From $0 to Billionaire By Starting A Toy Factory In China - Billy Of The Week
So age 18, him and his brother get on a plane, they go to Hong Kong, and they're like, we are going to start our toy factory here in Hong Kong. They get there, first night he literally sleeps in a bush because they didn't have like, you know, a place to stay that night. So he sleeps on a bush.
Why wouldn't he just do a sidewalk? Too hard, bro.
He, you know, you don't want to sleep on the ground.
You want to sleep on, on a bush.
So he sleeps on a bush outside of the airport.
Be normal. Use the bench. All right, we live.
I got something good for you. I got a crazy story. In fact, this is a Billy of the Week. Million dollars isn't cool.
You know what's cool?
A billion dollars. Uh, you know, sometimes we get a little fast and loose with the Billy of the Week where it's not a real Billy. This guy is a real billionaire. Okay, so Have you ever heard the name Nick Mowbray? No. Okay, so Nick Mowbray, here's the— here's my headline for this: University dropout from New Zealand becomes a billionaire with $0 invested. Okay, so what happened?
I'll click.
Yeah, you clicked. All right, here's the next bit. Two brothers when they were in, I think, middle school, They enter a science fair and in the science fair they create a hot air balloon modeling kit and they end up winning the science fair. So here's Nick, 12 years old, wins the science fair and he decides, all right, people really liked my hot air balloon kit, my like model hot air balloon kit. I'm going to go sell these. So he goes to start selling them door to door and he opens up a farm, a little like factory in his family's farm to like build the kits as he's going. But like he's having trouble scaling up because he's trying to do production himself and And he's doing the sales himself and it's like, okay, this is tough. So age 18, him and his brother get on a plane, they go to Hong Kong and they're like, we are going to start our toy factory here in Hong Kong. They get there first night. He literally sleeps in a bush because they didn't have like, you know, a place to stay that night.
So he sleeps on a bush right outside. Why wouldn't he just do a sidewalk? Too hard, bro.
He, you know, you don't wanna sleep on the ground.
You know, I'm so— you wanna sleep on, on a bush.
So he sleeps on a bush outside of the airport. Just be normal. Use the bench. They end up getting an apartment that I think was $8 a month. Um, and that was their, their apartment. What year? They start a factory. This was now maybe, uh, 15 years ago-ish, something like that. And so, and they're in a very small city in China. And so now they're not in Hong Kong anymore. So they, they end up creating a factory. So here's the factory. So they, they create a factory. Nick ends up sleeping in the factory for 8 years. And, um, they had $13,000 to their name. That was what their parents loaned them., to start this business. And so they're like, um, they're like, how do we make this work? And so they, they want to create, um, this like kind of toy company. And so they're like, all right. And so they do, they start doing two things. Number one, they're like, all right, we only have this much money and now we're living in China. We gotta like make this stretch. So these guys are like doing all the, like, you know, the hustle porn stories you hear for entrepreneurship. They're doing it where he's like, We used to eat only off the dollar menu at McDonald's in China. And he's like, every day, he's like, for Christmas, we would go get the Big Mac and it was like $2 and change. And that was our celebration. Um, he's like, I would eat half my fries and then I would go back to the counter and be like, hey, this is like not even full. Can I get like a full container of fries? He's like, that's how we did it. And he's like, we had the $13,000 from our, our parents and then we had to make this work. And so they end up creating a bunch of Um, you know, fast forward till today, they have, um, they have basically like, uh, the, like they do a billion dollars a year in sales on their toy company. This guy is personally a self-made billionaire. Uh, they've created toys, uh, Zuru, Z-U-R-U. And so they've created a bunch of toys that you've heard of, like Robo Fish. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. It's like a, like a little fake, it's a toy fish that'll swim around in a, in a jar. Or like a fishbowl. Um, they've created a bunch of balloons, which I've bought this a bunch of times. It's like you could, you put the hose in and it'll fill up a bunch of water balloons all at once. Um, and so they, they, you know, the Dart Blaster, they've sold 39 million of these or whatever. And so they basically built all these, um, like hit viral toys. And so, and early on what they did, like at the beginning, what they did was they would basically just knock off other good toys, like gimmick toys, and they would just make them themselves and try to like out-execute them. So they were like trying to out-manufacture them or out-distribute them. So there'd be like a light-up Frisbee that was like hot. So he, they would like clone the light-up Frisbee and then they would go and they would like, like to get into retail stores, they crashed the, like the buyer's dinner for Dick's Sporting Goods. And his sister just like showed up and kind of like schmoozed her way in and got the account. And they just did that over and over and over again. They, you know, they, and they, they would get sued by the companies like, hey, you're copying our toys. And they're like, oh yeah, okay, we gotta create original toys. And so they, they kind of knocked it off. They, they brute forced their way into retail and then they started creating their original toys, like Bunch O Balloons and Robo Fish and this stuff. And so basically, um, they, uh, you know, they, they would basically sell these at Walmart, wherever. And, um, their big thing was like, how do we manufacture this with no people. So they're like, um, can we do this where it's automated and 10 times cheaper than everybody else? And so they claim, they claim that their factories that have the robots that produce these have like no humans on the line. Uh, I don't know if this is true, cuz like even like Tesla, which tried to do this with their factories, was not able to do this. But like maybe, maybe it's true or maybe it's like pretty much true. Like there's very minimal human intervention.
How did you find this guy?
Um, someone DM'd it. Remember I talked about being known well? Somebody was like, you're going to love this. This is a perfect Billy of the Week. Uh, so by the way, whoever it is, I forgot your name.
And it looks like him and his brother co-founded it and their sister's the COO. Yes. So it's all in the family.
Family owned. Uh, they own the whole thing, I think still. And it did basically, they have, uh, 8,000 employees, 26 offices around the world. Last year they tripled sales to $1.1 billion. Um, in 20 and 2021. And, uh, you know, they're still not as big as Hasbro or Mattel or like, you know, Procter Gamble, which are like Hasbro's $6 billion, Mattel's $5 billion, P&G's like, you know, $80 billion. Um, but now they're like launching new, new products and new, new brands. So, so they do the toy business, they conquer that, becomes a billionaire there. And then he's like, all right, what can we do next? So they go into other products and now they're like, all right, we're going to create, um, what does Procter Gamble do? They have products in every category. We're gonna do diapers. And so they go into the diapers thing with this brand called Rascal and Friends. And I think in the first year, the Rascal and Friends is gonna do $200 million. Uh, what? That's not the first year, but last year they're gonna do $200 million. This next year they're projecting it to be $400 million. And so, um, highly profitable, just prints cash. And, uh, the toy business basically prints cash. They use it to invest in these. So how did the diaper business take off? Well, they saw that. Huggies is partnered with Disney and Procter Gamble is partnered with Warner Brothers. That's why they could do like, you know, Disney or like Batman, like things like that. And so these guys went and partnered with Cocomelon, which is the YouTube, like kid sensation. And so, um, Rascal and Friends, uh, sorry, last year was $100 million. This year, $150 million. Next year projecting $200 million. Um, then they also did this with haircare. They have a brand called Monday Hair. Then they did pet food. With a brand called Nude. They did a collagen brand called Dose, and they're just trying to replicate this with each thing. So the haircare brand is gonna do $60 million this year. And so they're just stacking these on top of each other. But then the coup de grâce, the biggest one they're trying to do of all of them. Nice word. Is this thing called Zuru Tech. Um, so what are they trying to do with Zuru Tech? They're basically trying to create a factory that can just build you houses. Robots that build houses is the big idea. And so they're trying to create the biggest factory, uh, on earth, period. Uh, bigger than Tesla's Gigafactory, bigger than all of it. So let me, let me give you the stats on this thing. Um, where is it? So they're trying to scale it up to 1.6 million square meters, 2 kilometers long.
I can't even. Okay. So 2, so that's, uh, that's about a mile and a quarter long. Yeah. Uh, 2,000K.
