#123 - The Big Business of Buying Amazon Routes, and a COVID-proof Franchise
Uh-huh. Yeah. I feel like I could rule the world.
I know I could be what I want to.
I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back. All right, we live. Sean, what's up?
We have absolutely zero topics on the document today, so I am very curious what's going to happen. Oh, you have one?
I have one.
Okay. But I am confident. I think we will freestyle well.
So we have this little Facebook group that I think you set up, Sean, where it asks, or where like people of the podcast talk to one another. And I have a feeling there's a lot of just like spam in there. But did you see, I asked people what they hate and what they love. Did you read it?
I read a bunch of the comments. What did you, what'd you take away from that?
Guests are not as favorited as I thought, or as loved as I thought, which sucks because that requires zero work from us.
No, there's work. You gotta schedule the guests and think about what to say. I find these to be less work than the, than the guests.
And then other takeaways, I think, uh, riffing— everyone says we have good dynamic. I already knew that. Anything else though?
So here's one thing, um, and this happens anytime you ask your diehards. They're like, we just want more of you guys, the backstories and the real life stuff, which I don't think the casual listener— which the casual is always the masses, right? I think the casual listener cares about us in that same way. They want like the ideas, they want the information in and out. And the people who are in this group who like answer questions like that, they're more hardcore fans. So there's always this danger of asking hardcore fans what they want because they'll take you into a more hardcore place. Um, I have two little, uh, ideas that, uh, I could steal from, from our friend Chris, uh, that I think are worth talking about. So like I was saying, we didn't have too much written on our document today, but I think he surfaced two really interesting little story, uh, stories about companies.
So who did this?
Is Chris Backe. Uh, he was on the podcast you know, maybe a month ago. Um, dope follow on Twitter, so if you want to go follow somebody, Chris J. Backe, B-A-K-K-E. So he tweeted two things out that I thought both were really interesting back to back. So the first one is a side hustle that's booming during COVID called Card My Yard. And I remember this because my neighbor right in front of me just did this for their daughter's 16th birthday. And basically it's a— it's these little like signs you put in your, uh, lawn. Like each letter is like—
has a little—
yeah, it's a letter, like let's say S, with two metal rods as you shove it into your grass and you're trying to spell like, happy birthday Sam, or like, you know, you did it, you graduated, and you like get these things so that it's like this little pop-up sign in your front, front lawn.
Card My Yard, so great, great name.
Card My Yard founder started in 2014, began franchising a couple years ago. They have 200 franchisees, and so the franchisees, they make like a modest like $1,000 to $2,000 a month part-time doing this. And, uh, they said the first 6 months— he says the first 6 months of 2020 They did $8 million in gross sales, uh, which is kind of amazing. And their franchise model, which is awesome. I love this little like micro-franchise, which is great. So that was the first one. Uh, thoughts on that? And I have another one.
No, other than badass. Good job. That's, that's fantastic.
And I wonder what, what other like sort of little micro-franchises you could do here. The one that we had talked about way at the beginning of the podcast was the drone light shows one. I think that is still a amazing franchise if somebody could do it, which is basically drones instead of fireworks. Drones can do some pretty dope stuff. And, um, if you basically found just local franchisees at all the different cities to, to service the— like, they'll be the go-to vendor for their, their provider. You basically give them a business in a box, uh, you give them the drones and the software of how to operate it.
Can you buy hologram equipment? Like, for example, if I wanted Tupac to appear, like, in your lawn? Yeah. Or like at my party, can I— like, is that like a thing? Can I buy a hologram machine? Can I rent one?
Gram Mylon?
Okay. Yeah. So it's like, get Michael Jackson to perform at my party and I'll pay $1,000 to rent this machine for an hour.
Is that a thing? Let's see. Hologram machine rental. I don't know. I hope it's a thing.
Because like some of these rental businesses are crazy good. Like a carpet cleaner rental business is really good because carpet cleaners can last like 10,000 hours and you could charge like $50 an hour for it. Right. And I'm like, I'm like, man, is a, is a, is a Can I— can we get that hologram game going or what?
Uh, there's a bunch of hologram things that are for like conferences, it looks like, like kind of like to make your booth really good. Uh, I don't know if there's like kind of like for my birthday party have Michael Jackson there. That would be pretty great, but I like that idea.
But another one's carpet cleaner, by the way. Like carpet cleaners, uh, sell for only $600, but they rent for like $50 an hour and you get them from the grocery store, right?.
