Finding Profitable Business Ideas By Studying Trends, Hood Rat Stuff, and More

You're good at doing this, which is you identify these lifestyle trends. You pick up pretty quickly on like, there's a group of people that are deciding to live under a different paradigm, a different model or creed. And actually that was one of the best ways to build a business around that lifestyle because you can speak to that audience, you can differentiate a product super easily to that crowd. One time I went to an amateur fight in you've been there. It was at the in Golden State Park or something. Remember that I can house and there was like a thousand people there. And at the fight, you know how? So basically when people before people get into a ring, the referee checks to make sure you don't have any weapons on you. It's just like a precaution, but that's like they rubbed your shorts to make sure you have a weapon. They check your gloves to make sure that there's not like cement in there. And then they also look at your fingers to make sure in the maze case, you don't have long nails. One time I went and they go, no, you got to cut your nails. And so they made an announcement. They go, does anyone have a nail trimmer and someone and we waited for like three or five minutes. And someone had a like a run to walk green. There's something in bring a nail and he had to cut the nail. And I was like, Hey, like how did you not figure this out? Like, you know, 15 minutes ago, this nail thing is not new. Like you should have checked this out before they came out and be it was just crazy. That's so funny. That yeah, every time they do those checks, I'm like, what has anybody ever discovered like a razor that this guy's sneaking into the cage? Like, no, they never do it. It's like just a, it's like a TSA pat down without ever, ever finding anything. Except for that. That's the first time I've ever heard that they like actually. Well, one of the reasons they do it is in the 80s or 90s, there's this guy who's a real, it was a real famous fight. And this guy basically put his hand in like a cast. So it was like, and they like cast it. Yeah, it was called the Paris a plaster or whatever that phrases. It's like, it was like plaster and then they put his gloves on and they beat out. And he beat up this guy so bad that the guy eventually killed himself because he had so much brain damage. It made him depressed and like, it was like a really bad thing. And so that's one of the reasons why they're like, like, check your gloves so much. It's such a big deal. Wow. The plastercaster. All right. I feel like, well, I'm sorry. I think I died. And now I respect these checks. In fact, I too got caught in TSA yesterday in a slow line and miss my flight. So you know, I'm always two minutes late for this podcast. I was two minutes late for my flight and miss my flight yesterday. Where are we going? I was going down to, I went down to Mexico, actually. So yesterday I went to Mexico and back. What? Why for e-commerce stuff for business? Yeah. We were visiting a supplier down there and I wanted to go check them out. And so, yeah, one day trip, miss my flight, did the thing where I was in the good line. Other line looked a little shorter. So I was like, let me optimize real quick. Made the switch, took a mental note. I said, all right, that's my line buddy right there. We'll see who makes it first. He was long gone. He made the flight. I didn't make the flight. So I ended up and I have clear. I got all the shit to skip the lines. Still didn't make it. So that was kind of a, yeah, well, it's fine. And now it's like, you know, whatever the situation is. That's just the price you pay. That's exactly. That's the price I pay. The splinter is the cost of the wood, as I say. And so that was, that was, that was, you know, the start of my day. But dude, I crossed the border on foot yesterday. I was like, you know, Donald Trump's enemy. I literally walked across the border from Mexico back into the United States yesterday. How I don't understand. Like I drove down, I got driven down to Mexico. They don't check you. So they're like, oh, yeah, come on in. It's fine. Like, you know, they don't, they don't, they don't really care. But then to get back into the United States, so like, hey, when you can't just walk into the United States, you got to show me some idea or whatever. And the guy who drove us down, he, the, the guy we're meeting for business, he was like, well, I have this like fast pass. That's like the global entry thing. But it's only for me. I can't just like bring other people in my car using that. So when we get up to the thing, you're going to hop out. You're going to get in this line with a bunch of other people trying to cross the border. And then I'll pick you up on the other side. So that's what we did. I crossed the border on foot yesterday, which is kind of a stunning experience. And it was amazing, dude. It was like, it was just so different than anything else that I've ever had. What was your peers like on the, on the front. My peers. Yeah. So my peers and my peers and friends in line, they were, you know, a lot of like single mothers with kids. There was like, you know, not a whole lot of English going on. People, you know, there was a amazing rapper. So this guy was rapping. I got a video of him. But I've, he had no call to action. Dude, he had the, like his top of funnel was amazing. His like rap was great. He had a speaker. He was, he had a captive audience. Like we're a stuck in line. And he's just rapping to all of us. And he's freestyling about us in Spanish. And so I'm sure he was just talking mad shit about me. But then I was like, wow, this guy's like got the all the talent in the world. And so I was literally like, dude, I'm going to get this guy to like make a song. Like he'll do our outro for the podcast or something. This guy's so good. But he's got no, no Instagram handle. He was rapper for my illegal crossing. It was legal. You know, it was illegal crossing. And he was there and he was amazing. And he had no sign, no name, no nothing, no, no English. So I couldn't like dude, he was that was his Kanye, Kanye moment. And that was his Jay-Z. I was ready to take him to the top. But he didn't have, he didn't have it there. So you know, lesson learned as always. Give people away to, you know, to, to, to, to take you forward. Just give the call to action. Otherwise, you know, you might just be a rapper at the border for the rest of your life. You don't, you don't have that with you. You should have told them that. I tried to, but you know, my Spanish stops at Biblioteca. So I kept saying, "Liberary, liberary." And he's like, what are you saying man? I don't understand. That was, that was the end of that. So let me tell you about something really quick. You have more ideas than I do. So let me, let me go first and tell you about something. Because, all right, so South by Southwest is going on this weekend. And I went to this dinner two nights ago that was pretty wild. So let me tell you about something not entirely related or potentially related at first. Have you ever heard of the overview effect? Probably not, right? The overview effect. No. Okay. The overview effect is a cognitive shift that affects how some astronauts, that affects some astronauts when they see the earth from space. So basically, when you take a person, there's only a bit about six, seven hundred, eight hundred, something like that, people in space. And when you take someone away from earth in space, they basically start seeing themselves no longer as, they don't like identify with a particular nationality, a particular culture, a particular race. And they just see the world as like this like fragile thing floating around. And there's been tons of astronauts, dude. They go up and they're like, "Wow, the earth is so fragile. It's so beautiful. It's just floating around." And it's protected by this thin atmosphere. And basically, it makes like, more of a bad thing or a good thing to have the overview effect. Well, it's more, most likely a good thing, but really, it's nothing. It's just like, it's just a different perspective where it's like, this idea of like nationalities and borders, like, that's fine if those exist, but that's not really important. We're all just floating on this rock, you know, trying to figure shit out. And it's just like, it changes how a lot of astronauts view the world. And they say they're like, "I'm different." It's almost like an Alice D trip or something like that. And so it's this really fascinating thing. And this one astronaut was like, my life changed after that. Like, I'd not stress out about certain stuff. I see as floating around on this fragile ball throughout space. And just these little things don't bother me, because I think that a lot of those problems are just made up. So it's kind of, and he said, "I think everyone should be. " I wish that everyone can be able to experience this. So because of that idea, there's just one company that hosted a dinner that I went to. And it was awesome. And basically what they make is this like pod. It's like the size of a really small room that can fit 10 people sitting down. It's like, it looks like a capsule, like a circle. And you sit down on this thing. And above it is basically a hot air balloon that's the size of a football field, a huge hot air balloon. And each person pays $50,000. And over six to eight hours, it brings you up above like 100,000 feet to the point of you kind of, you're not, I guess, technically in space. But