Francisco, um

Last week. And we did a bunch of meetings, we hung out, worked a bunch. And then we hosted a meetup, we hosted a private dinner. Um I wanted to start with that. So I wanted to start with

Give me As many nuggets of interesting things that that came up, people you met, stories you heard. Products you heard about, whatever you got from Your trip to San Francisco. I'll let you take it from take it away. Yeah, so the first the first thing that comes to mind is when San Francisco is awesome.

Uh but too went to the went to the Warriors game, so we went to the Warriors game on Last Monday with this guy named Al Down, who I think he's been on the pod. About nine months ago. So for people that don't know, Al is the founder of a quilt company. And he said one thing.

Sean, I'm sure you could talk more about Al but I think the one thing that he said that was pretty by the way, Ben just said quilt. So uh 'C you said it in passing, I think people wouldn't even uh wouldn't even register what you just said. I and actually the the way we met Matt Al was pretty interesting. Patrick Campbell came on the pod and Patrick Campbell runs like a

He had Profit Well, which like does like SAS. Uh Payments uh Uh analytics and all that good shit. So he has data on what companies are crushing it in terms of Terms of um

their subscribers and their payments. And he had said he had told us that quilting is a huge niche. And he came on the pod, he mentioned quilting, and from that we found Al Don, who basically runs a multi hundred million dollar

quilting business that he co founded with his mom. So so that's the setup. But uh continue. Yeah, I think his mom and like his four brothers and sisters, so it's a family it's a family affair. Uh, so we hung out with him, last time we hung out with him was Camp M F M and I think Al's an interesting dude. One, he's like six seven. Uh, so he like skies over you at Every time I see him, I think he could have played in the NBA.

Uh But he said one thing that really, you know, one, his business is doing great, but two The thing that he said. that really raised an eyebrow for me was he's in the Harvard executive MBA program. Uh so most people when I s when I hear the word MBA

I think immediately that it's stupid. Uh I just think it's a waste of money and You should go build something instead of go get an MBA, but he was like Yeah, I just hung out with The air of crystal geyser water. So the place of the water Yeah, the basically every water bottle you ever see in the airport or convenience store

And Sean and I were both like, Wait, how do you know them? And he well I think he said it the the the woman is like, you know, basically it's an old French couple or something like that. Like he's like, Yeah, I was hanging out with my friend my friend She's French, she's she's older and blah blah blah. And I was like, How do you have this like old lady French friend? Where did that come from? He's like oh I did this Harvard NBA thing.

And Al's like personality is not what you would connect with Harvard NBA. First of all He does a quilting e commerce business. So that's you know, like not like uh Fancy pants. Yeah, Harvard thing.

Second He's this big dude with a beard who lives in the Midwest. And his he's like super funny. He's basically like you know Will Farrell slash Vince Vaughn. And uh and so you just don't see him as a you know, as a suit. But he did this suit thing and we were like, Wait.

W is that a good idea? Should I be doing that? That was my takeaway from it. Yeah, I was like we should definitely be doing that. Uh I looked it up. I think it's like a fifty thousand dollar a year program. They take like thirty people Uh and everyone in there has a really successful business, so definitely should be doing that. I think he said.

It's all people whose business yeah, I think like the minimum bars like your business does ten million a year. Um so like you know, that's like the minimum uh sort of like norm. He goes, it's people from all around the world because International people. Like value brands higher. Like if you ever see a Louis Vuitton store that's just full of Chinese people, it's like International people really love American luxury brands and Harvard is an American luxury brand.

And he's like, you know, it's I think you said it's Three weeks. A year for three years or something like that. He's like, but dude, you make the best friends. Like, you know, the the people who I you know, not everybody, but he's like

I made a bunch of amazing friends through that and uh he's like, dude, I'm in the middle of nowhere, Missouri. So I gotta do things. That will connect me with other people and then even this trip to S F where like Oh what are you in town for? He's like Well I live on a farm in the Midwest, so my wife is, you know, down for me to just like Take three days a month and just go to wherever. SF, New York, LA, just meet up with friends and

Hear what's going on in the world so I don't stay like totally disconnected in my bubble. Yeah, so yeah, I think that was awesome that he does that. Uh by the way, we sh you you should tell the tell the Missouri Star uh'cause you you wrote this newsletter Uh on on our our personal newsletter yesterday about Al and uh you should tell the tell the highlights of his story. Yeah. And the the thing that you didn't mention earlier about Al is the way that we met him is Patrick Campbell mentioned him and then I think I just DM'd him and I said

A D boot. And no other context, and that was it. And then I was like I've never met you, but do you want to come hang out? Uh North Carolina. It's a weird question. Why did you ask that? Did you know he was tall, or how did you or did you just take a random shot? Like, do you play basketball? Uh come to our basketball camp. I think I looked on you I watched a YouTube video. Like I I heard of him, I looked on YouTube, watched like a minute video and I was like he looks tall.

Seems like he ha has a good personality in this One minute clip I found on YouTube. So hey Let's just get to business. Do you play basketball? And then uh and then he was like, Yeah, I'm I'll come and he was like, I have no idea who you like, I barely know who you guys are, but Sure, I'll guess I'll fly there and see what the

Yeah, and he was amazing. Um but his His story is pretty cool. So basically I think the the short version, the thing he wrote in the newsletter yesterday, if if people go to It's it's just my name.com. So SeanPurry.com. You you can sign up for the newsletter. You'll get this It'll it'll send you the story after Uh a couple emails.

So The story is his mom takes up quilting as a hobby. And She's just having fun, she's quilting, and then she wants to do, I guess, like whatever is a more advanced quilt where you like You gotta like send your thing into a machine.

Culting Company, is that right? Like how does that work? You're certain certain quilt you gotta send in? Yeah, I think there's like certain things that just need machinery and there was like I believe there is a six month way. to get some machine built quote m ma machine built

Uh quilt made and he was like, Oh shit, there's a business here. How is it a six month wake? And it was just like there's too much demand. Uh, and so he's like, Mom, forget this quilt. Like you need to like and they bought the machine. They're like, Let's create a service company where we do this. 'Cause it sounds like there's too much demand. So they bought the machine. And then they make the website where they're like, Oh yeah, send us your stuff and we'll do the machine, you know, quilting thing for you.

And uh And then people started asking them for fabrics. And so they started selling fabric and people started asking them for patterns. They started selling patterns fast forward. They've built this company. It's called Missouri Star Quilting Company. And

Again, does you know nine figures a year in revenue, profitable, bootstrapped family business. Co founded with his mom. Uh, they sell they have like thirty thousand fabrics for sale now on the on the website and I was like, dude, what was the What was the turning point? Like did this work right away? And it What did he tell you he like he's like well I started I he like post it on Facebook like

Hey guys. Made this quilt website for my mom. Check it out. Yeah, and I and I went back and looked at all of his Facebook posts yesterday and it's like I started a quilt company, buddy, and that was like his Milestone in his life fifteen years ago.

