#188 - What It's Like to Be Rich, How to Respond to Growth Plateaus, & the New Neighborhood 7/11

It's really effing hard to start a two sided marketplace, and when you do, the prize is a billion dollars uh you know in your pocket. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my law in it like my day's off. On the roadless travel, never looking back. Alright, what's up? Uh I was thinking about the beginning of these. Because um

If you watch like Joe Rogan, Joe just sort of rolls into the conversation. It's actually starts like mid sentence of what they're already talking about. And I think that's kinda cool, it's pretty casual. And then you have other people that really try to like brand their brand their beginning. So I'll give you a couple examples and you tell me which one you think is a good idea.

So Um the all in podcast, which I like. is hosted by Jason Calicanus and then he what he does is they have the what they call the cold open. Which we do sometimes too, which is you pull a c the kind of like the most interesting or funny one liner from the middle of the episode, you put it at the beginning.

And then you roll into like the intro song where it introduced it's like a custom song that introduces The four people. It's like Chamath. The spat King, you know David Freeberg, the qu the Queen of Quinoa or whatever.

So that's like one version. Then there's You know Scott Adams, the guy who started Dilbert or writes the Dilbert comic? He does this thing every time he does a live and he he used to do live streams like every day or something like that. And he would always say, Let's start with a

Ceremonial sip. And he would like hold up his drink to the camera. He would have you do it too, even though you're not even on camera. You're just At home, he's like everybody let's do this. And cheers. All right, here we go. And he's like He talked about it, he's like

He's big on Neurolinguistic programming N L P And um and so he's or hypnote he's like a trained hypnotist or something like that. And so he's like You want to like associate the same

sort of like he's like, doing this with my tea is brilliant or your coffee because It has emotion, it has a taste. It has a smell and it has a war uh auditory thing I'm saying every single time, the same exact thing. And so I'm basically programming you for a certain feeling or emotion uh of the live.

So he's like really, you know. Going hard at it. Um Our buddy Pomp does the same thing. He's got like his little catchphrase. Where he starts, he's like bang bang everybody.

He does this little finger thing at the start of every single video. Um Very specifically does the same thing every single time. So what do you think about that? I like the Joe Rogan one. To just roll into it, don't try so hard. Yeah. Yeah. Do you agree?

Um I I definitely think the other one's more effective. But um But who cares? Like uh you know I think If you have to try that hard.

Um, I think it's fine. I can think it's fun to do if it's whatever, if you think of something. But if nothing comes naturally, I de I don't think you should force it because uh It's just more likely like awkward than anything else at that point. Um And in general, I think that like

Uh, I tweeted this out about Twitter bios. I don't know if you saw this tweet I did, but I said here's the Twitter bio paradox and I showed two people side by side. Uh, one was Dan Gilbert, who's been our Billy of the Week before. So like an an actual billionaire. So I wrote This guy's a baller. And his

His bio makes him try to sound like a regular guy. His bu his Twitter buy was like You know, family man. Retired pizza delivery driver. You know, trying to impact on as many people as I can. And then it's like

At Cavs at quicken loans at whatever like his companies like yeah, he owns an NBA team and like a uh a ten to thirty billion dollar company or whatever. And then I put it but the other side I just put some some random guy. I I had to snipe some some guy did didn't mean nothing personal. But I just searched on Twitter

Forbes thunder under thirty. To see who would be putting that in their bio,'cause that's the ultimate tell. That you're trying too hard'cause you know, we've talked about before, it doesn't mean shit. And um I found this guy who was like investor.

Entrepreneur. Innovative. Philanthropist. Philanthropist, exactly. Forbes thirty under thirty finalist. Which people were just making fun of I'm like, dude, you weren't even four you were a finalist. You're like what at the top? thirty thousand people or something. Um

And then it's like you know, international speaker, renowned, you know, whatever. I can't. And then and then he at mentions like two companies that he's like, you know, started or whatever, and nobody's ever heard of these companies. And so I said On one side you have a baller trying to act like like trying to counter signal that he's a regular guy. And on the other side you have a regular guy trying to signal that he's a baller.

And uh you know, this is the the paradox of Twitter. The harder you try. The more you tell me that you're still trying. And um and you can see this across the board. There's you know, a lot of people have no bio and the no bio Is like

My name speaks for itself. You either know who I am Or I don't care, I've achieved so much fame that I'm not trying to impress you. So uh I think that's a Pretty interesting tell and and I like the The term that somebody pointed out for it, which was

Signaling and counter signaling. They're actually both signaling. The rich guy's trying the the rich guy's trying to signal I'm just like you. Don't mind me, don't hate me. And then the other guy's trying to say, I'm bigger than I am, right? But both are both are signaling.

Oh, you wanna do some questions? Yeah, I'll do it. All right, um I'm gonna ask you a question. Right. This is a funny question. I don't know if I want to answer this. Uh we'll let you do it. Um oh Dan compiled some. All right, Dan, but let me ask one first.

What What's it like to be rich? Uh yeah, it's sweet.

It's sweet because you don't have to worry about a bunch of things. And so yeah, you it doesn't take away all your worries. But it takes away all your money worries, so If you've ever like You know Boom, you get hit with a like

w my car was in an accident. It's like oh shit, I'm gonna have to pay like thousands of dollars to get this repaired. If I didn't have Money lying around, that's a that can ruin a day real quick. That can ruin a week real quick. That can ruin a month. And so yeah, it's sweet to not have to have certain set of worries. Um, or things that just are downers.

Do you have a number? So we w what's interesting is that, you know, there's this idea of having a number of like I'm ready to retire. And like a lot of studies have been done and very like Interestingly, a lot of people will have a number But they're at. And then if you double it, that's what they like on average people say look so if you have five million dollars be like Oh if I had ten, I'd be happy. Only I had ten, yeah. Yeah, or if I have ten, ah if I had twenty, I'd be happy. Which is always kind of funny. It's like three inches in height. Everybody wants three inches in height.