it's the thing where you're like so high that you see like the black above you. And then you see like the dark above you. And you can kind of see Earth from a distance and you can start seeing different countries. And they're doing this because they want you to, like the whole shit, is like, you know, once you see this, like your life changes. And their first flights are going, it's called a world view. I think you go to worldview.space. I think that's their URL. I've got nothing to do with this company. Although a friend just invited me to a free dinner. And it was, I have no idea if these guys are going to be a little pulled off. But it was a really good story. And this idea is crazy fascinating to me. The first flights I think are going live like next year. Kind of interesting, right? So you, I thought the dinner was in the pod. I thought you went to space. That's kind of where, first of all, that's what I heard. I thought it was like, you know, the space needle restaurant. He's like, I'm going this tower. I spun around. I saw the whole city. I thought that's what you were saying you did for dinner. No, Mike. My friend John, like does PR for this company and he's like, hey, I got some spots you want to come hang out. And I went and I actually met a few interesting people. So would you drink? Would you drink greener? Was there by the way, the guy, I'm Trudge, Vinny Chase, he was there. And it was just this thing. What I do it, definitely maybe, not a for sure, no, not a for sure, yes. I'm really afraid. I'm really close to your friend. Definitely maybe, possibly no, probably yes, is where you're at. I would say yet, like the $50,000 thing to me, that's not a deal breaker because I think that's actually pretty of like $50,000 to like change your life and see the world. Like look at these pictures that's been showing. It's kind of interesting, right? Um, we're rich. We get it. $50,000, not a big deal to you. No, I just mean like if you want to like buy, like if you're going to like have to buy a car or like experience this, like, I don't know, it's kind of like, it's a compelling offer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is like you described it as kind of like the go do ayahuasca, like change your perspective on life. You know, it's like, seems like there's cheaper ways to change your perspective, but all right. That's a cool one. Do you know, do I have a friend, Matt Kelly, who used to do a podcast? I think he did a podcast. It wasn't even that popular podcast, but one of his listeners was this mega rich lady, his old rich lady and she bought him and the other host two tickets on Virgin Galactic's first flight, like worth a quarter million dollars each or something like that. Why? So before, there's like multiple years before they even had the space flight, but they like, they did the presale. And this woman bought the two of this listener, bought the two of them, quarter million dollar tickets or something like that to go to space. It was kind of insane. And they did it. But at that time, it was like, it wasn't even possible yet. Like, Branson had just announced it. Now I think those flights do run, or they're about to run or something like that. So I don't know if you ever did it. If, well, hey, world view, we're giving you guys free PR and we're giving you guys a shout-out. If they offered you Sean a free opportunity to do this, would you do it? Um, no, I'm going to say no. I mean, bro, you could drive across the court across the border to Tijuana and walk back and walk across the border will change your perspective. That's free. So, you know, I just did this for free. I changed my world view to Tijuana yesterday. Well, you know, that's the, that's the, that's the, I wouldn't do the, actually, the cool thing about perspectives is you can have many of them. So we can go into Tijuana and also we can go to space. The, uh, this is a good hypothetical, which was, uh, this, I remember it one day at launch at work. This was like the big debate. If you could go and be a part of the first, kind of a space colony or something like that, um, that you get to be one of the first people to actually live in outer space, like, in either in the moon base or like, uh, Mars or something like that. I wouldn't even consider it, of course. Would you do it? And I was like, hell no. And the, you know, it's like, why the risk? Like, no, the boredom. What am I going to do out there? Like, I like my life here. I'm enjoying it so much. Like, all I would do if I went out there to be honest with you, I would just think about how I'm going to tell everybody about this when I get back. Like, that would be the only cool part about going there for me is like the momentary stonning this of how it looks. And then the content I'm going to get to come back to earth and talk about it. Dude, that's why I hate vacations. I feel like half the time. It's just like, I always got to take a picture of my parents. That's why I don't like vacations. So yeah, I'm like, post on Instagram. I just refused to post on Instagram because I'm like, once I start performing here, this is just going to be another fucking place I perform. So you know, choose wisely. I chose Twitter and my podcast. I'd like, I don't know, my email list. Those are the only places I want to perform. I don't want to perform on like how cool my life is. I only want to perform on how cool my ideas are. And that's the one I want to perform. Probably better off performing nowhere and never having to think about that stuff. Well, I was, we don't have to talk about this, but I want us to, I have three goals for us that I need to run by you. The first goal, three million downloads in one month by the end of the year. There's nothing you need to do. You just show up. The second one. Yeah. I think you'd be talking about this in person interviews and also get like proper, famous people like Arnold Schwarzenegger or, you know, like a proper, famous person that we could tell someone at the restaurant went so like, when people are like, I went to the doctor yesterday and they're like, what do you do for a living? And I'm like, I host a podcast. And they're like, anyway, oh, cool. Anyone you heard of? Like, no, you don't know who any of these people are. So like, like, we need like a proper, like, famous person. Like, you know, you follow Steph Smith on Twitter? Yeah. Yeah. You know who Twitter is? Oh, no. Never mind. Yeah. I want to point. Yeah, it doesn't work. You know who Aery the whole one is. Do you like UFC? It just doesn't work out. So we need like a proper, famous person so I can get credit when I talk to strangers. And then finally, in person event, we need to have a MFM summit and at that summit, I think you should do a 10 minute comedy bit. Oh, that's great. Dude, yeah. That would be the pressure I need. And also, also going to be the best audience I could ever get. It's like, if I ever had a warm, a warm audience, like, it's the motherfuckers that would pay to get to the neckbeards that would pay to come see us at the summit, you know, hang out with us. Like, that's the close summit to get to a laugh. Yeah. I think so. I think you can do it. I think you could pull it up. I think all in some way, why are we not doing this at your ranch? It's not set up for like, what I think we should do is like, three to 400 people. And I think that we should have like maybe two days of events where it's just like one or two times of us talking in front of everyone, but then lots of smaller sessions of people hanging out. And I think we should only charge like $500. So like, just enough money to make like a profit that's interesting, but not high enough to where it prohibits people. So in some way is $7,500 for a ticket. Yeah. That's a bit pricey. Yeah. I'm not even getting to go to space or the border. So fuck that. Yeah, you can get like one fifth of the way to space with that, with the price of it all in some way. Do you know how many tacos that gets you a Tijuana? $7,500. I could have literally fed the town of Dihonay yesterday with $7,500. What was I going to say? Oh, the, yeah, we should do this summit thing. Why are we doing like, here's the trick. So like, if it's like a meetup for the conference and we then it's like, oh, shit, we got to have like, I don't know, speakers or like, you know, we have to do a good job. We just need to make this like a vacation. So like, we just need to make this what would already be a cool vacation. Plus we're there and there's stuff going on. So I think this needs to be like a cruise. And it's just a cruise ship and people can hang out for three days and we're there and other people are there. There's some talks, but like, fundamentally it's a cruise, which is already like, dude, this worst case scenario, it's a cruise, best case scenario. We are awesome on a cruise ship. I'm down. I would prefer not a cruise, but I get the idea and I'm down with that. And like, we get you and me, Ben. We get like a Wilkinson staff, maybe Rob Deertical, Wartacombe, who I don't know, like the best name other non famous guests. Yeah, I'm like, do you have a podcast? Do you use Deodorant? Yeah. Oh, do you use all natural native? No. There is one. And he was on the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, oh, you, you like Tom Cruise? Yeah. I'm on who looked at just like. He has a keto blog, but he looks a lot like Tom Cruise. Yeah, he looks just like Tom Cruise. All right. What do you got? Can I tell you? Okay. So on this trip to Mexico, I saw three or four things that I was like, huh, tell me more. Okay. So I'm just going to go through them and wrap it up. And by the way, I just got back like midnight last night. So, you know, I haven't had time to like research a whole bunch of these. They are first time in Mexico. No, but I like, I got shit on bad for the guy who's hosting me there. He's like, you guys ever says this your first time in Mexico? I think because I was like, are we in Mexico right now? He's like, yes. And I was like, is this your first time? I was like, no, no, no, I've been to, he's like, don't say like, can't, who in our Cabo or like, a couple of co and I was like, yeah, those are the three that I've been to. Okay. This is your first time in Mexico, man. I hang out. Yeah. Thank you. I've hung out for like collectively a month or so in Mexico City. Mexico City's dope. Mexico City's awesome. I would live there for sure. That's what I heard. And then so again, so first I, you know, like, here's my, my, my conversation with this guy. So first I dig myself in the hole with the Arian Mexico. And it's a yes. Then it's, have you been to Mexico? