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TBPN is a live tech talk show hosted by John Coogan and Jordi Hays, streaming weekdays from 11–2 PT on X and YouTube, with full episodes posted to Spotify immediately after airing.
Described by The New York Times as “Silicon Valley’s newest obsession,” TBPN has interviewed Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Mark Cuban, and Satya Nadella. Diet TBPN delivers the best moments from each episode in under 30 minutes.
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Speaker 2:Well
Speaker 1:Sit down for us. Do you still own a Hummer EV?
Speaker 3:Yeah. We do, actually.
Speaker 1:You do? Yeah. Well, give us your review. We were just talking about the Fiat Topolino. I don't think you're gonna be in the market for that.
Speaker 1:Neck and neck. Neck neck. It's a thousand pounds.
Speaker 3:So I think what we could do is, like, if you just lined up, 10 of the Fiat, like, on a chariot.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. The Hummer.
Speaker 2:We could do one for you.
Speaker 3:I could do my chariot.
Speaker 2:I think the Hummer's Imagine imagine if the Hummer's
Speaker 1:Literally nine
Speaker 2:if of the Hummer is kind of the front of the the train, and then you have, like, you see the Hummer coming at you and then and then a bunch of the Topolinos kind of pull out and
Speaker 3:like a v shape That's in furious style.
Speaker 2:That that
Speaker 3:would be badass. Yeah. Take over
Speaker 2:the whole hot smog.
Speaker 1:How is how is life these days? Good. Is there a new book coming?
Speaker 3:There is another book coming. Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Do you have a strategy for book launch cadence? Is it an annual thing?
Speaker 3:It's more like every eighteen months. Eighteen months? Two years. Okay.
Speaker 1:But do you imagine that continuing for your entire career?
Speaker 3:Every book I write, say is the last book I'm going to write. And then, I have like a six month refractory period. Mhmm. And I'm like, yeah, you know, I could I could write a book about something and then I
Speaker 1:just start
Speaker 3:writing again.
Speaker 1:What's the process like?
Speaker 3:I have a bunch of notes on my phone of a topic. Because right now, I've have like probably like 10 books that are at different stages of so I just mind them wherever. And then once there's enough stuff that I think this isn't like, this is interesting, I'll then start the book writing process. But I'm a big believer in surface area of thought. Okay.
Speaker 3:Like, you were to sit down and say like, I'm gonna write a book about this and then you have two weeks, it's like you don't have enough experiences that are diverse in a two week period while you're writing
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:To like let the paint dry.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 3:So I kinda wanna like have I wanna be in, you know, a totally different state. Talk to somebody and be like, I didn't think about that. And then I add it to the book. And so then all of a sudden, it's like the the the density of of thought and ideas per word is much higher. But I think you just have to do it by, like, spreading out the time that so, like, the time I'm thinking about a book is much longer than the time I'm writing the book.
Speaker 1:Is it purely thinking and you want a lot of thought to go into the different sections of the book? Or over the course of eighteen months, is there actually a benefit to going out and having real world experiences?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's I mean, that's
Speaker 1:And anecdotes. Right?
Speaker 3:It's a 100% that. Because I'll have a working theory of, like, I think this is how Yeah. I think people are missing this part of it. Yeah. And then I'll kind of start battle testing it functionally.
Speaker 3:And then when I realize that I'm using the same framework over and over again and successfully overcoming some issue Yeah. I'm like, this is it. Yeah. And then that's what the book becomes.
Speaker 1:How narrow do you want to stay? How narrow have you been in the surface area of thought around mainly the last three books?
Speaker 3:It's a really good question. Problem definition for the book, think, is the hardest part of any book. Like, leads book, which is the second book Yeah. Was the hardest book I've ever written. I'll never write a book that hard.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Because I was like, I'm gonna write a book advertising. It's like, Jesus Christ. There's Yeah. So many ways to get leads.
Speaker 3:Yes. And I put it all in one book. It took 19 versions to get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:The Money Models book was the fastest book because it was really just about rappers for promotions. Super valuable, but really easy to consume and use. Yep. And so I was like, okay, this is the lesson for me. Like, an offer's super narrow.
Speaker 3:Super narrow. And that book too is like, all three of those books started as one kind of gigantic thing, I gave it to somebody and they're like, dude, you cannot. Yeah. It was like, you know, like this. And they're like because I was like, I'm gonna have a tome.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then I decided to want people actually read it.
Speaker 1:Is there a itch in the back of your mind where you wanna do sort of the Tim Ferriss thing where you go from four hour work week, a business book to chef, body, lifestyle, money management, personal finance. Like, there's so many topics that you talk about, and people are interested. Yeah. And I'm sure you could sell those books, and they might be edifying at a certain point because you're like, I've I've scratched this itch three times, four times, 10 times. But is there a level of focus that you have to discipline yourself, or does it come naturally?
Speaker 3:I only write about stuff that I feel like I have some unique take on. Mhmm. I think rewriting a book that already exists, other people already know. There's a point. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Especially if like you're in the thick of it and you're thinking, oh, this has already been written before. It doesn't really motivate you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like I think it like I want to write something that only exists because I made it. Mhmm. Same thing with Yeah.
Speaker 2:Businesses. Like, there's Oh, yeah. I've had the experience of building a company or or just like starting to work on a company being like, I can stop working on this and it will not matter at all.
Speaker 3:Yeah. The world will be fine. There's a
Speaker 2:bunch of alternatives, you know, and and you can make that case for like most businesses. Yeah. But there are some where you're like, if I don't build this, no one's gonna build it at least in the right way.
Speaker 3:Yeah. No. I a 100% the perspective when it comes to book writing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's funny. As as we talk about this, Jeremy Gaffan, I know he's a good good friend of yours, good friend of ours. And every time he talks, people just listen. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And he's somebody who I would love to write a book, almost because I just want him to go on another podcast. I got proper podcast to where he just kinda pops up, doesn't vest like the best and then Yeah.
Speaker 1:It just
Speaker 2:goes goes dark for But like 18 like it's somewhat of a tragedy that he'll probably write a book someday, but it'll be in like forty years. In the meantime, you A have to like little in the in the meantime, you have to just like, you know, take notes and and try to pick stuff up from from the podcast. But there's so many people that like, many people that should be writing books just don't have the time and they'll eventually come and take like a victory lap at the end of their career. Yeah. But I think it's like, you could just do a lot of stuff other than write books.
Speaker 2:But it's but it's it's it's very valuable to be like writing in real time versus like saving up a bunch of lessons and then kinda summarizing it at the end.
Speaker 3:I think you miss out on the the the wrinkles, like the tiny little details that like,
Speaker 2:if you if you think
Speaker 3:about like the story of how you met your wife and you go back, like you've told it
Speaker 2:a bunch of times, but if you told it
Speaker 3:the day after you did it Sure. You'd have so much richer memory of all the tiny little things that happened. Yeah. And so I'm a big believer of like, while it's wet, like paint it and then let it dry over time. But that's why I like I always want documentation to be as real funny.
Speaker 2:The final book will actually be the easiest to write because you have all the books and you're like, okay. What what was actually like worth kind of
Speaker 1:His greatest hits at that point.
Speaker 2:Play the hits.
Speaker 1:We we had Mark Pancas on the show, founder Zynga. He wrote a book and he said that he thinks everyone should write a book in their life, but he also said everyone should build a house. Do you have any aspirations to build real estate physically? Like me do it? You do it?
Speaker 2:No. No. Not by hand.
Speaker 3:Not by
Speaker 2:hand, but just take a piece of dirt and turn
Speaker 1:Working into with an architect and team, but is that something that you know, lot of people that's on their bucket list. I don't know where you've been in your real estate journey, but how do you think about that as a bucket list item?
Speaker 3:It's not.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's not? Why not?
Speaker 3:I mean, we buy big multifamily that are already existing and we do that. But if there were an investment opportunity that made sense, I would
Speaker 2:It's you're not interested because it's not productive. It's just purely for like Yeah. You know, the satisfaction.