Right. Do you did you have a number? Do you have a number? Uh yeah, I did and then some People who were way past that were like, dude, that number is not enough. Uh Yeah, your number was six. I used to say six million. Uh,'cause I done some calculations and I was like ah six six should do it where

What I was trying to calculate was If I had six that was uh like working for me, six million invested. I was saying okay with X you know, average annual return does that cover my life burn, even if my life burn was twice what it is today.

And um And people were like, Yeah, but uh You know, that rate of return is a little bit like too optimistic and your life burn is gonna go up more. You you just haven't really figured that out yet. Yeah, you know, the more money you have, the higher your life burn's gonna go. It's hard to really be disciplined about that.

So do you have a number now? Yeah, so now I think the number is um I don't know. I I think twenty is the number where I would now have to like think of different ways that like why money matters. Um why m why m why more money would matter to me. Um like all the obvious things would be

more than taken care of at twenty million. So what's funny is I've talked to about this with uh as well. And The people at twenty say the same thing. Forty.

Maybe at forty. Maybe at forty. So I don't know when that when that stops. And then I used to think six. And then once you get there, you're like, Okay, you're you're at six. Well no six this is I'm not I can't stop here, right? Twenty. Maybe at tw and then maybe at twenty I'll do the same thing. What do you think it is? Um

So I think tw it definitely like Um Yeah, fifteen to twenty, like If you have fifteen, twenty million dollars at a r really young age, like You know, let's say thirty one.

Uh like it's You're set. Hard to lose. It's hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can I can lose ten million and still have ten million. Um so like it's hard to lose. Now

You're not flying private. But you're living a really nice life and you're never gonna work again. But here's the thing guys like I don't know about you But guys like me Even though I say I'm not gonna work anymore, I'm always gonna work. Um

And because work is play. So I have Someone who can earn twenty million dollars at a young age I think they're set regardless because they're always gonna be able to earn. That's a very good point. Age the age definitely matters because it's all about

sort of how many years of compounding are you gonna get from there? Um so and I was doing the math. Basically like at a seven and a half percent return. So like if you believe that the trailing hundred years is going to repeat itself for the next hundred years then you can if you believe that that's it that's to be true, then your money will double around not every nine years.

So twenty at thirty becomes forty at Uh Forty. Which becomes eighty at fifty. Which becomes

one sixty uh Sixty. And that becomes a billion by the time you're ninety. Which is kinda wild how that now the question is like, Well, when we're ninety, like is a billion even gonna m mean, you know Not much.

Who knows? But like that that growth is quite phenomenal and that's really hard to grasp unless you put it in front of you. So getting wealthy is at a young age, I think is very significant. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, so that's fine. I don't know. I feel like I gave kind of a generic answer, which was what's it like to be rich? I guess like I didn't What What I'm glad I didn't do was say, Oh, you know, it's not as it's not as good as you think. Uh, which a lot of people say, a lot of rich people will say, you know I thought it'd be great, but then I realized that

What really matters is family. It's like, yeah, dude, I know that family matters, right? I'm asking what the rich part of the experience is like. You know, how's that how's that been for you? And uh And I guess what I would say is like Rich, whatever rich means to you, you know, the the main the main benefit from my perspective Is that

There are just certain things you don't have to concern yourself with or work or or worry about anymore. Um You know, the biggest being If I don't wanna work or I don't wanna go to this job, I can just not do that. I can do something else with my time, right? Like The money has freed up time.

time could be now invested in any activity you want. And that tends to be like You're picking now now you're picking stuff you really enjoy or you think really make an impact. Rather than you know, something you have to do in order to pay next month's bill. Andrew asked, outside of business, this is Andrew Wilson, what do you research and read about? I'll go first. I read a ton of history. I love American history starting in around eighteen sixty, going all the way up to about nineteen

Fifty. Uh I think that's when crony capitalism kinda came to uh that kind of went away and all the regulations that came into place in America kinda came to be and a lot of interesting stuff was going on there. I also love reading and listening about the mafia 'Cause I think what the mafia did is like as American as apple pie. Like it's so fascinating to me. So I read a ton of history and I research a ton, a ton of uh

Or like early American stuff. So I like to go to museums and and look at old architecture from that era. Wow, we couldn't be more different. Uh all right, so outside of business. I would break it into three groups. I study or research What the nerds

or into right now. So Any time, you know Small. t smart friends who are kind of like technically minded. If they're into something

I it takes me probably five times longer than them just to understand that. That new technology. But uh I put in that time because I like it and um So like you know, somebody will mention something that hey, you know Um

This AI thing, you know, is is now able to predict protein folding. And I'll be like protein folding. I don't know what the fuck proteins fold for. What's protein folding all about? What have people tried before? How do they even get this to work? What is actually machine learning? What how does that work? You know, like and so I try to I try to basically study what the nerds study. That's one.

Two is more of like the unwinding, which is sports. I'm like knee deep in basketball, you know, uh stuff. So I like to Follow all the storylines. Stats

You know, that sort of thing. Uh, and then the last one that I would say Is self help or some kind of like mindset. So I think that Uh, you know, people probably at this point, if you listen to this podcast, you know that

Um More than anything, I'm a believer that If you can master your mind. You've won the game and I think that that's the hardest hardest thing to master is your mind and I wanna

read all the different ways people do that and try them and self experiment and then go back and research more. So that's the third thing I do. How did success influence or change the dynamics of your romantic relationships? That's a good question. But we both have been um uh Julie. Julie Davila. Yes.

Julie had that's a good question. Best question so far. So I was I met my wife right when I started my company. And um Before that I dated a ton. I I was

Okay, big dog. I was a I'm not saying it was successful. Let me change that. I tried to data time. Yeah. Uh so I tried uh I I liked women. Um it didn't always work, but uh Uh, I prefer being in a relationship. Uh being successful has been cool with my wife because it feel because we are manage our success together and like I think for both of us our wives were successful before we were. Yeah, my wife

Yeah, or at least way more liquid. They made they made more money faster than we than we did. Dude I'll say it. I mean my wife was a self made liquid millionaire before I was. Right. Uh yeah, I think the same I think the same same is true for me. So so that was uh

That's the first part. Like, you know, how is it really, you know How was success for them? How was it like to be working with this m marrying this broke, you know, broke entrepreneur who keeps trying to say he's he's living the big dream, but you know, where's the Where's the success? for like, you know, five years. That that's That's the first question.