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, try to build rapport with my cancun trip. He's like, no. And then the third one is like, but I heard Mexico City is awesome. I got a couple of friends who swear by it. I say it's like one of the best cities. He goes, yeah, I don't go there. Super dangerous. Everything I said, this guy, like, like an extreme counter punch to me. And I was like, all right, cool. I'm going to roll down the window. We just stick my head out like a dog. Is that cool? He's a cat. So I, so I kill there. I'm looking at like do you have ever been inside factories you probably have but I think most people haven't how do you been inside like of any kind of I do you think that I've been in the factory You're gonna be like I don't know like my like in cousin bubble has like a bubble your factory I went fishing recently with my father in law and he's like, "Hey, so how do I set this hook up? What do I do?" I'm like, "Do you doubt it?" - No, I'm never gone fishing. He's like, "Why did you just assume that I know how to do this?" - Dude, you look a guy. You just, like, you seem for sure like a guy who just goes, "Mom, I mean, I've watched documentaries on it." - Like, dude, do you or do you not have a favorite place to fish? (laughing) - Of course not. I don't have a fishing hole that I go to. But no, I don't think I've been to a factory, not really. Like, what type of factory? - It doesn't matter. Any factory, whatever factory you go into, it's fucking mind blowing how, like, even go to a warehouse. Like, you're inside like an Amazon warehouse or like a food warehouse, like how the food gets to restaurants. It's insane. And the same way that like, go into a farm is like slightly crazy. And you're like, "Whoa, I eat these animals." Like, "Oh, wow." You know, that doesn't seem right. But like, basically a factory is just kind of stunning. Like, if you take any object on, like, okay, I am holding this microphone. This is sitting on my, this is the foam cover of a microphone. - There's some like huge factory that is turning them out. - If you just go back, trace the process of how this got to my desk. Okay, I just go on Amazon, I just microphone, I don't know, maybe this one, I click that, I buy it. So it goes from an Amazon warehouse, on to a, like, Amazon warehouse, packs it into a carrier carrier, brings it to my house, puts the package on my doorstep. Okay, great. How did I get to the Amazon warehouse? Well, first it was in probably like another warehouse before it even got sent to Amazon. Before that warehouse, it was in a factory being made by human beings. I just, I actually, before that, before it got to the warehouse, it was on a boat in a container, like, sailing from fucking China on a boat with human beings just living on the boat as it sails for months, you know, two months to the coast. And then it gets like, undeniable, like, docked and separated out of a container ship and like, humans beings are there. In the factory, there's human beings, you know, I don't know how many, you know, small children died making this foam cover. But it's like the amount of work that goes into everything that's sitting in our house, just arriving there is insane to me, like, just the material. So where did the material for this foam come from? Right? There's like a, you know, if you've cotton, right? That starts in a field somewhere, it's plucked, it gets plucked and it gets pulled in, it gets processed, then it gets shipped, then it gets manufactured, then it gets printed, then it gets manufactured again. It's like, that is insane. - Yeah, a lot of energy. - To the point where I'm kind of like, we're kind of ruining the earth and also people's lives. Like, you know, like, to get a $20 shirt. - Well, I canceled my Amazon Prime membership. I was like, I mean, I feel guilty. I like, I order something and it's like so much energy behind the scenes went to ship this. Of course, I only see the ship a dongle to a computer, a small ass thing with bubble wrap in a huge box and I'm like, oh, this is horrible. And then I have to pay money to pay a truck to come pick it up because it's too much, you know, boxes for me. - Yeah, then the truck, you know, burns gas and then takes it somewhere else and fucking dumps it somewhere and then someone else is problem, right? Like, so it's just kind of, like, on one hand, I'm amazed that the system even works. Like, the fact that the package gets from the factory and Vietnam to the warehouse and then you go to the warehouse and there's like an unbelievable number of boxes and then they get sort, you know, picked and packed into the package and then that gets shipped and if you're going to the post office, like, if you go to the post office and you, you should just ask them be like, hey, can I see what it's like behind the door there? They'd be like, what? Well, I'd be like, I just never seen a post office. They'll open the door. It is like, Santa's like, you know, elves factory basically. It's like the most unbelievable number of packages and you're like, where's the system? Like, aren't there conveyor belts? And they're like, nah, we just got these like trawlies and then we just kind of keep them like, you know, the ones going over there, they stay over in this area then we hope we don't lose them. It's like, wow, this is insane that this system even works. It is pretty crazy. It is pretty crazy. It's an incredible achievement. It's crazy. You can mail something from California to New York for like 45 cents and it gets there like four days. That's what I'm saying. Pretty reliably. So I'm like, it is on one hand amazing and on the other hand, it's horrifying. The amount of like, forget the environmental side. I'm not even that environmentally conscious. It's not like something that I think about all the time or I feel super guilty about. I actually feel more like the human energy and labor and just the amount of effort and resources it took to get this thing to me. It makes me think like, you know, we had that David Freiber come on the pod, you weren't there for that one. But the thing he's doing, which is basically like, hey, he's doing the same thing in the drink industry, which is like, instead of, you know, putting 20 liters of water to grow grapes, then crush the grapes, turn it into wine, add sugar, add alcohol, pack it up, put it to a, you know, send it to a bottling factory, then send it to a warehouse, then put it on a shelf in a store, and then drive it home, and then put it on a shelf in your home. Like, he's like, why don't you just like manufacture it in your home using this little printer that'll print a drink for you? And, and it's like, oh yeah, that cuts out like 90% of like the, you know, this like energy and like kind of resources and time and effort that goes into bringing this drink to my, you know, you know, to be able to drink this drink. So I just feel like more than ever, there was like, that was the big wake up call. That was my going into space moment was realizing for every single product, every shirt, every pair of boxes, every sock that I own, how much goddamn like effort, labor, travel, resources goes into it, and realizing that that's not going to be the way. That's not going to be the way forever. And like this kind of like 3D printing, you know, like sort of basically manufacturing just in time at the end point and cutting out a whole bunch of these like factories and warehouses and all that of the stuff, that needs to happen was my big wake up call. I want to ask you about then what else is there that you can do that for, but before that, have you ever gotten into the buy it for life movement? Have I told you about that? No, but I think I understand it from that. What is it? It's like an eco-friendly way of like, buying a product. Well, I don't, it doesn't have to be rooted in eco-friendly. It's not for me, but it's a perk. There's a subreddit that I subscribe to, it's called Buy It for Life. And what you do is the idea is just how do you just consume less stuff and how do you just buy the best of something that hopefully can last forever? So an example. Do you remember as a kid, did your mom ever have a KitchenAid mixer? Yes. Okay, so a KitchenAid mixer, KitchenAid's a brand, and the mixer, the thing with the bowl underneath it and the arm that goes above it, it spends, those are like $600, they're really expensive, but they're famous for lasting like a lifetime. Like you can use an antique one