Uh and they must have figured something out. Well it it sounded like the thing that made it Take off was He got his mom to start making YouTube content. So he was like, Oh, YouTube was like st pr still pretty early at that time. He's like, um, all right, mom, record videos teaching people like how to be better at quilting.

And She they now have the number one quilting channel, almost a million subscribers. And Jenny Who's his mom is like beloved. Like the comments are just like Jenny is the best. She's so wholesome. Oh my God. I love her. She's a she's a star. So the YouTube thing took off and then He went and stole the idea from uh Woop dot com about having one crazy daily deal.

So something that's like 50 to 100% off. But it's limited quantity, limited time. And they call it the Quilter Daily Deal or something like that. And that trained people to just keep coming back to the website to see like, you know What amazing deal could they get?

for some new pattern. And those two things were like pretty major Um, you know, like Growth axe that they pulled off to to to grow this thing. He might just be the most successful, like, daily deal site ever, right? Like in terms of profitability. Yeah, I don't know how big Groupon is now, but like you know it it's it's Well he did it bigger than Woot, so you know, that that kinda worked.

And then the other thing he told us about was his town. So explain this town and what he told us like He's think how how he thinks about these town things. Yeah, so basically. Uh when we had we we discovered Al, we realized that he had a town. It was written about an NPO or Uh a few other places. And essentially what it is he had

He needed a bunch of production done, so he needed a manufacturing facility for all the Plus they were selling. So they bought a town, basically that which means They own a few restaurants, I think they own a few gas stations, and they own a few manufacturing facilities and they made it The quilting.

capital of the world. So basically it's where people go and they want to Warren and see Warren and use quilt and they also So he's basically like really basically I think he's the pioneer of towns. I think he talked about this in the pod. A while back, but he's all into town.

And he I yesterday and he was texting us even more ideas about towns. It it it started off simple. So he's like I need a building Where they had like kind of a warehouse or production. To bought one building. Okay, outgrew that. Bought a second building. And he's from this very small town, Hamilton.

Missouri, I think it is. And um so you know, buys two buildings and then at some point they kinda realize All right. Why do this with like nameless, faceless warehouses? What if we could turn this into content or marketing? Like the YouTube channel's working. So what if we do kinda YouTube behind the scenes and what if we make this

More interesting. So instead of just buying two warehouses and then just like, you know operating in stealth. What if we just bought all of its land? And we bought all the buildings that are in this area and we turn this into a tourist destination, a vacation, basically. So like It's a themed town in the middle of nowhere, but it's like the quilting Mecca, or like people call it like the Disneyland for quilters. And there's like

Twel like Main Street is all about quilts. It's just like quilt shop, quilt shop, quilt then and then they have like The Missouri Star one, which is the biggest store, so that's their retail flagship store. They use this to create content, to create interest. People then like take a a pilgrimage. A trip to go visit here, if that's their main hobby. If that's their big hobby, it's like oh

Here's the here's the vacation I want to go on. And when they're there they also have um Man what is it called? Man's land? For the dude who got dragged to this quilting vacation, they have one area called Man's Land. Which is like

Really comfy recliner chairs TVs food and it's just like yeah, you hang out over here and watch football. And let her you know, let let grandma go crazy at the the the quilt shops. And so the uh creating that town I think is kind of amazing. He said that they have a hundred thousand Tourists come there every year. Which is Which is you know, still kind of relatively small, but he's like

Yeah, dude, we just need like a developer to build a hotel. Like there's just no place to stay. And he's like, you know, nobody knows about this area. But I'm really he's really bullish on turning the the the sort of the cost center into a marketing uh a marketing tool. And I think that was really, really smart.

And what Uh wanted to tell everyone about the time you were thinking about yesterday. Well we asked him, we were like Dude, that's I was like, dude, that's genius. What else would you do? He goes Got it.

Babyville USA. I was like what? And he's like uh so he's got four kids. Or he's about to have his fourth, I think. And uh And he's like, Yeah, basically I think you could make a town for

All things baby. So let's say you're a pregnant mom. Or you just Um, you just delivered. You're in your you know maybe you have a newborn, a one year old, a two year old. So most pl traveling is hard, first of all. Uh for either pregnant late pregnancy or or

Yeah, early kids. Um And nothing is optimized for them. Like even places like Disneyland. And like Places that are like kid friendly, it's like ages

Three and up. Really is like what's what's Like acceptable and useful. And so he's like, dude, if we made this town where you could come and it's like some combination of like Just a crazy spa for mom. Mom deserves it. Like she is her body's going through a lot. She's

Not sleeping, that all this stuff. Let's Take care of her. Let's have the best sort of most baby friendly places, whether it's restaurants. Uh retail, whatever it is.

Let's basically let you try any baby products. So like S there's like the the mass stroller store where it's like you're gonna get the best stroller, we're gonna It's like You have the consultants there, you have a testing ground. Um, you know, this is where you're gonna find the best products and you get to test them.

You get to learn about them and it's like a ex it's like an expo for all things, baby. So you're gonna sell a ton of product. You're gonna uh provide a vacation or rest. You're gonna be the most baby proof and baby friendly. Everything is gonna be optimized for that type of clientele. And you can also do a bunch of fun things. So he's like

Dude. Stroller races. Uh, you know, he's like, you know, we could he's like this would be such amazing, like funny content uh that you could do around this whole thing, baby. So he's like Babyville. And uh and it's it's kinda true because Like we just hired a guy and he's like, Oh yeah, can I start after this date because

I'm uh I bought my wife a a push present. And a push present for those don't know is like, you know, after you deliver You basically It's like here's a gift or a vacation. um, you know, to celebrate, you know, putting yourself through one of the hardest things ever, which is like, you know, labor.

And um and so I think baby moons are a thing. Push presents are a thing. I think there's already a whole bunch of like the culture around this stuff. Uh and so if you made the Instagram worthy town for that, I think that could be big. I'm I'm really hoping he does this because uh I want this. Yeah, no, and I want the baby combine. I feel like I'm so competitive and so many of my friends are like Yeah, I don't care about my my how I stack up to people my age, but I care like Yeah, what percentile is my son

And height and weight and how fast is he and Is he crawling? I remember when when when my summon was like one, we would just watch other kids on Instagram and decide who looked like they were in better shape. Yeah, just compare.

Yeah, so I wanna wanna I think that's a great idea. And I still have the baby vocabulary contest. Baby crawling contest. Yeah. Like crazy horoscope thing where we we we give you a scroll that tells you the future of your baby for for a hundred dollars. I th I could think of a million things to sell in this town. Yeah. I love that. Uh and like what else? So we had Al. We go to the game. What else did you got? Uh another guy that I met up with was this guy, Justin Caldbeck.