So yeah, when I dated Sarah, her mom was like, So does he uh and her parents are entrepreneurs, they kinda got it, but like, does he have a job? Like, Well, no, he's trying to start this conference thing. Well where does he work? Well he can he work works on his laptop, he can work anywhere. And they didn't get it. And so my first year I made like twenty grand and then like fifty. He's a wedding planner, I think. Like so anyway, like it the My wife had a full time job and she would probably make it six figure straight out of college. She went to a night league school and went to Facebook. Anyway, how how has it changed the dynamics?

It's made it my opinion way better. I did you got we do all of our finances together. We meet once a week and we go everything. Do you do the started d when I started dating my wife, she um She had just bought her first house. She was driving a BMW M three sport. I was living under my parents' house in a like they had like a in uh un unpermitted in law unit that I lived in with my My best friend from high school.

What lived in there with me. And uh You know. That's where that's where I was. Didn't have a car. Didn't have a house.

Uh I had a job. I had a good job, I guess, but um Yeah, that's that's how we were when we met. And then You know, great. What does he do? He's the CO of a startup. Okay. So you know.

Virtually virtually unemployed. You know, like on the brink of unemployment, essentially was the was the situation. I'll say one thing which is As you know, as good things started to happen, so got Got promoted from like a product manager to CEO of Like the company.

And then from CEO to like You know, investing and then selling the company and all that stuff. There was definitely a period where I got a little cocky. Um where Not intentionally, but I I look back now and I'm like I was kinda

Kind of being a dick. I sort of thought All these people I hang out with. That are like you know, suc super successful. I felt like they They didn't have to deal with any of the bullshit at home that I was dealing with. It's like, Okay, yeah, I gotta take out the trash.

You know, does my investor take out the trash? I don't know. Maybe he's got somebody who takes out the trash for him, right? Like Oh, I have to, you know, wake up at like right now. I wake up in the morning at seven o'clock and from seven to ten AM Uh, you know, I'm on daddy duty take care of the baby. And I was sort of like don't Weren't we supposed to have like nannies for this? So I was like very uh spoiled in that sense, and I thought

Well no, I'm the like successful working guy, right? So like I don't have to do these like normal things, and so that was my like entitlement to myself. And then I realized two things. One is Uh yeah, those guys do that too. That's it, a lot of the people that I was talking about that I admire, they did all that too. They just didn't complain about it like a little bitch. And then the second thing was that

They um That like who cares? Like Do whatever Uh, do whatever works for you and your family and like stop being stop Holding your time as more valuable.

than my wife's time or that my kids time or my dog's time or anybody else. I I used to kind of Your talk time. I I used to think my time was the most precious and now I don't. Now I'm sort of like You know, it's our time. We gotta use it how we want. Do you

I I think it's cool. We're both married. I think it's cool to have this like team mentality, you know, when my wife and I So I I we're both Catholic and even though we don't practice anything, I was like, We have to get married in a Catholic church. It was important to me and what that means is you gotta go meet with the priest. And he was like, So why are you getting married? And and and we were like, Well We have similar values in life. We have the same goals. We just we both want to take over everything.

We um wanna have children and raise them in a particular type of way. We wanna share our assets and pull together and he's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What about love? You guys love each other? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that too. And so like for us it was definitely we definitely love each other, but also there was like just like partnership. Yeah. It's like it's very this is a very practical way to like live go through life. Like it's very it's easier for one another when you have someone that whose family you can count on them no matter what, they're gonna have your back. So anyway, I've enjoyed

Uh having a little bit of success. while being uh married. If you're single, I guess the pros could be like you could just like Fool around with people way out of your league.

But I do think that it would be exhausting and Actually probably not as fulfilling, but maybe more fun. Man, I look back now when I used I was single, you know, I was twenty five years old, single didn't own a possession in the world and I was managing a bunch of people who were Ten, twenty years older than me, had kids, had families, had mortgages, had all the stuff.

And I thought at the time I was being super understanding about it. And now when I look back, I'm like oh my God, I was such a Idiot. Like I just didn't understand. How How

hard it is for these people to give this much to a startup. Um when they have all these responsibilities and obligations at home. And I was, you know, just a free bird, twenty five years old and you know I could piss my time away. It didn't matter.

And like for these people, that extra one hour they were at work was now Threw off the whole Dinner time, bedtime schedule for them, their kids, their wife, you know, like all this stuff. And so I just look back now, and I've I, you know, I apologize to anybody I worked with then. 'Cause I didn't truly understand. I thought you know, this hustle culture was the was the right answer then and now

Uh and I didn't realize how much they were already giving. Uh, and I always wanted more. What um here, let's do two more. Um What pandemic behavior do you want to maintain?

Mm. Um Yeah, basically the last year was, you know It sounds insensitive, so W whatever, maybe that's

That's the case. Last year was the best year of my life. Um Same. You know, I had a blast. And a whole bunch of life events happen, right? I had a kid, I became a dad and Yeah, but I there's everything I

I grew up my hair, I built a home gym, I started working out regularly, I you know Um You know, I'm working from home, so I just had way more time with my family, with my wife. Uh than when I was commuting every day and Was at the office all day.

Um You know, this podcast has been a lot of fun. There's just been like ten amazing things that ha happened this year that made this year literally the best year of my life. So In terms of pandemic behavior, I would say I definitely don't like getting close to people and shaking their hands anyway. So you know, good. I'm just gonna keep keep not doing that.

Uh, but I would say like the home gym. uh daily work out at one PM is definitely the behavior I need to like keep going with. I agree. I've I've gotten in wonderful shape throughout this.

And uh That's the one I'm gonna maintain. Yeah. Um Alright, last one maybe. Um I'm curious about this favorite purchase one.

All right. Uh Okay, let's do let's do three of these. Let's do um If you were twenty one again, what would you be doing? I can't stand that question, but I'll answer it. Yeah, what is it?

