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Jason Zook has a different perspective on life and business. He's not afraid to try weird and crazy business ideas. In 2008 he started a business called I Wear Your Shirt. Over 5 years he earned over $1 million in revenue from wearing over 1,600 sponsored t-shirts.
Show Notes
Jason Zook has a different perspective on life and business. He’s not afraid to try weird and crazy business ideas.
In 2008 he started a business called I Wear Your Shirt. Over 5 years he earned over $1 million in revenue from wearing over 1,600 sponsored t-shirts. Following that business, he sold the rights to his last name (he was Jason Headsetsdotcom and Jason Surfrapp for awhile).
Jason joins me to talk about his new project: Buy My Future. Until October 6 people can buy everything he’s ever created, plus everything he’s going to create, for one price.
He explains the motivation behind the project, and how the launch is going so far (including revenue numbers).
Notable quotes:
I’m asking people to buy into my life’s work, with access to everything I’ve ever created, and everything I will ever create.> A lot of people stifle their own creativity to fit in.> It’s ok to be polarizing. It’s ok to cause a stir. Do something different!
Show notes:
- buymyfuture.com
- Jason’s journal: Project Galaxy
- iwearyourshirt.com
- Jason’s book: Creativity for Sale
- Derek’s Sivers post: Saying no
Note from Justin
I had a great time speaking at MicroConf Europe about Marketing for Developers, my new book. Before I left I had over 100 people buy the beta version. The feedback has been really good. Looking forward to doing the official launch in the next 3-5 weeks. Get a sample chapter here!
Want to help the show? If you could go to iTunes leave a nice review that would be superb. Also: if you’re listening on Stitcher, please leave a review on there!
Music: Lethal Force by Striker, visit them at striker-metal.com
Creators and Guests
What is Product People?
A podcast focused on great products and the people who make them
Good golly. Product people, we're back. It's me, Justin Jackson. How are you doing? What are you doing right now?
Speaker 1:Maybe you're up in the North Pole and you're shoveling your sidewalk. Maybe you're driving in the car and it's like insane traffic and this is all you have to spend the time. Whatever reason you're here, I'm glad you're listening to the show. I know we haven't put out episodes in a long time. We had a new episode, not too long ago with Tracy Osborne.
Speaker 1:You can go back and check that out at productpeople.tv. And my friend Jason Zuk is on the program today. Here's a little teaser.
Speaker 2:I'm doing. I'm I'm selling my future. I'm basically wrapping my life's work into one nice neat package so that I can focus on selling one thing per year, and then just moving forward and making the rest of the time, and not having to worry about selling.
Speaker 1:Jason Zuk, he's an interesting guy. I remember hearing about his first project, iwearyourshirt.com back in 02/2008, and he just does things, with products and with marketing and just ideas that are totally out from left field. They're ideas that some people would be too scared or too embarrassed to try, and he's just willing to do it. And I love his perspective. It's completely different than a lot of the stuff you hear these days.
Speaker 1:And I think you guys are gonna love the show. He's really honest about this new project. He's just launched this was day two of of the launch. You can go to buymyfuture.com. That's the project we're talking about in this episode.
Speaker 1:If you've been wondering what I've been up to, I'm still heads down finishing marketing for developers. Just got one of the video tutorials done today for something I call the lean marketing stack. And really excited about how everything is kinda coming along. Right now, the book is in beta, but if you wanna sign up and hear about the launch, justinjackson.ca/marketingfor developers. Alright.
Speaker 1:Enough jibber jab. Let's get into this interview with Jason Zook. I think you guys are gonna love this one. The big takeaway I had was I need to create space and deadlines for the projects that I'm involved in. You'll hear about that in a bit.
Speaker 1:Here we go. Alright. I am live with mister Jason Zuk. How's it going, man?
Speaker 2:Good, Justin. Good.
Speaker 1:It's good. This is the second time we've talked, in audible form. I was, we were just talking before we went live that you and I just missed each other at the Seattle Airport. There's your, there's your tweet right after. And I was sitting at, in the airport, just waiting for my flight.
Speaker 1:I was waiting to go from Seattle to Amsterdam. No. Or was I coming back? I can't remember now. And I hear over the, the airline speakers, Jason Jason Zook, can you report?
Speaker 1:And I was like, I I kinda ignored it. And then there's something in my brain that went, wait a second. Jason Zook? How many Jason Zooks are there that are in the world?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And sure enough, I tweeted you and we just missed each other. You'd just gotten on the plane. I was like probably 20 feet away from you or something like that.
Speaker 2:You were literally, I was in, if people are familiar with the Seattle Airport, I don't know if many people are, but I was in Gate CC and you were in CE. We were gates down from each other. And interestingly enough, I had just walked past CE to go to the restroom. So I heard that coming back and I'm like, oh, I gotta show my passport or whatever I'm doing because I'm American and I'm leaving the country. So I need to do that.