Uh, so for people that don't know, Justin Callbeck I think is one of the best angel investors. Of all time he led the Snapchat C deal. Uh Pinterest C deal. Uh he does have kind of a checkered past. Uh so I think he was essentially cancelled.

Uh, so he was at White Speed, was basically canceled, I don't know, three to four years ago, and now he's Writing C checks. Uh as a pr as a GP Um so I I basically met up with this guy.

Uh had talked to him a bunch on Twitter. And he said a few things about investing that I thought were particularly interesting and particularly w worth thinking about. The first was a question, which was like, Are you a good investor? Uh, and what's your answer to that, Sean? Like do you think you're a good investor? I think I

I think two things. You can't know yet. So I can't say with anything definitive because You only get measured, I don't know, seven years after you start investing. So the honest answer is I don't actually know. I do think I will do well with investing.

Because I have a good network. I have good judgment when it comes to uh what startups have legs and what don't. Um And uh And like, you know, I'm aggressive. So like, you know, I what I make what I lack in IQ, I make up for in like uh guts.

And so um So I think those three will result in uh in a great outcome for me. And then the other question that he kind of asked is like, Can you what did you say when he said that, by the way? That's a great question to ask somebody to be like, Are you even good at what you do? Um is a is a fantastic question. What did you say? Did you uh did you did your butt clench and did you know what to say in that moment? Uh I said

I don't think I'm great. I think I could be great if I tried he said that's what everyone says. Um Yeah, but I think I could. Uh and then he was like, Well, okay, answer me these questions, then can you defend every deal that you've kind of push the table for without saying these two words. Great founder.

Uh he was basically like I hate when someone tells me they're investing because it's a great founder because that's the That's something that nobody can argue you on. Uh, even if they know the person'cause they're just like, I can argue you on market, I can argue you on product. I can argue you on Um

Yeah, ten other things, but I can't argue you I'm great founder, so can you Defend every deal you've done recently. Without saying those two words. Uh What's your answer to that question?

Yeah. Uh can I defend every deal? Uh yes, I can explain why we did every deal. Would I defend every deal? No, because I think we've made mistakes along the way and we did deals Or deal sizes or add valuations.

That Knowing what I know today, I could say, you know, that That wasn't a good decision, you know, uh going back out with the benefit of hindsight. I would think about that differently now. But I think that's natural. Like

There's no way that you could get into anything as a uh, you know, start a new activity, new job, new hobby, whatever it is. And from day one be flawless. Hell no, right? Now could you But should you have a um A line of thinking on everything you did? Yeah. Here was my line of thinking. Was my line of thinking always correct? No.

Uh, here's some errors I made. And I I can tell you specifically like three errors I made. One I would say is the um Oh, but I love this business. I hate the valuation, but I love this business. Um I think that is a is a pretty common mistake.

And even Though it sometimes works out. Like um Yeah, we invested in a company that was valued at two hundred million. I invested because I had been trying to invest since the seed round, but hadn't gotten in. So I kinda had I was like, you know, anchored to this lower price.

And now it's a multi billion dollar company. So our our investment's still up, I don't know, forty X. So it's a great investment from a return point of view. But honestly, it was a pretty dumb investment. Like my only out uh was that this thing would this company would go from two hundred million to a multi billion dollar company, even though at the two hundred million I thought it was overvalued based on where the revenue was. And I think even th I think I got lucky on that more so than that was the correct decision.

Um And I think that's the case for like a bunch of things I did where The difference in your outcome when you invest at a eight million dollar valuation versus eighteen Versus Fifty versus eighty.

Um Is is just really, really profound. And the better move is to stay disciplined. Don't chase the higher valuations. Just pass, even on a good deal because You just wanna deploy all your dollars in at the lower valuation so that you can have when you hit You hit super, super big.

Um Yeah, we did another investment that Was that a five million dollar valuation and now it's at I don't know, three hundred? Three hundred, four hundred million. And uh

It it may be it may end up at the same multiple as the first deal I talked about. But the second one was actually using sound logic and judgment. And the first one was uh chasing uh uh you know, something that I wanted. And You know, I only had one possible way to to to get a good outcome out of that.

Yeah, I think that Yeah, I think I think that makes sense and I think he thinks similarly. Like I think you know the other thing that he said Uh that I intuitively knew but never really thought about is how many deals he looks at a week. Yeah, he's talking to a hundred to a hundred and fifty founders every single week.

To do maybe one deal a month. At most. So maybe he's doing one out of six hundred things he talks to. Um And the thing that he said That I thought was interesting about that was

Uh, you know, you kinda notice what good and great is You know, most there's a ton of people you meet that are in the good category in terms of founders, right? It's like really smart people. Building interesting things, great backgrounds. But there's very, very few people you meet that are great. Um so I think that was like a learning for me, which is like really being disciplined to only

Two deals of when you think they're great, which I think applies to more than just angel investing. Kind of applies to everything. It's like Y most of the time you know what crate is. Uh but you just Get impatient and you go for good.

Right. And I think his his portfolio is pretty nuts, by the way. Grubhub, Snap. Open door stitch fix. Whatnot? Imperfect foods

Uh Uh boom aerospace you know. These are these are some some pretty solid ways, especially if we got in our Yeah, I think obviously he was canceled there. Me too'd for a reason. So like I don't

I don't know. I can't say he's like the best dude personally, but obviously he's a great investor. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's hard to know what happened in certain situations and I don't know. I try to For better or for worse, my thought when I meet people is when somebody tells me how great somebody is, I don't assume that they're perfect and when somebody tells me how horrible somebody is, I don't think that they're evil and terrible.

Um, I sort of take people at face value, so I meet them I uh you know ask them about the situation, I hear the story. And then I see how they treat me and I s I observe how they treat the other people around them and I kind of Just use that as my filter, um rather than Um

getting caught up in this sort of stuff. And I I also have friends that I think are like Yeah. Um great in one area of their life and I can learn a lot from them in that area. uh, you know, whether it's investing or business or fitness or whatever, and they're not so great in other areas of their life.

Rather than sit there and judge them. I just try to I if I find somebody that's great at one area of life, I just focus on that and I try to learn from them on that and I move on, you know, I d I don't really get too caught up in the the full picture. Yeah, a hundred percent. And then in terms of you know other thing I I took away from San Francisco was There was one other thing that we did that I took a lot away from which was e we had a small dinner

With about ten people. Uh had no idea really what to expect. Like I I went in cold basically knowing none of these people. Uh So Sean, you wanna set the table for what that dinner was like? Yeah, we hosted a dinner at F dot Inc, uh, which has a great office in um

In Fort Mason in San Francisco. Uh we invited about twelve thirteen people, something like that. Uh I would say some of them knew each other, but most people didn't. So it's one of these like San Francisco very San Francisco things. It's like One person curates the guest list and they're basically saying, trust me.