Speaker 3:If you're like, have you listened to like, thought about listening to Beyonce today? I'd be like, not really. But I mean, like, if it was on, sure. Sure. You know, I'm not against it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think some people just have the the itch to, like, customize their own living environment. I'm I'm curious about how you see your living environment. Because, I mean, from those first YouTube videos, like Yeah. The monastic were you in closet?
Speaker 2:You were
Speaker 1:in closet. Like like, that that was
Speaker 3:My business thoughts
Speaker 1:were I don't know if that was intentional, but it was it was somewhat deliberate. You picked that space over a big living room. Right? Yeah. And I'm wondering how you think about your your living space, your workspace, your office space today.
Speaker 3:So I would say all of the time that I when I work, I'm very intentional about that space. When I'm not working, it's whatever Leila wants.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:I don't care. Like, if she if she's 10% happier
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I have a, like, a percent to percent correlation to my happiness Mhmm. And me being more comfortable has no correlation back. So, like, whatever she's good with, I'm good with.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But in terms of, like, where I work, it's almost all how do I how do I eliminate every sense of distraction for me personally. And so it's like, don't have windows. Some people like having windows. I don't think anything wrong with that. For me, it's like, I need no stimulation because I'm I'm very distractible.
Speaker 3:And so I have to have like, I earplugs in, no light, all artificial. I have, like, soundproof, like, you know, like, want nothing. Yeah. And then I can finally focus on what I'm trying to work on.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Can we go back to the early YouTube days on the latest channel? I think 2020
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:In that closet. We both launched YouTube channels around the same time, and we were talking about this. You come you completely smoked me. Yeah. Was insane.
Speaker 2:Is, you know, obviously pretty good at media and but and was like the the his channel was like just following his interests like Silicon Valley history. The the execution was like by all means amazing. Like got to like half a million subscribers.
Speaker 1:Treated like a blog and you treated like a business.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And it was like but it was this much smaller TAM. Yep. And like when you compare the two channels and like your strategy, the execution like, it
Speaker 1:It was me and, like, I had one remote editor for years. I was, like, not monetizing, not really thinking about it as a business. But I'm interested to know on day one of of that YouTube channel, because I know you've done media stuff before, but, like, the the the the the current media business. Mhmm. What was the team like?
Speaker 1:What was the strategy? How much time were you putting into it? Because I know you had exited some businesses. You had some space Yeah. To breathe.
Speaker 1:But how serious were and then what was the evolution of that?
Speaker 3:I'll walk you through Please. As fast as I can. So the first thing was I found any media editor, like an agency, and they're like, three YouTube videos a week is what we do. And I was like, alright. Then that's what I'll do.
Speaker 3:Okay. And so I just webcammed Yeah. Like, and I had a little suitcase that would open up so I could travel because Layla and I were traveling for the year Yeah. Of the sale. And so that's what I did.
Speaker 3:Wherever we were, I was like, open up. And then because at that time, I didn't have really any work. So I had all these thoughts that I was like, oh, I'm just gonna get them. I'm gonna dump them all out. And so that's basically what YouTube strategy one point o was.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I had somebody cold reach out, like legit Yeah. To when right as short started, they were like, I'll do everything. You already have YouTube stuff. I'm just gonna clip it.
Speaker 3:Just give me permission.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:And I was like Oh, cool. That's
Speaker 2:amazing. That's accidentally started clipping.
Speaker 3:A 100%. And so that was like, we were really early on shorts.
Speaker 1:So good.
Speaker 3:And then as soon as he did a
Speaker 2:pretty good job, he's like, you know, if I actually recorded you doing these, they'd do even better.
Speaker 3:And I was like, fine. But I only wanna do one day a quarter. And he was like, fine. So he'd fly out for one day, and we do a 100 shorts in one sitting. 100%.
Speaker 3:I would just do a 100 that that kind of style of filming and recording is pretty much how I still kinda rock that way, which is like, I want I prefer a marathon day. Like, I'd rather just start at, you know, six and then just rock until every ounce of juice is gone, and then it's like, great. Yeah. We'll do it again in a week or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We're sort of like that marathon every day. Yeah. Yeah. One of my questions
Speaker 1:is like, what goes into a two hour YouTube video because you'll do these like master classes two hours and I'm like, that is insane. And then I'm like, I do three hours every day. So like
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now it's become more possible, but I imagine that there's lots
Speaker 2:of But the three hours was kind of like just going until we got tired. Yeah. Like by three hours, we're usually like, okay, like probably need to go to the bathroom. Yeah. Probably wanna eat some food.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and this show is much less structured. But when you're when you're thinking about, like, the portfolio, like Yeah. You the volume is just incredibly important to everything in media these days. You agree with that?
Speaker 3:Oh, a 100%. Where Volume negates luck. Volume negates luck. Negates the answer. That's like on our wall at HQ.
Speaker 1:Yeah. What formats are you most excited about for 2026, 2027?
Speaker 3:Live interactive.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Separate and together.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:So just going live, like, with the audience, Twitch style
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 3:YouTube live style.
Speaker 1:And that was the book launch strategy. Right? Was that your first taste? You've done live No.
Speaker 3:I've done lives before, but that was obviously, you know, And then and then interactive, which is not like, sure, there's chat interactive, but like, how do I bring the audience in so that we can talk? That's where you see the first, it was CashCals, it's Scale or Fail,
Speaker 1:which is
Speaker 3:the show we just launched. And we're doing we're doubling down really hard on that because if you think in a world of AI, it's like, what are the things that can't be faked?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's peep you know, like, I want stakes. Yep. So for example, like, MrBeast store videos, if it was not a real $5,000,000 or not a real Lamborghini, the stakes disappear. Now, be fair, there's for sure other like, a fictional story, the whole thing we know is fake and we're fine with it, and the story is the story and AI will crush that. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But people still want stakes. Like, right now, chess is more popular than it's ever been, but like humans haven't been able to beat computers for a long time. Yeah. And so there are definitely these some areas where we want the drama, we want the stakes. And so I don't think that's gonna change at all.
Speaker 1:I love the series that you've been doing with entrepreneurs that attend a conference. They stand up. They it's give you the so, so good. I I just love all those
Speaker 3:Live interactive.
Speaker 1:Live interactive.
Speaker 3:A 100%.
Speaker 1:I'm interested to know how you think legacy media will fit into your media strategy going forward. Is it about prestige? Is there actually an audience there still? Because you're part of the new guard Yeah. And yet you signed with CIA.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. I'm sure you have the ability to walk into a large media company and get a TV show.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? Is that something that's interesting to you? What would the value be
Speaker 3:to I think it's distribution that I don't have access to.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:So like, I think one of the biggest, like, unspoken advantages that exist right now in media is Dave Ramsey
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Has been murdering for thirty, forty years. So He's he has 600 radio station syndicated. Everyone's like, radio is dead. It's like, he's murdering it. Yes.
Speaker 3:And it because no one's looking. So, like, attention I'm I'm an equal opportunist when it comes to attention. Yeah. And so even if it's less or more, if it's something that's completely in this other bubble over here that I have sincere I have no access to And the
Speaker 2:beauty is like, there's still like closer to like, there's no monopoly online. Right? The feed is like Mhmm. Just get anybody can log on and it's beautiful because anyone can log on. You don't have to have an audience.
Speaker 2:You can suddenly have an audience. Maybe it's one video. Yep. Maybe it's a flash in the pan. But TV still, like, if you can figure out the right lane, you have this sort of like differentiated access to attention.
Speaker 2:And it so it's like a different group of people and it's differentiated access that's not just like log on immediately have access.
Speaker 3:And when something super pops, like you look at all the real estate shows that have come out, you've got Selling Sunset, Sirhan has his show, like like there's a huge distribution base that they gain access to as a result of that. All you have to do is look at those stars, look at their look at their social media. Yeah. And I would say, this is I say this lovingly. It's pretty weak in terms of what they're doing.