and it works just as good. And another example is if you're going to buy like a coat, like there's like, you can maybe buy a really fancy leather coat and you're willing to spend $2,000, I suppose to buying a $300 one because it could like last forever as long as you fit in it. Or Patagonia actually does that too. They'll fix your stuff forever. Or there's like a bunch of furniture, there's also shoes, like different types of shoes you can buy it instead of them, whenever they wear it down, instead of throwing them away, you can just get them fixed. And so it's the idea of like how do you buy one thing forever and it hopefully can last forever? Or buy one thing one time or last forever? I feel like you do stuff like this, Ben. Do you have like objects that you stuff that you buy that's like meant to sort of last? I don't know why, my hunch just tells me you do. The funny thing is my dad does this, but not out of like environmental justice ideas, because he's crazy that way, of like he drove the same car for 22 years and just like couldn't bring himself to buy a new car and always shines his shoes because he's owned the same shoes for like 40 years. And so that like kind of got ingrained in me as like a good way to live. And so I do do this a little bit. It's awesome. It's fun. And also like some of your shit as you wear it and it patinas it actually looks cooler. Right. You're good at doing this, which is you identify these like lifestyle trends. It's like do you know there's some people that are like you know not eating food anymore. They're just drinking whatever soy lantern, you know, like you know, there's people that just micro dose LSD every day. And like these are kind of famous examples now, but I feel like you've told me about like 30 of these in the time that we've been friends and they're like, dude, have you seen this like you know, subreddit called you know fat fire or whatever you say you always have these like you like pick up pretty quickly on like there's this weird. I don't know weird. It's just like there's a group of people that are deciding to like live under a different sort of like paradigm or different model or creed. And actually that I think you just like it is interesting, but that also is like one of the best ways to build a business around that lifestyle because you can speak to that audience. You can differentiate a product super easy. To that crowd. And I seek to I seek those things out. So there's a bunch of things that I don't agree with or I don't I don't want to live my life that way. But I love just like seeing it. I like seeing how basically I love freaks. I like weirdos. I consider myself a weirdo and I love a good freak show. I just love I'll see it like I remember I have the first time like three years ago I went to my friend's house and he didn't have a microwave. I'm like what you know microwave. He's like well it's bad for this reasons. And I was like you're a freak like Michael. We all have microwaves. So you're the weirdo. And then I you start thinking about it. I'm like well okay tell me why why do you think you might be right and I'm like okay there maybe there's a point there or like my friends a lot of my friends now refuse to use plastic, type of wear or plastic anything that you eat with. And I'm like well why? I just put my thing in microwave who cares. And so like there's a bunch of little things like that that I love learning about. Yeah I remember when Justin Mayors came on to you it you were like let me guess you don't have a microwave in your house. He's like, yep, and I was like, that's a fucking weird spot on question to ask somebody that I don't think you knew the answer to ahead of time. And then that got me thinking about that, this exact lifestyle you're talking about. In fact, Moise, so Moise started native deodorant, which was around one of these trends, which was people wanted an all natural, paraben-free, aluminum-free deodorant. And he saw that on Etsy, that was like a really high selling item, but it was like in the Etsy kind of handmade artisan goods like bubble. And his bet was that people, once you kind of speak to that value system of like not having X, they might be willing to pay more and become like switch deodorant brands if you like built a brand around it. He recently tweeted something, I think it goes billion dollar idea. Water that has not touched plastic. So it's a water brand that has only been like in glass containers or like, you know, basically like from the whatever, the mountain that this was gotten, it hasn't touched plastic until it's reached your lips. And that's not that was funny. It's like this plastic thing is real. A lot of people are anti-plastics. But so that means like for every product where plastic is core, there's going to be a alt product where plastic is not like not used. So whether it's Tupperware or like for me, I drink water out of, you know, we get those big five gallon jugs or whatever delivery house out of a dispenser. That's a plastic container. It's sitting in the whole time until I drink it. Right. So it's just a giant water bottle. And so there's like, there's these trends where you can look at, okay, where is there, like if there's a anti-plastic trend, where is there plastic and can I create an alternative? If there's a plant-based vegan trend, how do I make alt milks, alt meats, alt whatever, right? That becomes like a blueprint to building a great business. So there's a few companies out right now. You might know their names. I'm going to try and look them up. But basically there's this trend amongst products that you use daily that you run out of. So like toothpaste, laundry detergent, Advil bottles, things where the bottle isn't, it's just like a way to get it to you, but it's kind of bullshit that you have to throw it away. And so they're making all these products where they send you one package and then they send you like whenever you need it, just a refill it, like literally something you pour into it. Do you know what they're called? You don't know. But I've seen this for toothpaste. And I think it's a great idea. I think this is a great business idea. And at first I thought it was small. I think Moise was the one who told me, I'm pretty sure he said it's like killing it. You don't know what I'm talking about. I forget what it is. No, I don't know the name. I'll have to look up what it is, but they're crushing it. I know there's like four cleaners. I think there's one called Blueland. I think doesn't Blueland do this? Is it Blueland? I don't know. Yeah. And it's like chemical-free containers and then they send you one container and then they you order something and they, I don't know exactly how they send it to you, but you just like pour it into the thing. Right. The send you a plastic pouch that you throw it in. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's like less, less bad. By the way, speaking of these kind of like niche crazy people, I got two for you. So one is we talked, I think, about anti-r/antid work. Do we talk about that on the podcast? I don't think we talked about it, but it pisses me off. So there's r/antid work, which you should explain that and then I have another one that's the counter to it. So first, explain r/antid work. I don't even entirely know how to explain it. I'll tell you the background from what if I remember correctly. It was started eight years ago, but like in the last three years since the pandemic is when it really got popular, it was made up of a lot of people who were waiters and waitresses and they were pissed off at how they're being treated. And it started out as like a labor movement thing. Like we need higher wages, we need this. Now it's like got 8 million, 10 million subscribers on the subreddit and it's people complaining about like, you know, my manager said that like they fired me because I told them I was busy when I need to come in and they just basically shit on anything where it's like demanding of workers. And so I think so here's their, I think they're stated thing Ben, you tell me if I'm being too harsh on it, if you find a more generous explanation. But here's what it says. It is a subreddit for those who want to end work are curious about ending work and want to get the most out of a work-free life. The subreddit has cracked over 1.4 million members by the end of 2019, which it's got to be a lot more than that by now. It's 8 million now. And it went. I think it was. Oh my God. I want to. Sorry. I think one point. It went viral after a warehouse worker posted a screenshot of a Texas at the center boss. And then that basically made other workers, the other workers like kind of like saw that were inspired, did the same. And it was part of this like, you know, the great resignation that people were talking about. And there was like this funny clip where they put, they took a mod from R such anti-work and they went on Fox News. I don't know if you have seen this. Yeah. And the person got destroyed. It was embarrassing. It's like anti-work person gets destroyed by, you know, Fox anchors like the video. Which I didn't like. I mean, I hate when they do that. This person clearly like is not that smart, I think. And like, it's very easy to set them up to look silly in those cases. The subreddit also didn't like it because they were like, dude, horrible representation of us on TV did not articulate our points. And, you know, why did you go on there? Well, this movement is not about you getting your personal fame, you know, to like do this. We kind of, I think they