And I'm sure they like kind of like, uh, what are they called, bouncy houses, or like, you know, moon houses, whatever, whatever you call them. I'm sure those operate on this like same model. So basically, can you take some— that's something that's a party trick, um, or a birthday trick, and can you make sort of the local franchise model for it? These signs are great because this is like dirt cheap to create, but for the buyer, they're not going to want to make this on their own, right? So it's like way easier than the bouncy house. It's viral, like viral, and it's probably pretty durable. These letters can't— they don't probably take much wear and tear because they're just like in the lawn and then like out 4 days later. Okay, so the other one that he talked about was Amazon, Amazon Logistics. So he said Amazon has quietly created one of the most successful franchises of all time in 2 years. And he's talking about their Amazon Logistics, their delivery fleets, um, so, you know, people becoming a Prime delivery driver. And so it's a $10,000 startup cost. He said they have 1,300 franchisees now that do this, that employs 85,000 people. A franchisee who's operating a 20-40 van fleet will be making between $1.5 million to $4.5 million in revenue, depending on their market, which is amazing. You could see how this would only grow. I think this is cool. I had talked to somebody else who was talking about buying routes. He was like, "I'm looking into buying FedEx routes." What the hell is that?
Who said that?
Some guy at Twitch. I was like, "What do you mean? Had you ever heard of this?" I had never heard of somebody buying a FedEx route. He goes, What you do is there's certain like little areas of routes where you can buy to be the exclusive provider as long as you, you know, meet certain service requirements. And so you can become— you can buy a monopoly basically. You can say, I'll be the service provider here, I'll pay this amount, uh, and I'll operate this, this fleet here. And you can make X dollars above what you paid, uh, just for the like, you know, the guarantee— your— all your customers come from FedEx, uh, you just have to run the operations of driving the stuff around.
I've never heard of this. That's fascinating.
Okay, so if you go to routeconsultant.com, um, you can see different routes that are for sale.
And there's a guy who built a course on it?
Uh, no, I think he's just like literally— you can find routes for sale, you can sell your route. It's like a marketplace to sell FedEx routes. And so he said basically FedEx and UPS don't have the ability to service all areas, so you set up as a service provider, you buy the trucks, all the drivers, and you buy the exclusive routes from them, um, which you can do, you know, in or you can do like warehouse to warehouse, whatever.
Have you been to the country and seen like these disgusting minivans doing this? No. It's like if you go like the, like the country of Tennessee where I am, like you'll see like these like minivans with the hubcap missing and you're like, how on earth is like FedEx or letting this minivan on the road? Well, it's just like, it's, that must be what it is. It's like, it's a franchisee or like you'll see like an old like beat up car and you're like, what the heck? How is that a government car? Right. And that's what it is.
So here's the number that he was walking me through. He goes, so he's like, He's like, here's a link to a guy who's selling a company with 5 routes that he has exclusive. He goes, he's selling it for $1.9 million. Um, you get paid on a per package delivered basis. So basically he's selling the business for $2 million. The business makes $2.5 million in revenue with operating income of about $550,000 a year, right? Uh, so he's saying if you bought it with— for 20% down, got an SBA loan for the rest, you're cash positive, um, about $250,000 a year. Including your loan payback. So like, you could basically buy this business, be profitable in the first year, um, or sorry, you're basically, you're making money, um, on top of the meeting your loan requirements each year, and you pay back your entire down payment within 2 years. And that's if you did 20% down.
Dude, that just seems like so much work. I don't want to do it.
Yeah, you don't want to do it, but there's a lot of people out there who would want to be making, you know, half a million, a quarter million dollars to half a million dollars a year. I hear that, but I feel like a job.
If you're the type of person though who can afford that, then you maybe have other options. But by the way, actually, I was thinking about this. I was like, man, if I sell my company, what would I do? And you know what I would do? I would 100% would do Uber Eats for a little while. Just for a little while. I love driving. I just, I love driving. I love seeing all types of stuff. I think like these, there's these guys in New York and they all have these electric bikes. And they're just riding around and it's hard work. I mean, it's not like they're having fun, but like just to kill time, that would be a fun way just to see the city and have like a mission. I would totally do that. I would 100% be one of those electric bicycle messengers for like a few months. Right.
Easy. I would not. Uh, the thing I would do before that would be, you know, what do you call the little like chariot thing where you bike and there's like two people in a wagon on a date behind you? I'd rather do that than deliveries.
Dude, doing that, I never felt more fun and more alive than when I had a hot dog stand.
These are just lies you're telling. No, I mean, you never felt more alive, really?
I felt great. I was— because like, there's a little bit of an— there's not really much of an adrenaline rush with the internet, but I felt— I don't know, I felt special. But I think I, I also think that everything in the past always seems nostalgic. Yeah, yeah.