Speaker 2:And then, I just was like standing in line fiddling with my phone as you were on yours. And I see this message like, are you in the Seattle Airport? And I'm like, are you where are you in the Seattle Airport? And we just missed each other. It was so close.
Speaker 2:I had to get on my plane now.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Next time. I do travel quite a bit and I always go through Seattle. So where are you right now? You're in Fresno?
Speaker 2:No. I'm in San Diego. It's probably I don't know. The IP things are always weird, but yes, San Diego.
Speaker 1:San Diego. And you just moved there?
Speaker 2:I did from Florida where I'd lived for the past fifteen years and this is our new home. I'm looking out into a beautiful backyard that no one can see, but just always as fun to describe and it's green and it's warm and it's awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, and this is probably a good time to, show this here. It looks like you had a great time in Canada. This is a scene from you being in Canada looking over the ocean.
Speaker 2:My gosh. We talk about how ridiculously beautiful just all of Canada is?
Speaker 1:It's amazing. Yeah, man. I'm surprised that you didn't move here instead of San Diego. But this is on your new project site. You just launched this yesterday, buymyfuture.com.
Speaker 1:We're going to get to this. Before we talk about this, there's some people, there's just a few, that don't know who you are, but maybe give us the quick rundown of kind of your story, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my greatest hits. Your greatest hits. Yeah, I am best known for being the guy who got paid to wear t shirts for a living for multiple years. So I started a company called iwearyourshirt.com. And for five years, I generated over a million dollars in revenue from wearing over 1,600 sponsored t shirts, which was, this is just crazy to say.
Speaker 2:And if that wasn't ridiculous enough, I sold my last name twice on a website called Buy My Last Name when my mom Skyped me and said she was going through a divorce. And I was left with a last name I no longer wanted. So what do you do? Well I've been the sponsored guy for years. It just felt like the right thing to do.
Speaker 2:So I had two sponsored last names for two years and so now I'm Jason Zook or Zook. It's totally cool if the Canadians say Zook because that is phonetically how it probably
Speaker 1:should Wait be a second. Wait. Hold on. Hold on. Are you saying did I say that wrong?
Speaker 1:It's No. I say I say Jason Zook.
Speaker 2:But that's okay because Paul Jarvis, our mutual friend refuses to say Zook because he's like, no, this is this is how it should be pronounced.
Speaker 1:So I would Zook like we say toque.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Okay. But in American, like a good old fashioned American would say zook.
Speaker 2:Well, of course, because we say everything with like, you know, drawl and everything else is just like, you know, fairly simple and we couldn't possibly pronounce things the way that maybe they would have been in their own country. So,
Speaker 1:but yeah. Why did you choose Zook by the way?
Speaker 2:So after I got done selling my last name, I wrote a book about my entrepreneurial adventures and I got every page in the book sponsored and was able to write an awesome book advance. And through writing that book, I kind of realized, okay, I want some type of legacy. I want some type of name that I can stick with forever. How am I going to pick? And just timing.
Speaker 2:I was staying at my grandparents' house. My grandmother started telling me stories about my great grandfather. She's like, Did you know he was an entrepreneur? And he passed when I was very little. And I said, No.
Speaker 2:She said, He actually won the Nikolai Tesla Award in the early seventies.
Speaker 1:No way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for his work in entrepreneurship and power, and electricity power. And just really cool. And I answered, the more she started talking to me about it, the more I was like, this is the last name I wanna carry forward because it passed with him. So yes, I will be Jason ZookZook, however you'd like to pronounce it, I don't care either way, for the rest of my life now and that is, that's kind of what I want to carry forward.
Speaker 1:And this is what I've always liked about you. The book that you wrote was called Creativity for Sale. And it's a very unique book, because you have always had a very unique approach to doing business, to, you know, even coming up with ideas. And these are the kinds of things I actually remember when I Wear Your Shirt came out and I remember reading about it on TechCrunch or something, and saying, this is ridiculous, this is such a weird idea. And I love that you see the world differently than a lot of people who are running businesses, and a lot of people who are building startups.
Speaker 1:You've always seemed to do things a little bit differently. Is there a reason for that? Like where does that come from?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think especially as this Buy My Future project has come about, I've just really decided that I'm gonna start listening to the thoughts and feelings in my gut. And I have just always felt different. I have always felt unique. And I think a lot of people can sympathize. I think a lot of people have felt that same way, but they push it aside.
Speaker 2:Or they let society or people around them tell them, you're not unique, you're not different. You need to be fit in whatever proverbial box makes sense that everyone can understand and comprehend and that just doesn't cause a stir or a ruckus. Yeah. I've just decided that what's the point in that? Like why just blend in to the middle?
