The Startup Ideas Pod

I’m joined by Jordan Mix, Operating Partner at Late Checkout, to discuss some of the best business ideas on his mind: a productivity app that will kill Notion, the “upside down” desktop app, a brand-in-a-box service for internet-native companies, and so much more.

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Creators & Guests

Host
GREG ISENBERG
I build internet communities and products for them. CEO: @latecheckoutplz, we're behind companies like @youneedarobot @boringmarketer @dispatchdesign etc.

What is The Startup Ideas Pod?

This is the startup ideas podcast. Hosted by Greg Isenberg (CEO Late Checkout, ex-advisor of Reddit, TikTok etc).

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Jordan [00:00:00]:
Have you seen this dude, Martin Reese? He's the water sommelier. He worked in a restaurant or like in the restaurant industry for like 20 years. He's blown up on socials now.

Greg Isenberg [00:00:10]:
So I've actually seen this guy on TikTok. I saw him go into a Costco like, review different waters. And that just goes to show you, like, you can be whoever you want to be.

Jordan [00:00:20]:
Yeah.

Greg Isenberg [00:00:20]:
That's why branding and naming is so important, is you want to brand and name yourself something that people think of you and they're like, oh, I need a water sommelier, I need a sleep sommelier. And we're live. But we're actually not live on the where it happens podcast.

Jordan [00:00:37]:
Are we not.

Greg Isenberg [00:00:39]:
Rip the where it happens podcast? We have a new name.

Jordan [00:00:44]:
Let's hear it.

Greg Isenberg [00:00:45]:
The startup ideas podcast.

Jordan [00:00:49]:
Wow.

Greg Isenberg [00:00:50]:
Now I know what you're thinking. You're like, you couldn't come up with a better name than that. And that's the whole point of the name. There's a million podcasts out there talking, interviews, interviewing entrepreneurs. But I noticed that we just kept talking about startup ideas on this podcast. So I figured, let's name it. When you think of startup ideas, when you think about getting your creative juices flowing, you're going to come to the Startup Ideas podcast. And Jordan, it's great to have you here chatting some ideas with me today.

Jordan [00:01:23]:
It's great to be here. Startup ideas podcast. Take a sip.

Greg Isenberg [00:01:28]:
Take a sip. Yeah, I mean, I want these conversations to be more like jams. Like startup idea jams. Like we have them all the time, where we're kind of like, hey, I saw this thing on Twitter, this huge opportunity in XYZ. What do you think about that? Or just these random ideas? You and I are both startup idea junkies, so this podcast is for people like us. And my hope is that people take these ideas and run with them.

Jordan [00:01:58]:
That's the beauty of it. One idea will trigger the other ideas too, you know?

Greg Isenberg [00:02:03]:
Exactly.

Jordan [00:02:04]:
Yeah. There's a big trend that I'm noticing just in social content and across the board, people's desires to just be a fly on the wall and where it happens. How did that feel of being in a room where you're not supposed to be, but being a fly on the wall for jams ideas, sparking ideas. I'm excited to see where this goes and have the conversations continue in the comments sections on YouTube and maybe success stories. People starting ideas from the startup ideas podcast.

Greg Isenberg [00:02:36]:
Alright, so cheers to you. I got a coffee or something, a bottle of water, plastic water. Mister microplastics himself. Jordan mix on the pod.

Jordan [00:02:51]:
I didn't want to be this guy, but Saratoga was all sold out because the microplastics are too trendy. So I'm a microplastic man today, unfortunately.

Greg Isenberg [00:03:03]:
Did you see liveoasis.com? Live oasis?

Jordan [00:03:08]:
Oh, what is this?

Greg Isenberg [00:03:10]:
So I think it was Sampar who tweeted it. It's a directory of water. So I just pulled up the website. Do you know what's in your water? 90% of your water contains toxins, microplastics and other contaminants. And then you can go and see, like, there's erewhon spring water, castle rock water. You know, you can click into it.

Jordan [00:03:30]:
There's my Saratoga boom. Oh, no.