Speaker 3:Sure. Their exactly. But their following is still really strong because it's carried over.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 3:And so I'm like, if those people actually tried on this side and had someone and per it's like, how do
Speaker 2:we get it all?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Right? And that's kind of the the
Speaker 1:I think this is just underrated broadly for mostly tech people. They see the trend of the Internet growing exponentially or ecommerce. Mhmm. And they think, oh, well, in a couple of years, like 100% of everything will be bought online. And it's like, no, retail still exists.
Speaker 1:And for certain categories, you probably need to be in retail as well. And the same thing with the aging audiences on radio or TV, They're still there. They have they still watch. And so interesting. What about the level of production polish?
Speaker 1:I imagine that there's a trade off there if you go with something more produced that's not just you opening your laptop and and yapping. Right? You can get so you can you can get stuck in, like, the production quagmire Mhmm. If you're trying to build the Mona Lisa or or some incredible show. At the same time, there's prestige that comes with that.
Speaker 1:There's a new level of authority. How do you think about that trade off?
Speaker 3:I think it's barbell. Mhmm. So it's either like make it the Mona Lisa Yeah. And like play to win that game Mhmm. Or you're in the volume game.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. And the volume is just value per second and just trying to get as many of those seconds out as you possibly can. Sure. And like I just think it's it's it's both. Yeah.
Speaker 3:They're I think they serve they serve different objectives. To your point of like, you gain authority in different ways, it's definitely there's an element that it shifts the brand. Yeah. There's access to new distribution or eyeballs. All of that happens over here.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But over here, I think, is where you get a lot of the closer to buying behavior or not. And so I see this as more top of funnel, and this is, like, closer to middle and bottom. Yeah. Obviously, you can get discoverability. Like I said, this is full stack, but you get way closer to purchase it on the side.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Is there can we offer you
Speaker 2:a diet coke? Can we
Speaker 1:offer you anything? We have a variety of beverages if you'd like.
Speaker 2:What's a category of business that you haven't built or invested in that you're excited to at some point?
Speaker 3:I'm still looking for the the magical med spa. I think med spas are super I love pseudo medical
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Because you
Speaker 2:What's maxing?
Speaker 3:Yeah. All of it. Well, think about it, like, there's this aging population that has more money than anyone else. They don't want to age. They see the Brian Johnsons.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Like,
Speaker 3:it is the zeitgeist of right now of like, I wanna live forever. I wanna look beautiful and young forever. And they have all the money. Mhmm. And so if you look at the demand side of that, it's huge.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you
Speaker 3:look at the supply Mhmm. Med spas are are they're still wildly understaffed. And I know this because I see business owners every single week. Yeah. And so I've like, there's a handful of categories right now that I'll meet business owners and they're doing better than they should be.
Speaker 3:Like, there's some business owners I meet.
Speaker 2:Met a med spa owner when I first moved to LA. They had started their business and within a year, they were doing like 1,200,000 of like like straight free cash flow off of like $400,000 invested. Yeah. It was like actually unbelievable. Yes.
Speaker 2:The entrepreneur in this case was like very talented.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Because he watches this and he's Oh, yeah. He's great though.
Speaker 2:No. But this was this was, But you know, years yeah. I'm I'm surprised that also like differentiated shots at that category because if you look at like, I would expect Brian Johnson to do something like this. Right? Because there's a lot of people that follow him.
Speaker 2:And he has, you know, as many maybe he probably has like 10 times as many like critics as he does people that are like, I'm gonna do exactly what he's gonna do. But that group of people that will just like copy what he's doing is actually pretty pretty meaningful. Right? Huge. MedsBoss, you go into these like high ticket kind of like procedures, treatments, things like that.
Speaker 2:To me, that's where I think he could really start to print.
Speaker 3:He had 1,200 people apply for his million dollar per year thing. 1,200. Do that math.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Real fast.
Speaker 3:That's great. That's a lot of money. And then there was a $60,000 per year thing that was underneath and multiply that by just probably an order of magnitude greater.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Wildly underestimated. So I remember. You take that and then you have these 10,000 or 15,000 med spas that exist. It's like, it's nothing. And the it's super fragmented because still no one's really, like, gobbled that up well.
Speaker 3:Not that that I've seen. And to your point of, like, when I asked them, like, hey, so what are you doing right now to get your 6,000,000 a year top line and, you know, 40% margins? And they're like, kinda just, you know, we just opened up and put the sign up and you just did a good job. And and, know, know, people customers tell customers, like, you know, that's not how it fucking works.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it's not how it's gonna work forever.
Speaker 3:No. They're just in a completely supply constrained environment. They just don't know it because when you're on the inside, you don't know. You're like, oh, I'm doing a job.
Speaker 1:Is part of the problem that a lot of the med spa, like, founders get a little bit too sucked into the bio hacker nature of these things and it feels a
Speaker 2:little bit too scientific? Think it's that at all. I think it's like it's it's so short term. A lot of the med spas, I think, are like very short term cosmetic driven. They're like, how do we make you look good for the next three to six months?
Speaker 2:Which is not necessarily what makes Okay. You look good over the next three to six years Sure. Or over the next few decades. Mhmm. So that's at least Yeah.
Speaker 3:Generally. There's a slice for Johnson to attack, which he obviously Yeah. That's right. He's a very smart dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. How would you attack the problem? Roll up? Find a bunch of operators, put them together? Start start something from scratch?
Speaker 3:I mean yeah. I mean, the roll bottle would make the most sense. Yeah. The thing is it's like de novo is not that expensive.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And if you are a good operator, you can go in to
Speaker 1:smash. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Because when when when people are coming in when your when your CAC is zero and your and your gross margins on these services are absurd Mhmm. The the actual difficulty in that model right now is getting the talent for the technicians because because it's supply constrained at the business level, it's also supply constrained at the talent level. Yep. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so
Speaker 2:And it's so easy for them
Speaker 3:to open up a door. Exactly. They hang their own chindle, they take the customers, and, like, that's the issue that those companies have. And so the key to really winning that game is having a really good talent strategy for how do I make their lifestyles, how do I how do I compensate them as directly as possible on what they're generating Mhmm. And get it to the point where my godfather is in wealth management, and he's a really cool model.
Speaker 3:He's managed several billion dollars and he but he started at nothing and built it all himself. And his big thing was and his big thing was basically letting the other person have a little
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so it's like, he'll he's like, I'll give you 51 so that you don't ever wanna leave Sure. But then you do all
Speaker 2:the work. Yeah. It probably looks more like a law firm over time.
Speaker 3:Yeah. A 100%. It's more of a partner pro and to be fair, if you've been to any of these, I would say it's a high touch service. They're they're not loyal to the business. They're loyal to the girl who does her injections or does their lasers or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so it's like we just gotta tie those people in like a partner firm.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Mhmm. Speaking of Brian Johnson, do you care at all about living forever?
Speaker 3:I don't even think about it. Mhmm. I expect to die. I would prefer not to, but, like, I'm good I'm good either way. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Like, I I think Marcus really said the the old and the young lose the same thing when they die, which is the present. That's all we got.
Speaker 2:So, yeah. I love it. I'm a similar way. I wanna have a full life, but I never at any point in my life have I thought, oh, it would just be the best thing ever if I could never die. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Going back to sort of core audience Yeah. I think of like the sweet spot is like mid market owner operator founder types. Is that roughly accurate?
Speaker 3:Yeah. One to fifty million.
Speaker 1:1 to 50,000,000. What is the expansion opportunity? Is there a business for you where you're giving keynotes at Fortune 500 companies? Motivational speaking for like, you know, middle managers at companies? Or or or is it or is it getting people on the founder journey who are leaving companies, breaking out into their own and going from zero to 1,000,000?
Speaker 1:What do you Well,
Speaker 3:from an expansion opportunity, like, I think there's still plenty of people in the one fifty million who don't know who I am and haven't consumed my stuff or whatever. So, like, plenty there. But the like, if I just focus there Yeah. I get the zero to a million Sure. Anyways.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Because if you're helping people go from one to 10, people are like, can probably help me go from one to zero one.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so I'm super broadly zooming out. Mhmm. I'm a big fan of capitalism. And I think as many people as possible participating in free market is a good thing for the country and for that person and for everyone else that they serve.