Speaker 2:Why just be a part of everything else that everyone else is doing? Why not do things that are polarizing or unique? And that really like that's when I, I've really found that that lights me up. That gets me so excited to do these crazy ideas because it means that I'm different. It means that I'm not doing things the same way other people are doing.
Speaker 2:And I draw so much value from that. And if people don't, then they shouldn't do those projects. But I think a lot of people find themselves stifling their own creativity to fit in when they should be unleashing their creativity to fit out, which is not a great quotable, but I think you get what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And this is what I want to talk about because I think, you must face some resistance, both like from within yourself and from other people who say this does not fit the pattern. This is not how you're supposed to do things. How do you deal with the resistance?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, so in my ecosystem, right, of like my email list or my friends and family or people that follow me on social media, I have bludgeoned them with weird ideas. So nothing really surprises them anymore, right? Like they don't even, they're just like whatever crazy Jason is gonna come up with stuff. But yeah, with every project that comes out, as it gets spread around or as people talk about it, and even a great example with Buy My Future on Product Hunt yesterday, a bunch of people, and not a bunch, it's funny. The majority of comments, super positive.
Speaker 2:There's a couple people that that, you know, had negative comments. And I think that stuff is is interesting because again, I'm polarizing. I'm doing something that is causing a stir. And if nothing else, if that idea made that person feel a certain way that then they thought somewhere down the road, man, I might wanna do something different than I want. You know, then I I've influenced them in a way that they probably never thought they would be.
Speaker 2:They were just gonna go about their day the same way. And the other thing that I do that I think is just something, I don't know if I learned this over time from people or from just experience, but I tend to look at where feedback comes from. And I tend to be very very decisive about who is this person? Can I go further into who they are on Twitter, who they represent themselves online? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Almost every time from a negative person, they're they're just, they're unhappy with their life. They're not, there's something, they're going through something that has nothing to do with me, but it hits them in that moment that then they react. Yeah. And I actually I'm sure you've gotten emails like this from people too. I like to respond to these negative emails, and I I clearly say it.
Speaker 2:I just write back because I've never been wrong, which is just crazy to me. And I don't mean that in like life. I mean that in this situation. Someone will say, this idea is stupid blah blah. And I write back, I'm sorry for whatever is going on in your life that is making you project this onto me.
Speaker 2:But I know it has nothing to do with this project and I hope you have a better day.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Every everyone, everyone that I've ever done it to, and I can probably twenty, thirty people have all wrote back and said, I'm so sorry, you were right. I'm going through x y z. And I took it out on you because I got this email at the wrong time. No way. And it's insane because it's just, you know, there are people on the internet who aren't gonna respond, who aren't gonna be happy, but I don't know.
Speaker 2:I just found that it really has nothing to do with the crazy thing that I'm doing because it doesn't affect that person's life anyway. It has something to do intrinsically with them. And so now, to get back to your original question, now I just think there's always something else going on. It doesn't have anything to do with me that this person is this angry or doesn't like this idea. So what does it matter?
Speaker 2:It doesn't. Just gonna keep moving forward.
Speaker 1:Okay. Now, so that's dealing with outside resistance, which is really tough. I think that's one thing that people wrestle with. Even before that, a lot of people, what they're scared of is, you know, before they launch, they're just wondering, is this a good idea? There's that internal resistance, especially if you're trying something that's crazy.
Speaker 1:How do you deal with the internal resistance?
Speaker 2:I think that it's, and let me change that. I believe that it is just something that you have to ask yourself, do I want this thing more than I'm afraid of it? And I know that you've gone through that because you've created a bunch of stuff. You've talked about that on the Build and Launch podcast. You've talked about it here on this podcast.
Speaker 2:And you can just tell yourself, okay, yes, I understand these are doubts. I understand these are fears. Some of them are just completely manufactured. Like they come out of nowhere. Why are these here?
Speaker 2:I don't know. You exist as thoughts, you exist as fears, you exist as what ifs. But I want to do this thing more than I'm gonna let those things dictate my decisions. And that's just for me, I don't know, maybe I'm too naive. Maybe I just am, you know, I just don't listen to those thoughts enough.
Speaker 2:And I'm willing to live with the consequences because I just, again, wanted that thing more than I was afraid of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. All right. Now we've teased this kind of around this enough now. Let's talk about this thing that you just launched. Let's talk about Buy My Future.
Speaker 1:Jason, what is Buy My Future?
Speaker 2:You know, like yourself, I'm actually surprised you didn't come up with this before I did. You are the only person I know that creates more stuff than I do. And you go through the same cycles that I have to go to where you wanna create this value exchange where you solve a problem with a product or with a book or with anything and you put that out into the world and you want someone to pay for it so then they can learn how to solve that product or problem. And that's a good value exchange. That works.
