Viral Fame vs. Actually Making Money ft Track Star's Jack Coyne

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it out for yourself go to glossgenius.com and use code financial for 50 off your first two months of a premium plan what's up sippers it's me hayley aka mrs dow jones and this is financial tea the podcast where i teach you how to build wealth with a side of market drama money scandals and financial pop culture so today's question is how does a guy stopping strangers on the street playing them a song and then offering them five bucks end up running one of the most watched internet shows of the last year yes we have jack coin here from track star to give us the financial tea the show launched in 2023 blew up pretty much immediately and now racks up hundreds of millions of views across tiktok instagram and youtube oh and it makes millions of dollars millions and by the way it's so popular that celebrities like charlie xdx ed sheeran and even kamala harris are begging to play i mean mark zuckerberg flew this man to hawaii to be in an episode but the real question is where's the money that's what everyone wants to know where's the money how do viral shows actually make cash who's paying and how do you turn internet fame into something sustainable not just like a flash in the pan jack coin is here today to break it all down okay welcome to the podcast jack coin so excited that you're here we have three icebreakers that i ask every guest first what were your best and worst purchases of the week this is going to be so boring but i ordered uh groceries from whole foods oh my god and this is not something that i do that often but it was a bit of a new year's resolution to start making a much more of an effort to cook and to make money and to make and i don't know i felt so i usually go to the grocery store but getting everything i needed delivered it like set me up for like wanting to plan cooking all week whoa okay so drop the recipe baddie so that was one of the things the other thing is i went out to lunch twice this week from um a jamaican uh jerk chicken food cart we went today and i went on tuesday too okay huge fan um and my worst uh purchase of the week was um on monday it was my birthday i went to the rangers game and after the game i was with a couple friends and we decided okay let's just get one more drink and then it was like one more drink and it was like one more drink tomorrow we'll start dry january and so that wasn't the smartest purchase because it didn't set my week up for success yes yes yes what do you lie about when it comes to money that's a good question do i lie about stuff when it comes to money or like just downplay like you're very i would say i probably don't pay attention very closely to what i'm spending money on and at the end of the year when i'm really looking at credit card statements like tracking what i spent money on i i inevitably spend way more money on going out to eat and buying you know going to restaurants than i should and i sort of pretend like oh it's not that expensive to do yeah but i mean i'm like it is wasting so much money doing that last question do you feel rich today i feel very rich in spirit and emotion i feel like health is wealth so yes in terms of like the amount of money in my bank account no not at all not at all but i am confident that that one day i will be oh my god you're gonna be so rich okay before we jump into the money tea i just want to talk about how we met because this is not a random encounter like jack and i we've been friends for a long time yes and this is kind of it's surprising we've never done a podcast before because this is sort of how we got close to each other who's doing stuff like this totally explain well i so jack and i went to wesleyan university together and i was like i'm gonna go to wesleyan university and i'm gonna go we were both film majors so we went abroad for to copenhagen but i will say so we've like been best friends since then but i will say i also feel like you sort of normalized this career for me because you were really early in media you worked for casey neistat since high school and so like being close to you i understood that like oh this is actually something that people do yeah this is a career as possible i mean i remember when we were in college taking that digital film yeah and i knew how to edit because i had learned like in the summer and whatever and you were like how do i do this and i remember teaching you premiere totally and being like trust me you need to learn how to do this and i take full credit for your whole career that's all i have to say jack gets 15 we're actually this year we're bumping it to 20 and how did you come up with track star because it's such a good idea it's so well done so i started a production company with my brother and our other friend and the business model of that was an advertising company and i was like we all had this skill set going back to when we were in college where we knew how to make videos and we were making commercials and advertisements for people across social media and then we were bank we had a studio space and we were banking that money and basically spending the excess resources and our excess time on coming up with new ideas for shows so because we had the space because we had the tools because we had each other to lean on it was so much easier for us to say let's go out and make this show and let's make another show tomorrow another thing the next day so we were always in