If I was twenty one now in two thousand twenty one I don't I don't know. What would let me think, what would you be what would you do? I think I would go on tour. with in the most like interesting spaces with the most interesting people. So I think what I would do is I would say, Hey

I'm a hired gun. You pay me Whatever. Pay me Five K a month, ten K a month, something like that.

Uh flat fee. I'm gonna come work my ass off for you. Uh for three months. If I love it, I'll stay on. But by default

You're gonna get just like Somebody unbelievable just right hand man to to deal with any headaches or problems you have. And you'll never see somebody, you know, work harder and smarter if at figuring shit out than me. And I would pick basically like four or five people that I thought were amazing. Um

That were doing things in interesting fields, doing interesting projects. And I would pitch that to them and I would If they said no, I would find the next five people and I would just I would go on to work. I would What I I would treat twenty w I would treat work like I would treat I would treat um

like marriage in the sense that I would focus on dating. Figur having fun, figuring out what I l what I like, figuring out what likes me. And um I would be in no rush to like Find the project or start the company or like pick a career.

I would say cool, I'm gonna go on I'm gonna have these these little three month relationships. with badass people in badass spaces and Um You know, just r I commit to doing that for two years and then I'll figure it out after that. Like a that'll be my Mormon mission. I would probably my goal at twenty one would be how do I become a m m liquid millionaire by twenty five and then after twenty five I could dedicate a little bit more time to like a big purpose.

Or how do I create cash flow? And so I think I would want to start a blog. Or something like that and try to sell it. Uh in the next two or three years. I would I would not try to do that because um I think that

You know, if we're measuring the score on like a I don't know, ten year period or twenty year period. then I think I would get more value by being at the cutting edge of certain spaces, certain industries. And being

Seeing what like Like A plus plus players are like when I work with them and earning their trust. I think that's a lot more valuable. All right, last question. Best purchase over two grand and under one hundred dollars. Over two grand for me.

Gotta be uh This rowing machine that I bought for about two thousand dollars. It's called Ergata. I'm obsessed with it. Or I bought a pretty nice uh Mercedes that's really fast. I go on drives every morning and in the afternoon. And it just makes me happy.

For under a hundred dollars. Uh Andrew Yeah. I don't know. Uh I I have to think. What about you?

I would say this camera that I'm using right now. Um Because when the whole world went remote. Everything's done over video. And

Yeah. I I used to just use like a Mac Air. Mac Air laptop makes you look like, you know, an actual like prisoner of war in Uganda. uh when you go on a video call and so Uh this having a dope camera is great for the pod, but it's great for every single meeting. I feel like

I feel like I'm putting my best forward and uh I look great. I feel great. I think the other person you know, treat you differently depending on how you show up. And so I think this one camera is like The equivalent of buying, you know. A closet full of

ten thousand dollar suits, you know, and without any of the headache of like wearing a suit. So that was a My under a hundred dollars is an aeropress. I love my aero press. What is it? That's a coffee thing. It's a coffee m coffee thing. It's like a it makes individual cups of coffee. It is badass. I use it all the time. Uh under a hundred dollars. Okay, I got this for free from Jack Smith. Jack gave me his Theragun and I fucking love the Theragun.

Um They gave it to you? Yeah, he had like an old one or something like that. He he he he got a new one or I don't know what I don't know why he used it. I had to go buy a knockoff on Amazon. Yeah, that's what I was gonna do. And actually then he messaged me and was like, Hey, I have one, I'll send it to you. And I was like, Oh, I'll buy it. He's like, No, no, just what's your address? I'll send it to you. And I was like, Jack, good guy. And now I told I sent him a message, I was like, dude

I use this thing every night. I think of you every night because I'm like, I love this gun. I love Jack for giving me this gun. This thing is amazing. Do you want um Do you want an update on some numbers? Yeah.

So this month May. May's over now, but in May we're doing a podcast push. So we got About six hundred and thirty thousand listens. So that was the number.

We were Uh to put that in perspective, that's Plus I think th four thirty nine percent month over month and so that's forty percent. month from April to May.

And then the month before April, March, March to April was a thirty percent. And then the month before was also a thirty percent. Right. So basically since you started saying I'm gonna focus on growth, this thing started growing between thirty and forty percent month over month. We've doubled. In the time that you said it. I remember we were at three hundred something thousand then now we're at six hundred something thousand yeah downloads per month. Now I don't think I think

June might be stable. The reason why is because I don't think people are gonna be listening as much. I saw a distinct drop. Uh on Monday. Like Mondays, we normally have thirty five thousand listeners. This Monday it was eighteen thousand.

Right. So I think I think we might hit a little trough of sorrow, but that's okay. We gotta know to expect that, but we're gonna keep grinding. But I think that

We're gonna hit a million soon. And here's some more stats. Our top rating, we are number eight in iTunes and in Spotify in the business category, which is pretty good. Number eight. Number eight. Wow. Uh we are in number eight still right now on Spotify, and for some reason

We are number one in Britain in the investing category. I have no idea why. Uh but That's the updated numbers. I'm pretty proud. I think you should be proud too. Um, a few things that people loved. Trum's thing was amazing. People loved his. Your short ones people loved. Um You did one today on But that was June. But yeah, people liked it so far, I think. Yeah. Um

I uh I'm gonna I'm I'm posting that on YouTube, but I'm Because it's like my story, I'm gonna put that on my YouTube. I think I deserve that. And uh I I think that uh That's gonna go viral. But uh

The numbers were good. We grew a lot. It's working. I think the best thing you said was to there will be a plateau, whether it's this month or the next month. There's always a plateau. And I've talked about this before, which was One of the biggest

lessons learned as a as somebody trying to build shit is that These plateaus happen. You should You know, I used to Think

Oh plateau means the you know the world is the the sky is falling. This isn't working. uh you know, change everything. No uh blah blah blah. And it's like no I the you know the the dabbler quits and goes and does a different thing. The stressor.

gets freaked out by the plateau, thinks that they did something wrong and takes it personally. And the master says, Oh, there you are. I thoug I thought you'd be here soon. Hello. Uh, and then sort of dances with the plateaus and figures out how to get to the next level again. So I think we're gonna probably plateau somewhere here in the six to seven hundred thousands per month. before we shoot through the million per month.