Speaker 3:And so I would like as many people to taste that that that forbidden fruit as humanly possible, and so I try and make it as simple and easy as possible for people to get started.
Speaker 2:Yeah. What mistakes do you see entrepreneurs making around AI? Because I'll give you one. The the small business owners that I know that get too in, like, into AI and maybe they're listening to podcasts and they're on x and and and wear Orange glasses ready They'll to like they won't just apply AI to their business. They'll like start a new company that's like AI oriented.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And and I just think that's like the worst possible mistake because they end up doing something that like the model just does well. And it's like, okay. So you're gonna compete just directly with like all the biggest companies in the world on something that you don't even know as well as the biggest companies in the world. When could just like And so and so there's like this like grass is greener thing happening Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where instead of seeing like, oh, I can just make, you know, these parts of my business, even if it's just 10% more efficient, I can I can, you know, keep compounding? But what are you seeing?
Speaker 3:Alright. One, they're using AI to do dumb things really fast. So they're doing the wrong stuff with AI. So even like, they were a small business owner that wasn't making money now still doesn't make money but has a lot more token cost
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:Than they did before. Number two, they're Meeting meeting summaries. Yeah. Like, I've never been success like, I I've never That was my bottleneck.
Speaker 1:I just need a summary. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No. But but it's one of those things, like, like, I think it's cool that these apps exist. I've never, I've never needed to take notes to achieve my goals in business. Like, I'm just like, okay.
Speaker 2:What's the next most
Speaker 1:to I'm gonna do that thing. Okay. What's the next most
Speaker 2:important important thing
Speaker 3:to do? I'm gonna do that thing.
Speaker 2:I've never I've never been like, okay. Like, what did we say? I mean, and and I've worked in like small companies. Right? I've only only been a founder.
Speaker 2:But but that's just such an example of like, yeah, my meeting notes system is like so dialed. I'm like, okay, like, how much money have you made?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Okay. So I'll I'll say to to to counter answer the two things that I think are the right way to use it, which is number one, how do we take every function of the business Mhmm. Take it from org chart based thinking to workflow based thinking Mhmm. And then saying, okay, this editor used to be involved in these six workflows.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. We actually only need him to be now involved in three of those workflows. And the other three, we can have AI do the vast majority of the work. So And all of sudden, can three, five x output. And so revenue per head count on service based businesses should decrease, which means margins should go up.
Speaker 3:Now, there's this great opportunity window right now where prices aren't really gonna adjust for a minute, which means that your margins get absolutely stupid. And so, like, you should do that. Mhmm. So there's two flavors to that. One is the the like, I'm I'm an advocate of, don't tell people you're using AI.
Speaker 3:Like, go go have a service business that people think is all humans in the background and then charge human prices and then have costs of tech and have the scale and operational or the the lack of operational drag of tech. That's the good game. Right? Or take it department to by department so that you can just become more efficient at at it. Right?
Speaker 3:So those are, I think, the two good ways of doing it. To your point of like, well, being distracted is still a terrible idea as a founder. And so this has just made it so much easier for people to get distracted because, like, I can start a business on this or that or that. And then it's like, yeah, you still have your dry cleaning store, dude. Like, what are we gonna like and to be fair, if you have if you wanna be a trillionaire, are gonna need to get into bleeding edge tech and AI.
Speaker 3:Sure. But you probably should get rid of your dry cleaning store and go all in. And so they're trying to juggle two plates Yeah. And not really succeeding it either.
Speaker 2:Totally. Totally. Yeah. The the dry cleaning example is, like, use AI to constantly be monitoring every possible new space that you could expand into within your area Yeah. In the in the county over, etcetera.
Speaker 2:Just do that, do that, do that. But it's like grass is greener. Like, oh, what if I Yeah. What if I made the operating system, the agent operating system for dry cleaners? It's like, no.
Speaker 2:Just like do the thing.
Speaker 3:Just win at dry cleaning because it's also so much easier to compete against
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Other dry cleaning owners because you for sure know that they're not adopting it the right way because they're doing the same thing with orange glasses and and banging out their their Yeah. Their replicated software. You know, like, fine. Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's also, like, a fair amount of AI that a lot of small businesses are probably getting for free just in the sense of, like, if you have a CRM that's sending emails, like, that company has probably adopted AI and is doing somewhat smarter targeting. And so you might not need to go and build your own CRM that sends emails that are customized for every customer because, like, you get it for free out of the box.
Speaker 3:There's also this this tendency to rebuild the existing software that you're using. Always. So it's like, oh, I've got you know, I don't I don't need to pay Calendly, you know Yeah. $9 a month. When I it's just like, oh, so instead you're gonna use two hundred hours to try and recode what they just did.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And it breaks all
Speaker 2:the time. If there's an error, then you lose $9.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. But like that is what I'm saying all the time.
Speaker 2:Yes. We did have Ben on our team here was having had been we he does a lot of the automation that we do around like captioning videos. He had reached a point where all the existing software didn't do the thing that he needed to do, that he built something yesterday that now works and that it's saving him a bunch of time. So there is the there are other edge cases.
Speaker 1:It's very narrow point solutions for us.
Speaker 3:I think Like specifically Tame equals one.
Speaker 1:Flip Yeah. Yeah. Live streams very quickly with captions, with our ads added on at the end and it saved a bunch of time in Premiere.
Speaker 3:Immediate is huge. Right? Yeah. Like, we're using it. Like, I'll give you two examples we're using.
Speaker 3:On the ad side, what we did was we built this gigantic data repository, which, by the way, I think that's what the big the huge gap that small business owners are missing is they don't have a data layer. And so it's like, if wanna have anything that's unique, it starts with data. Mhmm. If you wanna build, like, any kind of AI right. Actually useful.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so, one is, like, how do we build a repository of all the data that we have in terms of sales copy, testimonials, videos, collateral, all of that in one place. Yeah. And then have that get piecemealed out into ads Mhmm. In real time, and then also match those to dynamic landing pages.
Speaker 3:So we have that live right now at acquisition.com in terms of how we're doing it. So we have several 100 landing pages that are getting pushed against, several 100 different ad ads that are going out all being done programmatically with AI. Mhmm. Which is really like, we're we're not a we're not an AI company, but we use the shit out of it. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so I think
Speaker 2:that those are like those are
Speaker 3:the the the on the paid side where it's really, really exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then on the on the organic side, it's like right now we started More which is like the highlight channel.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I've got one one one cracked out teenager Yeah. Who's do who's putting out twenty twenty clips a day on his own. No. No. He's doing five five mids.
Speaker 3:So like, we call mids is like, call it, like, three to ten minutes Yeah. Clips. And then he's putting out, I think, 15 or something like that shorts per day on his own. Mhmm. And so he just takes all the time, if I'm talking to business owners, takes it, runs it through, it highlights the points.
Speaker 3:From there, he just basically just makes sure that it's good, inserts automatically the the the CTAs that we want, and then boom. It's all
Speaker 1:on there. What's your philosophy on bringing the cracked out teenager in house Huge fan. Remote, in person versus agency versus platform where clipping can happen, a Discord that just you hear about these Discords with, like, 200 clippers, and they all get paid on a CPM basis randomly. Mhmm. It feels deeply chaotic, but if you can harness that, maybe it's powerful.
Speaker 1:But what's your philosophy?
Speaker 3:Yes. Okay. That's a 100% my philosophy. Okay. But like, are you an agency fan or in house?
Speaker 3:It's like, I want three agencies working for me and in house team. Like, it's all all the impressions are out there. Like Yeah. Gotta catch them all. Like, go get them.
Speaker 3:You know what And same thing with like, if I I pay a lot of attention, especially on the paid side to ecommerce. I think they're almost always the most cutting edge.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:When it well, actually porn's the most paid edge. Right right before that is I'm being real. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Ecommerce is the second most cutting edge. And those guys are all completely the ones who are crushing it going to 0 to 100,000,000 plus in, call it, like, twelve to twenty four months. Like, all the companies that are running the same playbook Yeah. Is decentralized UGC with kind of like AI back end for screening for control and then just letting it fucking rip. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And there's obviously some considerations for brand. Sure. Right? Which is like, how do we make sure?