that space and we were always in that space and we were always in that space and we were always able to come up with new ideas and make shows because the setting was so it made it easy for us like i remember the first thing we ever did is before we had any show idea i was like oh i'll just talk to people on the street and i started talking to this elderly gentleman and he was like i said can i interview he's like yeah sure and i was like so how are you like what's what's your name and and it was like what's the vibe and he was like yeah i'm just going to get gross it was like so boring and he was like why are you asking me about nothing yeah and then i realized no you have to like if you're going to stop people and try and ask them questions you got to ask them something meaningful so they care um and so then we went back to what what are things that people care about what's something that people are gonna want to talk to you about how did it end up that olivia rodrigo was your first celeb guest like how long had you been doing it before like how did that happen still a mystery to me how exactly how it happened but um the show was not that big yet but it was definitely like people it had most of the time it was like i was like oh my god i'm gonna do this moment yeah i thought it was cool and we got an email hey can you come like meet olivia rodrigo got a new album coming out like would you she wants to be on the show and then i met her and she was like i love watching your show i was like it's crazy it shows you the power of the internet and like a good idea um it can gather momentum pretty quickly and you can break through okay so you've said that you've never like asked a celebrity to be on the show people ask you to be on the show so have you ever like people offered you money like do you have to say no to a lot of how do you sort of vet who gets to come on or not yeah um we have to say no because there's more requests and people who want to be on the show than we have the capacity to to do it right we put out maybe five episodes per week um and the requests are probably 30 40 50 a week that's so crazy and it cost money to make the show i have a team of like 10 people we have an office we have a lot of overhead and so even though it's like oh it's casual i'm just going to be on the show it's each episode and the expense of obviously all of our time and not focusing on other things so we have to be pretty deliberate about who we record with and when and why and how we manage our time in terms of getting paid we have been offered to have people pay to be on the show how much the most was um maybe ten thousand dollars fifteen thousand dollars and you were you said no we have said yes before yeah i don't think i could probably guess like which episode you think you know I think maybe if I looked I could find it That's a secret I'll never tell. Obviously, you can't do it like that. But I think that, you know, what we've realized is music labels, we didn't, we stumbled into the show where musicians are sort of promoting. They're not super directly promoting their music, but the reason that we get the opportunity to talk to these people is because they want to sort of promote something. Yeah. The whole purpose of them going, or they're promoting themselves. And we've learned through doing this that music labels have a lot of money to spend on promoting artists to get people to stream their songs. Wow. So like they are paying lots of any type of, anytime you see an artist on a show, a lot of the time the label is paying for that to happen or there is some sort of promotion involved. Okay. Now that we've covered the basics, let's get down to the business because the show is a huge hit, but like how much is it making? How long did it take for Trackstar to break six figures, to break seven figures? Like what was your first big brand deal? Like how are you making money from the show? I would say for the first year that the show was out there, it made $0. Which just shows you like the platforms don't pay. Yeah. The platforms, I guess there was a little bit of money that TikTok was paying us, maybe like $3,000 a month, which $3,000 is a lot of money. It helps, yeah. If you're just by yourself making videos at home, that's great. Yeah. But like we're fully, full service production company and we're paying salaries like for lots of people. Yeah. For everything that we do. Yeah. So, the breakthrough probably came in the second year. I found that like with brand partnerships, especially like on social media, it takes a while for them to catch up to what's happening. And so, it's not like the freshest thing that just came out. It's often like it's been around for a year, it's established, people are familiar with it, let's go like in Q3 next year. So, it's like your relevance online almost pays off later. Yeah. Than when it's actually happening. Totally. Hopefully, you can continue to grow, but like it takes a while for those brand partnerships to catch up. So, how, so the first year you made no money and then the second year? The first year and a half, first year we probably made $600,000 or $700,000 and then we've doubled every year. That's awesome. Since then. 2X every year, baby. That's what we like to see in a startup, but you're not really a startup anymore. Well, we still kind of, we still have that startup mentality. We still are. We still have that mentality. You got to keep it, you know, keep grinding. The other thing I was thinking about too is like