Greg Isenberg [00:03:34]:
But it'll tell you, like, how much, you know, the microplastics, what are the contaminants and how to buy it. What do you think about this business?

Jordan [00:03:41]:
Yeah, I'm checking out my Saratoga spring water, which I've been on recently, and I'm sad that it's all locked behind paywalled content, but I don't think this is the best way to monetize this business. But I really like what they're doing here. It's really clean, clean directory. And they have the tap water ratings, too.

Greg Isenberg [00:04:00]:
Yeah. So for $10 a month, you can unlock all the data, the ratings, the research. There's AI search, personalized recommendations. So these are one of these. Like, I'm happy that this exists, but it should be unpaywalled because I just think that it's not like you're switching water that often, right? Like you're. You're a Saratoga person or you're a, what is it? Mountain Valley water, spring water person. So you want to know what your contaminants are in your, in your daily water, but you know, you're not going to keep it for five years. So my question to you is, if you are running this, how would you monetize it?

Jordan [00:04:44]:
Yeah, let's jam on that. So this is a sprint toward monetization. But there's a bunch of, there's a bunch of things you can do here. I mean, an affiliate is one way to do it, which is pretty obvious. But another thing you can do is upsell a report based on your water resource. I know that the tap water locally, you could get a lead magnet report and then match someone to come out and test your water at your house. I was at Costco once, and these guys were basically trying to get me to bring tap water back to them to Costco to show me that there was a bunch of hard metals and stuff, tap water. And they, they basically sold a $9,000, like, water softening system that they put into your house.

Jordan [00:05:43]:
And that was an eye opening experience. It was like a $300 test report and then a $9,000 like, system. And I think that would be a really use this site as the top of funnel and monetize it with back end services based on the information that you provide. What do you think about that?

Greg Isenberg [00:06:03]:
Yeah, I mean, the problem with water is you're not spending a lot of money on water. You know, if you go to the website, it shows like, different filters that you can buy that are hundreds of dollars and doing affiliate to that. Like, that's obviously where more of the money is. I actually get, have you heard of alive water?

Jordan [00:06:23]:
Uh uh.

Greg Isenberg [00:06:24]:
So alivewaters.com. So I get this delivered to my house in Miami, and they've got a whole good shtick with, like, it's alive water. And I don't even know what that means. Like, there's some, like, I honestly have no idea. Like, I'm trying to read that. Like, what I, you know, certain water is dead. Certain. I don't know, apparently, like, the alive water is good for you.

Greg Isenberg [00:06:49]:
I don't know if I'm getting fleeced or whatever, but yeah, probably.

Jordan [00:06:55]:
I think it's like, from a spring, it looks like, like living, you know, like moving, I guess.

Greg Isenberg [00:07:00]:
Exactly. So that's, that's the thing. And you get these really cool looking jugs. They kind of look like crystal jugs. Do you see them?

Jordan [00:07:12]:
Yeah, I'm in.

Greg Isenberg [00:07:14]:
And they have these trucks that deliver it and these, like, guys who deliver it. They look like they're from, they all look like they're from Venice, California. They're like, wearing, like, fedoras and, like, ponchos and stuff like that. Like, they're very, like, in touch with themselves. They're like these good looking guys, and they come and they put, you know, do the water delivery. Anyways, that's my life now, and we spend a lot of money on it. So I wonder if you can just sell, you can sell those leads basically to someone like a livewater.

Jordan [00:07:51]:
You can also make products that, I mean, they've got these crystal jugs, but there's other form factors that you could make and sell as well, or partner with some artists or something and do some collab vessels and make your water feel like art and have it be a talking piece in the home I think that I'm big into those things right now.

Greg Isenberg [00:08:12]:
Yeah, it is. It is a talking piece. Like, people. People show up to my apartment, they're like, whoa, what is that, like, weird looking crystal water thing? Oh, let me tell you about a live water.

Jordan [00:08:22]:
Yeah.

Greg Isenberg [00:08:23]:
You know, so let me tell you why I'm an idiot for spending hundreds of dollars a month on water.

Jordan [00:08:31]:
Is your water dead? What do you mean?