And I was working with my wife yesterday. She wants to launch a course. You're you've inspired her, Sean, and she was all excited to start this thing. She's been talking for months. It's a great idea. And yesterday she was like halfway through recording the content and everything, and she was like, I feel horrible. I'm like Ah, you're there. Right, right. You're there. I'm like Forty percent bark. Yes. Yes. And I like I talked to her and I was teasing with her, but I was like, Sarah, do you know why I'm good at what I do? It's because I know that that is normal and I keep going.

And do you know why most people are not Uh What who they want to be is that's where they stop. Right. But what so what you have to know is that point where you you start high and then you get to the low when you're a little bit into it. You have to a recognize that's very normal.

That is incredibly normal. And then you keep going. Just like If you're exercising, you're like oh I'm starting to sweat. I'm starting to sweat. It's like Oh, okay. That's normal. That's part of it. Now you gotta keep going. Keep going. Right, right, right. Exactly. If you if you put down the the the butt you know, the the dumbbell every time your muscles started to burn

You would never never you never grow, right? Because the burn is right where it starts, you know, the the growth starts. And so I think for pre-launch. There's three points everybody hits. That the first time you hit them you react Pretty poorly, typically.

Uh the first is The overthinking phase. That's before you get started. The second is the Fuck this is the d the d the the despair. This is never gonna work. This sucks. Uh the thing I was so excited about

Now that I'm doing it And it's harder than I thought. Uh Oh is this ever gonna be good? That's where your wife's at right now. Yeah. And then there's the last bit. When you're at the ninety percent mark and the perfectionist comes out.

And says no no no no no It's not good enough yet. People aren't gonna like this. It's not gonna work. And you're actually at the ninety ninety five percent mark, and the the perfectionist wants to pull you back to fifty percent and say, No, no, no, we need to do All this other stuff before we go out there. So I think

Those three points overthinking. Then the point of despair and then the um The perfectionist point. They happen pre launch of every project. Yes. So it's very normal. Um so let's talk about a couple of ideas, which I think you're gonna you you've got some stuff. Yeah, by the way, also the live shows are happening. I guess by the time this gets released, they'll have already happened. So

You know, whatever. After this, like literally Might have to cut this ten minutes short,'cause I gotta pack my bag. I'm coming to your house in Austin and then we're going to Miami. It's gonna be awesome. I can I just say that I think this is gonna be a game changer for us. I think that we're gonna see it's gonna be fun to see these p excited people. You know what's crazy is Sean and I like plan to do this like two weeks ago, or we've been talking about it. And then one day he texts me, he goes,

Do you wanna go to Miami for this time? And we were gonna go to crash someone's event. I don't even know, but we just said, fuck it. Yeah, and done. It's subtle. Like we did over at Tex. And then we got everyone rallied around it. And I think a hundred people ish are gonna come to the Austin one and then I think we're at five hundred for Miami. And it wasn't it until today that I thought and we're speaking tomorrow, so recording this on a Wednesday, but you're hearing it on Friday. We're

It wasn't until just now When I right before the podcast I told Dan what to do, but I was like Oh. I guess we have to figure out what we're gonna say. Right. What are we even gonna talk about? It's so I I told Dan, I go, Dan, send out a Google form to all the attendees and just have three things.

What look what city you're in? Uh what question you want answered. And what your first name is, and then we'll just like see the trends of questions and then maybe we can just rattle those. I think you told me that idea. And and and we'll just rattle that off. But uh yeah, it's cool, man.

You know like What if this This sounds so lame because it's just internet nerds like you and me, but what if like me oh and Jack Butcher's coming now. Uh what if like me, you and Jack and Andrew and all these like Like these losers online.

Yeah, if we had like a nerd on tour, I'm pretty sure we could get like ten thousand people to come to each one. Yeah. Yeah, I think Narzon Tour is a cool idea. I think we should just do it. Uh Maybe you know Early next year. We we do we go nerds on tour.

Uh that's actually a great idea. It's isn't it funny how all these things are. The name is great too. Dan, let's grab that domain. Nerds on tour. Let's see if that's available. Right now. All right. You wanna uh what's what do you got? What do you got? Okay, so let's do some ideas. Um

Okay, so neighborhood seven elevens. So what is a love neighborhood seven elevens, by the way. So I don't know what kind of neighborhood you live in. I'll find out when I go to your house tonight, but uh My neighborhood is kind of like I'm in the suburbs. And so I don't know, in this neighborhood there might be a hundred homes.

And the there's like a gate at the front. Seven minutes to just get from your house to the front of the neighborhood. 'Cause you're you know, you want to go to the the grocery store. The grocery store is only two miles away, but like Takes you seven minutes to get out of neighborhood and then another ten minutes to get there. It's seventeen minutes like round trip. And um

And there's just like a hundred of these neighborhoods, or a thousand of these neighborhoods in the suburbs. Like everywhere I go in the suburbs of California, it's like this. And so I started thinking about uh two two ideas that came together as one in my head. So the first was there's a startup we had talked about called Fridge No More. And yeah, we we talked when we talked about that, it was like just starting. I'm pretty sure it's a huge thing already. Well, they just raised, yeah, fifteen, twenty million dollars or something like that. Um

Love those guys and uh, you know, was considering investing. I just thought the value is a little high, but Uh But yeah, a anyways I I I think it's really cool concept and their concept is It's called fridge no more'cause like look. In the future, you won't even need a fridge.

Why? Because when you want something, you'll just push a button. You want like, you know Two ice creams, great, they'll show up at your door. In like under fifteen minutes. How do we do that? Well, we have these like

Super small Kind of like cloud uh corner stores. That are Just like we'll have like a hundred in every city. And these cloud corner stores will be

able to dispatch an order to you in a very small amount of time with a very low Um like delivery fee. And uh And GoPuff does this on college campuses, that's like a multi billion dollar company, I think.