how I've been doing this for a long time. How iconic your branding is, the orange, like people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on branding. Did you just come up with that? We came up with orange because we were thinking about what's a color that represents the tone and feel of the show and orange represents like warmth and happiness. And so, it was like orange just felt like a unique color and something that felt on brand for that emotion. I think branding like becomes iconic because the brand becomes iconic. And so, it's almost like. And afterthought, even something that probably the first time people saw like the Nike check, they're like, whatever. Yeah. Took years for people to realize how iconic Nike is. And then the check becomes more iconic. Everything like compounds. Like you have to put that, like even with your brand partnerships, like it took so long for people to recognize that you are such a valuable platform. And now, it's even going to go more to the moon because you've been doing it for longer and just keep increasing, increasing. It's a good way of putting like the compounding. And now, you know, with compounding, it becomes. Exponential at a certain point. That's why we see this guy in the New York Times. What are the business finances right now? Like, are you optimizing more, would you say, for upside or for stability? Stability. I think. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I think that, as I said, like every year, our revenue has doubled, but we've slowed. We started off as three people and now we're 10. So, like our team has doubled every year. Reinvesting in the studio space. Like this year, we've probably spent. We're spending, in this past year, half a million dollars. Wow. Pouring into our office, which is a rental, but we have like a 10 plus year lease there. And we know that we're going to get a return on that because we were able to film in the space. But that was a huge investment for us. And yeah, it's giving it back to sort of building the team and pouring it into the content and trying to figure out how do we make a really solid foundation in here so that we can continue to develop new shows and new ideas because that's how we got to this place to begin with. It was like really strong foundational stability with the advertising agency model that we started with and then building layers and layers on top of that. So then what are the revenue streams just for TrackStar? Just for TrackStar, there's a little bit of money that's coming in from the social platforms that are paying you like ad share dollars. And then the biggest piece is brand partnerships. So brands will say, we really like your show. We want to support it. So like an example. An example of that is Beats by Dre. We had a year-long partnership with them for product placement. So we always wore Beats by Dre custom TrackStar headphones and did a couple interviews on the set of Beats shoots that were happening. And so that's something that helps us plan in the long term because we know there's X amount of dollars coming in throughout the year. We have a similar partnership with Rivian, the car brand. So we do stuff with them throughout the year. And it just helps us kind of instead of waiting. For one thing and the next, like sporadically, it helps you sort of plan ahead a little bit and know you have that amount of money to rely on, to invest in. We could hire a producer for our podcast or whatever that thing might be. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. 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So how do you do that? How do you negotiate that? First of all, the money that we're spending on the business is, it's not my money. It's the business's money. I own a piece of the business, but I have partners in that. And so it's not like all of it is just my own cash that's going in. And the hope is that we can, making those investments will pay off in my career going forward that will help us have more financial stability down the road with our kid. But spending like money on like furniture at our house in the short term isn't necessarily something that's going to have a payoff when like, you know, when you, you know, people with babies, like babies are like, are like vomiting, like, yeah, babies are so gross. Like babies get it together. Like, it's like, why are we going to like shell out for that? It's so, it's just, I don't know. It's, it's, I guess it's part of my personality. It's easier for me to, to just like justify, oh yeah, I can use the business credit card for this thing. Cause it's part of the business and it's right off for that. Yeah. I guess that's part of it. Like when you're spending money on your business, it's a right off for that. It's a right off in that business or it's an asset for that business. Whereas when you're spending, swiping your own credit card, you've already spent that. You've already paid taxes. You're just spending out of like the bottom line. I know. You know. I'm obsessed. You know about spending money and saving money. Oh, I totally. And I'm the same way where I run everything through my business. But like, I don't think I spend that much. Like everything is in service of the business. And then when it's not, it's like. Yeah. It's a different thing. It's a very different thing. Right. Like just. Even like a flight. Like it's paying for a flight, paying for a business class flight when you're working is different than paying for a business class flight on