Yeah. And then they're trying to, they're trying to, um, they're trying to hire 2,000 more people in the next 24 months, which is just insane. And so their idea with this, um, with this factory for the, for the Zuru Tech thing is basically like you can design a home. They basically took a gaming engine like Unreal or like Unity or whatever. And they're like, okay, if you go into a game like The Sims, you can like create a house and you could paint the wall and you could put a couch there and then you could put— make your floors different. Like in The Sims, you can basically design a house, you could design a whole neighborhood, you could design a large house, small house, whatever. So they're like, why don't we do that except it's real? Like when you're done, you click print and then the robots basically just make that house. And so this is what they're trying to do with this thing, which I Honestly, just sounds like, you know, frankly bizarre. Um, but that's what they're doing. And so that's the, that's the new venture that they're spinning out of this called Zuru Tech. And it's basically a way to, to use robots to build homes, which is just kind of insane. And like they built the architecture software using a gaming engine.
What do you think made him so special? I mean, this guy, like I'm looking at him and he, he just seemed like a, have you ever met any New Zealand guys? Yeah, like they're like the same, like the stereotype of like an Australian guy is like fun-loving, loves to get drunk, bad with money, will spend all their money because they're like, they just want to like be carefree. Like a lot of Australians don't have a lot of savings because they just don't mind spending at the bar. They're fun-loving. They're always a blast to be around. Uh, that's, and that's what this guy, like, if I had to like just look at him and like, oh, this guy seems like he goes all in on things.
Well, I think the key to, he's a redhead. Key to success. So, you know, redheads, they, they have a chip on their shoulder from day one that they're— they got something to prove. So I think that's like a, uh, uh, that's a big deal. That's— I would say 80%. For real though, the other 20% is hard work.
This is a great find. This guy's cool and he's only 35, I think. Yeah.
So I'm going to read you some of his, uh, tips for success. Okay, you can give me a, uh, a thumbs up, thumbs down, or, or, or meh, or whatever, you know, if it's, if it's just okay. So the first one, rethink your vocabulary. I never use the word employee cuz we're a high-performing team and we're playing different positions. I'm coaching the team. I'm trying to get the best players in all the positions. We have team members, not employees in our business.
What do you think? Cool. I, I do the same thing. I, I, I hate calling them employees. Sometimes I'll use the word staff, but I hate using employees. Uh, but yeah, I thought you just say the help.
The, uh, I do the same thing.
Also, I'll never, like, when somebody, um, when they say I work for, for you, I'm like, no, you work with me.
That was exactly what I was going to say. I always correct people on that. Oh yeah. You know, I work for Sean. No, you don't work for Sean. You work with me. And I never say I work for anybody. I work with them and it's an arrangement. It's a partnership. Um, I do X and I get Y and you do X and you get Y. And that's it. Yeah. Um, you know, hold yourself to that. Okay. Next one. Bullets before cannonballs. He goes, the first thing I learned, or one of the things I learned early on was to fire bullets before cannonballs. We're always firing lots of little bullets everywhere to see if those work. If they work, then we fire a cannonball behind it.
Love it.
Okay.
That's a good analogy.
Um, all right. Break the rules. I went to university, I studied law and commerce, but I didn't like it to, like it to be honest. And there was a big, big hill I had to walk up every day to get to law school. I didn't like that hill either. I did it for a year and I thought, oh, why not have a, why not have a crack at just doing this work thing? So I moved to China. I didn't even make it to my second year of law. I missed out, which is probably a good thing. A blessing in disguise.
Okay.
Yeah.
I don't really get the, the, the jump from Yale to move to China, but didn't like it. Yeah. Did different strokes for different folks, but I appreciate it.
All right. Don't be shaken by competition. So he says, in the early days we had this tiny production lab. We spent half our money on an injection motor machine. We started to produce our hot air balloon, which didn't sell many of because it didn't meet regulations globally. So we went online and copied a couple products. One was a Frisbee. We got sued after it. We went to a toy fair and we got through day one, but the companies we copied came to our booth and yelled at us. Then we started innovating and it was our journey that took us 6 or 7 years to get successful at product. We lived off very, very, very little. We scrapped, uh, we scrapped and scraped to find something that would work.
Awesome.
Okay. Yeah. Fair, fair enough. All right, let me skip these. Lemme see if there's another good one. Um, Okay. Don't lose sight. He says, I remember when we made our first million. Hey, fan of the show. Um, we did, we did a big deal with David Beckham where we made a David Beckham Tamagotchi at Walmart. I was 21 at the time. We got a $28 million order from Walmart, but we couldn't finance it. Walmart ended up canceling the whole order. We were stuck with half of the Tamagotchis. We were so excited because it was this, because this awful amount of money at the time. We had no money, but we got a little bit complacent. We were always checking how we were doing every month and we ended up losing, I think, uh, $200,000 that month. We lost a bunch of money. We sat down and we thought from this day forward, we are never ever going to have a month where we lose money. We took that approach and we never lost money again. We were always profitable.
Yeah. Mo— Mowbray, I think.
Hey, if anyone knows Nick or can do the introduction to him, this guy, I would love to have him on the pod. This guy's awesome. This guy's, this is fine.
The redhead joke.
Love redhead.
Actually, my friend said something really funny. He goes, yeah, my wife, he, uh, he goes, um, we're, I'm doing this deal and like, uh, we were dealing with some people that I was like, I just can't tell if this person's like all hype or this kind of like a charlatan or what. And, um, and I was like, for some reason they're just not getting along with this other person and I don't know what to make of it. And he goes, oh, he goes, I've seen this many times in business. Two charlatans can't be in a room at the same time together. They just combust. They can't stand it. He goes, it's like my girlfriend, she's a redhead. She told me once, I can't stand being in the room with another redhead. And I was like, it's the same thing with charlatans. And he goes, how do you know if one person's a charlatan? You put them in the room with another known charlatan, they'll hate each other.
That's so funny.
Buddy, this data is wrong every freaking time.
Whoa, I can see the client's whole history—
calls, support tickets, emails—
and here's a task from 3 days ago I totally missed.
Our buddy Julian has this company called Demand Curve. He's like, hey, will you speak at this like Demand Curve conference thing? And I'm like I'm like, you know, you know the rule. The rule is hell no, we don't do nothing for nobody except if it's our friends that we do it for free. Right? So it's either big money or big friend. Julian's a big friend. So I did it for free. The, um, so we go on there and I'm like, um, I don't know what this is. Oh, it's a, it's a, it's a conference talk about audience building or content or something like that. You get that all the time. I know. And so you go up there and you're like, all right, I'm gonna do my spiel. But something really interesting happened. So it was me and this other guy. Sager from the show called Breaking Points. I bet you're familiar with it. Have you heard of this? Or Ben, you have to know about Breaking Points. You know this thing? No, you guys don't know about this.
Okay, this is basically like a, like a, like a TV show, like a podcast.
You know, you know, the Young Turks, that, that channel on YouTube that was like, they did, I know, Breaking Points, which is like Sager and Kristol. They do their own version of like a political correspondence show or whatever, like a I don't even know what you call it. Political talk show, basically. And they do it. They started off just doing it on YouTube or whatever. And, um, and it's kind of blown up. And so this, he was, the guy was on the panel with me and there was a few things he said that I was like really taking notes on. I was like, oh, that's really smart. And also this, what this guy's doing is actually pretty awesome. And I think could get huge. Like it looks on the surface sort of goofy. It looks like kids playing dress up because it's like, they made it look like a talk show. So they're like at a desk. He wears a suit and tie, you know, so it's like, but it's like, you know, it's like a liberal news.
It's like a liberal, a Young Turks thing, or is it like conservative?