Speaker 2:That we realize that that's how you can build businesses online and whatever. But having to do it over and over and over with every product, it feels not congruent to what I love to do. And what I love to do is make. What I love to do is solve these problems. And so I think for me, Buy My Future has become the idea that affords me the ability to say, buy into my life's work, access to everything I've ever created, and everything I ever will create for a one time price of this this two week launch window of a thousand dollars, the first time I've ever tried to sell this.
Speaker 2:And that's it. You'll never pay me again. You'll get eight products guaranteed that I've done before. You'll get six products over the course of the next two years. You get access to a private community of like minded people who are gonna be sharing their struggles.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna be there to help with all these people growing their businesses and everything else. Because I wanna build a small, really tight knit community of action takers, of builders, of creators, of makers who want to put their work out into the world as well. So this is what I'm doing. I'm I'm selling my future. I'm basically wrapping my life's work into one nice neat package so that I can focus on selling one thing per year and then just moving forward and making the rest of the time and not having to worry about selling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, this is a crazy idea. And when you told me this, you know, on one hand, it makes sense. Right? It's it's like, especially actually, it would be interesting to know, like, are with this, do you think it's going to be people who are already your fans and already in your community that are gonna get something like this? Or do you think there's appeal for kind of new people too?
Speaker 2:So here's here's the data that I have just at the moment. So we're we're on day two of Buy My Future being launched. 22 people have purchased, which is amazing because 22 people basically said, sure, I'll go along this crazy ride with you, entrepreneur guy on the internet. Only, I think it's five, it might be six with the last person who purchased, have bought stuff from me before. Wow.
Speaker 2:I was shocked and surprised. But again, we're day two and it's a thousand dollar product. So it's gonna take people longer to think about this purchase, know, to decide if they want to do it. But I've been really surprised at how many people just see the 14 products, 4,500 in value, and the chance that I'm going to just continue to create because it's what I want to do, that that's gonna be worth it for a thousand bucks.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And yeah, so I, I will, I will love to report back to you on this as we go forward. Yeah. On what it ends up looking like towards the end, but that's where it sits right now.
Speaker 1:Because it seems like a perfect thing for a super fan. Yeah. Like if, if someone was like following your work forever and they've been, you know, they loved your work with I wear your shirt and they loved your video shows and they loved, you know, your book and to feel like, okay, well I already love everything you've put out. It's kind of like saying like, you know, Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker saying, we're gonna put out a fan club and you're gonna get every album we make in the future and every album we've made in the past, which is interesting. Actually, there's probably other people that can copy this model, which as an aside let's just go on the for an aside here.
Speaker 1:That's something that's happened a lot with you. You've like broken ground and then people have, you know, people, the initial response is people say, oh, you're crazy. And then the next thing you know, there's a bunch of people, you know, it too. Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people have had similar ideas to what I've had. I mean, I've had people email me with every idea that they're like, oh, I had this idea or whatever. You were just the one who executed it, right? I was the one who went from the idea to the execution. And I think sometimes that removes the fear or the doubt from other people because they see, okay, that's actually a thing that's proven.
Speaker 2:And then they put their own twist on it. You know, they put their own unique thing on it, which I think is great. I think more people should do bigger, crazier, more audacious projects. Maybe you're afraid to pave the way. You look at someone like me and you go, okay, this crazy guy's gonna do it first.
Speaker 2:Let me learn from him. But yeah, I when I came up with this idea a couple months ago, again, like there's people who have sold lifetime access to things and lifetime subscriptions and other stuff in different ways. I don't think it's ever been done specifically for like an entrepreneur or someone's work. But I hope other people do it because I think that it will alleviate a lot of the pressure intention that us as creators feel for the marketing process, for the selling process, for the promotion process. And that if they create their own ability to, you know, have their future purchase once they build up a kind of a collective of work, then it could be a really easy thing for them to do.
Speaker 2:And it's just the one thing they sell.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And now I think, what are you hoping to do? Like how much revenue are you hoping to do on this launch? Do you have a number in mind or what are you thinking?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did a sixty day lead up journal to this project because I wanted to basically strip away all of the, like the unknowns that go into a big project like this. I wanted people to see exactly what I was doing. So on Medium, I wrote a daily journal every day under the code name Project Galaxy, which was fun. And in that I wrote, I think it was on day one, a 100 people to buy was my low goal and a thousand people to buy was my high goal. And I put an asterisk next to that thousand people because I don't even know that I really want that many people to buy my future.
Speaker 2:Yes, it sounds amazing to make a million dollars off of this thing, but that's a lot of people that I have to now service and, you know, spend time with and give access to. I would rather keep it smaller. So we're gonna see by the end of this how many it actually does. I'm actually like, between us and the small group of the Internet that's listening to this, if it ended tomorrow, 22 would be fantastic. Because now I can give them an amazing amount of my time.