vacation. A hundred percent. You're like really paying a lot of money for a business class flight. That's like $3,000. I don't do that. Yeah. Feels really different. What I think is amazing though, Jack, is like you're, you talk so much about like what you're building, right? Like it's like you're on this amazing rocket ship where I think there is so much wealth and success in your future and in your present, but so much of the way that you've done that that I think is helpful for my audience is by investing in your human capital. Like if you think about it, your, the ability to start public opinion and the production studio was because you had your expertise in, you know, production, your brother's an amazing editor, your other partner is amazing at cinematography. Like you all were building, bringing your skills in to build something valuable. And then even for track star, I know that you spend so much time learning about music. You tell me that you want to build. You want to build a new MTV, you're reading books about MTV, you're building, you know, you are as much as you love music. When you started this, you've now become like an aficionado. So just talk a little bit about like building your human capital and how much that has added value to your career. I guess it's, it's sometimes, sometimes it's hard for me to separate my life from my work interests. Like everything bleeds into each other and like, I won't slow down. So I'll be thinking about like a country music artist or something that I spoke to, And they mentioned someone and then I get home at night. night. I'm like, I want to watch a documentary about that. I just want to know about that. I think it's just a, uh, a sense of like curiosity about the world and, and trying to tie that curiosity to the things that are happening in your work life. And then like, if you're going to be a storyteller, you have to be incredibly curious about the world to learn about it, to tell those stories. You're the same way with what you do. Like you're reading all sorts of stuff about finance and learning about the economy. And you want you, you, even when you're not working, you're continuing to try and learn those things. And when you read the paper and you see some, you're like, Oh, that, that is connected to something that I know about in work, but I should know about it more besides, um, just investing in your sort of self and trying to like learn more. I mean, I, I guess like other things I've done, I was taking classes at night to try and learn about accounting and like, how do I like learn stuff that I'm applying to my business? But it's also about people. Like you're not just waking up and being like, bloop, I have an interest in this. You're not just waking up and being like, bloop, I have an interest in this. It's like an internet show. Like you've created yourself. You built yourself into Jack Coyne, who is ready for this opportunity. And like that in order to have high earning potential, you need to meet that challenge. It's not just, someone's going to hand you a check. You need to be the person who's going to demand that check because you're valuable. And every time that you read, you watch a documentary, you do any of that stuff. You are like putting, you're investing in that. And I think that's so important. And like something that no matter even if you, who you are, you can be, you can be doing that no matter what your career is. I think it's hard to figure when you're young, it's hard to figure out what you want to do because there's like endless possibilities and you have like more limited skillset. But the more you start to figure out in life, like this is the thing that I get the most excited about, the easier it is to say, oh, that's my thing. Let me pour more, continue to fill up the bucket with more and more. Do you feel happy doing what you do? Like, is it overwhelming now to have all this other responsibility or do you love it? It's the best thing in the world. I've never had a day of work where I wasn't happy, but I, but that's also to a large extent true before I started this company. I feel like I've always been guided by trying to do things that are going to bring me happiness. Like when I was not making any money straight out of college, working at this production company, I still really liked it. Like I've liked every day and I liked the experience. And if I wasn't having fun, it was like, okay, I got to change it up and try something new. When, so I worked for Casey and I sat for a long time. We started a company called beam. That company sold the CNN. I worked at CNN for, uh, for a year. And in that time, like it wasn't a very fulfilling job. It was like, I was, a lot of my ideas were being shut down and I found myself kind of becoming lazy and like stagnant in that role. Cause Oh, they don't want to do this. All right. And, and I was getting paid a lot of money. And so it was like, well, I'm not going to leave. Like I can just kind of coast, do stuff, coast and do what I want on the side. But then you just, you don't want to do that either. Cause you're making enough money. Oh, I'll just go out. I'll do this thing. And you stop being focused. Sometimes when you're like hungrier, it's easier to, to, to spend that extra time on the outside, like fighting for harder for what you want. When I worked for Laura Michaels and I worked with Ben Marshall, who is like now on SNL, the redhead on SNL, he, every night after work would go to like practice with, please don't destroy, or