I don't know how they would call it. I'm not very political, so I don't really even want to say I want to misclassify it. But it's their shtick is like they, they cover the things they say, the things that the mainstream media is not covering or is either under covering these stories. Or they're just like spinning it for their own agenda and they're like, we'll just try to say the truth, like what we think the truth is. And like, we'll just call it like we see it. Um, which again, everybody says, but the question is like, how close are you to actually doing that? It's like company values. Every company says integrity is our core value as they like, you know, destroy the earth. And so, um, and so that's what these guys do. And so they have this set and it like looks like you, you went to, you know, when you go to like KFC. In like China and it's like, I don't know when I do that. You've been somewhere, right? Like, you know, I don't know, Canada. Where have you gone, Sam?
You know, like, uh, on Friday nights when you're like, are there Domino's in Tokyo? You're like, you know that feeling?
Sorry, I had to big dog you there with my international experience. But, uh, but yeah, basically they had this, like, I lived in China and they had this phrase NQR. Like I'd be like, yeah, I go to McDonald's here, but I don't really like it. I don't know why. They're like, oh, it's NQR. What's NQR? Not quite right. And it's the perfect description, which is it's almost exactly right, but it's not quite right.
And all my, all my, uh, all my Asian friends say it's same same, but different.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. So anyways, that's like what these guys' show looks like. It looks almost like a knockoff. Correspondent show. That's kind of the, you know, my initial judgment. Then I started watching it and they got on Joe Rogan and I was like, wow, this— and Joe loves the show. Joe's like— Joe basically, he was telling me just now, he goes— I go, how'd you get on Rogan? And he's like, Rogan was just a fan of the show and he just reached out, was like, hey, I love the show, guys. And they're like, wow, uh, we kind of didn't think we were like— you know, we had like most people, like early on you kind of feel like, am I doing the right thing? I quit my job to do this. It's not big, huge.
And how many views an episode?
Uh, they'll have like, I don't know, they have like 800,000 subscribers or something like that. So they're doing a good job now. But this was like before that Joe got on it. Well, Joe was like into it when it was pretty early and he was like, they were like, wow, Joe Rogan. Amazing. If the number one podcaster in the world thinks this is like awesome, maybe we're onto something. So they just kept going. And then, um, Joe invited them on the show and then they're, they've launched like a paid subscription because they're like, hey, look, Like if you go to their website, it just says, help us. Uh, what is it? So Breaking Point, what does the title say? It goes like, help us beat, uh, mainstream media or something like that. Like help us defeat mainstream media or like cover the stories that they don't cover. Some like it painted them as an enemy, which is great. Uh, like just a smart, smart, like marketing tactic basically. Um, but, but basically they, so, so Joe, uh, their first show, the first paid show, Joe Rogan came on. And so, you know, they like had this like amazing way to like kind of kick off, but that's because they had put in a few years of like hard work before that. It's like 4 years old now. And, um, and so he said a couple things that I thought were really smart. I'm gonna share them here. In fact, I actually think we should just run the whole, uh, interview we just did with him, like as a My First Million episode, if those guys are down with it. 'Cause I thought there was a bunch of interesting things. One thing he go, they go, how'd you get started? Like, what's, how'd you get your first 1,000 customers? And, and, or, or like subscribers or whatever. And we all get asked this a bunch. I rarely do you hear something that interesting, but he said a pretty interesting answer. He goes, well, here's what I did. I saw that in my niche there were these people that were already like popular accounts. And so he is like, I just went and looked at who are the top 1% of, of like popular accounts already. And then I just decided, okay, the first content I create is just gonna be content that they love because if they love it, They'll share it, they'll kind of endorse it, and that'll drive a bunch of growth right away of the right audience. And so what he did was he is like, okay, these, they have this, they need data, they need visualizations, they need charts.
Cool.
So I'm just gonna do, or they need transcripts, like quick transcripts of like what Trump just said. They need to have like the edited, well-formatted transcript. So he is like, we weren't doing our own opinions and analysis. No, I would just sit there and I would live when Trump was talking, I'm transcribing it, I clean it up, I format it. I'm the first to post. Trump said this, and then those guys would retweet it. He's like, and that's how I got my first like 10,000 subscribers. He's like, and after you get 10,000, there's psychologically this thing where you'll just start growing faster cuz people want to follow popular accounts.
What, what, what, what was your advice though to these people on growing an audience?
Um, my advice was pretty simple. I go, I don't think you should grow an audience for the sake of growing an audience. Like, um, the audience is basically a byproduct of you doing something else you really want to do. Like if you just got that itch you want to scratch, like, I want to create content. Like I've seen YouTubers, I think I could do it. That's actually a better reason to go do it than if I can get to a million subscribers, then I'll upsell my merch to this percentage of them and I can make this much money. It's like, don't do the calculating way to do it. Just be like, I'm doing this because either, like in my case, it was, I'm super curious about these topics and like, How am I going to justify spending 9 hours reading about this bullshit topic that like I have no agenda for? Well, if I had a podcast or a YouTube channel, then I could just like make the content out of that. Then it has like a kind of like a purpose to my curiosity. I have like an endpoint to it. I have a justification for my curiosity. I get to be professionally curious or like lately when I, when I originally started the pod, I literally wrote this in a doc. I've shared this before. I wrote, Most likely nobody's going to listen to this, but there's a hack. Really smart and interesting, successful people are willing to go on a podcast even if it has— they don't know how many listeners it has. And so at the very— my main goal is to just have an excuse to meet with 50 awesome people that live in San Francisco. I'm in the tech hub of the world, San Francisco, and I don't drink coffee, so I don't want to just invite these guys to coffee. I'll invite them on my podcast instead. That was my whole like number one success criteria and like number one agenda with like starting this podcast was, oh, it's a great excuse to hang out with these people that are like, they're nearby, they're in my orbit and don't do it. And like, I don't, I don't know. It's better than saying, let me just get lunch with you, please, please, please. And so that was why I started the pod.
Dude, I have, uh, like people ask me all the time as well, how to build an audience. And I used to have like a somewhat academic answer where I'm like, well, you just gotta like find content that like ranks well other places and you repurpose, do all this, this, this, and lately. I've just like quit saying that and I just go, well, just like be an interesting person, live an interesting life and just be at least kind of okay at talking about it publicly.
Uh, because the thing you just said, like, if you're interesting, if you lead an interesting life, then all you have to do is share 10% of it and you only have to be okay at talking about it. Give people a peek into 10% of your life.
Yeah. And you don't even need to be that great. And so people like over-optimize for like this, like the, like, you know, it's kind of like when people talk about search, they're like, well, you need all those keywords and do this, do this. And I'm like, or I just do dope shit and write about it and people just gonna go straight to the website and look it up. And that's harder. And, uh, I still think you need that other stuff, but like, I, I still think that it's mostly a game of just be interesting, learn interesting stuff, and be kind of good at talking about it so everyone else can consume.
And like, there are people that do it other ways, like Trung, who used to work for you at The Hustle. You kind of discovered him. You set up, I think, his Twitter account. Now he's got like, whatever, I don't know, a million Twitter followers, something crazy. And I don't think Trung took that advice. Like, I don't think Trung lives an interesting life or has this interesting business experience. That's what he's sharing.
Well, he's— he learns about interesting— he— but yes, that is true. And so he didn't exactly—
you could make the argument, right?
You could make the argument. Yeah. But you could also make the argument that he's leading an interesting life in that he's learning and discovering cool stuff. So that's like you could make the argument both ways. But I remember I'm not— I hate saying this because I'm definitely not like a ladies' man, but I've come a long way from being like a Napoleon Dynamite lookalike.
More of a males' man.
Yeah, more of a males' man. Yeah, I'm a guy's guy, but not the way that you think it— the way that it's usually meant. Like I'm many guys' guy and, but I've come a long way from looking like Napoleon Dynamite. And I remember like I had some like 18-year-old ask me about like meeting girls and I was like shocked. I was like, your, your, your bar for advice is quite low here, but let me give you some advice if I could give anything, which was basically I'm like, you'll meet more women if you just focus on yourself and have cool badass hobbies and just invite people to come and do those hobbies with you. And I was like, that's the, that's the coolest hack ever for a young man. You just do dope shit and then you just bring along people. And it's kind of like that with content.