These people are cool. And then everybody else just goes on that uh uh that assumption. And if you ever violate that, it's like, dude, I went to this one dinner this guy hosted and People were not cool. You're like all right, they're out. But as long as you curr can successfully curate this, you could sort of build a a really cool community and brand around it. So inviting some people.

Uh the conversation was basically I think you know, I saw your face at one point'cause In the most San Francisco thing possible. The conversation quickly shifted to like drugs, but like not like uh party drugs. But like um

You know, people love this like you know sort of like, oh I microdose this thing or I do ayahuasca or I do DMT or I do um mushrooms f you know, for productivity and like all this other stuff. Like I do this instead of therapy. I do this In addition to therapy. I do this in addition to or to help my productivity. And it's like bro, could you just

drink coffee? Like why do we have to do all this? Are you sure? That's like you know my feeling because I'm a I'm like a uh a more straight arrow guy. Like I just I don't do I don't do any of the stuff. But That was the you know, that was pretty heavy part of the conversation at the beginning, and then there was you know it it transitioned from there. But what was your take on the uh The drug convo. Yeah, I mean

You know, I've been someone that's always I haven't done anything, but I'm not like incredibly opposed to it. I Yeah, my take was just seem like that's what most people were focused on, like Uh, ever most of the people in that room were really successful and the thing they were focused on was

Figuring out. In some ways how to be happier. Uh, like that's kind of what it boiled down to is like how do I be happier and how do I have better relationships with the people that matter. Uh and it's always

I had to be in yeah, I always find it Kind of um odd to be in those rooms where everyone seems like they have everything they possibly want. Right. Like I'm probably The least Wealthy person in that room. the least well known person in that room and

Uh Yeah, so I find it interesting that people are resorting to that type of thing and maybe there's a lot of trade to be had. Uh, the other thing that I took away from it is Everyone talked about this thing called touchy feely, which is a thing that happened I think it's like a Stanford class where basically You boiling.

Uh Yeah, so everyone's talking about how to be a better leader. Uh and how to really connect with people. And the one thing I wrote down in my Phone was

uh I'm an asshole. So I remember it like basically the their their take was this is like really what all these things boil down to is recognizing that you're the asshole at every situation. Uh Then I remember afterwards I was like I don't know, maybe I'm just an asshole for to everyone for these kind of reasons. I think the line was Uh every great marriage.

Comes down to one realization. I am an asshole. And once you realize that and you accept that, it humbles you But it also uh It it sort of like You understand the other person's side,'cause damn, they're dealing with this asshole. And I thought that was like a really

I don't know if I believe that. But I thought it was a great line. Um There was one part on the So the the the drugs part I thought was interesting'cause it was like Some of these things that are taboo.

Today. become very normal ten years from now and Silicon Valley's usually at the s the front of that curve. And you're right, it was stunning. I mean, this is a very successful group of people. There wasn't a person in that room who wasn't wealthy, successful All that stuff.

And I would say what? Forty percent of the people at that table had experimented with some version of a like I don't know what you would call it, hallucinogenic type of drug in order to try to be happier. uh you know happier, less anxious, or better in their relationships. And um

That's just a crazy ratio to me. That's a wild ratio. That's a very San Francisco, uh Uh a ratio that you get. And Sometimes San Francisco's just off the reserve off the reservation. And sometimes they're ahead of the curve and it's pretty hard to figure out which one's which. Yeah, it's just these are the same people that in

You know, twenty tw twenty twelve we're we're talking about bitcoin. And this is the same group of people that, you know, um Whatever. They're like, you know. experimenting with AI four or five years ago. Um, you know, so they are the the the hard part is you can't write it off because

Often these are people that are that are right in a bunch of areas. Well the touchy feely thing I thought was cool because they said that one framework for communication Uh I think that's probably worth Worth saying, which was uh So they're talking about how great this touchy feely thing is.

And of course my natural question was like, wait, so like like what? Like what what did you like what's an example? You're saying how great this was and how it changed everything for you. Like what's an example? And uh My friend Siki uh Siki Chen, who now runs Runway.

He goes They teach you that there's What was it? Five layer five layers of communication. And so let me see if I can remember this off the top of my head. So he's like The first one it when you deal with people, you're gonna be at one of these five layers. So it's like uh

Level one or layer one is ritual. This is like Yeah. You walk uh you walk into the office. Hi. Hey, hi. Yeah.

Hey, what's up? What's up? Yeah, like just like It's automated. It's not like It it's just a ritualistic thing. Just a quick uh quick hello. Then there's number two, which is extended ritual, which is Hey, how's it going?

As a day. Uh yeah, what's new? These things that you you say it's an extended version of the ritual. You don't really care. Or you're not really asking the question, you're not really expecting anything. Nor are they really telling what

going on in their life, it's sort of this uh like just this dance we p we do. The third level is you're talking about some content, but it's surface content. So At the third level, service content is you're talking about a project. You're talking about um something you're working on or something you're doing. Uh something that's happening. You're talking about the game.

You're talking about the w uh the project, whatever it is. Um and what he basically said was like, you know, most of our communication just happens at these three levels every day. But the problem with it is Um Imagine in every interaction there's two tracks. So on the on l your left hand is the track of like

the content of the conversation. And on the right is the relationship between the two people. And at these first three layers, the content might be moving, but the relationship is not moving. Uh relationship the relationship uh is not being invested in. And so if you want to be somebody who's better at building relationships, like

You don't you need to get out of just these t first three layers and get to number four five four and five. Four is feelings about the content. So How do you feel about what's going on?

But I feel stressed about this project. I feel worried about this thing. I feel so excited about uh this game tonight, you know, whatever it is. And you're sharing A little bit about what's inside for you. how you're feeling about the thing.

Not just talking about the thing. So that's that's better. That moves it forward because you're there's some vulnerability there. And then the last one is feelings about each other, which is Dude. Yeah, I felt disappointed when I expected this was gonna happen, but actually this happened. Or I felt uh

Annoyed. frustrated that we keep ending up in this same loop. And being able to share that is obviously the the the Uh. Saying how you feel about the other person. And I said negative ones, but it could also be the other way. Like, you know, I feel

Yeah, I love working with you. I love Uh you know, I had so much fun. I felt uh Yeah, tons of joy when we were doing XYZ. So you can sharing how you actually feel about the other person is the hardest one, but when you do it

That's what moves that other track the furthest. And uh and they talked about like the little nuances. Like instead of saying I feel like Blank, blank, blank. Anytime you say like, you took it away from how you actually feel. It's just

I feel blank, or I felt blank. Um is the right way to do it. So I thought that was pretty cool because that stuff it's hard to learn anywhere, like school or whatever. Yeah, you talked about the Harvard business school thing, that was one note and the other one was this Stanford touchy feely thing as like

Oh, that sounds pretty cool. Uh I should check that out or you know, I want to get better at that. Yeah. This data is wrong every freaking time. Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated. Whoa, I can see the client's whole history. Calls, support tickets, emails, and here's a test from three days ago I totally missed.