they had a writing session or whatever. And it's like, we were making like 40 K a year. We weren't making any money. And like, it's relatively New York city, tough salary to get by on, but it's like, he was just all about that bigger vision. And now, you know, like he invests human capital. You got to be hungry and keep going. I think. And I think if he had a job where he was in private equity, he was making $200,000. He would have never done it. He'd be less inclined to go after work and meet those guys in practice. Totally. And, and he, and his boss in, in the finance job would be like, you can't leave and go to a writing thing. So wait, there's three of you in the biz though. You've got your business partner, you've got Kieran, your brother, and you've got you, how do you split the business profits? Um, everything we make like goes back into the business. Like we don't really take pro I guess we're technically like have tax liabilities for the thing. Like who, how much do each of you own? Equal. Whoa. Really? Even though you are the star. Equal. Damn. Are you sort of like, Hmm, it should have, should have done something differently there. No. I mean, obviously like sometimes you're like, well, why couldn't I have? But from the very beginning I was like, no, it's important for me that everyone feels like they have equal ownership over this business. Is it hard to work with your brother? It's hard to work with anybody, but it's also easy. You know, I think it's equally hard and easy to work with my brother and my other partner who's not my brother. Like, you know what I mean? Like they're both, there's challenges with at any given time with anyone, you work with, but also there's a level of closeness between all of us, but particularly with my brother and I, and a level of trust that you can't like replicate. Yeah. Okay. I wish my sister knew like how to edit. That would be lit. Your sister's a doctor. My sister's a surgeon, but it's like, she needs to leave that behind. Maybe you can hand the scalpel. Yeah, I could. I'm like, can we wear, I'm like trying to make her be more Dr. Phil vibes and she's not down. I'm like, girl, we got to write a book. Like, let's go. So wait, what was, have you ever made like a really expensive book? No, we've been pretty measured with how we've spent money. So I, there's not one particular mistake. There's, there's things that we've spent more money on than we should have. Like every step of the way is like a learning, right? It's like, oh, we, this person, like who, who works for us is like, they, it feels like we're getting so much more value out of them than what we're paying them. And maybe this person you're not getting as much value out of, and you're paying like a lot and trying to figure out that balance and understand where people are in their career. And so not that those are mistakes, but it's just like, when you run a business, you start to learn how to navigate, like the biggest expense for the most part every month is the team and the people. So like how much, how much are people worth in your business? And then knowing that, oh, we have to get rid of someone if they're not providing the value. Cause like it's a business at the end of the day. And like, you care about people, but also you have to worry, focus on the health of the business. And make sure it's in the right place. And, and as you grow and you start to be able to hire more and more sort of high level and expensive people, it's just riskier, right? Like if you're going to give someone a salary for 200, 300, $400,000, that's insane amounts of money. No, not yet, but that's a place that's a direction we're headed. And the same is true with paying myself. Like I would love to be able to pay myself two or $300,000 a year. But if I'm going to do that, it's like every month or every two weeks, you're looking at the expenses and you're like, we have to make a lot of money to be able to pay this many salaries. How much do you pay yourself? Uh, this past year, a hundred grand. And then do you want to double that this year? Like what's your goal? Yeah. My goal is like to, is to, is to try and double that this year. Um, at least I think, but, but now because we're having a kid very soon, like it's going to be a whole new learning experience. Like how do we budget for that? And also, you know, back to your question about when we were talking about hiring people, when you, you are, have kids and both you and your partner work, you have to figure out like that becomes a business. I think, I don't know this yet, but I'm imagining you have to hire the right babysitter and the right team, care team in your house because your most important investment is your kids. And you have to have the right person with them. And if they're not working, you'd be able to fire them. And, but maybe that makes it easier because it's probably so much easier to fire someone who's doing a bad job, taking care of your kids than it is someone who's like working on an Excel spreadsheet or whatever. But also you'll be better at it. Like my friend Brynn is a CEO and she has three kids and she's fired 70 nannies, seven zero. She's like, oh, bye, bye, bye, bye. Like she runs such a tight ship. Like there is no wiggle room. And it's like her company is worth a billion dollars. Like that's why, like you either got the sauce or you don't. I think when you were asking about like, what's, what do I want, uh, in terms of like expenses, expenses and stuff in my life, like it would be