That, yeah, that's exactly right. I think there are a bunch of different ways to win. You could be, uh, like Ben for How to Take Over the World. I would say he's curious about these, you know, great men in history or like these, you know, these sort of like biographies or whatever. And then what he does, he does a service. He says, I'll save you time. So I call him a time saver because he packages it down into something concise. The Hustle's newsletter and Milk Road's newsletter is exactly that. It's a time saver. Uh, so what do you do? You curate, you package, you deliver. Then you have like, you know, sort of like a remixer. A remixer basically takes maybe one or two unrelated things, spins them together, puts them together and, and, and puts that out there. You have an original content creator that's like a Naval or a Bology. They're coming up with like independent theses about the world and opinions and analyses that, that really just originate from them and they put that out in the world. Um, And then you have what I'll call like a lifestyle influencer. That's what you're talking about, which was lead an interesting life, share 10% of it. So there's all these different play styles that you can use. It's like in a video game, it's like you wanna play tank, you wanna play DPS, you wanna play healer. You could play all these different roles and they'll all, they're all winning. You just have to know which play style you're trying to play. Uh, so I see that with, with content. Um, but the one you, you recommended, which is live an interesting life and then share 10% of it, I think that that is the most fun play style to play and the most valuable. And the most valuable and the most unique because anybody honestly, no offense to Trung, but like many people do and anybody can go read fucking Reddit and Wikipedia and like create a thread of, you know, here's the story of how whatever the dude created Starbucks.
And it's like, the one that's repeatedly done is, is the hot sauce guy. What's the hot sauce guy?
The Sriracha guy.
Yeah. Everyone talks about that guy. That guy is the king of the thread boys.
Yeah, every Threadboy at home has like a small bottle of Sriracha on a shrine, and they're like, I'll always remember the day I could tell people that Sriracha started in Thailand, or the peppers were so bad that the neighbors at the factory hated him, and they don't even advertise, and it's the same bottle since day one. Yeah, King's hot dog is still $1.50. Yeah, like there's these like, you know, classic but, uh, the one you said was the most, I think the most rewarding play style. And, um, my trainer had a great phrase for this. Cause I was like, um, I was asking about his business. I was like, I was trying to help him with his business and he ended up dropping like, like I thought I'm, I'm the business guy. I'm going to share with him this great knowledge. And I was like, you got to think about your niche, your audience. Who's your idea? You know, who's your customer persona? And I was like, just looking back, you know, just cringe city about like, trying to help him with these things. And he just said, I was like, you don't have a website, you don't have a business card, blah, blah, blah. And he just go, and I was like, so who's your, you know, you gotta know who's your customer. He goes, my customers are people that love what I do. And I was like, I was like, okay, that sounds like some smooth ass R&B lyric, but what does that mean? What are you gonna do with that? He's like, and I didn't understand at that time, but he just let, he's like, that's it. He's like, my customers are gonna be the people that love what I do. What do, and he's like, okay, well, what do you do? He's like, I'll train you on your fitness. And during that, during that session, I'll train your mind as much as your body, right? It's mindset. And because the mindset's totally aligned with this stuff, and that's what I'm into. And I'll just share with you stuff that I'm doing with my own training, with my own mindset training or my personal training. I'll work out with you together sometimes and I'll come to your house and we'll just kick it for hours. I don't, I don't watch the clock, right? Like that's how I want to live. And people, my customers are gonna be people who want that. And I'm not gonna try to go backwards and say, what does the market want? I'm gonna conform myself to it. And so there was this real artist streak to it. And I thought, all right, well, that sounds cool, but that shit doesn't work in the real world. Sure enough. How did it work? I was his only client, I think, at the time. And we work out in my garage, but we just leave the garage open and then people walk by and they walk by and he just super friendly with them, but never says like, hey, by the way, if you ever are interested in my services, here's my card. Never. They would walk by, he would joke around with them, sort of like just flirt with people. And then he would just like, you know, go back and keep doing our thing. He's just a happy guy. By like the 7th day, people are like, man, it looks like y'all are having fun. The music looks fun. The home gym, they saw us like setting it up. Each day would get better. Uh, they saw us joking around. They would see my, you know, I'm breaking a sweat. They would see how we're using, like we'd use our tree and we'd use all this stuff that was just around us. 'Cause I didn't have all this equipment and it just looked like 2 people having a lot of fun. And so my neighbor signed up.
Just a bunch of, just a bunch of sweaty shirtless guys hugging. You know what I'm saying?
Hanging off the trees and just touching each other's body. And so guess what? People wanted some of that. And so my neighbor signs up, then her husband signs up, then the other neighbor signs up. Then my sister's visiting, she does a workout, she signs up. My mom signs up, my brother-in-law signs up, their niece, my niece and nephew sign up. Everybody starts signing up. This guy now is a full roster, still never had a website, never had a business card, uh, never went and knocked on a door or tried to do a sales pitch. All these people are conforming their schedules to him.
He's not even a trainer. He's just a guy who just comes in, hangs out, talk.
The best part is he's me.
There's no trainer. He's just a prostitute who won't have sex with you. I don't even know what to call him. He'll just hang out with you. I got a guy. You, you need a guy to come hang out with you? I got a guy. He's—
but long story short, this phrase of who are my customers? The people that love what I do. That is like playing, in my opinion, business at the highest level because it is the most freeing. Imagine if that was true. That's the most freeing thing you could do, right? Same thing with content creation. Who am I gonna get subscribers? How am I gonna grow my audience? I'm just gonna do the most interesting things. I'm gonna share it as I go. And the people who follow me are gonna be the people who love what I do. And like, that is just, I think, a much better way to go than like this, frankly, a sort of desperate approach that I think most people take to building a business or getting customers, getting subscribers, all that stuff.
Dude, let me show you an example of, I think might be the exact opposite of what we're talking about. So I've been researching and I think someone's DM'd me on this on Twitter, but I found this thing called Strongland, like the word strong and then the word land, Strongland Publishing. His main thing is called Life, Math, Money. All right, check this out. So this guy, he owns maybe half a dozen to a dozen. I've found like 4 or 5 so far. Different Twitter handles. One is called the 48 Laws of Power bot or quote bot, I believe. Another one is called the Book of Pook, P-O-O-K. And the 48 Laws of Power bot quote or quote bot is just like he's got a ton of quotes loaded into this and it has maybe 2 or 300,000 followers. Another one is called the Book of Pook. I think that's how you pronounce Pook, P-O-O-K. And he's just like quoting like this pickup artist from the early 2000s that no longer writes. And then he owns a handful or more of these, like, just Twitter handles that are just like generic, and they're all basically focused for men. And it's about getting laid, meeting girls, making money, getting fit. And he owns like 6 or 12 of these handles, which is obviously like not the hardest thing to grow because it's like these cool taboo topics. So like it's one of those things where you don't talk about your friends, but everyone wants to be better at all those things. So you follow these, these guys. And he like has like a circular thing where he like retweets each one and each handle links off to a Gumroad page that sells a document related to that. So like the 48 Laws of Power one, it's like, here's how you get more powerful and power. Here's how you get more power and influence at your job, which like, who doesn't wanna learn that? And he sells it for $89. And then it's another one's like, here's a bunch of lines to pick up girls. Here's like, a workout plan to get abs in 8 weeks, or here's like the perfect way to eat healthy and feel good. And if I had to guess, I would say that he's doing between $500,000 and $1,000,000 a year in sales just off these Gumroad things.
So you can see the sales.
So basically, um, not the sales, the reviews, I think.