Speaker 2:I can still sell my products going forward individually if I need to. I can still sell my future going forward. But I'm hopeful and pretty confident that I'll be able to get to that 100 number by the end of
Speaker 1:Yeah. Wow. And so, and what do you feel like, because the, you know, you've just launched and launching is very emotional. How did you feel about that initial 22? You must have and how long did it take for the first person to buy?
Speaker 1:I one thing I keep thinking about this is like, you know, with bigger purchases like this, I usually talk them over with my wife. And I was like, how would this conversation go with my wife? Like, if I was like, okay. So there's this guy, Jason. His name used to be Jason Surfer App, and before that was Jason Headsets.
Speaker 1:Anyway, that's not important. He wants to, okay. Well, first of all, he's made a bunch of things before. He used to wear shirts. Oh, that's not important either.
Speaker 1:Okay. He's selling his future for a thousand dollars. Can I buy it?
Speaker 2:I am dying. I am die I'm holding back the laughter of this because it's true. Right? I mean, that's the the context that goes into this is layers deep on this stuff. To getting back to your question about like, how did it feel?
Speaker 2:I mean, you know what it's like, and I think a lot of people listening to this know what it's like to be heads down building. And that feels very kind of closed off. You know, there's not a lot of outside interference. You're just doing the work, doing the thing and it's tiring and it takes a lot out of you. And it got to the point yesterday when this launched, it was like 06:56AM before my email was gonna go out, before Product Hunt was gonna put it up, before I was gonna tweet it and share it on Facebook and whatever.
Speaker 2:And I'm just sitting there and I have all this tension and I have all this emotion, like you said, just rushing through me. And 07:00 hit and it just was like, ah, you know, I can finally let go because now there's really nothing more I can do. It's out of my hands. It's out of my control. No one knew what it was before that moment when it went out into the world.
Speaker 2:Except for I did some customer calls, so about 50 people knew what it was. But the grand majority. And that was so relieving. Was so nice to finally let that just go. And yeah, so when the first purchase came in, it was actually fifteen minutes after it went live.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And that was surprising. It was a person I didn't know. It was a person that was on my email list that I hadn't talked to before in any correspondence whatsoever. And that was cool because that really showed right away. Okay, people get this, they see what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 2:I thought that this was a good idea. Now someone else has said, yes, this is a good idea. And then throughout the day, you know, other purchases started to come in. And by the end of the day, I just was, I was so relieved. You know, I just, everything, I could just kind of let everything go and just say, whew, I made it.
Speaker 2:You know, like I put this thing out into the world, people believed in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think there is this also, there is this practicality about it. Someone in the chat just asked if you were selling all of your past and future products the normal way as well. And it sounds like you are.
Speaker 2:I could. So here's the thing that's interesting for me. Depending on how many people buy this, I wanna spend as much time as possible with those people. Because those people have basically said, I believe in you, Jason. I believe in your future.
Speaker 2:I'm investing in you. But I'm also looking at this as an investment in me. And so I wanna spend time with them. So if I think if I get enough people, which I think is that like 100, somewhere between a hundred and two hundred people, I can kind of throw up my hands and go, I don't have to sell a single thing for the next year. I can close pretty much everything down sales wise, and I can focus on building and creating, and work my way up to selling again next year, and just invest in those people.
Speaker 2:That's what I would love to do. Now if it doesn't sell those, then sure, I can sell all my stuff like I have been, like we all know. I can make the money that I need to make. That'll totally work.
Speaker 1:Yep. Have you had a chance to talk to any of these initial people yet and just say like, why, why'd you buy? Cause there's so many ways to kind of cut this product. Again, going back to that conversation, that myth, that, that, mythological conversation with my wife, I could say, you know, for sure, I'm going to get 14 things that he's made. You know, this is what I've already paid in the past buying Jason's stuff.
Speaker 1:Also it looks like I get access to this private community. I'm going to get access to Jason's time. There's a lot of kind of ways you could slice this. Like maybe some people are just buying it for, you know, your time. Maybe some people are buying it because they want all the products in the current catalog.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Any insights into why people are buying it?
Speaker 2:So interesting enough, while you were talking, I had my phone next to me, someone just bought my future, which is such a cool thing to be able to say that I just wanted to be able to say it out loud. So that's fantastic. I just had to bring that up. I am, yeah, I think that there's some really just interesting caveats to this. There's some interesting ways that people are looking at this that are thinking about it.
Speaker 2:And I don't know, I just, I really want people to make an informed decision based on where they see the value, where they see what's going on. And so the people that I have talked to, sorry, long winded way to get around to that. People that I have talked to have said, if they know me, and I've talked to three or four of them, mostly just through like Twitter DMs or through email, they felt like it was the greatest value they'll ever get for my work. And they say, from your track record, I know you're gonna create. I know you're gonna come up with something.