had some rules around like we're not going to do appearances or speak to the media unless we kind of agree on what the message is. And so this person went rogue, I guess, and did that. But they basically embarrassed themselves where they were like, yeah, I just don't want to work. And then guys like, okay, cool. So like, you know, you don't want to work at all or like, no, like I want to be able to do what I want to do. Like, I want to teach people. I want to be a teacher. And he's like, you want to be a teacher? Like, you know, should we let you teach basically was kind of like the end point that they were kind of making. But anyway, so this, there's anti work, which my viral, then there's, have you seen R/ overworked? No, what's that? It's the exact opposite. It's people who are using the pandemic, the kind of remote work lifestyle to be like, they call it having the multiple jobs at once. So like, their, their lingo is like, oh, yeah, my J1, which is like my job one, it's like J1 has great benefits. And so I'm just picking up my J2 and J2, I'm just going to do 10 hours a week with this, this, this, and this. And I'm going to use that to invest in these things, right? It's so it's people scheming together about how to work multiple jobs at once. And as remote workers, oftentimes it seems like without the employers knowing that there are other jobs. So they're like, big simultaneously employed without being super overt about. I think that's the message. I could be wrong on that. And it's, it's people who are trying to get to financial freedom faster by saying like, yeah, like actually, I have the capacity to do like multiple jobs, you know, instead of sort of spending 40 hours a week on one job, it's like, I can actually do a good job in 20 hours a week on two jobs and get paid double. But that's not, that's the optimistic way to look at it. The probably realistic way, like I'm looking at the top title and it says, Jay, my J3 job forgot about me today. And they say, I started my J3 yesterday. I started, I mean, I was giving an orientation on zoom and no one showed up. So now I'm just sitting here on the payroll. Right. Yeah, yeah. There's people who are like, yeah, let's beat the system. And so there's like a basically a counter movement. But that kind of always happens. There's like a, there's like the movement and then there's the counter movement that comes shortly after. And like, it kind of polarizes. And then there's a mainstream, which just does things the way they've been doing them. They don't really pay too much attention to this stuff. And so, you know, that's kind of common for many, many, many, many of these movements. I think subreddit are a great place to look for that. That's so interesting. So there's this book that I've been meaning to read. It's on my, to read list and it's called bullshit jobs. And so it's this premise that like, I think it was a professor or some guy from school and economics of London or something like that. And his whole, like, I'm, again, this is a memory I didn't research this much. His whole idea here is that most jobs out there in the world, like at least in white color or world, like it's, it's just kind of unnecessary. And to summarize it is like, take a company like HubSpot, Amazon, Twitter, like, what would happen if you laid off two thirds of the people? Like would it, would anything, do we think anything would change other than the company would just make more profit? And this guy says, in most cases, yeah, it would actually, it would run just fine. And most of the jobs that you have are just worthless. And I kind of agree with him. I agree with him. I agree with him. I kind of agree. When I don't have knowledge of it, other than just personal experience, but I don't, it does sound like it was hard. And it's hard because there's no counterfactuals. So you don't get to run the test and actually, you know, you can't split test and run both versions. It's not better. But I've had this inkling for a while when we were getting acquired and I, we were getting acquired by Twitch and as part of it, they're like, hey, you got to like, you know, basically, like, your whole team is going to come in for a day of interviews. And that's going to decide kind of like if we take your whole team or not. And I had to do my interviews well. And so I'm going in there and they're like, you know, the classic job interview question, job interview structure is like, I ask you a bunch of questions for 95% of it. And then the last 5% of it, I'm like, so do you have any questions for us? And then you're supposed to say something that's also just you showing off to to show some other strength of yours in a different way. And I had one genuine question, I asked it to every single person, and they were kind of like taking a back slash, they thought I was kind of a jerk. Some people thought they reacted kind of well, like, oh, that's refreshing. I don't know, I hadn't really thought about it, but I could tell other people were slightly offended by my question. And my question was, I would say, how many people work at Twitch? And they would be like, I think we're at 1,800, or 2,000 people now. I said, and how many people do you think, I forgot how I phrased it, but it was something like, how many people do you think Twitch needs to hit its goals? And I was like, how many people do you think should work here? All right, that's how many people do work here. How many people do you think should work here? And people were like, so I asked the CEO of this question too. And he was, I give him credit because, he's someone who like prioritizes the truth over being right, like getting it right is way better than being right. But he's also like a kind of a fierce debater, so he's not just gonna like lay down and be like, oh, yeah, you're right, I changed my opinion about things. So he like, he took the question, and he didn't like, I would say 9 out of 10 CEOs would get quite offended by this question, because it's basically implies you've mismanaged the company by bloating. - That's a great question. I would not be offended. - He was not offended either. And he was like, he was like, that's a good question. He's like, I think like 2,200. So he's like, yeah, I think we're a little short of what we need to hit his goal. And he's like, and then his take was basically like, you know, I'm not saying we have all the right people or the most talented people, or that like, there's not people who are underutilized or just kind of, you know, the fat. I wasn't really his point. It was like, I think we can be this much, this ambitious, and to do that, we would need, you know, like 2,200 awesome people like working in Unison. I still think he was wrong. I think we, I think, you know, the company could have operated on. - I thought it was a big mistake. - I would have followed up with a few questions. The first one would be, okay, but do you think that you need to hire 2,200 people because you know that only 10% of them are going to be actually value add, and you just have to hire the rest in order to find that 10%. And then I would say, and also, is it possible that you only, that you think you need 2,200 because you really only need like 20% effort from all those people, and that's what your expectation is. And then finally, how much does redundancy come into play here? How much do people, are you just paying them, and you just don't want to mention to them, but you're paying them to sit on the bench, and when the person next to them quits, they just are ready to roll. - Right. Yeah, I didn't follow up that hardcore about it, but I think those were, you know, very valid points. And also, you know, one thing I kind of learned from him was like, let's take that redundancy one, right? Sounds bad, right? Sounds like, oh man, you're paying a bunch of people to kind of do nothing, just sit around, because it's insurance. - And he's like, that was exactly his take, which was like, I think it was on speed. I was complaining how slow we were going. And he's like speed, he's like, going slow sometimes a feature, not a bug here. And he's like, or like innovation. I was like, oh man, we're not really innovating, everybody else is, and say this outright, but I, you know, I gathered this through our conversations, which is like, there are some things we're gonna innovate on. But actually the optimal strategy here is to let a bunch of startups go out and try to innovate. And then if anything works, either buy them or clone them, like that is actually the best way for us to innovate. It's like, it's free. We get way more experiments done by super calibre, you know, super hungry motivated people, like startup founders and their teams, who are laser focused on just that one thing, and they'll try radical experiments that we would never otherwise do, and we don't have to fund it. But we can sit back and watch it. And then when we're ready, we can either go try to acquire them, partner with them, or if they don't want to do any either of those, we can build our own and just use our distribution and our brand, which, you know, we have, we have, you know, X millions of users, then we should be able to outcompete them from there. And my issue with, I think that's actually, is the optimal strategy. - I agree with Emmett, I think, on most things, I imagine I would probably, I should say, I'm not putting words in mouth, this is like what I gathered from a bunch of, bunch of different conversations. I'm sure he would disagree with like, you know, 40 or 50% of what I just