No, no, it's a sale. So like, for example, oh wow, Live Intentionally 90-Day Self-Improvement Program. It's, I think it costs $89 and it says 9,506 sales.
How much is that? Is that $900?
That's half a million. That's half a million bucks. Uh, I don't know how long, right? So maybe this has been out for years.
I think he's only been doing it for 2 years.
And then there's like, you know, his crypto one. There's his like, uh, uh, you know, build your Twitter audience.
And how much is that? How many, how many did that sell?
So that has 5,400, uh, sales.
So how much dollars?
Uh, let's see.
I want like $100.
How much is it? $179.
So golly.
Isn't that funny? Is this, is this hilarious? This little guy and his name is Harsh Strongman. I believe his name is, so it's like an anonymous name and his blog is called lifemathmoney.com. And if you go to and look up who is Harsh Strongman, and he says, I'm a certified financial planner in India. And I guess he, he just has this blog and he talks about this stuff, and, and I think it's cool. I think this, this anonymous blogger who only uses a, some type of like free-ish looking website builder and, uh, Gumroad is just killing it, and I think it's awesome.
That's amazing. That is This is hilarious.
It's awesome, right?
When I think about a harsh strongman, a man who just embodies life, math, and money, I think of an Indian, a mid-20s independent Indian certified financial planner.
No, like, this is my cousin Vikram.
Like, you know, this is my cousin Vikram. I just found out what Vikram does for a living.
There's a reason alpha and accountant both start with A. This guy's, this guy's as alpha as they can get. The Alpha Accountant is going to be his new thing, and he's going to have a Twitter handle on like Excel courses.
Make taxes your bitch.
Yeah. That's hilarious. The Andrew Tate of Excel. All right. Dude, I, on air, I need you to help me make a decision. All right. All right. So I am in the process of, I'm, I stopped in St. Louis. So I'm recording this from St. Louis, but I'm driving from New York to Austin. I always stop in St. Louis for 5 days to see family. I'm going to drive back to Austin. I miss New York. I miss Brooklyn already.
I absolutely— You miss the energy?
There's something about this city. This city.
You have to go romantic. When you talk about New York for some reason. That's why I refuse to go there.
I love it. I love it. I like, I'm in grind mode. I love being there. But there's one thing that I'm currently doing that is, it is something that I told myself I'm not gonna do it. And that is bitch about taxes and let taxes decide where I live. I'm 100% doing that right now. So I wanna tell you some numbers. So, I currently live in Texas, which has no state income. I think the federal— what, what's the federal tax rate for the highest income? Is, what's it, 36% or 37?
I think 36-ish. Yeah.
All right. So I think it's a little above 30, 36%. So hypothetically on $1 million of income, I'm spending $370,000 a year on taxes or around $31,000. Yeah. Federal, because Texas doesn't have income. So $31,000 a month in tax. Sorry. Month. Yeah. Which adds up to about 30, uh, $370 a year. In New York, if I move there, I would basically be giving away 51 to 52% of my income because, uh, the city of New York has like a 3.8% tax rate. And then the state of New York has a 9.7% tax rate. And so that means I'm, I would have to be spending an additional $11,500 a month in income taxes. Plus, if I were to list there—
That's just your New York rent. That's the New York State rent. That's just the beginning. That's not even the actual rent of your place. Yeah.
Yes. Plus the, to rent of a place, my current mortgage right now in Austin is around $4,000 to $5,000 a month. I would not wanna purchase a place in Brooklyn. I would wanna rent a place. And my budget to renting to have a family there would be around $9,000 to $14,000 a month in rent, probably $13,000, probably, probably $11,000 to $12,000. I could probably get a place that I would want, and that's what I would spend. So I would be spending just— and then let's say my income, this is all hypothetical. I'm not saying what I do or don't make. If my income is $2 million, I'm going to be spending around $280,000 a year in extra income taxes, plus an additional $150,000 a year in, uh, rent, meaning my costs are gonna be like $400,000 to $500,000 a year in additional costs just to live there. Not including the fact that like I'm in St. Louis right now, I just went out to eat for 3 people, it's $51. If I'm in New York for 3 people for breakfast, it's gonna be, you know, like, yeah, uh, $100, 2 times the cost. So how would you justify making the move or not move?
Well, I kind of did myself, right? Because I live in California and California has the same problems that New York has, a high cost of living, high state tax, that sort of deal. And now, you know, I work remote. I can live anywhere at this point. And so, you know, it is very tempting, especially when you hear like you meet people who live in Texas, then you meet people who live in Puerto Rico. They're like, you pay federal 37%, I pay 4%, I pay 0% on capital gains. It's like, wow. Um, all right, I guess that's also an option. So there's sort of like no end to it. And I, you know, I used to live in Indonesia and, um, you know, for $2,000 a month or $3,000 a month, like, you know, you're living large, um, out there. So like, you know, you could have a— I had a cook and a maid that lived in my house. I had a driver that drove me everywhere and like, you know, didn't have to think about anything. So there really is no end to this idea of like optimizing cost of living, uh, versus what you want to do.
There is no end to it, but maybe there are thresholds.
Yeah, there's more rungs to the ladder than even what you presented is, I guess what I'm trying to say. You can take it even further. I think that I've always thought, as it sort of goes back to that, what advice would my 18-year-old self give me? My 18-year-old self, which was like a more simple-minded version of myself, would say this. Doesn't mean they're right, but they would say this. Wait, I thought you're rich. Like, oh, you wait, you're wait. So you're moving to where you don't want to live to save money. That sounds not very rich. Right? So if it's all the same, if it's all the same in terms of where you enjoy living, cool. Then obviously pick that, pick the difference. If you enjoy one more, I would go to it. Now it's the hard part is how do you price that enjoyment? How do you price that energy of New York? How do you put a dollar number on it?
We're going to put a dollar on it. We're going to price it. We're going to say it's around $400 or $500 $100,000. But dude, for the same price, I can live in Texas 6 months and in New York 6 months and fly private back and forth twice, actually, like 2 round trips, and it'd still be cheaper. Uh, but that's—
yeah, but it would also add hassle to your life, right? So there's, there's some situations where the variety adds what you want, right? It's like a win-win. It's like, oh yeah, I don't want to be in one place all year anyways, or I like the weather this time of year in one place and this time in another place. So I'm just gonna move around the weather and that happens to coincide well with my tax situation. But basically my thought, my, my simple thought process is this. If you're rich, you can do tax optimizations, but make sure it's not driving the car, right? So it gets to be in the car, but it doesn't drive the car. So I would do some things that are no sweat that are gonna save you tax money. Oh, great. I would do that. I would not move, which is like one of the biggest things that changes your like day-to-day quality of life. I would not move to a different place just like based on taxes as the primary reason. I would have to have another primary reason. So for example, my reason for being in California is that me and my wife's family is all here and I just want to see them more often and have that be like, I prefer that lifestyle. I don't know how many years we all have left where we're all healthy or my kids are little and they get to have this experience with the grandparents around, but that matters more to me than, than anything on the tax side. So that's my decisive reason. I made that one reason the priority and then I'll live with the rest. So I think that's what you should do. You should come up with your one decisive reason about where you're going to live. And I would guess if you're rich, that reason should not be taxes.
I got to do it unfortunately, but golly, it sucks in the back of my head. It's that famous Michael Jordan quote. Fuck. You know what I mean?
That's not the great, the great, the great quote from Jordan is Republicans buy shoes too. That is a My First Million worthy quote. You know, but, but also, you know, you also got to factor in how much more are you going to make? How much more is maybe the connections you'll make in New York, one investment you make, um, you know, you can make more, uh, it's easier to make more, uh, for a guy like, uh, guys like us than it is to, um, adjust your lifestyle to try to save more. I find it, I would rather work harder to make more money than change my lifestyle in a way that I feel like I'm, I'm making some compromise in order to save money.