And so I started thinking about in the suburbs The challenge uh is a little bit different. And I thought why don't neighborhoods Just have A neighborhood corner store. Okay, well, how would that work?

So you told me about the vending machines thing last podcast. So it got me thinking, Okay. That was a good one, right? It was a good one. As I was driving through my neighborhood, I was like, look at all these garages. Like Would somebody not want

Five hundred dollars a month. to turn their garage or part of their garage into basically just like Fridges and freezers. Um and then It could just get s you know

Basically you just deliver to the uh You deliver to the neighborhood garage that's the neighborhood corner store. all the bulk wholesale goods, you know, your your water, your d all your drinks, your sodas, your uh snacks and your like kinda ice creams or whatever.

And then in the neighborhood You would just have it where you just order and either you go pick it up Uh out of the gir out of that garage or You know, some kid in the neighborhood can just pick up the order. make five bucks for just taking it from one part of the neighborhood to the other.

Uh to bring it to you. And uh the key would be the convenience of the speed of this, that you could get it in like You know, under ten minutes. to get something delivered to you. So basically the idea is

Take the idea of seven eleven, but use the sharing economy. So put Put a mini seven eleven inside. of garages inside of all these suburban neighborhoods. What do you think of this idea? I've got strong feelings. So

Um, well, just let me let me let me get to it. The sharing economy, so kinda really got popular with Airbnb Uber. I remember two thousand thirteen, in the same way that all the older school magazines are all talking about crypto. It was like the sharing economy. So there was a sharing economy for everything back in two thousand thirteen, two thousand fourteen, and it was all we talked about.

And I've looked at the data and I've like try to figure it all this out. I am almost positive. that the sharing economy only works for like two or three things. Uber and driving.

Um Airbnb. Home rentals. And maybe that's it. I've seen

Sharing economy stuff. Have you ever seen I just got pitched on this the other day and I just can never get I never am on board with it. Sharing economy for like util like tools in your a your group. This idea's been around and recycled like a trillion times. Like, hey, why do I have to buy a drill? My neighbor has a drill. You know, I just want to use it once. Why don't I just rent the drill on demand locally.

That idea Never work. Right. It hasn't, ever. And it's and it there's probably a reason why it hasn't. Um, there's a bunch of these sharing economy things. Like one was like you go to someone's home and you cook dinner with them, or they like as a private like if it's a cooking lesson, you know. Right, even Airbnb experiences doesn't really work that well as a business. It works as a nice little add-on thing for them, but that's not like where their value is.

Um And I've always thought that sharing economy for most Things is a horrible idea. I used to share an office. When I first started my company, it was me, Sieva.

And one other company, I think they were called Brewster or something. And they were trying to get people to make it was like Storage. So they're like wanted people to rent storage in other people's garage. And I would hear these guys on their phone trying to call Constantly trying to get and they had zero users and I heard them trying to get user one, user two, I heard all the whole thing. They would walk around on the phone.

It was so hard to convince anyone. And when they did convince someone, it never worked. And so In terms of sharing economy stuff and like uh Like this idea, I'm almost always default to

I don't know. That seems really difficult. Do you agree? Um I don't agree with uh okay, I do agree that it's difficult. But Uh like on the storage one, so for people who don't know, there was a

A batch of startups all trying to do this, which was hey Airbnb lets you rent out the excess space in your bedrooms, your house. Um, why don't we rent let you rent out excess space in your garage? And so omni started this way, they ended up shutting down after raising a bunch of money. Um clutter.

Try to do the same thing cluttering change. I believe they've made it, but And maybe they pivoted. I don't know what it's now just a normal ass like we come pick up your stuff and store it in a warehouse. The store and warehouses. Okay. So yeah, so I don't know what the uh what what went wrong there. But that was one that

I would believe could work, right? Because If I have extra space, blah blah blah, and these things you don't get they don't get used very much. So they sort of just stay in storage for the most part. There's one reason why. I mean and I and I and I've thought about this. Convenience. It's all about convenience.

So it's the convenience that has to pay for itself. So Uh having someone stay in my house is relatively inconvenient.

But I can make like Three grand a month. Pretty consistently. Right. Okay, yeah, so it's not about convenience there, it's about money.

Well, no, it's a balance. It it's it's con like it it's my convenience at a price. Now having someone store shit my garage for eighty dollars a month, which is how much it costs to store stuff at a normal, uh Storage unit. That's just fucking not worth it. I don't I don't it's not worth it to me. It's a pain in the ass and and it's not worth it. It's way too inconvenient. Right. Yeah. So I think there is, you know, this trade off. I would also say I think a lot of people merge these ideas together, so

For example Sharing economy. What does sharing economy mean mean? It means Taking excess resources. That are unutilized and getting them to be utilized, right? Airbnb, excess space, get them to be utilized. Then there's like gig economy.

Gig economy is like More like Uber. Um right, like Push a button and uh Like push a button, the guy's gonna come pick you up.

And it's not so much excess resources'cause that guy it's not like that guy was just happened to be driving by anyways. It's like no, he just made this his job. Um and gig economy. So then people started trying to do that with like Mas right, like push button, a masseuse will come to your house. Um, you know, like pedicures at your house or whatever whatever, every every random thing. And then there's sort of like creator economy, which is like a totally different thing altogether.

And so people started just like using these words pretty interchangeably and I think That doesn't work and in general Almost all these are two sided marketplaces, which are just like effing hard to do. It's really effing hard to start a two sided marketplace. And when you do

The prize is a billion dollars uh you know in your pocket. And so, you know, it shouldn't be it really shouldn't be that easy. But uh I agree. So I so I agree with you that this probably a wouldn't work. Or B.

uh would be less like a real pain in the ass to do. But good idea, Sean. Yeah, but interesting idea in the sense that Um I think it would be pretty game changing in terms of convenience.'Cause it would be essentially

Like a cold vending machine. inside of neighborhoods, right? Like a you know, like a super vending machine inside of neighborhoods. And if you could get it to work. You now have every sort of suburban neighborhood. uh, you know, to go spread into.