cool to have an, like an office manager for, but for your house, for your life, you know, I hate, I hate those kinds of tasks and they take up your whole day. You know, when you go to a rich person's house and the fridge, it's like organized. Oh my God. My friend is a billionaire and she has like special waters. There's always something like that. Yeah. And you're like, you just, it's just a different level of, you didn't have to think about thinking about it. Oh, open the fridge. Oh, there's cut fruit in there. Cut fruit. No cut fruit is like very valuable. I was thinking about buying an espresso, like an expensive espresso machine for the office. Oh, I think that's nice and good for like, I'm sure they would give it to you. Again, Ali, like my wife, I was like, should we get this for the house? She's like, get it for your office. Like, you know, don't get it for the house. That's the girl. And I was like, yeah, it's a write-off. But then after, if it doesn't work in the office, you can bring it home. And that's my financial advice to you, everyone who's listening. Shaq here. What's it like to buy a car from Carvana 100% online and get it delivered to your door? Let me tell you. Your car is here, Mr. Shaq. Thank you, Mr. Carvana guy. Can't wait to take it for a spin. Only the best for you, Mr. Shaq. Hey, have you always been so big, tall and handsome? Not always. I was 6'10" once. Seven days delivered or returned, Mr. Shaq? Not that I would. You never do. No, I never do. So buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. See our seven-day return policy at carvana.com. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome That's new. Okay, but you, this show, like I feel like you are up there with like Chicken Shop Date and Subway Takes as like one of the top internet shows. Do you guys all talk? Like how are they monetizing and like what do you, how do you plan past viral fame? Like what are other, like what's the plan? What's the four-year plan and what's the relationship? So Subway Takes, Kareem and I started basically around the same time and we're friends, we're friendly and we text and talk about stuff and kind of give each other advice about, hey, how do I navigate this thing? Or this person like wants to work together or whatever. And that's a great resource to have and he's an awesome guy. Amelia is like been in the game for 10 years. Yeah. So she's someone who I do, I'm sure he does, look up to and admire a great deal and admire her career. And she's really someone who had this like idea and she's a creative force that wanted to build this thing. And it wasn't about making money and becoming rich. It was about like I really want to do this show and tell this story. And it kept building and building and building and everything. And came from that and she gets opportunities to host red carpet events. And she's like a personality that people want to connect with. And she's done this hosting thing. So I think that's great. And I think both of, I think all of us probably have a similar business model where there's brand partnerships and then there's the revenue from the platforms. And then there's sort of hosting gigs that you can get outside of your own shows. Where do you see TrackStar going in like the next four years? Yeah, well, we want it to be the next, we want it to be like MTV of this generation. And it's, I know that's kind of, if you just know it as this one show, that's hard to like think about, oh, where does it go? It's just a show. It's going to become a network with lots of different shows. But at the heart is storytelling around music and connecting musicians and fans through. And the spring break trip of, I hope. We're going to do, yeah, spring break, TrackStar spring break. Yeah, TrackStar spring break I think was super important. I think about that all the time. Yeah, foam party. Spring break was such an interesting. Yeah. I just met. I met the longtime CEO of MTV Networks, Tom Freston. And I was like, I just kept asking him all these questions about how, what, how they went from music videos to then like the MTV of eventually Jersey Shore and these other things and sort of why they made those choices along the way. And, you know, if you go back in the archive looking at these early shows, like Adam Sandler got his start on MTV on the show called Remote Control. And so it was just like, it's always about finding talented people and bringing them into your orbit. And so where TrackStar is going to go and how we're going to get there is we're going to try and find really talented people and give them a platform and a place to tell these types of stories. Do you think, is that your new mentor? Like, I feel like that's also something interesting too. It's like now, you know, are you, is that like someone that's going to help guide your career? Like who helps, who helps you make those decisions? Definitely. Definitely. Like finding people. Like that, who have that experience, I think is really important. Interesting comp with, with MTV is like when it started, cable TV was brand new. So, and I think having shows, having sort of serialized shows for social media platforms is still like very fresh and new. And so a lot of people don't even understand what this whole landscape looks like. And so there's a tremendous amount of opportunity there. But going back, like the MTV core team. They looked up to Rolling Stone, which started, you know, 15, 20 years earlier as, as a print magazine. But it's kind of, they were