Well, I think I'm gonna do it. I, if I could do this again, for some reason I think Miami is just like hell on earth. Uh, it's not for some reason, I could name about 50 reasons why I think that. I think Miami's horrible. But at the same time, if I could do it again, I almost wish I would've done, so right now I live in Austin, Texas. It's cuz I got a bunch of friends there. My best friends are there and we had an office there. If I could have done it again, I would've done Florida though and New York because Texas doesn't have nice enough weather that I'm just going just for the weather during wintertime. Whereas Florida, like, you know, you could, I feel like I'm in the Caribbean sometimes in certain parts of it. I wish I would've done Florida and New York. If I could do it again, that's what I wish I would've done.
I'm surprised the Best Friends being in Austin thing is not a bigger pull for you. I feel like that's huge.
It is. And that's why I'm, I'm, I don't actually mean if I could do it again, I wish the stars would've aligned so that could have happened is kind of what I mean.
What a slap in the face. I'm just glad I'm not your friend. I'm not Neville who lives right next door to you in Austin. He was like, oh, the energy in New York. That's what's going to get you. You're going to move away from me for the, the energy.
Come on, bro. Dude, New York's happening, man. It is quite fun. It is fun. Whenever I walk around there, I get pumped. I do get pumped. But I also like, also, I also want to kill, like I want to kill someone half the time. Dude, like every time I'm in line at Whole Foods or some grocery store, there, I see a fight. It's just, there's always a commo— there's always commotions. It's always, something's always happening. It always raises my blood pressure and I want to like, I get in like protector mode.
That's hilarious. Um, all right. What else we got? Want to do some more?
Yeah. Uh, I have one thing. Uh, so I think we've talked about this and we've just, you and I have hired this guy, but go to dreamstudiocourse.com. His name's Kevin Shen, and I went and looked at his landing page. This guy's landing page for a course, A, is awesome, and B, he's selling a course that I never in a million years would have thought would work. But then I look at it and I think, 100%, you've nailed it. And I understand how you could potentially make $1 million a year. So it's called Dream Studio Course, and it's a $1,500 course. I don't know why he didn't just go $2,000. But it's a $1,500 course all on setting up your, your Zoom setup basically. Cause I don't even think it's for a podcaster, but crazy cool looking landing page. And whenever I, when I saw his landing page, I thought, wow, I really want this. Uh, but how sick is that landing page?
It's a great landing. It's a great landing page for a bunch of different reasons. Like first, just start with headline. So headline is not a course about, uh, setting up your Zoom. It says, Make your home video setup look like Hollywood, right? Dream outcome. So sells the dream outcome right away. Then there's a picture of him that's, you know, that shows a really awesome video setup. So, you know, show, don't tell. And then he basically says, build your studio with expert help. It's a 6-week course that'll do whatever. Um, okay. Enroll here. So good call to action. And then he's got a bunch of before and afters, right? Here's Tiago Forte. Look, he looked like shit before. Now he looks great. Right? Look, here's this person now, they look great. And he just keeps showing basically success stories of transformations because fundamentally when people buy a course, they're buying transformation of some kind. They want to walk in one way and walk out another. And most courses, I've struggled with this myself, most courses struggle to even understand that you're selling change, you're selling a transformation, not content, not information. And secondly, they don't know how to Show that I can actually provide this for you. And with something that like visual like this, you're going to get a before and after, which is like before and after is my favorite sales pitch of all time. Um, I think a before and after is the most compelling sales pitch.
Do you have like a file or something that has all your, you're saying this as if you have like a, like categories of headlines. Of headlines or of, uh, well, you're like, uh, you're like, oh, he's doing the before and after. Style headline. I love that style.
Yeah, I have the, the, in, so in my course I teach these, I'm like, here's a bunch of frames you can use to like sell your product.
If you can do, dude, will you send that to me?
If it's visual like this. Yeah.
Yeah.
I will. If it's visual like this, uh, you use before and after. If it's not visual, there's another one I call stop the struggle. So stop the struggle. You sent me this landing page actually. Abstract Ops used to have this landing page. Uh, I think you invest in those guys. They, it was like a stick figure running away from a tornado. And it just said, stop putting off your back office, your back office tasks, or like stop running away from your to-do list or whatever. And that's what I call a stop the struggle pitch, which is basically saying, instead of saying what we do for you, we'll say, we can put you out of your pain. Is that pain hurting you? I can stop the pain for you. I can stop the struggle that you're having, right? He could do the same thing. So he does dream outcome before and after, right? Like make your, Home video setup look like Hollywood. He could also have a stop the struggle, which is like, um, you know, uh, you know, basically a, a stop showing up to work looking like this. And it's like the up the nose camera shot, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, instead you could look like this after. And so, you know, so basically I have these different frames that I'm like, this is a way that you can present your product, your information. And so I, 'cause I have a, one of my sessions in my course is a landing page one.. And so that's where I'm like, this is where you need to use this is on your landing page. Cause your landing page is your 24/7 salesman that will always deliver the pitch exactly as they were trained to do 24/7 anywhere in the world. Never have a sick day and take no commission on sales. And so like a landing page is the greatest salesman ever. And so I think you should train your salesman to like be able to sell your product effectively, essentially.
I, uh, I'm writing a new landing page now. Um, for my thing and it is daunting. Like it, no matter how many landing pages I've written, it is always hard.
Well, cause your bar keeps going up. Cause you're like, oh, I know what great looks like. I know I want it to be great. And so what would have otherwise been sufficient 5 years ago, now you look at that and you're like, nah, I'm sure it could be better. I know it could be better. Right? Cause you're already really, you're really good at it. If I was going to get somebody to write a landing page, I would hire you. And so you're already very good at it. So the fact that you're feeling daunted is like, I don't know, like a musician going back into the studio to record their new album. And it's like they know that they're good, but it's like, I got to do it again. I got to make magic again. I got to make a hit again.
That's exactly how I feel. I'm staring at this landing page and I'm like, no, this is lame. This isn't up to my standard. This sucks. This sucks. And I'm just like looking for, you know, what I, what I usually do is what I like to do is find the way that I've been getting inspiration now is I find competitors that exist now or that used to offer a similar service. And I go to newspapers.com and I find old articles written about them and I see how reporters used to explain this. And if I see a catchy sentence, I go, boom, got it. I'm stealing that angle. And so that's what I, that's how I've been using, that's how I've been getting inspiration is I just use newspapers.com to find old, just articles in New York Times written about a certain company that's in the same space.
Space? There was this guy we hired once, and I actually don't think it was a smart hire. I made a bunch of mistakes now that I think about it. Looking back at my business career, I'm like, man, we hired a firm to do that. Like, yeah, we hired this person to do this. We paid this— like, I remember, I don't know, the Indy 500, like, was doing their race or whatever, and it was like, hey, you— there's free billboard space. We can give it to you for your app. And then I was like, oh wow, that's cool. Indy 500. I've heard of that. They're giving us free space. And I, we spent the next 48 hours like filming this fucking video that was gonna go on this billboard or this like video billboard. And I was like, looking back, I'm like, oh my God, I, how cheap was my attention that I let this random cold email divert me and my marketing team's like focus for 48 hours to do what? Like, did we really think this billboard was going to like—
At Indy 500?
At Indy 500 was gonna drive downloads. It was a beer app. So yeah, it was on point, but like they're just not trying to download apps in that moment. And like, there was no way to track it. It was, it was awful. And so like, and that's happened to me a thousand times. I've made a thousand dumb decisions like that. I'm like, wow, we really like spent time and energy doing that. That's like kind of embarrassing now that I know what I know now. Um, so similarly, we had hired a naming agency. Like I hired an agency.
I don't think that's a horrible idea. I don't think that's the worst idea.
I think it was $15,000 or $25,000. It was a lot of money and, um, it took like 6 weeks, which was also more expensive. It was like, if we just had the name, we would've just moved faster.
Um, what was the name that they came up with?