Greg Isenberg [00:08:34]:
Your water's dead, bro.

Jordan [00:08:37]:
Yeah. Have you seen this dude? Martin's. Martin Reese.

Greg Isenberg [00:08:43]:
No.

Jordan [00:08:44]:
He's the water sommelier.

Greg Isenberg [00:08:46]:
No. Where's this guy been my whole life?

Jordan [00:08:49]:
I know he worked in a restaurant or, like, in the restaurant industry for, like, 20 years. He's blowing up on socials now, and I guess he has a film I'm looking at right now, but he literally is a sommelier of water. I didn't know that this was a thing until I saw Martin the water sommelier.

Greg Isenberg [00:09:09]:
So I've actually seen this guy on TikTok. So I think he. I saw him, like, go into a Costco and, like, review different waters. I didn't know he was a water sommelier. And that just goes to show you, like, you can be whoever you want to be. I guess the trend that people can take away from here is sommelier for x. Like, what's something that requires some curation and expertise but that you can be that sommelier so that people can come to you.

Jordan [00:09:41]:
The carbon monoxide sommelier.

Greg Isenberg [00:09:46]:
Exactly.

Jordan [00:09:48]:
Do you sleep with your door closed in your room?

Greg Isenberg [00:09:51]:
I'll give you sleep sommelier is just, like, a no brainer. Huge idea.

Jordan [00:09:55]:
Layup.

Greg Isenberg [00:09:56]:
Like, are you kidding me? I can't even believe we're giving that away for free here.

Jordan [00:10:01]:
So, like, tap in birdie for the masters this week.

Greg Isenberg [00:10:04]:
Totally. Like, if I'm eight, sleep. Like, I'm creating an Instagram Twitter account. I'm hiring a creator in house. It's the sleep sommelier, brought to you by eight. Sleep. Like, come on.

Jordan [00:10:17]:
I mean, is this. Is this pod over?

Greg Isenberg [00:10:21]:
Yeah, we're done here. Like, that idea is just too good.

Jordan [00:10:25]:
Because there's all these baby sleep coaches. When new parents get baby sleep coaches, there's no adult sleep coaches. Someone that could analyze. I guess there is, but I don't know about them.

Greg Isenberg [00:10:36]:
Well, I think it's just about branding yourself as that person. I mean, even what I'm doing with this pod, it's like, okay, the startup ideas pod. I want people to think my creative juice is falling. Bam. I'm gonna go, like, listen, you know, I'm commuting for 30 minutes. I'm gonna go put on Greg for a bit. That's why branding and naming is so important, is you want to brand and name yourself something that people think of you when they're, when they have the need, and they're like, oh, I need a water sommelier. I need a sleep sommelier.

Jordan [00:11:06]:
And podcasts don't really do that. Like, they all have cute, really cute names.

Greg Isenberg [00:11:12]:
Yeah, well, it's all like the Joe Rogan experience Lex Friedman podcast. It's very personal, brand driven.

Jordan [00:11:19]:
Right.

Greg Isenberg [00:11:21]:
You're starting to see a few, like, diary of a CEO. I mean, that's just like, I don't love that name, personally. Just putting it out there, like, yeah, it just seems so. I love. I think he does an incredible job on his pod. Like, incredible. And he's an amazing interviewer, and his sets are amazing. And he's a, he's a professional versus, like, someone like me who's an amateur.

Greg Isenberg [00:11:50]:
But I will say, like, just diary of the CEO does not connect with me at all.

Jordan [00:11:55]:
I just, like, very much like people trying to figure out routines and processes and the story behind the diary.

Greg Isenberg [00:12:02]:
Like, when I think of diary, I think of, like, dear diary.

Jordan [00:12:05]:
Yeah, I don't want to write a diary.

Greg Isenberg [00:12:07]:
Yeah, I'm not dear diary. Like, I interviewed Jordan today, and he didn't laugh at my joke. So, yes, going back to it, I think, like, yes, having the name, owning that expertise, really important, and thinking about, like, as a framework sommelier fracks. I think with going back to live Oasis, I think it's, on one hand, I don't like the business, because when you start a business, you like this. You don't want to be selling $20 or $40 a month worth of product. You want high ticket stuff. So I don't love that. But I think it could transition into more high ticket stuff, like, if they do more high end subscriptions, if they do more high end water products.