Speaker 2:You're gonna come up with another project that I'm just gonna totally win on because I bought a thousand bucks. Mhmm. And you know, and then I had another person who bought who said, oh, I was looking at Tea Tree, which is an online course platform that's $49 per month. So it's $588 per year. Like I was actually looking at Tea Tree and then one of your courses, those two things alone are worth a thousand dollars.
Speaker 2:So it was a no brainer for me. I just like the rest of this stuff I may or may not use, but that alone was was the value. And then I had one guy who was a super fan and and I I love that, you totally get that and what that means because I don't wanna come off as, I don't douchey when I say that. But he was like, I just wanted to support you. Wanted to support crazy vision because you do so many of these crazy things.
Speaker 2:And it just made sense to me that I kind of was sponsoring you, which felt cool to me. So yeah, those are the different things I've heard so far.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And if you do look at it, yeah, they get a bunch of, they get eight projects you've already made, six projects guaranteed here. So Level Up Your Business, which is gonna be a course it looks like. Yep. Community Choice, which is also gonna be a course.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'm gonna do six products over the next two years, two courses, two web apps, and two books. And one of each of those, I want the community, the Buy My Future community to help me build. I basically wanna say, what do you guys need? What are your biggest problems?
Speaker 2:What are your biggest things? And then kind of vote on them together and say, oh, cool. There's some overlap here. Let's build this thing to help the community. And then, hey, if I wanna put that out into the world, could sell that as well.
Speaker 1:There is a there is kind of a this is similar to a Kickstarter campaign in some ways. In that a Kickstarter campaign, you say, you know, I'm I'm gonna build this thing. And then you have ways for people to support it. People support it for different reasons. Some people are super fans.
Speaker 1:Some people just want the utility out of that thing. It kind of feels like that way, doesn't it? It's like a Kickstarter, but you know that whoever buys in is really bought in.
Speaker 2:Yeah. My roommate Clay Abert is like, he's like the crowdfunding guy. Like everybody goes to him. He's helped so many projects raise so many millions of dollars. And we're doing like a little co hosted webinar for his community and he's basically pitching it as like the most unique crowdfunding project you'll hear about this year.
Speaker 2:Because it's true. It's people preordering my work. It's people opting into the different levels, the different things. But interestingly enough, everyone's just paying the same price. There's just the one price that you can pay, which by the way, is that thousand dollars will never be offered again.
Speaker 2:Like next year, I'm gonna have probably three to four more products together. If we ever build something together, which we've been talking about via email multiple times, if that's included, now there's even more value with someone else who gets attached to these products and these things. So yeah, it's going be really interesting to see just how this kind of grows over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And actually on that topic, Josh Doody here in the chat says $1,000 seems like kind of a low, kind of low for the type of access he's granting and the commitment he's making. How did he arrive at that number?
Speaker 2:You know, Josh, that's a fantastic question. And I've had a lot of, okay, not a lot. I've had a handful of people say, you're underselling yourself. Like this stuff is worth so much more than you're charging. And my answer to that is, number one, it sucks that we've gotten to a society where we can't get things that are too good to be true.
Speaker 2:That things just aren't way more value than what you pay. That kind of stinks. So I'm I'm glad that I'm actually offering something like that. And the other part of that to me is, I looked at, the way that I came to that number was I looked at my customers. I have about 2,000 customers of all of my products over the years.
Speaker 2:And I looked at the data and saw, okay, how many people have purchased multiple products? What's the total value, maximum lifetime customer value of those people? Well, it was less than 5% of my customers spent a thousand dollars or more. Less than 5%. So that got me to thinking, okay, I probably can't charge much more than a thousand bucks, but a thousand dollars is a clean enough number.
Speaker 2:It's a number where people, you don't have to say like, oh, $5, well that's, you know, that's a big decision for my life. You know, a thousand bucks is something that a lot of people, and there's a payment plan four months at $2.50 per month, that can be really affordable for the solopreneurs, the entrepreneurs, the makers who don't have a ton of cash, but they want to invest in a community and a bunch of products. So yeah, that was kind of how I thought about it. And then I also just said, what would I pay for this? And I thought I would probably pay a thousand bucks for this and feel comfortable and not feel like, okay, now I really need to, what am I getting?
Speaker 2:Like I have to look at every detail.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And his, his follow-up comment is, and this is totally valid, is he says, I've seen other entrepreneurs make big promises and then renege as they've become more visible and as the pressure and expectations begin to build. Do you feel a lot of pressure to deliver, you know, these these future product projects? Are you concerned about burnout or expectation fatigue?