Spot grow better. And you told a great story, uh, basically about your experience doing that same thing. Uh at the prison you already should tell that story. Yeah. Yeah, so

Alright, so once uh once upon a time I uh I get an email from my boss. And this is a guy, uh Michael Burt, so he's basically the the main investor in our company. And he was kinda like my mentor. When I moved to Silicon Valley, I moved here to work with Michael Michael uh Birchy.

multiple successful internet companies. That's what I wanted to do. So I was like, I want to learn from this guy. And um I always I don't know if other people feel this way, but whenever I'm around somebody who I really admire or I really like like I feel an intense pressure to um

Just like do good in that do good in that setting. Like I just always wanted to like put my best foot forward. Uh If it was a meeting I wanted to look smart. If it was a A social situation situation. I wanted to be Mr. Charisma and like be the be this they brought me to this event. I wanna have the best conversation. And sometimes that's okay. That's natural, but often it felt forced

It was just a lot of stress. So anyways, he's he emails me this thing says Hey, come with me to this uh this I did this event and I want you to come to it. You know, don't ask too many questions, just count. He's like it's Friday at this time, just show up. And so I show up And

What he signed me up for was uh This group called Inside Circle, I think it's called. And basically they take a group of Kinda like Silicon Valley CEO type people. A group of men from from the business world and they bring them inside of Folsom prison.

And they take you to meet inmates who are Uh in prison for life. So they have a life sentence. And um So you go to this sort of like I don't know if it's maximum security or whatever, but you go to this like intense prison. And you're gonna meet with people who are in prison for life. If you're in there for life, you did something that's you know

Murder or you know, sort of equivalence. And And so I'm like, Oh shit. And he's like, Yeah, it's a two day event. It's like an overnight event. I was like, What the hell? Uh, all right, thanks, Michael. So I go to this thing, we walk in and um I don't I still don't really know what to expect. I'm like Are we giving a talk? Is this like an on entrepreneurship Talk like what what are we trying to do here?

Something like that. But instead we walk in. Uh the guys all get uncuffed. We all walk in together. And um we all sit in a circle.

And I'm like, Oh, this is a feelings thing. Oh shit. This is like, you know This is like AA or something. I don't know what I got myself into, but my my brain is racing. And When the guys were walking in Uh

You know I'm I'm like It's kinda like scoping everybody out. And there's one guy who walked in That just stood out right away. He was wearing sunglasses and he had a cane. But he wasn't blind. So I was like I don't know how this dude has this privilege to like

Be able to have a stick that he walks around with and sunglasses. But this guy's got clout immediately, you could tell, and he was the only guy who was like not smiling. Not talking to anybody. He had like two guys around him who like kinda escorted him to see brought him a A clip of water and I was like, Oh shit, this is the guy who like runs the prison.

Got it. Uh I've seen movies about this shit. I know how to like spot the alpha. This guy's the alpha. And so The event basically starts as follows. They go break'em into like smaller circles. Uh, you know, g groups of six.

And um And w you know, this guy who's been here, he's the facilitator. He'll he'll begin. So break up into groups of six, of course I get paired in a group with this The tough guy. And um

I'm like, all right, what do I have to do here? How what do I need again? What am I trying to try to do to like, you know Do well in this situation. And basically the group was sort of like well the the the activity was sort of like you just Each person goes around, you just say what's on your mind. First guy gets up.

He tells us Super intense situation that he's in. He's like Uh Right now I'm feeling um Frustrated man. I'm feeling pissed.

Feeling angry. I'm like, Oh fuck he's like, I'm feeling angry because Uh my daughter who's on the outside told me that, you know, she had been um sexually assaulted. And I'm pissed that I'm not there.

To beat that guy's ass and then, you know, protect her and uh And so this guy tells us like really intense thing. And then I'm like, Oh shit. And then the next guy says an even more intense thing. And third guy says this Really traumatic ex he's he's working through this really traumatic experience.

By the third person, I'm no longer listening. I'm in my head. And I'm th I'm doing the math. I'm like, okay, I'm three people away. What am I gonna say? And like I mean, look at me I'm wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt right now. I'm like, you know

My parents love me, my life is pretty good, I'm healthy, I'm happy and All of a sudden, I'm like, God damn it. Parents, why did you have to love me? I don't have shit to say here. Like I I couldn't you have just had a drug problem and made this a little easier for me. Like, what am I supposed to say that's not gonna stand out like a sore thumb? Like I can't be like the biggest problem in my life right now is We have this deadline for this We're trying to

This new feature we're building by Friday and I I just don't know if we're gonna hit it, guys. Like you know, that's it's not gonna fly here, so I'm like Fuck, back, back. I'm panicking and I'm not listening at this point. It it keeps going around the circle. Finally it gets to me. And I'm like, Okay, I just gotta tell this like this

Like this the most traumatic thing that's happened in my life. Whatever. I guess I'm gonna say it to these strangers. And I'm gonna kinda ham it up a little bit and and really like, you know, just try to deliver this. I essentially start performing. And so I I tell this thing about some family thing that happened in my past. And I'm like doing these dramatic pauses and I'm like, you know

Not like pretending to cry, but I'm definitely pretending to feel it a little more than I was actually feeling it in that moment. I tell the story. And I told it good. I'm a good storyteller. And so I'm like, I brought my A game'cause I was under pressure. I told a great story. And I'm like, all right, thanks, you know, thanks y'all for listening and uh on to the next.

And then the hard guy. Does it Man, that's some bullshit. And I was like, oh no. What? What's happening? He go and I go, what?

He goes, Man, that's some bullshit, man. You're just saying that shit. I go, no, that really happened'cause I don't care if that happened. You ain't really feeling that. And so this guy basically instantly sniffed me out in a way that very few people can really tell You know, when I'm BSing like that.

And now I'm feeling like, am I gonna get beat up? Like what's gonna happen here? Uh, this is a worst case scenario, the hard guy. is like just like went out of nowhere. He didn't say this to anybody else in the group, but for me, he's like that's some bullshit, man. And he was like out. He was like out on me. And he goes he said something, he goes like um He goes.

I go, what do you want me to say? He goes he goes, I want you to say what's on your mind. Uh well you know, what you're really feeling. And I go I'm feeling nervous. Why? I go Cause um I want you to like me. Like the truth came out. I was like, I want you to like me. Which is it was the honest

Such and I'm like Oh my God, what did I just say? The lamest possible thing a one man can say to another. He paused and he discussed. That's your truth.