Greg Isenberg [00:12:54]:
But if I was running this, here's how I would change it. I think the bigger trend in movement is around clean. Everyone talks about cleaning. Clean is our generation's version of low fat. In the eighties and nineties, everyone was talking about low fat, low fat this, low fat that. That's why diet Cola got so big. Then there was just low fat sections within grocery stores. But then we realized that, turns out a lot of that stuff was not good for us.

Greg Isenberg [00:13:24]:
Aspartame not that good for us. Super low is not that good. Not that good for us. So now we're in this conscious world where clean things are good for us and you're either clean or you're dirty. If I was live oasis, I would be building the directory of clean. That's a huge opportunity and I would never have a paywall, like, build that SEO juice.

Jordan [00:13:45]:
I love it. Yeah. Run the ACP framework on it.

Greg Isenberg [00:13:48]:
Just, and just explain what the ACP.

Jordan [00:13:50]:
Framework is for people who don't know audience, community, product. So building a, build the audience, the directory of clean. People can see the directory of clean and subscribe to the directory of clean. And then maybe there's like a clean badge or like a clean coin or some momentum that you get or memento that you get and you get involved in this like, community. And then the products can be all the things that we talked about, affiliates and selling services or upselling other people's leads or systems. So yeah, I'm frustrated at this paywall. Like, I checked out it and I was like immediately I churned. So I'm just mad.

Greg Isenberg [00:14:34]:
Yeah, totally cool. So what startup ideas are on your mind right now?

Jordan [00:14:43]:
We got a couple simple ones around productivity, some low hanging fruit macOS apps. I'm really frustrated with notion and it's just very big and clunky and I don't enjoy opening it. Do you like notion?

Greg Isenberg [00:15:02]:
I sigh because I wish I want to like it. Like notion is like WhatsApp for me. You know, like I, I log on to WhatsApp and I'm like, I want to like this, but it feels like Android. It's the best way to describe it. And what I don't like about notion is for me it's like slow and I need fast. So I use notion to write startup ideas I have and content ideas I have. So I have this running these two running lists that are super, super long. And when I open it up, it's just slow and then it just ruins my flow.

Greg Isenberg [00:15:39]:
So I've been actually using more of Google Docs, Apple notes, and then I use notion just because late checkout uses notion and I want to see everything. But yeah, we pay thousands of dollars a month for notion. Like two, three, I don't know. Thousand a month. It's crazy.

Jordan [00:15:56]:
Yeah, I just wish I liked using it more. I did. Used to love it. And then, yeah, slow, clunky, the formatting and stuff. And then I've started using apple notes as well. Cause it's so quick fast. But the thing about notes is they need to be readable and digestible so you can reference them. And that's my gripe with apple notes is it takes like 20 clicks to format something.

Jordan [00:16:18]:
So I really want there to be an Apple notes version that is lightweight notion. Like, if notion and Apple notes got together and basically created an mvp to make beautiful, readable notes, nothing more, I would use that in a heartbeat. And I think a lot of people would use that as well.

Greg Isenberg [00:16:37]:
I think having an AI piece to that where it just takes your notes, like notion could build this, where it just takes your notes and just puts it in a zone with a lot less clutter and just like, formats it. But they're probably not going to build it.

Jordan [00:16:52]:
Yeah. So I think what James clear just put out with his Adams Habit app, I think there could be this lightweight, flexible app that basically just had toggles, some headings, and maybe even like AI for formatting too. So you can kind of train the app on how you format your notes. And you could basically have these things shorthand formatted, like how you do headings, how you do bullets, et cetera. I just love my notes to be really dialed and have pictures and colors and things, because that makes me actually go back to read them.