Speaker 1:But Yeah. But if the raw footage is
Speaker 3:And you only put money behind things that are Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's probably pretty safe.
Speaker 2:Do you expect to integrate parenting content into your universe?
Speaker 3:I don't think everything that's not business has not been, like, super deliberate. I just don't hold back. So if someone asks a question about it, I'll just answer honestly. Yeah. But everything I try to think of, the middle spoke is still I'll use this.
Speaker 3:There we go. The middle spoke is still business, and then it's, you know, how am I seeing parenting through the lens of business as a business if
Speaker 2:you want.
Speaker 3:How do I
Speaker 2:got it over there.
Speaker 3:And, like, how do I see, like, my my relationship with Layla? But it's we're business partners, but we're also married. So it's it's always I try to keep that at the middle. Yeah. But some people are
Speaker 2:like, just wanna
Speaker 3:talk to
Speaker 2:You know, with with with Taylor and and Travis pairing up, hopefully, have children. Mhmm. You guys having children. Think we could see the a real baby boom. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But Important.
Speaker 3:We need
Speaker 2:to get it out there.
Speaker 3:That's what we're doing. The Lord's work.
Speaker 2:There
Speaker 1:we Can you walk me through how to sort of evolve a brand through what I expected to be more difficult, but you executed it very well. The headline was I have nothing to sell you.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Now you sell books. People wanna buy stuff from you. Obviously, sold a ton of books. Yeah. But there's probably like a, oh, I wasn't expecting this.
Speaker 1:How did you work through that? Because I think there's a lot of companies where the business model evolves and they need to change their communication strategy and they need to deliver
Speaker 2:like Yeah. Like an AI lab is like, we're not gonna compete with you. All of sudden What?
Speaker 3:That's crazy.
Speaker 1:Asking for a friend here.
Speaker 3:I'm I'm such an I I I think the absolute simplest media strategy for any kind of change is the whole truth Yeah. Not half truth. Mhmm. And I think if you just manage that so it's like, I didn't have anything to sell. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I was like, now I do.
Speaker 2:It's so simple. I love it. That's amazing. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And and Yeah. If if you don't wanna buy it, here's the great thing about capitalism, it's voluntary exchange. So you can just keep getting the free shit.
Speaker 2:Yep. Yeah.
Speaker 1:All good. There's tons of it. There's tons of free stuff.
Speaker 3:Tons of free stuff. And we still continue to do that. If you choose to, want more help with stuff Yeah. In person where we're limited Yeah. Spend money.
Speaker 3:And we'd love to have you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating. What is the term for, like, the economic ladder that you help build help companies build? I feel like the first time I was exposed to this with Jocko Willink, you Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You get to the end of the show, and it's like, if you wanna spend a dollar with me, I got something for you. If wanna you spend a $100 with me, got something for you. If you wanna spend a thousand dollars, you can come to my conference. $10,000, I'll hang out with you for a weekend. A $100,000.
Speaker 1:And that ladder of price discrimination is hard for a lot of businesses where it's not token based pricing where it's just as, you know, consumption based usage of the product, but actually getting the place where look, if you have a billionaire in your audience who loves what you're doing, how do you actually get an offer to them that's the right size?
Speaker 3:I'm a so customers are super fractal. Yeah. Right? And so you can absolutely make the same amount from 1% of your customers as you can from the other 99, and we have half your revenue from one. Yep.
Speaker 3:And typically, like, at each level, you have another double. So it's like if you're at, let's say, a $100 a month price point, there's gonna be another double of revenue at a $500 a month price point, another double of revenue at $2,500 a month, another double at, you know, whatever, five or 10 times that is gonna be. And so I think making offers available to people, that is where business owners, like, struggle. They feel weird about it and they sell out of their own wallet. Yeah.
Speaker 3:When it's just like, just make them available Yeah. And state the facts and tell the truth. So it's like, if we had one big plaque in our our marketing team, it's state the facts and tell the truth, but the whole truth, which is, hey, we're gonna do this thing. It's absurdly expensive. And it's only for somebody who, if you're reading this and you're like, oh, that's not absurdly expensive for me.
Speaker 3:Yep. It's for you. Yep. And if you read that and you're like, oh my god. I'm offended by that.
Speaker 3:Good news. We have less offensive prices Mhmm. That are lower. And for that, we do all these other things that are you're gonna get way more people who are gonna be doing it with you. But if you're a special snowflake, we have special snowflake prices.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:I just don't think and to be fair, you're not gonna make everyone happy. Like, there's always gonna be trolls. There's always gonna be people alike.
Speaker 1:Of
Speaker 3:course. I think you have to make the decision of, do I care more about the people I help or the people who are angry at me for trying to help?
Speaker 1:Mhmm. What's your international strategy? I imagine the content goes everywhere. Yeah. At the same time, you can't be flying around the world constantly.
Speaker 1:Yeah. How do you think about different countries?
Speaker 2:I struggle
Speaker 3:a lot with international. Because the business side of me is like, don't want them to clog up our funnels. Oh. Yeah. And like, have people who can't speak English that well the team.
Speaker 3:And it's just like it's like we don't have Italian versions of whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Right.
Speaker 3:So I struggle with that part. On the other hand, we're taking steps now to Look. Have something to, you know, serve that audience. That being said, don't think I'm gonna be traveling internationally anytime soon. Sure.
Speaker 3:But having called services and offerings for that audience, I'm I'm more inclined to be able to.
Speaker 1:Yeah. How are you thinking about scaling acquisition.com, the investing side of the business, raising outside capital, scaling up the fund? We talked to the VCs all day who are just like bigger and bigger mega funds.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We're like
Speaker 1:Early.
Speaker 3:Thirty days away from closing a gigantic deal. So
Speaker 1:Come back.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We'll be great. But like, I would say that what acquisition.com is when we started was a cash flow based family office that Leila and I ran. And that was honestly the chillest my life has ever been. I was also bored to tears.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. But, like, a good life and probably might have been better for the season I'm about to get into.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 3:But it became apparent after we did something like 24 deals in twenty four months, and these were not like VC tie style deals. They were like real, you know, purchases. That, you know, portfolio theory rules and of the 24, like, you know, three ish were, like, the really good companies.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And then on top of that, there was, like, our brand blew up in this time period. And so we had to basically have this recalculation of, like, okay. Well, these are all the resources we have at our disposal. We have cash, but, like, this brand is getting really big even almost greater than the cash that we have access to just our own money. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so then it was like, okay. Well, we started the advisory practice in January '24, and I think we did 36,000,000 in EBITDA year one. Mhmm. Just on that one unit. And so I was like,
Speaker 2:okay. Founder, no.
Speaker 3:And so and then, obviously, you know, the book launch Yeah. Last year, we did, you know, a 105, and we still have the advisory factors which grew the next year. And so I've we basically we stopped doing deals that we were just investors in
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And now it's brand plus capital plus work. And I'd rather have fewer eggs that we're gonna get huge outsized returns on. Like school
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Was junior 24 as well. Yep. But school has you know, we have 30,000,000 users now. Yeah. And, you know, we have a billion plus GMV.
Speaker 3:Like, it's it's a very big platform. And so, like, I'd you know, Zuckerberg didn't have Airbnbs as a side hustle. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so it's just like if you have a if you have a stallion, like, run it.
Speaker 3:And so I think that's where we're at where it's like we're being really, really specific. I'm I'm willing to put more capital at risk now because I'm gonna put my brand behind it
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 3:And make sure the product's exceptional. And that's I mean, the bar is the product has to be fucking insane. Yeah. And then we bring distribution and cash. And like that's when it's like the the holy trinity.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Jeremy our friend Jeremy has this idea that that everyone is like pre or post fall. Where are you?