And he like accepted it. He goes, That's your truth, man. And he got up and he like got it he like came up to me, whatever, and we like whatever. Uh He's like, Yeah, I pr I appreciate you. Telling your truth, they hugged me and he sat back down and I was like, What just happened? He's laughing now. This guy had it cracked a smile the whole time. And he just thought it was so funny that obviously he scared me shitless, which he did. And uh he got me to break, which he did.

But it also showed me that like you should just uh you know lead with the truth. It's a lot easier than uh trying to perform. But uh Yeah, that was my like touchy feely uh Touchy feely like intense experience. Yeah, that's basically what touchy feely is, right? It's just like trying to get to the core of what you're actually feeling or thinking, right? And sharing it.

Yeah, I I mean I don't know, I haven't done it, but it does seem like it's about being a little more More honest, more authentic, and less of the surface level autopilot shit that like We get used to doing. Kind of in the real world. Um

All right, what else we got? So That was your San Francisco trip. Any other big ones? Otherwise, let's do a couple of cool ideas. The last one from San Francisco is uh the other person that came to dinner was this guy named Kendall. So he bought the milk brood. Uh with Mike.

Uh Millcrators a crypto newsletter that Sean and I started and sold and I think from I worked with them for three months pretty hands on. Every time I see'em it makes me think of this, which is You know, instead of asking what would Jesus do, I ask what would Mike and Kendall do Uh and they do Two things really well that I try to embody whenever I ask that question, which is like

One one Kendall himself is really good at spotting an opportunity, so he's Basically he's Thinking and fishing all day to find what they should go attack. And then Mike is really good at Consistent intensity.

Uh, so what I mean by that is let's say you're trying to figure out Facebook ads. Every single day first Ten hours, he'd be looking at it. try to see what's working, what's not and doubling down instead of being like Oh, Facebook's working. I'm gonna go work on Pinterest now.

I'm gonna go stand up a Twitter ad. So I think when I saw Kendall it just reminded me like be more of Tendle and Mike, uh in anything. 'Cause that's a winning combination to be like great at spotting things and then once he spot something They want

Like take it. In incredible intensity to get it done. Yeah, so these guys each have Basically, You know, Kendall's built and sold companies for something like just under a hundred million dollars to companies

Uh, Mike's last company I think sold for nearly two hundred million dollars. So Obviously very successful. But when we met them You know, I always look for okay, what What was it about this person? What what contributed to their outsized outcome?

Usually the shit ain't an accident. Uh you know. We always say you gotta have some attributes. So it's like what are the attributes that this person had That led them to that. Some people it's They're amazing engineers. Okay, great. They've built

Some crazy shit. Some people it's like um They're amazing investors. They are great at spotting opportunities, um and and whatever. For some people they're great, um Salespeople. You know, oh th they're this guy could sell ice to an Eskimo. I can see how they were able to grow their business really fast.

Uh this person, you know, somebody's really high IQ. They're just super, super smart. They You know, they they built this thing that I could barely understand half the words about. Yeah, but they understand that industry and they they navigated it. With Mike and Kendall, I felt like With Kendall, I was like, You wouldn't want to compete with this guy. Because

He's just gonna figure out the loophole in the game. Like he's gonna figure out the cheat code and the he's gonna figure out oh and Mario You run onto this block Did you just hold down? And then you fall behind the screen, you run, and then you get the magic flute that lets you skip nine levels. And I feel like that's

Kendall. Kendall will find the magic flute that lets you skip levels. Whereas you're sitting there trying to beat every single level and he He was just like no, that sounds Painful. I'm gonna find Yeah, I I think I heard or you know, there's gotta be this like solution where

I can get ahead faster. What is that? Who's making the most money and then how do I do what they're doing? So he's he's good at sniffing out that thing. And Mike is like um Mike is smart, but he's not like It's not like he's the smartest dude I've ever met.

But he is one of the most intense dudes I've ever met. Like uh We'll have a meeting and then we'll go out for drinks. But somehow in between he ships like a a a a notion dock with all of the action items tagged and like referenced. Uh because he's like Well

Obviously that was a good plan. We should write it down and then do it. And I'm like, Yeah, well don't say it like it's common sense. Like, you know, Oh, we're gonna get a little distracted over here and we're gonna You know, we'll we'll stretch it out. We'll procrastinate it a little bit. And he's like, Well, why would you procrastinate? Just do the whole thing right away. It's like, I don't know,'cause I'm not you. I'm not a machine. And he's a machine, and so I think it's really useful.

To just be around somebody like that. And I think we had this theory when we sold the milk road to them because we were considering different offers and it was like I don't know, dude. I think we're not pr like it's hard to put a price on We're gonna get to hang out with these guys who are gonna make us better as entrepreneurs. That's a factor. And um

And so yeah, the I think we've noticed this in a bunch of people as we meet people, me and Ben always call each other and debrief after meetings. And I think one of the more common ones is They have this like an intensity is often the most common trait that we're seeing in these successful people because they're so different in all these other ways.

But the one thing they have is like once they see an opportunity, they're pretty effing relentless and focused. On doing it. They don't procrastinate. They don't wait around They don't uh, you know, half do things or quarter do things. They like overdo.

things. And uh they do it with like the intensity knob is It's cranked past the ten, they broke the knob and it's on twelve. Uh, I feel like that's been common for a bunch of people that we've we've hung out with over the last few years. Yeah. Yeah, and I I think like now that I see Drake, I'm like, okay.

I wasn't great. I can be great. Yeah, he's great. Right. Right. Uh That's true. Well the other one that was funny was uh

We bumped into Raw Huligma at the Warriors game. So if if people don't remember this Uh When

Elon bought Twitter. There was this guy that went and He was standing outside the Twitter office with a giant cardboard box and he's like Uh yeah, I'm a data science engineer at Twitter. I got fired on yeah, Elon came in, he fired me. And you know, and then the reporters were like, Oh, tell us, you know, what what are your thoughts on Elon and and how does it feel to have this? And he's like

You know, th he said so this guy didn't work at Twitter. He was a giant troll. Uh and he's friends with some friends that we have and he he had sent a text like an hour earlier being like Dude, there's hella people outside of Twitter. I'm just gonna take a box and pretend I got fired. You wanna come? And him and his buddy went.

Took an empty cardboard box. And tricked reporters from CNBC and all these places. There's all these articles about with the these these guys featured. He he said his name was Rahul Ligma. as in you know Ligma these nuts and uh and like you know his other guy Daniel Johnson so it's Ligma and Johnson Who were pretending to be to be fired, and so they they kinda went viral in Silicon Valley as like Silicon Valley loves when people tr you know, trick the media or beat the media or point out that the media is stupid.

Uh, and the media loves the opposite. They love to point out when Silicon Valley is stupid and overrated and overhyped and Overfunded and all the stuff. It's like a little war that goes on. Um, and so Rahul was like he won what he won a key battle in that war. And so we're at the game. I'm like, dude, that's that's the guy. That's the He again, he's a random engineer.

starter founder that nobody knew like, you know, a few months ago, and now he was sitting courtside at the Warriors game. With two like billionaires and he was just hanging out. And I was like You know, this guy probably Went to college, studied hard.