Greg Isenberg [00:17:28]:
Yeah, exactly. I go into notion and it's just like, it's like a wall of text and it gives me like some anxiety. So, and the thing about notion and a lot of these tools is that it puts the onus on the user to create the headlines, to bold certain things. And I think the future of content creation tools and productivity tools is the machine should know what you're thinking and should automatically format things. Formatting will be a thing of the past. It'll auto format things for you, and then you can just edit and realize, oh, hey, you know, I wanted to make this bold and it was italicized.

Jordan [00:18:09]:
Yeah, that'd be beautiful.

Greg Isenberg [00:18:11]:
That'd be beautiful, right?

Jordan [00:18:12]:
I'd get fired up on that. I would love opening that. And I think that's what I'm, that's how I'm judging products these days. It's like, do I love opening them? I love opening figma.

Greg Isenberg [00:18:25]:
Why?

Jordan [00:18:26]:
It just fires me up. It's just beautiful. I see other people's creations in there when I'm reviewing work. You can, the infinite canvas, you can just buzz around it and, yeah, just, it's associated with creativity and productivity together. So I just love opening figma.

Greg Isenberg [00:18:45]:
Well, so it's, it's bottling up that feeling. So if the, if the, what was his name? The water sommelier guy.

Jordan [00:18:53]:
Yeah.

Greg Isenberg [00:18:53]:
Like, you're bottling up this idea around this person who's like dressed informal and who knows everything. And you're getting this high touch experience in the same way that figma, even the word figma. And you think of spatial and moving around in a blank canvas and colors. Like, it feels like this fun creative zone. So whenever you're creating a product, you have to think about what feeling I want to give to people. And I think that's what you're picking up on.

Jordan [00:19:23]:
Yeah. So that's one. If anyone wants to do that, let me know. Beta test it for sure. Um, yep. Uh, and then another one is just my desktops always messy and I hate cleaning it, but I love seeing everything on like a big desktop style view. It just, it feels good. And um, so I have this little idea that someone probably could build in a weekend.

Jordan [00:19:47]:
So do this. It's called the upside down. A little, little nod to stranger things. But basically it's a alternative desktop that's behind the scenes, that's basically just a file folder but looks like a desktop. So you can save things to the upside down, but it's not your actual desktop. So your performance will increase and your computer will perform better. And then you can have a clean desktop. When you want to see that messy desktop, you just go to the upside down and all your files are everywhere.

Jordan [00:20:16]:
Would you use that?

Greg Isenberg [00:20:17]:
I would use that. I feel like my flow is, I wait until I get twelve files on my desktop and then I'm like, I'm an adult, I can't have twelve files on my desktop. This needs to go. And I'll look at it just quickly and be like, yeah, I don't think I need any of these things. And I just throw them all in the trash. And I do this every ten days. So yes, I would love that. And sometimes I like seeing, yeah, to your point, I like seeing everything just in one place, even if it's chaos because it sparks ideas and reminds me of certain things.

Greg Isenberg [00:20:59]:
And then you can flip it back.

Jordan [00:21:01]:
Yeah. With a background too, that doesn't look like a file folder. It's got a beautiful picture. You could even have multiple upside downs. You can have your personal upside down work upside, but they're basically just folders. But it just feels psychologically different than searching things in a folder.

Greg Isenberg [00:21:17]:
I like this idea. It reminds me a little bit of the clack app. Basically what the clack app is, is it's a Mac app that turns your keyboard into like high fidelity, sounds like a mechanical keyboard. So it turns your regular keyboard into a mechanical keyboard just with software. So. And you can like change the volume and change the switches and how it sounds and everything, which is really cool. And it's like $5. I bought it.

Greg Isenberg [00:21:53]:
No brainer. It breaks half the time, which sucks. But I imagine even with a half working app, it still probably generates hundreds of thousands of dollars a year of revenue. I think we're going to see a lot more of these simple Mac apps.

Jordan [00:22:12]:
Yes. I was just thinking, I don't know if it's economically makes that much sense, but it would be so cool if these were rolled into like, a holding company or like an appsumo type marketplace where you could get the clack, you could get Screenshot X, which I use for screenshot. I just saw this Girl, like, basically made like a loom kind of screen recording competitor. That looks beautiful. I forget the name of it. I'll have to find it. We can put it in the show Notes for People. I think it was like, screenify.