Speaker 2:No. I so it's easy to describe people as artists, musicians, etcetera. I don't think I have a descriptor that fits me easily. But the one thing I know and I have learned about myself, I am an executor, which sounds morbid and scary, but it's not, I promise you. I get things done.
Speaker 2:I wrote my book in two weeks. I built my entire online course in two weeks. The course that was twelve hours of video and like 20 lessons and a bunch of other stuff. I get things done. That is something that just within me, I think my mom kind of like bludgeoned that into me when I was a little kid.
Speaker 2:You gotta get your plate clean, you gotta get your room clean, you gotta get your chores done. I am very much a doer. And so I have no worries that I'm going to deliver on what I've said. And actually people who buy will be surprised I think when they get in there because there's some under promise and over deliver stuff that you get right away. That's not advertised on the front page.
Speaker 2:There's a plan that I have in place once this buying period ends of me sending a physical box of things to people who have purchased, which they don't even know is coming. This is the first time I've probably said that publicly.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:I'm building in extra things because I wanna over deliver 10 x. I want to I just want people to feel, holy crap, Jason took care of me. Because I'm thinking, wow, these people bet on me. These people believed in my future. I need to reward them and and I will do that continuously and as much as I can.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. And actually, I just want to go back to something you just said about you being an executor.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:How did how do you do that? Like the I was just reading this, post by Derek Sivers today. He talks about Steven Pressfield, who wanted to write a book forever and, was never able to do it. And then, Derek says he created the situation with no escape. He rented a cabin with only a typewriter and shut off all other options.
Speaker 1:And I think we've all been in that period of time where we know we're not producing anything, we're not shipping anything. How do you get yourself out of that funk? How do you, you know, write a book in two weeks?
Speaker 2:Yeah, specifically for the book, I did exactly that. I turned off my email, I mean, the best way that you can, which is basically just to put an automatic reply up and say, I'm not answering email for the next two weeks. If you have something urgent, send me a text or give me a phone call and nothing ever happens. No one ever has anything urgent that they're emailing you about. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's amazing how you think that is, but it's not. Yeah. I took a break from social media. So I turned off Twitter, I turned off Facebook. I think Instagram is the only thing I checked because it's just a nice way to kind of let your mind escape.
Speaker 2:And I just focused on doing the work. And I also made sure that I was never having blank cursor syndrome. So I never sat down specifically for writing. I never sat down and looked at a blank document. As soon as that document was open, I was typing.
Speaker 2:Even if it was gibberish, even if it was, I'm at my standing desk right now, I'm staring at my microphone, I'm talking to Justin, whatever. Because starting that thing would get the momentum going. Once the momentum is going, then you can get into whatever zone you need to get into or talk about whatever thing you need to get into. And so I found that for me, every single day I sat down and I would write for either an hour or two or ten minutes. And then I would just do something to distract myself for a little while or get some exercise.
Speaker 2:Not just consume a bunch of content online, but focus just on the the things that I could do that figured creation would come out of them. And that's what I focused on. Yeah. And so Buy My Future was that way too. Know, when I was building this just quickly, I didn't sell anything for the past since July 1.
Speaker 2:Sold nothing. None of my products are for sale. I turned off all the buy buttons. I turned off everything because I didn't want to be distracted. I wanted to focus only on this project and make sure that I created the best project I could with no distractions.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that is so hard. And I think, you know, one thing that for me is because I've got, you know, I've got a bunch of kids and I've got a family and I've got some consulting work and all that stuff. Sometimes for me, what creates that pressure is just like, okay, I've got an hour right now and I've got to do it. But even for me, I'd like to get better at, I've noticed ever since I got back from Europe, actually, momentum's gone and a lot of it is just my days are just spent like checking Twitter and looking for these little kind of rewards.
Speaker 1:A lot of it is just turning that stuff off.
Speaker 2:You know what I think you need to psychoanalyze you on your own podcast and on this Yes. Live You need built in accountability. And you know where you got that the best? Build and launch. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You put out more work, you put out more things. Know you also drained yourself and you were super tired and everything. So you'd have to figure out a way that it worked better. But when you had those set deadlines, you were getting your work done and it was So I think everybody needs to find their own build and launch. Everyone needs to find their own way that they are the most productive or they get the most things done and then just do those and build those into your habits.
Speaker 2:You know, you have a whole bundle of children. You have, you know, a family. You have all this other stuff. But okay, so how can I carve out the time where I'm accountable to it? And then, you know, for you putting it out there publicly makes it very accountable that you don't wanna stop doing that thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, totally. I felt like that for sure. That, that was one nice thing about having like, okay, I'm going to deliver every week. And it was just like, you, you, what was it? I announced on Thursday and I ship on Friday or something.
Speaker 1:I can't remember what it was, but yeah, that was very helpful. And even that rhythm of, you know, just doing it every week. Yeah, I gotta, I gotta think about that.