Speaker 1:You familiar with this concept? No. So yeah. He he says you can instantly tell if someone has had their downfall, had their darkest moment. You know, they've been through the wringer.
Speaker 1:They got chewed up and spit out by Silicon Valley or private equity or whatever industry they were in, and you can tell that this person is now they've they've been humbled. And so they're ready to build back appropriately, not get over their skis. And then you can also see the founders It becomes a massive advantage. And then you also see the founders that are sort of pre fall, they're doing a lot of things that you're like
Speaker 2:Yeah. This is like the You
Speaker 1:better get lucky.
Speaker 2:24 year old who's like on a crazy tear Yep. Has raised
Speaker 1:Money showed up free. They're spending it.
Speaker 2:And then suddenly, like, you know, the business stops growing, like, execs are leaving Yep. Things like that. But I'm wondering if you there was, like, this, like, crucible moment for you before this latest run that you've been on.
Speaker 3:Oh, so two answers. One is I'll reject the premise. But Okay. Just because I don't like, to say it's super binary.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Right? Like, people are either before or after the hard thing in their life. It's like, think people have lots of hardship that happens at different seasons in their life. Yeah. Like, I've lost everything two times.
Speaker 3:Like Two falls. Twice. But, like, that then it's like, okay, am I now post fall? It's like, well, I mean, I I hope that nothing bad ever happens to me again, but I'm pretty sure bad shit's gonna happen to me again. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so I just commit to not stopping.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Controlling the controllable. That's basically all I can do.
Speaker 1:Do you have a good answer to pithy advice for young people? We got asked this on a podcast recently, it and was, the closing question. It was, you got one minute. And I was, like, I could you could talk for hours. Like, where do you even start?
Speaker 1:How do you think about packaging information like that? And I actually want your your your advice for young people if you have one thing.
Speaker 2:It's so hard to like, work hard. It's like good general advice. But then I I've I've been in points in my life and I know people that are like working hard on like the dumbest thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And like that that's the worst thing that they
Speaker 3:can do. Well, I think so what you accomplish is a direct output of the volume of activity that you do multiplied by the leverage of the activity itself. And so you have to pick the right boat. You have to pick the right opportunity based on your goals. Some people only wanna make a million dollars, some people want to make tens, some people want to make hundreds, some people make a trillion.
Speaker 3:Like, everyone has different So it's like the the leverage that what's interesting about that is that you just get to pick and it's gonna be hard no matter what. I think Naval said this thing where it's like, it's really hard to build a restaurant that's really successful. It's also really hard to build a, you know, billion dollar unicorn. They're both can be eighty hour weeks. And so, you know and Stuart Schwarzman from Black Blackstone said like, you might as well play big because level 10 talent is only attracted to level 10 opportunities.
Speaker 3:It's harder to attract good people for bad opportunity because then you gotta do it all yourself Mhmm. Which is why I have so much respect for some of the guys like Piggy and Andrew Churn, who are mister and missus Panda, Panda Express.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Dude, deck of billionaires
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Selling selling chicken.
Speaker 1:Passing royalty.
Speaker 3:Dude, like But like like, so much respect for that level of grit. Forty five years selling Orange Chicken. Yep. Right? All that to say, you will pick based on the level of awareness that you have at that time.
Speaker 3:Where it gets more difficult is that you learn more shit as you go and you realize that there are higher leverage opportunities. Mhmm. The difficulty is that if you're four years into one thing, year five of an existing thing that you have four years of reps on versus year one of even a slightly better opportunity, you have to compare year one versus year five of the other one, not year one versus year one because time you can't get back. Yeah. And so that's where the compounding of getting better at something at some point does have outsized returns even if it's an inferior vehicle.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Talk about that idea of you're an A plus operator, but you're going after a C plus opportunity. How do you assess your opportunity? Because I feel like I run into people who are working on A plus opportunities, and everyone will say that's the dumbest idea ever. You're gonna put couches.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be called Airbnb. That makes no sense. Right? And then it's a boom and it's huge. And then simultaneously, you can be working on a terrible idea.
Speaker 1:But if you went and got, you know, a puff piece in Business Insider and Forbes, it's like your parents are like, oh, it's amazing. Good job.
Speaker 2:Well, the way I the way Even
Speaker 1:if you're grinding and it's not going anywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The way the way I look at it is like in every single category, there's an amazing business. Yeah. And the funny thing the the funny thing that everyone thinks about like Airbnb is like the dumb idea. When it's, like, it wasn't a dumb idea.
Speaker 2:It just seemed ridiculous. Yeah. And that's very different than, like, somebody that, like, chooses apparel as a category, which everyone knows is, like, structurally really, really, really challenging, really, really competitive. Yes. There's, a 100 companies in the world that absolutely print.
Speaker 2:And if you're one of those companies, then you're you're great. But some people, like, choose apparel. And then three years in, then they understand the competitive dynamics. And they're like, I'm in a shitty business. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I think that's very different than, like, choosing the thing that seems silly even though Airbnb at this point is now, like, the best business. Right?
Speaker 1:Sure. Sure. Sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Massive scale, network effects
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:A great product, all these things. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think if you look at the marketplace that you're trying to get into, there's usually gonna be a bolus of businesses at some part. Mhmm. And that gives you some idea of where the difficulty in that business is. Mhmm. And so, like, for example, if you're gonna get into I wanna start a social media marketing agency.
Speaker 3:It's like, well, there's a bolus at the bottom Mhmm. And then very few who ascend to the top. And it's because it's really, really difficult operationally. Because if you're really good at marketing, then you can usually make enough money to not work at one of those types of businesses. And so you're constantly you have to be so good at ops and so good at marketing and branding and sales Mhmm.
Speaker 3:In order to just slowly get these bigger and bigger accounts and you kind of level up the types of customers that you can go after. Because all those businesses go after SMBs, and SMBs are inherently volatile. And so even if you do a great job, they'll still cancel. And so it's just a churn number of business.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Not not to mention Yeah. Your flagship client will eventually say, like, hey, we're spending a $100,000 on this service. We could hire five people Mhmm. That are the best in the world at what they do, they'll just focus on us.
Speaker 2:Let's do that instead.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Like, there are there are there are impediments to that business scaling. Can you do it? Absolutely. But I'm just a huge advocate of just, like, just look at what the biggest version of that business looks like.
Speaker 3:Because this is obviously a more tech forward show, but, like, the vast majority businesses are not tech businesses. Yeah. Right? There's, like, HVAC businesses all over the place. There's pool cleaners.
Speaker 3:There like, there's a lot of shit you can do for money. Yeah. And so I like, unless you want to be a trillionaire, like,
Speaker 2:you can
Speaker 3:be a billionaire in just about any boring business. You look at you look at what's his name? Is it Brad Jacobs? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Exit six times or Yeah. Yeah. Make a few billion dollars. Yeah. Few then he has a sequel, a few more billion.
Speaker 2:Few more billion. You guys are kind of you guys are very yeah. I never I never thought of you as
Speaker 1:Homebuilding materials.
Speaker 3:Yeah. There's just a lot of businesses out there, and so it just depends on, like, what the goal is. But any business done for like, zooming all the way out, if you do one thing for forty years and you get better every year, you're gonna fucking dominate. Mhmm. And so on some level, going after the tech opportunity, though they're they're for sure are the big the big mega winners, It's easier to compete against the people who are going after the pool cleaners.
Speaker 3:There's just there's like, there's less sophisticated players, there's less capital. And so having a little bit of street smarts and a lot of work ethic can get you pretty far there. And you look at that compared to, like, you look at the guy who's doing 7,000,000 a year top line, 2 and a half million dollars in bottom line, doesn't really work that much, has a crew of guys. Is that the life you want? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because there's nothing, like, there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. And so I think it's deciding first to the younger guy, like, what do I want Mhmm. Or what is an acceptable outcome? And then what of the many, many paths that are ahead of me have the highest likelihood of me getting there?