said, some are paraphrasing him poorly. - Yeah, and it's just like your opinion on, your takeaway. - My take of his takes. - And I, I think I would agree with, I bet I would agree with a lot of what he thinks. My issue is when you're like a small company, like under 50 people, you're all in it, a lot of times you're in it for a mission. You're in it to achieve something. I think that you can get away with just being in it because people just like being in the thick of it with their friends. Like they just like the action. When you get a little bit bigger, I think it's less mission oriented and you're, and it's just a job, but you still have to put on this face like this to inspire people. And it kind of sucks because the truth is, is like, well, you know, I know that, you know, a lot of you are only working 40%. And that's okay with that. I make that into this. I know that a lot of you aren't working at all, but you're really just here in case the guy next to you quits, and then hopefully you're gonna train the next person. And I know that a lot of you wanna innovate and try these new things, but that's not really what we're gonna do. We're gonna keep doing the same shit, just a little bit better. And then maybe every once in a while, I'm gonna have a team that makes something totally new. And I know all of this, but just tough. And figuring out how to navigate and, but have that like to say what I just said, but in a really inspiring way, or unfortunately just lie, we gotta lie. - Don't say it is actually the best way. - Yeah, just act. You gotta just act and pretend and be a politician a little bit. I find that to be incredibly challenging, but I think it's incredibly necessary. - Yes, you're spot on, you're spot on with that. You are spot on with what you just said. - Do you think you could do it? - I think the thing you said, I say have you ever heard a Dunbar's number? - Yeah, what's it mean again? - So Dunbar's number is basically it's 150, that's the number, and it's meant to represent the number of different, like how many people you can know. - You know people. - How many people you are familiar, you like know their name, their face. How many people can one person know actually? Like somebody's like, I got 6000 friends. Like no, well, you don't really know 6000 people. And so Dunbar's number was used to be 150. It's like in a tribe, you could know up to 150, you could know everybody in the tribe. Past 150, you don't know everybody in the tribe. And then tools like social media and stuff came out that, kind of like, it's like a tool for the human body to like do more. So like you might be able to know and keep up with more than 150 people now, because Facebook makes it easy with the newsfeed and photos and their name is listed there and whatever. You get to see it all the time. I think what you're saying is like your version of Dunbar's number, which is 50, and it's like below, it's Dunbar's number. Oh, call it. (laughing) It's below 50. Below 50. The people who are there are like, you know, down for the cause. Like the larger prior, obviously they care about themselves, but like one of the top factors, either number one or number two can be like the cause. And then like, or even just like, just like, you know, like that kid who said he wants to do hoodwrap stuff with his friends, like that could be the cause. Like I just want to, I just, it's just, there was a viral video like years ago, and they interviewed this like nine year old who stole his grandmother's car and crashed it. And the guy was like, why did you, why did you steal her car? That's, that was really bad of you. And he goes, I try to be good, but sometimes I just like doing hoodwrap stuff with my friends, like smoking cigarettes and driving cars. Play the video, play the video, bed. You gotta play that really quick. Get you play it. Along the way, he ran over two mailboxes, hit two parked cars in a Costco parking lot, and struck two moving cars near Walmart. I want to do because it's fun, fun to do bad things, driving to a car. So did you know that you could perhaps kill somebody? Yes, but I wanted to do her stuff with my friend. First of all, that's how I feel about startups. The YouTube feature for this podcast just took us to a holdy level already. First one is great. Second, we need to pull the clip of, yeah, just sometimes I want to do the red shit with the friends. And that needs to be a sound clip, Ben, that you can just play when mirrored servers talking about something dumb that we're doing. So just go ahead and cut that one out. That's the best part about, that's the best part about startups. Like I don't care if it's ad tech. I don't care if I'm selling clothing. I don't care. Like it's be a good, like when you're, when you're like pulling shit off and you're like kind of fibbing to people and like, yeah, we really care about our customers. Our team is just the review. And you're just trying to pretend that you're a big deal. That's hoodwrap shit. And I love doing that with my friends. But I wanted to do her stuff with my friend. By the way, have you struggled to do that at now that you're trying a big enterprise, SaaS company that's worth billions of dollars and hoodwrap shit is now found upon? And you're like, I just yanked it. I yanked it. You can't, and they're like, you just yanked it, Sam? Why did you do that? We have a process for that. Because I definitely could think of like two or three examples where I was bragging about something I did that was like the startup scrappy thing. Like what? Well, I would just be like, yeah, like, you know, I like for example, there was like a competitor. And I like went, I like talked to the founder and I was like, yeah, like, you know, I basically found out a bunch of their numbers. And I was like, oh, yeah, you know, they're growing this fast, this, doing blah blah. And they're like, well, how do you know that? And I was like, well, I talked to him. I told him I was in a street and blah blah blah. And they're like, ooh. And I was like, what? And they're like, well, you know, we just, usually we don't, we don't do hoodwrap shit. (laughing) I basically was like, the reward I thought I was creating was like, well, we're gonna need to talk to legal and also CorpDev is gonna have to, you know, we have a guy whose job, is to have those conversations and we typically sign a lot of engagement before. It was like, not the exact example, but things that in the start up, when I was doing my start up, I would be so proud of my hack about whatever, or like I remember once I was negotiating a partnership deal. And like basically, I was just like really negotiating for like every inch, which as a start up, I used to love winning a deal, like getting a good deal for ourselves. And they were just like, you know, they're like, you know what? Like we'd rather just use our standard deal. And it's more favorable for him, so he'll be happy. And we don't have to like, you know, let you like negotiate deal by deal on these things. And like, you know, in general, you don't really want to negotiate and negotiate directly with the person we have like partnerships with people who do that. And they were not negotiating. (laughing) - You're like the big ol' boss guy. It's like, dude, you need a toe. I'll get you a toe. (laughing) I'll get you a toe if you need a toe. Can I, let me ask you a quick question before we wrap up. Do you think, okay, this question isn't a good question because it is in fact possible. And I have many examples. But getting wealthy, like we're talking nine figures liquid net worth wealth. Getting wealthy, do you think it is inco, I want to say impossible, but it's not. So I got to change my question, but I'm gonna say it with the possible way. Is it really hard to do it just from cash flow or do you think you have to sell something, sell a business, sell real estate, sell something, capital gains versus income? - You're saying liquid, so not paper, not your paper net worth. - Liquid, which includes things that could be traded in 30 days. - Very hard, very hard to do just off cash flow. I believe. I think it's just much slower, right? Because you can, I mean, just look at the basics, right? Like when you sell something, you're gonna sell it for some multiple of the free cash flow that it's gonna generate for you, right? And so just by definition, right? - 10 or 20 years. - Sometimes it's 5X, sometimes it's 10X, sometimes it's 20X, sometimes it's 3X, whatever. There's different multiples for different industries, but like fundamentally it's a multiple, which is a multiplier on how fast you're gonna get the value out. So let's say to get to 100 million, whatever number of years that would take, you then have to divide that by five, and that's like how fast, at minimum, you could have got there just selling the asset and taking the 5X multiple, right? So, of course you can get there, but do I know ways you can get there with the same speed? I don't think so. Because even those are like, I take the cash flow, I invest it in the thing, and then that thing grows faster, and like I can sell my stake in that. - So, you know, because it's like, you have a choice, so you could spend your time, you could spend your time building a service or some type of business where you can make significant cash flow to $3 million a year, not work that much, but it's not necessarily an asset that could be sold. So there's a few businesses like this, or it could just be like, like the way this podcast gets paid, like it's not like a particularly, maybe