Jordan [00:22:45]:
I would love to plug her because she's just An Incredible Maker, but rolling these things into helping them get discovered, helping them monetize, selling them as a bundle, I just love these beautifully done productivity apps that make work life so much better.

Greg Isenberg [00:23:04]:
Totally. Yeah, there's definitely a hold company opportunity there. And, you know, if you can buy some of these smaller apps, like Clack, put them under, maybe give them some capital to make it work better and add more engineers, a lot of these people are just solo people. So, yeah, I think there's a huge opportunity there. And, like, the way to do it is you Scour, you scour product hunt, and you don't scour today's product hunt, but you scour, like, 612, 18 months ago, and certain things lose steam, and then you reach out and you see if you can make a deal.

Jordan [00:23:39]:
Yeah, that's good. I think that would be really cool.

Greg Isenberg [00:23:43]:
That would be cool. That would be cool. What else you got for me?

Jordan [00:23:49]:
What else we got swag up for premium blanks. Like, basically, I've been trying to, for my little brand do within, make a couple sample hats. And I'm just frustrated with the whole process of making a hat that is not just a print on demand or embroidery on demand type of thing. But I also don't want to start a hat company, and I don't want to be in, like, a direct to consumer merch situation. And we think about this a lot with late checkout, too. And how can we have high quality products that we can give our customers, team members, future partners? And I think there's a big opportunity for a brand in a box for gear that feels really cut and sew, high quality, but isn't a print on demand type churn and burn system. So I think you're, you gonna layer on three pl like and fulfillment on the back end of that warehousing, et cetera. And you could basically build like a marketplace if you have the suppliers and the production, you could facilitate these like brand in a box experiences for companies that are not traditionally doing things like IRL or with physical products.

Jordan [00:25:11]:
So I saw notion a couple weeks ago launch these like really beautiful chore jackets and just had the like the little notion icon and I don't like using notion, but I would wear the mess out of that thing. It was so cool and the photo shoot was amazing. And I think there's just these Internet based businesses are going to want to close the loop on IRL and have provide real life experiences, real life gear, tangible things. And it's not easy to do that right now. It's dealing with factories, dealing with logistics, all of the things. I think there's a big opportunity to make like a gear brand in a box for Internet native companies and high end.

Greg Isenberg [00:25:52]:
High end, right. So I think one of the cut and sew, yeah. One of the insights there is that most tech companies and a lot of companies now just have swag but it's the same gilded t shirt or whatever hatch and you're trying to stand out. So how do you even if the cost is two x or three x like happy to pay that if it's three x word of mouth or four x or five x word of mouth? I'd rather produce less but have higher word of mouth. So I'll tell you a little story. I don't think I've ever told you this. So in 20 1718 with islands which was like a discord startup I was running and it was like a discord that became popular on college campuses. We wanted to get college, we wanted to grow more on college campuses.

Greg Isenberg [00:26:48]:
So what did we do? We hired an amazing fashion designer. Her name is Melissa Gross. She's designed stuff for the weekend and did stuff with Justin Bieber and Ovo, all cool stuff. And she had a factory in downtown LA through her company gross garments. And we produce like really cool hoodies, really cool crew sweatshirts and just like everything like beautifully done. And then we did a photo shoot in LA with like aspirational college models, basically guys and girls who like if you were in college at the time you would look up to them. And what we did is we created a Shopify store and on Islands website, and it would be $150 for a sweatshirt, $80 for a hat, $70 for a t shirt. And it all said sold out.

Greg Isenberg [00:27:40]:
So we use that to give to people on college campuses because they wanted it so badly because it's sold out. And then all of a sudden, the word of mouth train begins. So that was a really, really easy way for us to create a lot of word of mouth on a bunch of college campuses as a tech company by not spending a lot of money. Really.

Jordan [00:28:03]:
So smart. Word of mouth arbitrage.

Greg Isenberg [00:28:06]:
Word of mouth arbitrage. What you're saying is basically that in a box.