I don't even remember. It was like for a dating app that we were building. Is that like—
they just came back with like Jersey Shore characters. Your app is called The Situation. So we were thinking, what's sophisticated but also fun.
Party in the front. Yeah.
So, so basically, Paulie D. Say it with me, Paulie D. The latest and greatest dating—
it was like, um, so anyways, it wasn't even that they did a bad job. They actually did a good job with their thing, but it was just unnecessary. It was an unnecessary thing to do. But I, I do respect the craft because I remember I went to this to the meeting room. This guy Eli was sitting there. I think Eli Altman is his name, I think. And he was like, okay, so tell me about it. And I was like, so here's the screenshot. And he's like, no, no, just tell me about it. I'm like, so it's an app that lets you do this. It has these features. He's like, no, no, no. Why'd you make the app? And it's like, oh, because at the time I was single. I was like, so I'm single. I've used dating apps. And he's like, I was like, they all sucked. And so that's why we wanted to make this great one. And I kept rushing into the Here's my answer. Here's my solution. He's like, but like you said, it sucked. What sucked? Like, uh, what sucked about them? I was like, well, they're just like too hard to use again, generic. And he's like, so like, what did you like? Do you remember just getting really frustrated about it one time? And so he's asking me these good questions to like actually unfold the, unpack the customer stories, the words, the phrases that actually mean something. He got beyond the jargon. And then I was like, okay, so what happens now? Now you guys, you know, have this crazy brainstorming exercise where you come up with a name. He's like, No, just like, give me some time. And he just took a whiteboard marker and he just sat down cross-legged, like, you know, like Indian style in front of a whiteboard on the floor.
And I was like, yeah, it was literally like a child at play.
And he like, he just like put his phone at silent and put it outside. And I was like, whoa, this guy's mean. There's no bigger sign of seriousness than somebody who turns their phone off and like leaves it outside of the room. And he's like, he just started writing and he started writing long form. Like, not— I was like, oh, he's got some names. And I went there to look for names. He's— no, he was like, you know, dating is like hard. Actually, it's not hard. It's just kind of— it's frustrating. But the thing that's frustrating about it is like, I know that I'm a good catch, but I'm sitting here trying to perform. And he's just like writing out like the feelings that go through the mind of the person that's—
the way the story needs to end is it's the most like weirdest, horrible thing. Like he's this thoughtful thing and he comes up with like dick butt.
Like basically that's basically it. Um, so he, you know, so he, he did this long process and I actually think that there's a, um, there's some military phrase, which is like, um, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Yeah. And I've always tried to go fast when it comes to business stuff. How do I go faster? How do we speed this up? And I paid the price many times where like, if I had just slowed down at the, on the appropriate step, The whole thing would've gone faster, even though that step would've gone slower. For example, figuring out what is the actual problem I'm solving? What is the pain that the person is feeling here? What are the words that they would use to describe it that would resonate with them and get them to nod their head and be like, yeah, I've had that. And then how would I explain it in a way that's simple to them? That's what he was ultimately trying to do. He was trying to figure out what's the problem? What are the words that somebody would actually use that would resonate with them where they'd nod and be like, amen, preach. I feel that. Wow, you just, you put it in words better than I even could, how I was feeling about this situation. And then, oh, you described the solution, but instead of describing in terms of like the features and the widgets and the gadgets around it, like you tell me kind of like how my life's going to be different because I'm using this and this works this different way. And it kind of makes sense that it would work that way, right? Because, you know, let's use an analogy. Imagine you ran a lemonade stand and blah, blah, blah. And so that's what he did. And I remember just walking out of that being like, wow. That was like an impressive thing this guy did. And it looked so unimpressive. He asked me some questions. He kept slowing me down, didn't want to jump to an answer. Then he just sat with a marker alone in a room and wrote for a long time on this whiteboard, like paragraphs of stuff. And then through that, he came out with like, you know, a deep, a better understanding about my product than I had to begin with. And I think that, that like, there's something cool about that process and like, you have a new thing going. When you go make this landing page, it's like that's the thing you actually want to do because slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
Well, did you— did I show you that I hired a branding agency?
I saw that. Yeah. You sent me the—
so I think I spent $15,000 on it and they're based there in Hong Kong. So like, I think there was a— like, I think normally this would cost $30,000 in America and I was actually happy with the work. And this is normally something I would never do. And it took them 30 days and it's like you just get this deck that like outlines and Like I never would've done that. And I think it was totally worth it. This is not something I ever would've done. And I think it was totally, cuz whenever you like build shit and you make a website, you slowly iterate and then like you hire new people and you're, and they like come up with ideas and you're like, no, we already tried that. Or like, no, that doesn't work because this page looks like this. Like it, I'm like, let's just get it all, do it all the right way the first time. And that's something I never in a million years would've done. And it was worth it.
Yeah, we did that for the Milk Road too. We hired this guy Jeremy, um, who did our initial branding, and I'd never hired a branding agency like that for a startup that I was doing, but I was like, all right. I told Ben, I said, we're not going to do it off the bat. Like, you're saying you're doing it up front. Um, I think that's okay. I don't think that's necessarily bad, but I also don't think it's necessary. And so usually for a startup, you just kind of want to do it.
When I say off the bat, I already had a quarter of a million in revenue.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I had told Ben, I said, He's like, uh, he made a logo like in 5 minutes on Canva. And I was like, all right, I like this. I like the name Milk Road. Sounds fun, goofy, easy to say. You see, I can get the domain for $2,000. Let's do it. And he made this logo in like Fiverr or Canva or something like that. And I was like, all right, um, let's run with it. He's like, you know, don't you think we should, uh, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, all right, here's the deal. Um, it seems like you want to spend more cycles on it because you think the brand is important. And I agree, the brand will be important. I just don't think it's important for us to get our first 10,000 subscribers or even 100,000 subscribers. So let's make a deal. If we can get to 100,000 subscribers through our Jenky thing, that will, we'll reward ourselves by investing in the brand. Because I think ultimately the brand, this whole exercise of like having a cool brand, it's really for our own pride more so than it's going to improve the like conversion of this right now, or like it's unproven how that's going to do. So let's, let's reward ourselves. So we got to 100,000 and then we hired this guy. And then he took us through these cycles and review after review of these decks. And then I have this guy in India who's my designer for all my projects. And to create that milkman character, who I think is actually the best part of the brand, he actually made it. This guy in India made it in one day. And I was like, wow, perfect. Thank you. That's exactly what I wanted. Thank you so much. And so we just ran with that.
Dude, I think, uh, I think the outcome was actually quite good. I loved your brand. Um, uh, no, I thought it was good.
I thought it was a win. I told you the story, right? When I went on vacation to Hawaii and the, the, uh, guy Jeremy, he lives there. He lives in, in Hawaii and he's like, oh, you're here. Like, let's hang out. I was like, oh yeah, great. And so he comes to the hotel. He walks up barefoot and I was like, uh, something happened? Like, did you get here okay? And he's like, um, He said, what do you mean? I was like, you're not wearing shoes, dude. And he's like, oh, I don't wear shoes. I was like, you don't wear shoes? And I was like, most fucking branding agency thing I've ever heard. The most creative.
Is he a white guy?
Respect for taking the I'm a creative to the peak. Like you thought the beanbags in the office was it. You thought that, you know, having these like—
Is he like a white guy who moved to Hawaii or is he born in Hawaii?
White guy moved to Hawaii. Australian guy moved to Hawaii. When they moved there, they were like, oh, we don't need shoes on the island. Like, we just live, we're part of the island. And so they put their shoes in storage. And so he's like, yeah, we had to go travel to Australia to go visit our family. He's like, I had to go get my shoes out of storage.
I was like, what a weirdo.
You don't need shoes that much that you didn't even just chuck it in the garage just in case. Like, you put them far away. Like, that's the equivalent of the guy, the branding agency guy, putting his phone on, turning it off and leaving it outside the room.