doing the same thing. They were connecting people around the shared love of music. And so they kind of could learn some things from them, but Rolling Stone could learn some things from MTV because they didn't know about TV. And I think each generation, like the younger people know probably more about the emerging technologies and sort of the new landscape. And then the older people can. And say, well, here are some truths that have gone all throughout time. And here are some things, general things about business that will be helpful for you to know. And so to answer your question, yes, I want to have those types of people as mentors, but also you have to stay true to, to what you understand the current landscape better than they do. Then, then they do a hundred percent. Also, I just wanted to flag that. Yes, you are having a baby and you know that I'm a master of growing generational wealth. So I do feel like you need. To start just in the videos, you're wearing the baby in a carrier and then you can pay the baby for being in track star. And then we can open the baby custodial Roth IRA. So like just put the baby in some shit and then we can make the baby an employee. This is like a common thing with celebrities, right? They are always putting the baby in the media because then the babies can be paid as actors or models. Which is like really when you're a baby, the only thing that you can do. I was a baby model. Whoa. And, and. Do you have custodial Roth? I got some sort of money for. Damn. So you felt good, right? I guess moving to college. Yeah. You'd pay it forward. And I have these great like baby photos in like different outfits. There you go. There you go. So yeah, we're going to have little John. He's going to be working. Little John. Cool. Little John. Also, like I just want to open the floor up. Like, do you have any money questions? For me, like I'm here for you. So you, I mean, you asked, am I rich? And I said, last year I made a hundred thousand dollars. That's great. That's like good money, but it's not like growing up and raising your kids in New York city. But, but I have a lot of equity tied up in a business that's valuable. Right. And so when you, when you're, when your wealth is tied up in shares of a company that's increasing in value, what are the, how do you. Pay for your life and, and like, and not take the money out of the shares of the business. Isn't that a thing? Okay. So what you're talking about is buy, borrow, die. And it's like every billionaire does this. And basically you build something valuable like track star and then track star is valued. Say track star is valued at a hundred million dollars. Then you borrow against that a hundred million and you use that money to fund your life. Then when you die because of stepped up cost basis. Once the tax bill disappears, so your heirs then inherit the valuable asset in full, you've never like you, you own 33% or whatever, 33% of track star. They would still have that, but there's no taxes. Okay. So the key is like right now I could sell half of my position in, in the business. Do not sell. And I would have that cash, but instead I could, I could take, I could borrow money against the shares, spend that money. I want to buy a new house. Yeah. But you would. If the business is worth a hundred million dollars. Yeah. I want to buy a new house and I'm like, oh, I have these shares that are worth $30 million. I could borrow 10, buy the house, or I guess borrow enough to pay down my mortgage and stuff on, on a house. But it's risky, right? Like then, you know, you've got to. Well, if the value of the business goes down, then you're, then you're screwed. Yeah. You're fucked. But like you, like this is what Mark Zuckerberg does. Borrowing money is always risky, you know? And this is totally. This is how billionaires pay zero taxes because on paper they're taking like a $1 salary, you know, but they're borrowing against their assets. Like I think Jeff Bezos takes like a dollar salary. I know Mark Zuckerberg does. Yeah. The money is not, they're not actually making any money. No, no, no. And the craziest thing is that borrowing is not taxable income. So the money that you borrow against the business, not taxable. Interesting. Buy, borrow, die. I wasn't thinking about it necessarily as a tax scheme more just like. It's okay if you were like, this is a safe space for tax schemes, by the way. Like it's like if you want to like just say that, like it's fine. Like Uncle Sam is my least favorite uncle. Yeah. I mean, I guess my thinking is just try and get by on as little as possible and keep as much as possible. In the biz. In the business and spend it on. I think you could definitely find someone or a place to give you a low interest rate loan against Trackstar and it would be really smart. And then pay it back. Oh, the other thing that I wanted to tell you that does stress me out about your finances, which I think happens a lot with business owners, is like, are you investing? Like, are you doing SEP IRA? Are you doing a Roth IRA? Like you could have a Roth IRA with your income limit. I mean, with your income. Like, I know you're putting everything back in the business, but I think that like it would still be really smart for you to make sure that you're diversifying into the stock market. What's the max that you can put into your Roth? For this year, it's $7,500. Yeah, I do that every year. And SEP IRA too. That's basically where I am, just with the Roth. But are we doing SEP? No. So we