Jordan [00:28:12]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. To the tune of, like, a hun. Yeah. It's like, if I want a hundred custom hats, I can get them. And it's like, yeah, I'm paying double the price, or maybe triple. But it's a loss leader for what you're actually trying to do. You're not trying to profit off of these things. I think cats are billboards.

Jordan [00:28:29]:
I'm repping the masters right now for free. Pay me up masters. But, yeah, I think the movement and the word of mouth arbitrage, that's the ticket right there. So just making that really easy to do. And if it goes well, then maybe it does become like a d two c e commerce tycoon.

Greg Isenberg [00:28:52]:
The master's hat is an interesting example, because where did you get that hat?

Jordan [00:28:56]:
At the Masters.

Greg Isenberg [00:28:57]:
Exactly. So. And how do you. Is it. Correct me if I'm wrong, it's not easy to get a ticket to the Masters.

Jordan [00:29:03]:
No. My brother in law won a lottery.

Greg Isenberg [00:29:07]:
So what you're saying is you either need to be extremely connected, have a lot of money, or win a lottery to get access to buy that hat. And people who see that hat know that. Like, people who know the masters know that.

Jordan [00:29:22]:
Yeah.

Greg Isenberg [00:29:24]:
So that's another way to think about merch is it's almost like a check. You. You know, you've been here, right? Like, you've done this thing. So it's like, for notion, for example, like, if you, you know, write 100,000 words or whatever it is, you get the notion hat or something like that. So that's another way to think about, like, it's not just about giving out merch. It's like, how do you layer on levels and gamification? And that's where this whole, like, you know, community based approach, I think, is to. It is you create these layers, and you create. You don't just create one merch item.

Greg Isenberg [00:30:01]:
You create eight merch items. And you don't just create one level, you create eight levels.

Jordan [00:30:05]:
Yeah. And make it aspirational. Like the play button for YouTube. You know, like, people drive for the play button on YouTube. Like, they're like, that's their main goal. I love that.

Greg Isenberg [00:30:15]:
Totally. I mean, literally 36 minutes ago, I got an email, just pulled it up. I just got a invited to join the top voice program on LinkedIn.

Jordan [00:30:25]:
Wow, congrats. Top voice screenshot. What a legend.

Greg Isenberg [00:30:37]:
Gotta call my mom. Yeah, but, like, little things like that. Thank you to God for the top voice badge. But yeah, things like that, right? Like, doesn't cost them anything, LinkedIn, anything to create. To create that badge, but a lot of people want it. And I got that email. I was like, cool. Like, great, great search on Monday.

Jordan [00:31:00]:
Let's rep. Yeah, let me post more on LinkedIn. Yeah.

Greg Isenberg [00:31:04]:
Even if it's subconsciously. Right. And the same thing with your hat. It's like, oh, yeah, I'll watch. I'll watch the masters. It's like, of course I'll watch the masters.

Jordan [00:31:11]:
I have the hat. Yeah, I might take a nap during it. You know, Jim Nance's smooth voice in the background.

Greg Isenberg [00:31:19]:
Too good. Too good. All right, man, this has been fun. Inaugural episode, the Startup Ideas podcast. If you're listening to this, you got to share the podcast. This is, you know, if you're an idea junkie, it's time to share the podcast. Post it on Twitter, subscribe on YouTube, comment on YouTube. I literally read every single comment and I reply to a bunch of them.

Greg Isenberg [00:31:45]:
So you'll see me there, review the podcast on Spotify and Apple. And I know you're probably like, zoning out of this because so many people say this, but it does matter a lot. And welcome to the journey. And I want to thank Jordan for coming on. Thanks, buddy.

Jordan [00:32:06]:
Pleasure. Comment. Who should be on the next episodes on YouTube.

Greg Isenberg [00:32:12]:
Yeah, I want to bring on who you want me to bring on and who you think are interesting. And if you like Jordan, he can come on again, too. He works at late checkout, operating partner. And so he works with me across the portfolio. And you can follow him on X. Jordanmix. R d M I x. I'll see you there.

Greg Isenberg [00:32:38]:
See you there. Later. Peace.