Speaker 2:I like to set dates as well for my project. So, you know, for by my future, I just arbitrarily picked September 22. Yeah. There's no special date in my mind. There's no I just said that's far enough away that I'll have plenty of time.
Speaker 2:It's not too far away. Well, I'll I'll procrastinate and I won't get it done. But I can work up to that. And you know, as soon as you start to get close to it, then you get into crunch mode. Then you get into, oh crap, I should have done a lot more stuff.
Speaker 2:I didn't do it. But at least I have some time. Like I can see the deadline ahead of me. And I made it public. I made it very public because I wanted that in, you know, that intrinsic accountability to be there where I didn't want to let people down.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to let myself down. And that's really important. I find that that motivates me with every project I do.
Speaker 1:That's great advice. I think that is the number one question I get is how do I, you know, stop procrastinating? How do I get going? I really like that. So, here's a question from Sarah.
Speaker 1:She says there doesn't seem to be a refund policy in place for, in in the event that Jason gets beamed away by aliens in the near future. Should we take out life insurance policies on him after our purchase?
Speaker 2:I love this question. This is hilarious. I was on James Altucher's podcast and he asked me live, he was like, could I take out a life insurance policy on you? Like, because I've invested in your future. And I said, you do that and report back to me if that works out for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, think that, Sarah, it's a great question. It's a viable question. The way that I've positioned it is, you're guaranteed stuff that exists already. Eight projects, eight products that are already there that are worth, you know, $2,500. So even if tomorrow I get beamed away to Jupiter, you guys never hear from me again, you get your you get value.
Speaker 2:There's there's value given. But I eat a lot of kale these days. I exercise a lot. You can look at my Instagram. I'm hiking constantly.
Speaker 2:Justin can attest to this. I wanna stay healthy. I wanna live to be 150 years old. I just wanna keep doing and so you guys can count on the fact that I'm not going anywhere for as much as I can control, and I'm really excited to just keep building things.
Speaker 1:There is another good question here from Mark Kuhlberger from The Netherlands.
Speaker 2:Thank you for pronouncing his name. I never knew how.
Speaker 1:I I, Well, I was with him in Barcelona quite a bit and he always laughed when I said his last name. I'm not sure if I'm getting it right. But he makes a good point here. He says, it seems like coming up with clever revenue models is one of Jason's strengths and passions. How does Buy My Future tie in to considering, tie in, considering it will remove the need for exactly those things?
Speaker 1:What motivates you to keep going when the hard part is already taken care of?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. I I'm constantly coming up with these ideas, right? I mean, we talked about it in the beginning. When I came up with I Wear Your Shirt, I think I thought that was gonna be my thing forever. And then when I came up with Buy My Last Name, it's like, okay, that's gonna be my last crazy idea.
Speaker 2:Then I came up with sponsor my book, and I'm like, okay, alright, we're getting on the third one. Now I'm at Buy My Future, I'm not gonna run out of ideas. I look at the world differently. I'm constantly challenged and inspired by people who do the same, And I know that I'm just gonna continue to do that as much as possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, Jason, I love this. I love that you're trying this out. It's it's crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 1:The the funny thing is like, especially I'm thinking about bands, like a band, this would be a great model for a band to use on their stuff. So yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes. Congrats on the launch. You've got another, so folks, at the time of recording, there's twelve days left. When's the deadline?
Speaker 1:When can people buy your future up until?
Speaker 2:You have until October 6 to convince your wife that you can buy my future, Justin.
Speaker 1:October 6. And I also just noticed that people can do four payments of $250 too.
Speaker 2:Yes. And there's no incentive one way or the other. I just wanted it to be simple and easy. If you need a payment plan, can do a payment plan. If you can buy it one time, buy it one time and pay it off.
Speaker 2:Interest free. Interest free. My future Yeah. Is interest
Speaker 1:Well, great, man. Thanks so much for your time.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Hot damn. That guy is crazy, and I love it. This is a model that other people might be able to use. You know? I I kept thinking about bands or any kind of other independent creator that's making things.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're making a bunch of apps. Maybe you're making, I don't know, a bunch of icons and just saying, you know, you can buy everything I'm going to create forever. And, basically, what you're trying to capture as the creator is the lifetime value of everything you'll create. So if most customers are gonna spend about a thousand dollars over their lifetime, why not get all of that value upfront and then not have to worry about selling anymore? We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1:Jason's gonna keep us up to date. Like he said, he's already done $22,000 here on by day two. And, yeah, we'll see what happens. You can follow him online. I wear your shirt is his Twitter name.
Speaker 1:You can follow me as well. I'm the letter M, the letter I, Justin. M I Justin. And if you wanna hear more from me, you can subscribe to my newsletter, JustinJackson. CANewsletter.
Speaker 1:See you later.