the podcast is not an example, but it's not, you know what I mean, not necessarily an asset, like your Maven course. Your Maven course is not an asset that could be sold, but it could potentially make many millions of dollars a year, versus you just say, you know what, screw it, I'm not doing that because I have to build a business that could sell. So, do you prefer, do you think cash flow, or an entity that is independent of you and can be sold? - I don't know, I don't think do I prefer really the right way to think about it, it's like you need both, right? Like for example, I, you need both for two reasons. One is maybe you're gonna use the cash flow to invest, right? Maybe what you're gonna do is you're gonna buy great assets and let them compound over time. Well, where are you gonna get the cash flow to begin with, right? When we had Andrew on that last week, he's like, I took the cash flow from the design agency of Metalab, and I used it to buy majority stakes on all these other businesses, and then that let those compound over 10 years, and like boom, you know, so he reached, you know, that goal and more doing that. And so, you know, maybe you need the cash flow to make those investments, right? Like if you don't have no cash flow, how are you gonna invest in anything? And secondly, I like to live a good lifestyle. So sometimes cash flow businesses are great because it's like, yeah, sure, compounding is awesome, but so is, you know, like, I can, I don't know, Gucci shoes. So whatever, I choose your, choose your thing you're into. Like, yeah, Gucci shoes, like sometimes those are better than like this 20 year right here. - Yeah, I do whenever I hold the asset. Whenever I hear Buffett talk about the long term and like, patience, I'm like, bitch, you're like 95. Like, there is no long term. They're, you don't have pay, you shouldn't have patience anymore. You should have like, you should immediately spend whatever you want to spend. There is no such thing as a long term view for you. - Sam Far, I'm gonna see like that. I had like Sam Farcoa to warn Buffett. Bitch, you're 95. There is no long term. You're like, I feel like, I think about, his strategy. (laughing) - Well, I'm just like, you know, like, if you wanna do it 'cause it makes you happy, fine, but like, and Bayzo talks about those two. He's like a long term, like, I mean, you don't really, who cares? Like, you know, just live life how you wanna live. You got it. Yeah, so I've always, it's like, why are you delaying? It always pissed me off. I'm like, why are you delaying to have the best time of your life when you're like, old and don't even wanna do shit? - Right. - You don't have to do that anymore. - Yeah, yeah, for sure. And, you know, some people are happy along the way. That's fine, but like, yeah. I feel like you had, I feel like you asked me this question because you had an opinion or a story, so let's just skip to that part. 'Cause I think you have a good opinion or story on this. - I don't have a, no, I don't have an opinion yet, but I'm like, with my life now, it's like, I think that in, I think in six to, I think in a matter of six months, I could probably create a business from scratch that does a million dollars a year in profit. It would be based off of my image. I'm not saying I have that, I'm just saying, I'm sure I could do that. Plus with a couple other side projects, I think I could very realistically have two or three million dollars a year in cash flow. - Easily. - But very, but yeah, easy. And maybe I do already have that. I don't even wanna say I do or do not. But I, but like, - If you did, that would have been a weird sweet of saying. It would have been a weird hypothetical, but okay, let's continue on. - I got some cool shit going on, I'll say. But, and I'm thinking about where I spend my time. And I'm like, is it actually worth it? Or should you just not care about cash flow and build something that's much bigger that you could sell? I don't know, I'm just trying to figure out, where do you actually spend time? The real answer is what gives you most joy. - Yeah, exactly. And whether, you don't work backwards from, do I want cash flow or do I want long-term capital gains? That's not like the starting point of a decision. You kinda just need to make sure you're winning in one way or the other. Don't be weak in either area or like, don't be weak in both, basically, is like the way to do it. Like for example, you could buy a home in San Francisco. You're gonna have terrible income from that property. It's not a good income property because it most places San Francisco, you're rent. The rent you could charge somebody is not gonna outpay the mortgage plus. - Yeah, it could take a three percent cap. - But you can go buy some home in whatever, you know, Houston or something like that. It can cash flow $1,000, $2,000 a month. And it's good income property, but it's, you know, gonna appreciate super fucking slow. Whereas the San Francisco home, you know, in 10 years is gonna have, you know, whatever, more than doubled in value. And so, you know, there's appreciation properties and income properties, the same thing. Like, I think you just do whatever gives you the kind of, whatever gives you juice today and you think might give you juice going forward and then you gotta say, all right, before I do this, I gotta make sure it's gonna be strong into either one of these. Either it's gotta be awesome for cash flow or it's gotta be awesome for appreciation. And if it's awesome for cash flow, basically I'm just gonna use the cash flow to buy assets that are gonna appreciate what somebody else doing the work, instead of me doing the work. It's kind of, you kinda end up at the same point either way. - Yeah, I don't know. I just been thinking about like how to spend time. You know who's killing it and has done a really good job of like putting off making cash is our friend Nick Hubert. I am an investor and so I get to see some of the numbers of his storage deals. And I don't think he crushed it like in terms of personal cash flow for a long time, but like the way that things have compounded, I'm like, oh, holy moly, if you just eat shit for like six, seven years to pick the right asset, things look really cool. - Yeah, yeah, I think he's done great. And also I think he is like a, I think he personally has great terms with his investors, meaning like I think it's quite favorable to him. Incredibly. - Incredibly. But like he makes sure he gets to eat. Right, whereas at the beginning, if you have no capital, you like, you know, you sort of make a deal with the devil in a way where you're like, all right, I'm gonna take no management fees, no acquisition fees and a low carry. And then now he's like, look, I'm good and I know it. So I'm gonna take a higher fee, higher, higher acquisition fee, and I'm gonna take, you know, my healthy carry. So you know, you know, good on him. I think a lot of people in real estate are able to do that pretty well. I know somebody's crushing it in real estate and they do just that. They have like, you know, 50% carry on the deal or something, something crazy. And they're like, yeah, because my deals are awesome. - I make hits. - I win. So like, it doesn't make sense for me to do this at any less than that. And I'm like, well, okay, that's like next level winning. - There's this awesome, you know, who food fighters are? You know, Dave girls, the lead singer of food fighters. Yeah, and they've been writing hits forever. And before that, he was the drummer in Durvana. So he's like, just hit after hit for a long time. And someone asked him, about he's like, you know, you write hits and what's your process and like a fan was asking about old music and he stopped and he was, wait a minute, let me cut you off here. He goes, I don't write deep cuts. I write hits and he was just like, he's like, everything I write, I write it to be a hit. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, but it's all meant to be and that's like your real state friends. He's like, I write hits. That's why he gets that 50% carry. Exactly, exactly. In respect, I respect somebody who's like, I'm playing the game and I play to win the game, you know, I'm not playing something else. I'm not going to, I'm not playing the game. I am playing the game and I'm playing to win. It's actually like, I really respect people who just clearly play the game and they're like, open about it and they're like, yeah, I play the game. I'm playing to win and here's, you know, like, good, if you, if you dislike the game or dislike me, that is your choice. And I actually dislike people that are like, uh, virtual signal types where it's like, they are playing the game, but they'll do anything in their power to like make it look like they're not playing the game and there's a lot of that. Like in Silicon Valley, there's a lot of that. Here's how that plays out that I see. There's, person starts the company, bullshit's about like why they're doing the company or why this problem is the problem they decided to spend their life on. It's like, no, but you're like, you're, you know, you're doing this because it's good business. Not because you really wanted to help, you know, small to medium size enterprise businesses save money on whatever, right? Like that wasn't your actual intention. You probably like that that you have happy customers and that they're good, you're helping them. But like, let's be real. It's like, uh, we're saving the money. You'd stop one cloud. Have you ever seen on Silicon Valley? We're