Where Uh a lot of stuff is done in cities, partly because the People who build startups tend to live in cities, not in the burbs. And so um So a lot of stuff works in the cities because that's where they live, that's what they know, and then people are really densely packed into one area.

And so it's hard to get things to work at a neighborhood level. You ever been to a a truck stop where they have like Just a slab of concrete with benches and like Ten different vending machines all right there, but just like an awning. And you could We'll just do that. Let's just do that in the burbs. We're just gonna put that slab and just put all those vetting machines right in there.

Well that's the thing, like The question is What would you sacrifice one home for? Right? Because you need the space. So either it's gotta go inside of a home. Uh right, in the garage, in the back yard, and inside the house. Or

It has to be so valuable that you could justify just buying one of the homes and converting it into some like commerce, basically, for the for the neighborhood and getting the permits to do it. Which is You know, once we start talking permitts, it's time to change ideas. Okay, I got another. I got another suburban idea for you.

So Um the new golf. So my buddy Ben got invited to go play in this pickup game, this pickup basketball game. And uh

It's he didn't want to turn it down because it was like Like ballers. Yeah, it's a bunch of ballers that were like gonna go play there. There's like baller, not real ballers. Half. Half were actual like You know, like good ballers and the you know, people who are like, you know This guy's gonna get drafted this year. This guy trains

The NBA players, what the fuck isn't Ben like a little guy? Yeah, but we met the guy who's the trainer for the NBA players, this guy Alex. And I forgot his company name last time, so I'll shout it out this time. Through the lens. He's the one building the master class for athletes. So Um through the lens. So so anyways.

Alex was organizing this game and he was like, Hey, you wanna go come play in this? You're I know you're in New York also, so Uh come by. And if you've ever if you're an NBA fan, you always see on Instagram All the NBA players in the summer go play in this one gym. That's like um

It's like in an apartment building, so it's like a private. My my my friend used to live in that building. Like Sky or something. I don't know what it's called, but it's like Yeah. It's in New York. Yeah, it's like this exclusive thing and it'll be like LeBron and Carmelo and Kevin Durant all playing this like little gym whatever. So the guy was like Hey

We're gonna go play tomorrow on that gym, you wanna come? He's like, Fuck yeah, like, All right, who's there? And it's like a bunch of like you know, I don't know, billionaires, children and like you know, want to be NBA players or whatever. So they went and played. And I was like, How was it? He's like, Oh, it was good, but like, you know, A, I suck, and B

Um You know, I'm just try not to get hurt, right? Like he's like once you know, you're thirty, you got like I just I just had a kid, like I just can't afford to get hurt. And I'm not playing regularly, so I'm you know, I just kinda like played it easy, I guess. Which is kinda lame, but that was the truth. I said, Well, you know, same here. I st I basically played basketball as like

My favorite thing to do. Until I was like twenty seven. And then like since then I've just been like well the odds of me spraining an ankle or spraining a knee is just too high. I can't like actually play the sport anymore properly.

And so I kinda opted out. So I started thinking about like At every age. There's a different sport that's like right for you. So You know, maybe in your twenties and thirties it could be something like basketball or soccer.

Then you're forties, you're really there' not many forty five year old like pick up basketball players that are that are going out there. There's always, you know, maybe the one old dude who's like Barely barely moving, but For the most part You need to graduate to another sport that is that matches your life athleticism. So it might be tennis.

And you know, the a little bit older might be golf. And then a little bit older, like I think that the the sort of end sport is basically Uh just playing poker. You can just do that in a wheelchair. And you know, it's like the last thing you can do as like some kind of form of sport or competition. And so uh

So anyways, it got me thinking like Okay, if I'm I'm about to shift into the like tennis phase, okay, cool, fine. Um, pickleball, bro. That's then I started thinking about pickleball because I was like What is pick a ball? Pick a ball Is mini tennis.

That is Like kinda the best of tennis, but it's also Easier on the body, right? Am I right about pickable? I haven't played, but that's what I see as a run. No, I would say it's as hard on the body, but it's like it requires close to no skill. Right. So okay, the skill cap might be different, uh, but I also think there's less less running around and jumping into like anyone can do it.

Right. So so it's more accessible. That's kind of the point. And then I was thinking about golf, uh,'cause I think once you hit, yeah, I don't know, fifty plus It seems like golf is the major sport for that age. And golf is like the least fucking accessible thing, right? It's

Super expensive. It takes the whole day. It's hard as shit to like even be decent at golf. Um, so I'm like, how is this it's amazing to me this even worked, right? Like it's just kinda like mind blowing a golf even even has any popularity. So what's the point? What's the new one? What is the new golf? Who can I tell you what I've been thinking? Yeah. What what have you been doing?

Uh when I have friends in town Or uh w you and I won't have enough time. Maybe we will tomorrow. But Uh like I had a friend named Brennan come over whenever people visit

Uh I go Um Five five PM Thursday or whatever, come to my house. And wear kind of shoes.

And I bought Tons and tons of wraps. And so they get there, I throw them hand wraps and I go, We're gonna box today. And I throw them their thing and we wrap up our hands up. I go, All right, we're gonna warm up with some mitts. I'll I'll show you how to punch. We do that and then I go, All right, here's an extra mouth guard. We're barn. Uh and uh

I I lead him and I we don't hit hard. Yeah. Uh but like if they want every once in a while I won't hit'em hard in the face, but I'll get up in there and then I'll pop'em really hard in the stomach just so they could feel alive. Yeah, feel what it's like to be alive. And then I'll let them punch me. I had a guy chip my tooth the other day. And it's been the greatest bonding experience. I've done it with men, women, everyone with the women, like well. So Pop me real hard and I'll hit her in the stomach. Like it it's awesome, man. It is awesome.