Spent a hundred fifty K getting a degree, you know, is trying to make his starter successful. And the thing that like Catapulted at like a random inflection point in his life that catapulted him. Was this random troll he decided to do. And I think that's just kind of amazing and very uh

I don't know. There's a lesson to be learned in there. What what was your reaction to that? Yeah, one I thought the troll was incredible. Like I think one you know, I'm not an anti big media guy, but I have seen You know, when you're on the inside of the story and what they You know how they spin it. Uh to make a great headline.

Uh so I'd have one great troll By the way, the the best part of the troll, he's holding up A Michelle Obama book. The Michelle Obama book, and then they go, What do you think about you know getting fired under Elon? You know, is is was that right? And he goes, This would have never ha happened under Michelle Obama.

Which makes no sense. That is so funny. Yeah. And they didn't somehow pick up on that that this guy's just a uh you know, this guy's lying. Yeah, so good. I'm the thing is just like do things that make no sense. Like I think a lot of A lot of stuff I try to do, like makes no sense why you would ever do it. Uh, you can't like map it to anything going forward. You're just like, Oh, it sounds fun and Funny.

So Fuck, like let's do it. Yeah, we've talked about that before. The do cool shit budget. Which is do you have a budget of both money and time? That you allocate towards things that don't have a clear ROI except for

That sounds fun. Or like, dude, that would be hilarious. Or that would be that that's amusing, or I don't know, like I've never done that before. And I think you know the way Google had Google had twenty percent time where basically if you worked at Google, you could spend twenty percent of your time

on anything that you thought would just be cool for Google. Um so they you know, they're like, Hey, we're gonna pay you in one fifth of your time you can spend not on any project that we assign you or that has ROI. And like Gmail came out of that. And Facebook had these hackathons that were the same thing. It's like these late night hackathons.

It would take away a bunch of productivity from engineers. But they were like You know, this is fun, this is good for culture, and good shit can come out of this that we can't Predict. And like you know, the like button was built during one of these hackathons, for example. You know, with the like button is obviously, you know, massive for Facebook.

And so I think that everybody should have this do cool shit budget. So how do you put take ten to twenty percent of your time and your money And put it towards things that are Just for you know, shits and giggles. Um I I know I do that. Uh I I think

We should do that with our companies. I think everybody should really do that. Yeah, I mean the one thing I try to do consistently is just talk to a bunch of brand of people that You know, there's no real ROI, but a lot of interesting stuff comes out of all those conversations. Yeah, you should explain how you do that,'cause um I gave you access to my Twitter and I was like, Yeah, I don't know, I get a bunch of DMs, I can't keep up with all this.

And you kind of took that and turned it into an asset. So like what did you do? And you you basically just blocked off like what, Thursdays or something where you just have Back to back rant like four random meetings with people that you think are interesting with no agenda? Is that like that's my read of it. Yeah, I mean I think Yeah, a long time ago I started by basically saying Oh. Uh, people think Sean is awesome, so how do we DM them and just get on calls and meet interesting people?

And have no agenda and just shoot the shit. Uh So we'll just DM people and say What's up? This thing is awesome. Uh and you get like a ninety percent response rate. Sometimes it is a little weird'cause people will be like, Thanks and then you're like, All right, I don't know what to do with that.

Uh but don't have people give you an opening and like, Oh, cool dude, what's up? And uh So I I would be like, How do I pour Lilios into conversations to talk to as many random people as possible? Over time. I started to do it from my own account. Uh and the main idea is just like no agenda.

Talk to someone about what they're working on. Ask a bunch of questions almost every single time. Uh I warn something that I didn't think about before, whether it'd be like oh wow this company is huge or this thing they're working on is actually

Way more interesting than it appe than it appeared when I first saw it. Uh and then I try to send them interesting things as I see'em on Twitter. I think my best one of my best skills is them. always on Twitter seeing interesting things, then I just send it to a bunch of people and Uh over time it

Tends to lead to good outcomes. Uh like I think almost everything I can count to Or like say my life is because I'm good at that on Twitter. Yeah, like when I think of Oh, this person's great at networking. I think about, you know

Yeah, some like I don't know. Tall dude is good at shaking hands and making small talk and like, you know Some smooth operator, politician type dude. And That's not you. You're an amazing networker, but you are you do nothing like that and your method is first of all it's all online.

Uh secondly, you're just like Y I feel like you don't overthink it. Uh uh if I was to kinda reverse engineer what I think is good what you do that's good is You find interesting people. You compliment them on what they're doing, that's interesting.

You then send them things that are like kinda helpful, like, Oh, did you see this? Or check this out. Or you might like this or Did I met this guy, you should talk to him. And you just like Add little nugget one, two, three, and by the third nugget.

Yeah, like Well, I like this Ben dude. This guy's this Ben guy's all right, you know, he seems to He likes me and he's helpful to me and like Therefore you you're interested in them and therefore they're interested in you. Whereas I think I always took the reverse approach, which had terrible results, which is I want you to like me, so I'm gonna tell you all the interesting things about me.

And like No matter what how interesting I am, I'm nowhere near as interesting to them as they are to themselves. And I think you do an amazing job at like Just being interested in them and being like helpful, not asking for anything in return. And uh That's how we met and then that's how I feel like you've built

For all the people I meet, you end up with a better relationship with them. So there's something you're doing that's amazing and I'm trying I'm still trying to figure it out. I think the other thing is like introducing them to other grey people. Like I think that's always an easy win to be like you should you're having this problem. Meet this person who can help you. Uh, that's like a great way to do it. And in college I used to be like, Oh I just need to always check in and see how someone is doing.

For them to like me and want to talk to me like Now if someone did that with me, I'd be like, Britt, what do you want me to say? Like, I'm good. Uh or I'd be like, Oh, you went to Duke, I should write that in my notes and like send you an email when Duke wins a basketball game. Then I kinda realized like What do you think you know, like what would if someone sent me a note every time the sons won a game or it I'd be like

Okay, like what do you want me to say? Like Thanks for like thinking of me that the sun's on a game. Uh So I was like, how do I just actually understand what they want and like when I see interesting things just send it and maybe it's useful, maybe it's not

But they know I'm thinking about them in that moment in time. Um Right. Yeah. That's I think I think that skill goes a long way. Julian Shapiro has a interesting version of this that he does that I kinda love.

Which is he'll just send you an email. With one image in it. No no subject line, no text. And the image is a random meme, but it's like Julian's sense of humor is really weird. And so it'll be like A picture of a parrot?