saving the world. One cloud processor at a time or simple shit. Yeah. So I then they're like, they're like, they're like, uh, someone who calls them out, they're like, dude, this is all rich guy. Like kid rock just was the singer for the, for the, for the show and he's the poor sky here. Yeah, exactly. And so, so I think Silicon Valley, you see that a lot. You'll also see that with the origin story about like, you know, why they decided to do this. You're like, Oh, are you sure you decided to do this because you know, your cousin got diagnosed with this, you know, rare thing. And that's why or, or was it that you ran paid ads at five different products? And this was the one with the highest click through rate. So I'm pretty sure when I was talking to you, it was, this was the highest click through rate. I cool. That's my company. You're right. Like, there's a lot of that. Um, so the other one is, okay. The guy who started Dollar Shave Club, um, I saw an interview with him and some of the times he's like, I started Dollar Shave Club because I was just sick of going to Walgreens and I had to ask them to like, open up the razors. And then another interview who's like, he's like, man, my father-in-law is like crazy. And he likes just to buy random stuff. And one time he bought a shipping container full of cheap razors. And we just had to figure out a way how to sell them all. Yeah, exactly. That's what we did. Exactly. And you know, I'm in the 2% of the population. I think you are two where we're like, Oh, sweet respect for trying to flip storage container and then we realize that there's a business there versus like, you know, I, you know, the kind of like the shark tank version of the story, which was like, we were just so fed up with our options, right? And like, I get, again, I get it. I've done that. I might do that again. But I am a little bit disgusted by it. Yes. Uh, same thing with the same thing with, I'll do that. We usually when I have business partners, not when it's my own business. Um, like when I'm, when I'm the only, when I get to just be a cowboy on my own, I'll just do what I want. Do I get, I don't care if this bad for the business. It's fine. The other day I ate an entire jar and one sitting of peanut butter from, it was the jiffy cheap shit. And I just felt so bad about myself, but I didn't regret it. And that's kind of like how you feel. But I wanted to do who I was stuff with my friend. Mission statements are like a part of bed of jerry's. It feels good doing it. And you may not regret it, but, but you feel guilty about yourself. The, the other version of this is like people who on Twitter or like, uh, they call this as like shit posters or they're like, you know, they basically, yeah, they basically try to signal like, you know, I'm not going to just, I'm not one of those investors who blogs about content and tries to, yeah, I'm a cool, I'll tell you the real deal. And I'll, I'll make jokes and blah, blah. It's like, they're the ones trying to carefully curate their brand more than anyone. If you actually meet these people, they're like so conscious about their brand. Uh, and like, you know, how, how many followers they're getting and like, how viral their stuff is going and like, they are, you know, like, uh, they're, they're, they're so meticulous about that stuff while trying to give off their appearance. It's like bedhead, right? It's like, oh, no, I just woke up like this. It's like, oh, you sure you don't use a product called bedhead that like, you know, like, makes it look slightly messy, but like, you know, you're actually carrying where every strand of hair goes. And so, you know, I have more respect for like, um, people who are like, yeah, like, you know, like, pomp or saw, hill or they're like, yeah, like people really like to hear about Bitcoin. So I just tweet Bitcoin shit all the time. It's great. Like, I like Bitcoin and they like Bitcoin. So I'll just tweet, like, I'll just set up a calendar. I'll be like, yeah, I'm gonna tweet Bitcoin stuff because I figured if I get a big Bitcoin following, that'll be really, really good for me. And like, you know, the solos, like, yeah, I put it, I put out these threads about these like, finance topics because I think I'm good at it. And they go viral and then it gives me all these dope connections versus like, you know, I just want like, I feel that knowledge is, um, you know, knowledge needs to be accessible for all and free. And that's why I needed the macro size knowledge. Yeah. I want to democratize financial knowledge. I used to work on Wall Street and the insiders know things that the rest of us don't. So I quit my job and started writing Twitter threads about finance to democratize finance. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, you didn't do any of that. You wanted followers. And so you did what it took to get followers. Have you noticed how the word democratize is the new disrupt? Democritize is like, you know, what is democratized? Uh, it's the new democratize is the new like, um, no offense, but that's a democratize. Devincritize is like, I'll about to fool you. This is good for me and not good for you, but I'm going to fool you by saying I'm democratizing something for you by my service, by my product. Yeah. By the way, I do all the, I do this myself. I, I, again, I know it. I spot it because I got it. I've done all this before with my ecommerce brand. I've done the origin story thing with my fund. I do this too. Like my fund is called the all access fund because I wanted to give access to every access to all to be able to invest in the deals I do. Do I feel good that other people get access to good Silicon Valley deals? Yeah, sure. Is that why I did the fun? Fuck no, that's not why I did the fund, right? I did the fund because I was writing checks and I wanted to write bigger checks and more checks into more companies and more. And that was more than my personal bankroll would allow. So I raised money from other people to do that. And I get, you know, like, and so now I get to write more checks into more awesome companies. That's why I raised the fund, not because I wanted to democratize access to like, you know, angel investing for like, you know, a, a, a, a, a middle school teacher in Tennessee. I can't stand democratizing it. We're going to democratize, democratize this by only charging you $50,000 for this piece of clothing instead of them. Like I've seen people like we're going to democratize knowledge and it's like a $5,000 course. Like, oh, it's not really dude. You could, you could democratize these nuts. What do you think, Ben? Was today, were we with it or what? I thought today was a hit. I thought today was a huge hit. This is a, yeah, other than like the Steph Smith episode is a Rob Duredek. This is a, this is a plus territory. I think that this is going to be a fire episode that I had the juice. You did say, although I actually, the beginning was a little bit slower. But it was once you guys started getting into those trends and you were just hitting people. There was like, if you capitalize on one of those trends, you guys like, they're like 20, 30 good businesses. You could start with ideas that were thrown out today. Ah, great. I have to cut out my democratized these nuts. And then we'll, so we have to plan the MFM summit. So I agree that making it destination is cool. I have a thing that I, you're going to have to bleep, bleep out what I'm about to say. But I know the thing. I know the thing. Yeah. Yeah. I got the guy. I got a really like famous house. That person might be interested in hosting it. I don't know that. But that's just going to be a dinner, right? Like, that's going to be like, no, no, we might be able to do a proper thing there. But I don't know if the logistics are going to work out. So I think, but I think that we could do like something outrageous. You know, we have to think about what outrageous means. But I do think we can have something outrageous. I think a cruise ship. I like it. That's, that's not a bad idea. A cruise ship or like some type of famous venue or fuck, we could just go to Hawaii. Let's do like in the beach in Hawaii. We can figure something out. But we do need to do a fly out. Like if people are going to have to travel for it, I think to get the value again, the easiest hack is first make it a couple days where people get to hang and meet each other. So do make it like a two day thing. And then, and then secondly, just make it already fun if it was just a vacation. If there was no content on top. But it's like, then you combine some content, getting to meet us and getting to meet other people in the community. Plus already it was a good like kind of vacation type experience, then that's cool. Right. And like, I don't know, let's do like bring a fitness component, bring a like, let's bring all the components of the stuff we talk about where there's like, you know, experiences beyond sitting down and listening to people talk. It's like, why not do a group workout or like, let's get an MMA guy to like, you know, take us through a set like take people through a session or something. I don't know like something like that. Down. All right. Let's schedule it. Do you like that $500 price mark? Price mark. point. This I mean we should do this as an NFT. No doubt we should make this an NFT and then only NFT holders can attend and then they could flip their NFT to somebody else if they want to but make it a limited number of NFTs for this. Down. All right that's it. All right that's the episode.