Speaker 3:And then once you pick that path, know that if you stick with that path for twenty years, the likely that you fail is basically zero as long as you have some feedback loop for improvement.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's basically it. Figure out where you wanna go, find the highest likely path of getting there, and then do not let the opinions of strangers or people who do not have what you want dissuade you from getting there.
Speaker 1:Yeah. What do you think about there's this odd trend of entrepreneurship, I don't know, like mindset stuff where you gotta be doing sauna, cold plunge, meditation. And I feel like that only makes sense once you're successful. And then you look at the successful people and you're like, well, yeah, the rich guy has a sauna. But Yeah.
Speaker 1:What was he doing when he was broke? He was waking up and getting on his laptop. But Yeah. How how have you reacted?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Rich people fly private, so I should fly private in order to get rich. Yeah. It's it's
Speaker 2:doesn't work.
Speaker 3:It's conflation. Okay. So at the most basic level, you have to do work. Yeah. And if it is not the work, then you have to have a very strong argument that it's going to increase your output per unit of time.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Period. Yeah. And so if you have a three hour morning routine, and that's the first three hours a day when you're probably the cognitive, like, the freshest of the most energy, you would have to have an incredible do you curse on the show?
Speaker 1:We don't.
Speaker 3:Okay. Incredible darn argument. You're welcome to. Our kids
Speaker 2:are our kids are watching, but, you know, by all means. You have to
Speaker 3:have an incredible argument for why that's going to improve your output. And so, like, morning routine that I'm a big advocate of is you wake up and then you caffeinate. Sure. You shut off your your distractions and then you begin the work. And how how much you can compress the time from waking to beginning work
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:Is the ideal. And you are the freshest whenever you are post sleep.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 3:And so I like, if you wanna do that stuff, I'm like, by all means, go for it. But like, just understand, like, you can plenty of people have hobbies. You can have hobbies. Like, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just is this actually and you also didn't need to work sixteen hours a day in order to get what you want.
Speaker 3:I I have plenty of friends who are super successful and don't work that much. Yeah. Now, did they work sixteen hours a day to get there? Probably. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so this is the modeling the rise, not the plateau. What's difficult is the plateau is what's more visible. Sure. What do you think about and then you can make the content. Yep.
Speaker 3:Right? No one's Yeah. Making this part.
Speaker 1:No. No.
Speaker 2:What do you think about people sort of like staging out their sort of career as an entrepreneur? I was talking to a friend of mine who has a something like an agency business in fashion. He's Mhmm. Gonna do like about $1,000,000 this year of like profit. A fantastic business.
Speaker 2:He has he he eventually wants to have his own his own brand. My my advice to him is like fashion is such a like bad business until it's a great business till you have like a flagship brand that takes twenty years to make. I was like, get your business to like a couple million a year, get it like established, couple million a year profit at least, get it established, get, you know, ten, twenty flagship clients that are on sort of long term contracts, and then basically use that cash flow to invest in your brand. And like a lot of people would be like give them the advice now of like, just go all in on go all in on the brand. Like, why are you wasting time with this other thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I feel like that's very that that works super well, like, you have a trust fund. But for somebody who's like 27, let's assume they wanna have a family in a few years, I was pushing him to say like, make this thing great even though you know it's not the thing that you wanna be doing for that forty year chunk of your career. But how would you talk to to somebody in that sort of space?
Speaker 3:So I don't think there's a right answer because it's all dependent on risk, which is entirely personal. Yeah. And so if you wanna go balls on the line, that's not cursing, then then do it. Go all in. But, just understand the risk that you're taking on.
Speaker 3:And so I would say that that's not a risk that I would take. I would say that I'm
Speaker 2:There's risk to being all in and then not having the capital to actually fuel the opportunity. Right? My point of view is like, you're gonna be way way way higher likelihood of success if you sort of build slow and you can put half 1,000,000 a year of like outside capital into the business Mhmm. Versus like trying to build this brand when you don't have a a capital source.
Speaker 3:Depends on goal, depends on risk tolerance. Like, I wanna be a trillionaire and then and I'm willing to take the risk, then it's like, yeah. I mean, you should have started yesterday. You know what I mean? But my perspective is I would like to get my oxygen mask on personally.
Speaker 3:And I was able to make I've been able to to take significantly bigger and bigger bets in my career because I don't they're free swings. Yeah. If I lose, my change my life changes to zero. Yeah. And so when thinking about big life changes, what's been really helpful for me is what is my what tactically changes about my life?
Speaker 3:Do I change what I eat? Do I change what I wear? Do I change where I live? Do I change the car I drive?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And and do these things matter? Right? Does it change who I'm married to? If none of these things change, then almost none of these decisions are gonna actually have a huge impact on my life, which then makes the argument for, like, maybe I should take a higher risk adjusted return move. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:But I would say that from the emotional side rather than the logical side, it was I have tried I very quickly tried to have a nest egg to be like, I'm good. Yeah. And that's what's allowed me to take really big bets. Things like school. Schools have platform.
Speaker 3:Like that.
Speaker 2:Oxygen mass is a is a great way
Speaker 3:to
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:Put that on.
Speaker 2:If you're gonna be
Speaker 3:If you want. And if you have responsibilities too. If you're if you're a parent and you've got kids and you've got mortgage and and you want a certain lifestyle for them and certain schools that they, you know, that cost money, then then you're also risking their futures to a degree. And so, again, it's your decision, but just know what you're putting at risk. And how much is my life gonna change if I lose?
Speaker 3:Keith Cunningham has a great frame on this, which is just, what's my upside? What's my downside? And can I live with my downside? Mhmm. If you can't live with the downside, don't take the Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You mentioned that, you know, the success and the habits are visible at the plateau but not on the At this and and I agree with you. Like, you're not actually seeing the accurate picture of the up and coming entrepreneur, the future trillionaire as it's happening. But at the same time, a lot of businesses increasingly need to do some form of social media on their way up. And the risk there is, like, sometimes companies just get sucked into just being full media companies or the or the brand value and the and the cash flow from the media business outgrows whatever they were doing originally. Yeah.
Speaker 1:What is the right balance? How should entrepreneurs think in the modern era? Like, if you're starting a company, consumer product in 2026, what's the right level of social media and and actual owned content without it becoming like fake work?
Speaker 3:What do you mean by fake work?
Speaker 1:Fake work would be like you're you're growing your following account, but you're not growing your cash flow or your actual
Speaker 2:generation of entrepreneurs and like you're probably a huge driver of this that are like that are like, I need to work I need to like, I need to build my personal brand. Yeah. And they don't realize that like, if they just make an amazing product that millions of people benefit from, they just default get the personal brand and they could just if you care about, like, attention and being on camera, then you could just do that later, but maybe just make something amazing.
Speaker 1:And also your personal brand is an actual media company that has cash flow. Yeah. It's like a successful business.
Speaker 2:You you wouldn't be you wouldn't I I don't think Zero.
Speaker 3:You'd be
Speaker 2:like on camera if you weren't
Speaker 3:making money. I wouldn't. I hated it. Yeah. It was like it was very hard for me to decide to do this.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But there's a lot of people that are basically doing the media for the cloud and they don't and they and they think put it it's fake work because they're saying they're justifying the cloud chasing by saying, oh, it's marketing for my business.
Speaker 3:If what you do does not translate into the money that you
Speaker 2:make and money that you make is the goal Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Then you are doing work that is not effective. Yeah. If to the the example you gave earlier, if you start a a business and you get better at media and the media is making more money than your existing business, then maybe you're better at media than you were at your business. Yeah. And maybe that should be your business.
Speaker 3:And so I think constantly being flexible about reassessing what the market wants versus what you have. Yeah. You know, I think Basis says this, you know, determined on goal and flexible on path or whatever way he says that. And he's also a great example of what's Basis' personal brand? Well, everyone knows who he is.
Speaker 3:Does he make a lot of content? No. Why? He just happens to own Amazon. Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so I think it depends on what what sphere you wanna get into. This is kind of interesting. If you were to say, wanna be a big b to b influencer, you cannot be a b big b to b influencer without evidence that you are good at business. Period.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. You could take and there's plenty of people who take word for word the stuff that I Aren't
Speaker 2:there there's probably some good counter examples to that. We don't need we don't to name that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, it's it's tough. It's tough.