I've loved doing this with boxing. It brings you together. It makes you feel alive. And it's a fun sport because we can do it in my garage. And you normally don't box because it's embarrassing to try that in front of a bunch of people. Oh, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, and I know we're not gonna we're like and they'll see me. I go put I go put your hand up watch. And well I'll I like my move slow, slow. I'll just kinda tap'em. I'm like, look, that's all we're doing. We're just gonna barely touch each other. Yeah. So I think in the th I think thirties, maybe even forties boxing works. I think beyond that

Uh boxing also doesn't work'cause You know, for obvious reasons. Um So so I think you're you're doing the thing where you basically as you shift in age, you like shift in sport. Um

And I've seen like I I think I talked about this once before, but like people have taken Like So so I was talking to my friend Sahil, uh this guy Sahil Bloom. People might have seen him on Twitter. He's got a big Twitter now. And uh we were we were eating and he was talking about he used to be a baseball player at Stanford. He's a pitcher. And he's like

You know, I got hurt, you know, that kinda ended my pro aspirations and then it was sort of like Well, this thing the sport I've dedicated myself to forever is pretty much useless to me at this point, right? Like I will never play pickup baseball. Like what am I gonna do? Go find nine fr friends on one side, nine on the other side.

That all I basically pain in the ass. All have four hours to kill. And uh you know, we have the right skills where we can like pitch and catch. Uh you know, like Most people can't even sit in the catcher squat. Like It's just you're never gonna play baseball again. And it's true. Like

Baseball is sort of the worst trans worst access sport at at an early age. I think golf is the worst one at a later age. And so I think that if somebody could take the characteristics That make golf work? and create their version of pickleball, I think you'd own a pretty valuable asset. And I'm on the lookout

To see what is this next one,'cause I have several friends That didn't invent pickleball. But when pickleball started to get popular, they built pickleball businesses. Some you know, uh I can I can't say the name they actually they've

Like literally asked me not to, but uh One of them is They did equipment, so like They just m built like you know, like an Amazon FBA business. selling pickleball stuff and they were able to rank at the top because at the time pickleball wasn't that competitive, but it got more and more popular over time.

And then other people started leagues and then there's other people that are Barstool's I think doing something on the media side. I don't know. There's A bunch of different ways you can ride these waves of new sports. And so What makes golf work is that it's

I think it's outdoors. Um, I think that it's Um You know, it's a chill sport, so it doesn't require like running, jumping, squatting, like stuff like that. Like it's You know, old guys can swing the club too.

Um, and then the all the bad parts you would have to change. So you'd have to find a way to make it a a sixty minute or ninety minute experience. Um you would need you know, golf's cool because you can do it by yourself. You can do it with one other person or do it with four people. So that's good. I'd keep that. Um You would not want to have it be where you need like thousands of dollars of equipment just to get started.

Um or like, you know, pay to go do this thing. And then you'd also want it to be where a beginner can like feel some sort of success and not just like Like I went to a golf course with a spike ball? Too athletic, dude. You think you're still thinking like you. You have athleticism still. You gotta think about you thirty years from now. You got a bum hip.

The testosterone that you've been taking for thirty years has now wiped you out. You're, you know, you you you're gonna be in a different phase. You're gonna need a different sport at that time. I think it's gotta feel like I just go for a walk. Yeah, but the the walks don't have the thing that the boxing is giving to you where you Get to scratch the competitive itch. And you get to do like kind of like

Um, you get to feel alive. You get to still feel like you're doing something. Uh walking is sort of like the most basic. I think you gotta take like Shuffleboard. Uh shuffleboard level of like Movement.

And make it a like outdoor activity. I don't know, what's that one sport that old people play that's like um Bochi? Botchy ba I don't know what botgy ball is, maybe this is botchible that I'm describing. But I feel like maybe something like botgy ball is what's gonna what's gonna pick up. So

We need to go to questions, I think. You're not a fan of the new golf. I'm not a fan of the new golf. Dude, I'm telling you, it's gonna happen. You're gonna see the sport rise in popularity amongst older people and you're gonna be like

Five. Sean was right. There was an appetite. For a sport for older people that's not called golf. Maybe, but like I can't it's just like such an impossible thing to predict. I mean, like I would be it'd be better predicting which companies would be a billion dollar company than Which sport is gonna be who well like

Who would have thought a sport named pickleball was gonna be sick? Yeah, I don't know. I would have put my money on slam ball, but you know. Just to show what I know. Dan do we um Do we have

Uh, what's it called? Did we get the merch? So we have stickers, we have shirts for the tour. Yep, we got stickers, we got shirts, we got hoodies, and then my first business in college was making buttons. So I got some buttons for you guys too. Do you have the shirts with you? I I don't. They got shipped out yesterday. They are arriving uh tomorrow into Miami. Okay, great. So Austin Austin, no shirts, Miami shirts.

Everything's going to Miami, yep. Okay. And what about um And what who's the guy who uh designed the shirts? Let's give that guy a shout out too. Yeah, let me uh pull it up. Dustin is his first name. And is like he is like a creative agency or like a kind of a design company or something.

Yeah, he's got a creative agency in Las Vegas. I've tweeted out, you know, hey Give us some d you know, some somebody give us some designs, we'll We'll we'll hook you up and uh His were by far the most kind of like favored or liked. uh by people who said, like, Yo, pick this one. This these are the winners.

Yeah, Dustin Ayanati, he's got an agency out in Las Vegas. Called Artisans on Fire. Artisans on Fire. Okay, sweet. Yeah, Artisan On Fire, go check that out. Uh and he made the post economic shirt that's gonna fly off the shelves. Are we giving these away or are we charging for them? I didn't hear the the end result.

I got square set up, so you guys tell me. Yeah. Alright, we'll decide when we're done there. Can I share one uh funny observation? Yeah. Yeah.

So I've been listening to you guys for like a year now, always on one and a half X. So one of the weirdest things is having to listen to you guys in real time. I've heard that before. Yeah, Sean sounds like he's a couple drinks in. I can't believe that uh

But I talk faster than Sam, right? I feel like I'm nervous energy. Well you talk really fast at one and a half X. Yeah. That's fair.

I can't believe people listen to this on on speed. It doesn't doesn't make sense to me. Alright, I gotta go, I'll talk to you soon. Mm-hmm. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I'm putting my law in it like my days off On the roadless travel never looking back

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