Dude, just so for the record. I'm on board with that. I think shoes are stupid. I walk around barefooted all the time when it gets above— if it's 80, above 85, no shirt, no shoes. Just that's— that's just the rule. I'm always outside shirtless.
I'm wearing socks right now.
No, these feet—
I hate wearing—
No, man, you got to get the calluses on there. Then you— then it's like you're wearing shoes anyway. I dig it. But I'm happy you're back. We went— I went away. I had Ryan Holiday on, and we'll do a recap about that.
And then, yeah, I leave for one day, you guys do a podcast about how great Hitler is. I was like, wow, all right.
Yeah, yeah, that, uh, that, uh, we, we had to switch some things up. Basically, we did this pod on Hitler, and I was talking about how sad it was. And then our freaking YouTube guy, I— he like put up this stupid thumbnail and it said like Things are no, uh, things you can learn from call things. There's something about like, it was about like, like, you know, things you could learn from Hitler on business building. And I was like, whoa, no, not a chance. And I texted Ben, I go, Ben, you gotta get rid of this. This is, that's not at all what we talked about. This is, you know, I, and it had my face on it. We had my face next to it. And I was like, dude, that's not even remotely what we talked about. We talked about how horrible he was. Um, and so yeah, we talked about Hitler and had Ryan Holiday on and just went Right when you left. Yeah.
So I decided to come back. I cut my emergency short to come back.
Spock, man. I can't let you totally throw our YouTube guy under the bus because he did contact me. He, he was like, hey, I think I'm gonna do the Hitler angle. I think it'll get tons of clicks, but obviously it'll be controversial. Do you think that's cool? And I was like, yeah, man, go for it. Anything for clicks, more YouTube views. And you were like, and you were like, yeah, put Sam's face on it while you're at it.
Not my face, only Sam's face. Can you brighten the image? Can you brighten his face up a little bit? Turn down the color balance.
Yeah. Can you get Sam doing like a heart shape with his hands? It was the worst, man. I saw that picture and I was like, Ben, I can't have this, man. You got to delete it immediately. Please delete that. This is— I got to say though, the reason I thought it was okay is because in the first 30 seconds of the video, you say Hitler's obviously a bad person, but I don't think it's wrong to like study his life and learn lessons from it. And so I was like, well, he says he's a bad person in the first 8 seconds of the video. I think it's okay.
Uh, you ever heard that phrase, if you're explaining, you're losing?
Yeah, if you're explaining, you're losing. That is, that is totally right. I was like, it did, it didn't work. That, that, that was a, that was a—
I understand people like that episode, but multiple people were like, my favorite episode. Uh, you know, I've, I just shared it. I don't know if you saw those tweets. There was a bunch of people who really liked that episode.
Yeah. And they also liked the Ryan Holiday one. So basically, uh, you're welcome. You're welcome for, uh, for carrying the load for a while. I'm gonna take a, uh, this November I'm thinking about doing a motorcycle trip and I'll be gone for, uh, 5 days. So you're gonna have to see if you can, uh, uh, I got you.
Carry.
Yeah. You're gonna have to see if you can carry the weight during that time.
Yeah, why, um, you know, why, uh, why Stalin is so misunderstood.
Yeah, we could talk about this another time, but do you know that YouTube channel Ghost Town Living?
Yeah, that's, um, those guys that abandoned town and they, they kind of vlog about, you know, as it— as they've been building it out or whatever.
So I invested in it and, um, it's like me and Ryan, Nathan Barry, and like 3 or 4 other guys. And I wrote a, I think I gave him $25 grand. So I think I own like less than 1% of it, but, uh, uh, I'm gonna, I wanna ride a motorcycle there and, and check it out. It's like 4 hours outside of LA. I think it'd be fun.
That's interesting. Why do you invest in that? Well, you can ride your motorcycle there anyways, right? So what, what do you think, like this is gonna become a valuable investment or, or?
No, it was an emotional thing. No, it's, it's, it was an emotional thing. My justification was it was like me, Ryan, Brent, the guy on there, my friend Brendan, uh, and like 3, and Nathan Barry and like, and then only 3 other entrepreneurs. So it was 7 of us. And I figure, well, if I can like somehow like get invited to like a thing there or get to talk to them and I invested $25 grand, I bet I can make that money back just off these relationships or just like a cool story. Like, so that's kind of how I thought about it. And I thought, and I asked Nathan, Well, and so I did it for that reason. And I also, I did the whole deal without seeing any documents and just talking to Nathan. Nathan Barry wrote me a text. He goes, just so you know, there's a little bit of room if you want to join this, here's the pros and here's the cons. Here's why I did it. And, uh, he and I go, okay, cool. I'm in then because you just said you're in. I'm in because you're, you know, I trust him. So that's, it was that simple.
That's great. Yeah. I think it's a good idea. Um, okay, cool. And I have, by the way, I have a couple, uh, banger topics. I'm in a, uh, like I have a lot of research going on right now and, uh, I'm excited. There's some that I'm like, I'm like, they're almost so good. It might need to be its own episode. Like I want to do one that's basically breaking down like what's actually going on with VR. Like is VR kind of like dead in the water? Is it low-key killing it? Like, you know, that sort of thing. And so we've been doing a bunch of research on that.
Um, share it with me and we'll do a whole episode on it on Monday and I'll be the straight man and I'll ask you questions like I don't know anything.
Okay. Sounds good. I think it needs, basically it's good as is, but I think it could be a lot better. I actually want to go talk to a bunch of like the VR app developers to be like, yo, give me the real deal. Like, what are you like, here's what the data tells me, but like, what, yeah. Do you agree or disagree? So I want to talk to a few other experts, which normally I don't do that. Normally it's like either that happened already accidentally, spontaneously.
Yeah. You're not doing it. It's a capital J journalism.
Yeah. So this time I'm kind of like, I don't know. Going further for some reason. But I think it's because I actually want the answer because I want to know if I should be investing more in this space or not. And, um, uh, dude, a couple of my investments have taken off. Like the first, some of the early deals with the fund is now 2 years old and we now have 2 or 3 companies that are like 40x to 80x returns. Um, not liquid yet. So, you know, anything can happen, but that's like a crazy multiple. And it's like, It's such a, it's like, so in my brain, I knew intellectually this is how it's supposed to go. You're supposed to do this angel investing thing. You get this basket of companies and then you're looking for these breakouts that are going to return this huge, you know, multiple, uh, 20x, 30x, 50x, 100x, 1,000x returns. And then when you start to see it actually happen and you take out the calculator app and you're like, wow, this is incredible. $100,000 can turn into $10 million just like that. $100,000 could turn into 50 million if it does one more leap here. And that's pretty exciting. So that's just been a, I don't know, for some reason that's been a, I don't know, like a second wind in terms of once things, I guess in general, when things become real, things always ratchet up. I've always felt this way. The first time I took a dividend out of my business, I was like, oh, okay. I thought I was already all in, but this made it even more real and exciting. And I'm ratcheting it up. Up when I thought I was already ratcheted all the way. And the same thing's happening with the startup investing stuff where now as these startups actually break out, it's like you ratcheted it up even more, even though you thought you already were. But that tangible hit of success, same thing happened with content creation. I thought I was already trying and then, oh, now we're getting $100,000 plus per episode. Okay. I'm going to start doing research. I'm going to start doing more like that. I was like, I thought I was already doing research, but no, now I want to push the envelope further.
All right, well, let's do a whole thing on VR on Monday and we'll talk about your investments. Cool. We should actually do a thing where we—
a portfolio update.
Yeah.
And we can balance it. We could be like, okay, I lost this much money in the stock market and we could do a more wholesome, like a more holistic thing. So it's not just, hey, here's some wins.
It's like— that means I have to log in and look though. I don't even look. Yeah, fuck that.
Nevermind.