Speaker 3:Like Right.
Speaker 1:There's people that
Speaker 3:I would say the biggest the big think the biggest b to b influencer right now is Elon.
Speaker 1:Oh, sure. Sure.
Speaker 3:Right. And he also has the biggest business and is the richest man. Yeah. Right? And so and that I think that just cascades all the way down.
Speaker 3:The only reason that so, like, I was I had a podcast that started in July 2017. It's called Jim Secrets, and I rebranded it as just the game. The game. But the as I continue to make it, we went from, like, you know, 2,000 downloads a month to millions Yeah. When I sold my company for 46,200,000.
Speaker 3:And then people were like, oh, this guy actually knows what he's talking about. Yeah. And then the brand took off because I had evidence.
Speaker 1:Legitimacy. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so I think that the amount of legitimacy that you need to be an influencer depends on the risk that the consumer has in taking action on the nature of the content that you're making.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And so if I'm a beauty influencer, if I buy lipstick or I do a a, you know, a lash technique, I'm yeah. I'm getting water so I'm not familiar with you. You paint your face in some way. Right? The risk is relatively low.
Speaker 3:Sure. Right? Now you move a little bit over here and you got, like, personal finance.
Speaker 2:Well, it's like, who's the biggest there? Dave. And then there's there's some of
Speaker 3:the new age ones, Erica Sure. Culver. She's got her but she was also and there's Vivian too, I think. But like, they have some credibility behind. And like, there's tons like, if a teacher is in in her basement talking about how you should invest in the S and P five hundred and says exactly what Warren Buffett says, maybe and they even say it a little bit more compelling than the way that Warren Buffett says.
Speaker 3:They won't be Warren Buffett because they just forgot to build Berkshire Hathaway.
Speaker 1:Sure. Sure. Sure.
Speaker 3:And so it's like the proof is the pudding. I think, at least my perspective on media is the proof is the pudding, but it varies in terms of how much proof you need. Now, if you're ugly as shit, very hard to be a beauty influencer.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But if you
Speaker 3:can use but if you are ugly and then you paint your face so well that you become hot Oh. Then you absolute yeah. Because you have evidence. Yeah. Right?
Speaker 3:And you have a more dramatic point. No. A 100%. This is how it works.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I like that. Talk about status seeking.
Speaker 2:Alright.
Speaker 1:It seems like in Silicon Valley, there's often you know, Naval talks about this, like, there's value
Speaker 3:Silicon Valley.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, that well, that's what I
Speaker 1:wanna know. In Silicon Valley, there's a lot of trend chasing. There's a lot of status seeking, and there's value in, like, doing low status activities. And I'm wondering in in mid market entrepreneurship, small businesses, like, what is the shape of that? Is it different than Silicon Valley?
Speaker 1:Is it less pronounced, more pronounced? Like, what is the version of, look, you just need to run a series of golf courses and be happy with that that type of thing or whatever whatever the equivalent is?
Speaker 3:I think it depends on who they compare themselves to. I think it just comes down to that. I think tech guys compare themselves to other tech guys, and they want approval from tech guys, and so they do the the activities that tech guys approve of.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:If you're an HVAC guy, then it's gonna be you're gonna do the activities that HVAC people Yeah. Think are cool if they're the peer group that you actually compare yourself to
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:Which they might not be. And to be fair I
Speaker 2:love the tech guys that that sell their business for 9 figures and then are like, I need a cash flowing lifestyle business ASAP. Yeah. I know a
Speaker 3:lot of them. Yeah. A lot. Lot. Like, a crazy amount.
Speaker 3:Like, buying gas stations, like, it's a lot.
Speaker 1:How bad is that?
Speaker 3:Bad? What do mean?
Speaker 1:Like, because I I imagine it's a grass is greener on the other other side thing where they enjoyed building their business, they sold it, they have all this cash, but they want cash flow, they want the stability of the cash flow. And so they want the idea of of running a small
Speaker 3:Every month.
Speaker 1:And they don't exactly. But they don't think about what it means to like at 2AM your gas station got robbed and you gotta go down there and sort it out with the cops or something like that. And so I'm wondering about like what is the actual lesson there for someone who's like about to get over their skis?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think humans are inherently dissatisfied. Okay. And I think whatever you have, you want what you don't have. And so if you're married, you're like, oh, life would be different if I'm single.
Speaker 3:If you're a parent, you're like, oh, can you remember when we didn't have kids? And when if you don't have kids, you're like, I wish I had kids. Yeah. If you're an employee, you're like, man, wish I'd an entrepreneur. And somebody's entrepreneur, like, man, it would be so nice to just show up and clock out of five and have to think about it and get a check.
Speaker 3:Like, we just always we want to make we want the benefits of a trade off without the negatives of the trade off.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so when guys are in the cash flow business, because I'll I'll because I that's who I talk to the majority of the time. Yeah. It's like, what they're thinking about all the time is just like, it's hard to sell this business. Yeah. I'm not really building my net worth.
Speaker 3:The multiples that I'm gonna get on this aren't gonna necessarily be that high. I'm dealing with people all day. I deal with low skilled labor, and I've got, you know, churn issues or finding techs that aren't gonna show up drunk on the job. Sure. Like, there's like, my one of my favorite quotes of all time I've been trying not to cuss on this one, but Go ahead.
Speaker 3:My CFO was Deep South Texas when we were when we were in Texas when we were building Gem Launch. Suzanne Schifflett, shout out to Suzanne. She was the reason we were building Gem Launch. She's she had been she had been a CFO for four companies from 1 to a 100,000,000 plus, had done a $5,000,000,000 exit, and I think she'd she'd been either buy side or sell side over 20 times.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:She was just like she was a like, just so weathered in a good way. Yeah. Right? And she said, you know what, Alex? She's like, it's all shit.
Speaker 3:She's like, it's all shit. Every business is shit. It's all shit. And I and it was but it was like, she said it with so much sincerity because I was like at the time, was like, man, it'd be cool if we got this kind of multiple blah
Speaker 2:blah blah blah.
Speaker 3:And she's like, it just doesn't it's it it all sucks. Yeah. And it's just different type of suck, but it all sucks.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Be satisfied.
Speaker 2:We're out of time, but give us a pitch for scale or fail.
Speaker 3:If you like seeing entrepreneurs try their absolute hardest and have a completely new paradigm shift in ninety days to scale their business the most, then watch the show. I meet with them for an hour, give them a whole blueprint of what I would do if I bought the business a 100% today,
Speaker 2:and then they execute and they compete. I love it. Amazing. So reminds me of PMF or Die. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We we we experimented with the show last year. PMF or Die. It was like Yeah.
Speaker 3:It was
Speaker 2:like it was like we we we put this team in an apartment in New York. They were not allowed to leave for ninety days until or or until they build a million dollar ARR business. It it it it it descended into chaos. And
Speaker 3:was Lord of Flood.
Speaker 2:Lord of the Flood. Sure. It's totally crazy. And we were like, we don't have time to do this and this.
Speaker 1:But it had it had, like, hundreds of people watching at all times. It was actually gripping.
Speaker 2:And it was just a live stream of them in the apartment
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just like cooking.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It was But one of them got really good at talking to chat. It was a whole thing. It it was sort of opened us up
Speaker 2:to example because like one of them clearly was like a gifted content creator and the other one was why am I on camera? This is terrible. Is terrible.
Speaker 3:Did he become a content creator?
Speaker 2:We gotta check-in with him.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Gotta check-in with him.
Speaker 2:He But they're both he took a vacation.
Speaker 1:A little bit
Speaker 2:out of both needed to like disconnect.
Speaker 3:It was
Speaker 2:But yeah. So so don't do the show live. Then people will will actually go Edit is is a great This was awesome. Yeah, dude.
Speaker 1:Hey. This is Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for coming on. Pleasure. Thank you, guys.
Speaker 1:We'll talk to you soon.