have the same accountant. We need to have Michael Savoci, love your work. SEP IRA is great when you have your own business. I just, because I think that like we put so much back, but you need to also hedge your bets. Yeah. Even though this is going to the moon, like you, and also you want to make sure you get disability insurance. Yeah. Because like, you know, you don't have a peg leg on TV. Like, or maybe you do. Like, it's like, you got to watch it. Like, you know what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. you, both your arms get eaten by something and then you can't hold, you got a wireless mic like you need to wow wireless mic that's yeah I guess now that I'm thinking it through like you could do the show in many different physical states but we should also plan for like maybe what have you got laryngitis you know like you got a plan for you protect your asset this is a big asset insurance insurance is a hard thing insurance is so hard my dad is always telling me like he made me get insurance for like fine like financial advice insurance basically I just feel like there should be someone should disrupt insurance insurance there should be a really simple app not i'm not even talking about health insurance talking about like like every like business insurance liability like niche insurance everything like it should just be simple do you have any other financial questions where are the best places to borrow best like ways to borrow money well i mean like uh one example is like student loans like if a student loans are really low interest most of them unless you're they're private they're going to be the like the threshold is seven percent so we look at like any debt underneath seven percent apr is considered low interest and any debt above seven percent is high interest and then if it's over seven percent it's like you're on a treadmill like you're no matter how much progress you make like you're just never going to get off it's impossible to like make progress because like you're just being hit every month with these crazy payments and it's overwhelming but if it's below you're just never going to get off it's impossible to like make progress because like you're just because the stock market has averaged like an eight to ten percent return so you're able to take the money that you're borrowing and put it into the stock market at eight you know at four percent five percent put it into the market at eight to ten percent you're making a ton of that's why celebrities all have mortgages sabrina carpenter just got a mortgage she's worth 14 million dollars adele has a mortgage beyonce and jay-z are billionaires they have mortgages because sabrina carpenter is only worth 14 million i know i was also surprised at that that seems low i know but i feel like if you look at it she's her net worth is growing so much every year i think she's been working for 10 years but it just hit yeah and she probably has a lot of expenses it's a lot of expenses yeah like when a girl is looking that good she's doing that much like it's like and it's expensive to like create her whole thing like just because she puts on a show at madison square garden that might the show might generate a couple million dollars like there's a lot of there's everyone who's working at madison square garden she's paying well you have you know a lot about like so like musicians business is too where you were like now whenever i see on spotify that a show has a billion streams i like remember what you how much is it that they get paid for a billion streams uh i think a billion streams is four million dollars i'm like clocking that i'm like okay sabrina it's okay selena gomez and i think that's not just the artist i think that that's what it the platform pays that's then like split like often like 50 50 with the label okay jack that is my financial advice for you but you know where to find me i'm always here to give you more and thank you for watching thank you sippers yes let me know if i'm allowed to call you that or if i'm going to jail thanks for listening to financial tea we will be back next week with more financial insights and piping hot gossip and if you have got a financial confession a question a mess you need cleaning up go to speakpipe.com slash financial tea random website but i will answer your question your voicemails if you leave them there speakpipe.com slash financial tea and spill it oh and also jack do you have anything you want to promote yeah uh i mean you're famous everyone knows our podcast okay is a show that we make it comes out every wednesday um it's available on all podcast platforms you can listen to it or you can watch it on youtube or spotify or whatever yeah it's really fun it's about music thank you jack so much for coming on the show one of my favorite people and someone who i really admire like your financial business journey we're gonna get you some cash flow baby buy borrow die we gotta find someone to give you that loan talk about it after uh you're the goat you're the literally a star since i've known him now everyone else is seeing what i've always seen now at kroger your points add up to more ways to save every trip use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump you can even save up to 35 on your next fill up same points more choices and with low prices on fresh quality food plus digital and personalized offers tailored to how you shop your dollar goes further redeem your 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