And then in the on the on the on the parrot's chest it says, look in the top right corner. And you look at the top right corner and it says Not this one, the left corner. You go to the left corner, it says, Not up here, idiot. Down there. You look down, it goes, go to the right corner. You finally go to the bottom right corner and it says, I love you. And it's like uh he'll send you that and nothing else, or he'll just send you like eight straight random images of like, you know, I don't know, whatever, gorillas eating cake. And you're like, Julian, what's going through your brain right now? And I don't know what this is.

But it makes me laugh and it's just different and it's like It's really quick and easy for him to do this and it's like I don't know who this guy is, but he's interesting and he's fun and he makes me laugh and like He does this like Yeah.

We talk about these things that like Sam does his, you know, let's fuck when he gets into town and he He wants to meet somebody who he only knows online or he's friends with. Um And that's just like a better like more fun version of like let's hang out. Uh Julian's like

random meme thing is interesting. Uh your Your thing where you send little helpful nuggets of Hey, did you see this? I think that works too. Everybody's got their own style, but uh You know, the style I think doesn't work is Me, me, me, me, me. Which is the uh the style that I had originally taken, which was like

Well, I'll just focus on what I want and what I think is cool and then people will be interested in that. It's like no, not really. Yeah, and for and for a while I'd be like, you know, in college I numbered people to teach you in college like oh Make a LinkedIn post about your internship you're getting. A lot of people are gonna care or like Send people updates on what you're working on. I'm like I don't know, who cares that I got an internship at Walgreens, you know, and like if someone sent me that be like Instead send me something interesting or cool or ask me an interesting question or like

Uh send me something you found interesting about what I'm doing. Uh, that's way more I think that's way more valuable than like what The other person wants. Right. Right. We s we should end this on a few ideas. We should do like five minutes of rapid fire ideas. Okay. You go first.

Uh first idea I've been thinking about is Something related to your D to C business, which is wholesale. Like one of the things I think been thinking about is pole sailed. So for people that don't know, basically You have a Shopify store, you wanna sell more in micro store micro boutiques, so let's call it

uh the local clothes store in your city. Right now that's really hard to do. So I've just been thinking about Someone could build something in the space that makes it really easy Uh we talked to a company doing this that basically makes it really easy to spin up and run.

Your sales channelizable sale. Anything to add to that one? Uh that's a great idea and a no brainer. We have a person in our for our ecom brand who well, we have one person dedicated to kind of doing this process. It's very manual. It's like Find a list of all the mom and pop boutiques. Uh Great, now reach out cold in this script and it's all managed through Gmail and or you know, some sales tool.

And then you know, so like Sourcing them. Um Reaching out to them. Managing the payments and invoices.

Um Keeping track of your analytics, who's actually Who's do who's a big spender for you? Who's a who who's falling off and churning how you should reach back out to Yeah. All that stuff, making it easy for them to shop uh'cause they're buying in bulk.

All that stuff I think. Can be uh I would love a tool that does this and uh by the way, we should reach back out to that company that we talked to about this and be like Hey, we gotta do this. Yeah, w all right, give me give me one of your ideas. Let's do two more.

Alright, you told me about um N I L, which is the college um name and likeness thing where basically college athletes can now get paid. So up until now they couldn't get paid. Now they can get paid. Uh to do, you know, appearances or

merch or different things like that. Um I love businesses that are built around rule changes or law changes. Because it takes something that was impossible and now makes it Very possible. And there's

Great examples of this, like Oscar Health. was built as soon as Obamacare came out. Um and so Uh, one I think that somebody should do is if I'm like, you know, twenty one years old or or whatever, I'm eighteen years old right now. I would be like all right.

I now have access to a bunch of influencers that are in college that want to get paid and the and the marketplace is not efficient yet, meaning They have more sway. Then they're priced at just because People haven't abused this channel yet.

So I'm gonna be the one to abuse this channel. I'm gonna be the one to grow like crazy off this. The way that the movement watches guys. built a luxury watch brand using kind of cheap watches, uh, because they were like, yo, Instagram has these people who are popular influencers. We should send them all watches and pay them to to promote. And they built a hundred million dollar watch brand before Instagram influences became a big deal. Um

So I think somebody should do this and it's like all right, you should work backwards from what do Who follows college athletes? And What do they need? So let's let's assume for a second that it's other college students at that college or fans of that college.

That follow them. What could I sell? And so what are the best products? And so, you know, maybe it's financial services. I like credit card type stuff. Or maybe it's like a beverage brand, like an energy drink. Cause I remember in college, like people would drink Red Bulls at five hour energy, staying up late studying. I think you could create a new five hour energy off the back of an I L.

Or you could create a new condom brand. Like I don't know how big Trojan or Durex of these brands are. But you know, they've been around for a while. They're kind of stale. And they're don't they're not that fun. And I think somebody could build the uh the college condom brand or the college energy drink brand. Using these NIL influencers. Yeah, I think in general NIL like Uh.

I tried to book someone before using like open doors, which I think today is Like kind of the witter. Of the NIL marketplace, basically the idea of I can book someone on demand for Anything, whether it be an appearance, autograph, except

I think there were Has to be a startup out there that Is doing this now in a really good way locally. Uh so we should find that startup too that like is attacking the NIL marketplace in a different way. Right. Uh all right. That's gonna be it for the pod. Thanks, Ben, for coming on. And actually if you um if you like Ben, you want to see some of the stuff, one thing he's working on right now is We took every episode.

Of my first million. So we've done Four hundred plus episodes now. Um And we had somebody go through and pull out every idea. Every framework?

And every tool that's mentioned. Um And we're categorizing it. We put it all into a giant air table. So that you could b basically see like what are all the ideas they had? And then you could sort by like, you know, the ideas that were, you know Um

All about AI or all about crypto, or all about SaaS or You know, uh side hustles, right, for example. And Then I took the top ten for each, both frameworks and ideas, and I'm writing about them and expanding them and saying, you know, here's the idea, here's what I would do.

Uh for each of those. And we're putting it together. So this is gonna be uh like I don't know, some super PDF type thing. So if you want that, go to um go to my website, go to seanpourry.com. Drop your email in. And um, you know, I don't know how long it's gonna take us to finish this, maybe another week or so.

But uh that's where that's where I'm gonna send it out. So um so go there, sign up, and if you want basically To take the best of from the pod. And then kind of updates, uh you know, I'm gonna update and give my commentary on on the sort of the best ones. uh from there. So I think that's gonna be an awesome resource. four people. If you're a fan of the pod, um

you know, I don't know, it's no brainer's kind of a must m must have if you've been listening all the way through. There's no way to keep track of all the different ideas that we've we mentioned on here. So so I think that would be that's gonna be awesome. So I'm excited about that. Thanks for Ben for for coming on and uh Again, I'll put the link in the in the description on YouTube and in the podcast, but it's just Johnpre.com and then You can put your email in in there. All right, guys, uh thank you for uh thank you for listening. That's it, that's the part.

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