I was, uh, what's the thing I was thinking about with the nostalgia stuff? Um, oh, I was telling you about the trading card thing that I was looking at. Um, As I talked to a bunch of people in the space, it's crazy to me how much of this is just driven by people who used to collect cards, baseball cards, when they were a kid, and now they're just like, you know, some rich investment banker or like hedge fund guy. And it's like, okay, I have like all this money and I like, oh, baseball cards are worth something now. They're like a collectible now. I remember how fun this was. And there's like this nostalgia that's driving this insane industry. Same thing with Pokémon cards. Um, like it's a franchise that's really relevant to kids, but adults who have money still remember how it felt when they were a kid and they're like 30 years old now.
It's happening with cars from the 1989 era to like the early 2000s. Like, people are like, uh, like people with money now from cars— like, for example, there's a new Bronco, there's a new Bronco, there's a new Wagoneer.
Yeah, the new Bronco, that's a big deal.
Yeah, there's a new Wagoneer, there's a new Hummer, just like it always is.
Is that right? There's an electric Hummer that's out now.
Which by the way looks, looks freaking awesome.
I, I saw it because LeBron was posting about it, because LeBron when he was I think 15 or 16 famously showed up to high school one day with a Hummer and everyone was like, oh okay, like you know LeBron comes from like, he's like dirt poor, uh, like his single mom, no like electricity in the house type of thing. It's like, where'd you get this $70,000 Hummer from? It's like, oh LeBron's not going to college, he's, he has no amateur status anymore, he's definitely taking money because he's gonna go play pro. And, uh, so it's funny that now he's like, you know, some old man of the NBA and he's like excited about the electric Hummer.
That's— it looks badass. It goes 0 to 60 in 3 seconds, which is— if you're not a car enthusiast, that's like crazy fast. Do you want to hear, um, let me tell you a personal story. And people said they wanted to hear the story in the podcast, and I don't know if we should have her on, but can I tell you a story real quick?
Yeah, please.
Um, so last year my mother-in-law— my mother-in-law is— she's a Haitian immigrant. She came from Haiti, um, at like 17 or 18, didn't speak English. She's pretty badass. Her and her husband, my father-in-law, started a business, great moving company, yada, yada, yada. Last year she started listening to the podcast and she was like, I want to create an online store. And I was like, all right, I like— I don't think you're going to do any of this, but I'll spend time talking with you. And so she wanted to drive me to the airport because it's about— it would be a 2-hour drive to the airport. She goes, let me drive you to the airport and you tell me how to do it. And I told her how to do it. I go, so there's this thing called a CPM. And that's like where you like do advertising and then you have a click-through rate and you want your click-through rate to be this. And then that's how you get people to your website and then you want to sell them something and you want to sell them by doing this, this, and this. And it's all— it's called a sales funnel. And that's how you got to think about this. So you got to think of a product that you could sell that costs a certain amount of money so you can make a profit and you could sell to a certain amount of people, whatever. And I explained to her this whole thing and I was like, all right, good luck, thinking that she wasn't going to do shit with it.
Right.
The stuff we have to take off the thing we want to sit on and put on the floor for some reason.
So we've had a bunch of podcast success stories of people listening to us. We've had a few people reach out to us and say, hey, I've done this, this, and this. Thanks for some inspiration or an idea. I have to say, this is my most proud one because she doesn't fit— she's not like a 21-year-old broke, you know, she— and anyway, pretty cool.
Yeah, I think that's amazing. And, uh, so is it profitable or is it like, you know—
well, yeah, there's— she started with it with, uh,, I think $5,000. Right. So, yeah, it's profitable. It's called— how do you spell it? So she only started it with an Etsy store at first. So if you look up— wait, Smithy— it's called Smithy Couture. How do you spell Couture, though?
C-O-U-T-U-R-E. C-O-U-T—
All right, I found it. So her store is— if you just Google Smithy, she spells her name S-M-I-T-H-Y. Smithy S, right? Her name's Smithy Sodine, but Smithy Couture is the name of the business. And you could see like her pillows, uh, on there. And then she just now has a new website. I think it's called like smithycouture.com or something.
Homecouture.com.
Yeah, that's it.
I see her Instagram. Yeah, this looks great. High quality photos, dude. She's, uh, she's doing a good job.
All of it. She did all of it. She rented an office for like $500 a month and went and bought a camera and bought lighting. She flew to North Carolina to like look at samples. I think she started—
maybe she started with— boss.
Yeah, she started with $10 grand to do this. And I think she's probably make— I think her first year, maybe quarter of a million in sales. Like in December when we were coming home from wherever we were coming, like, you know, I would travel there for December and she was like, let me— or was it December? It was some holiday, maybe Thanksgiving. I forget. But In the 2-hour drive, I just explained to her how to do this.
Well, what's funny is the stuff you were describing, like a CPM, sounds totally unrelated to this pillow store. But nonetheless, I think this is amazing.
And my point was, I was like, here's how you have to grow. You have to like get eyeballs, right? And then you want to convert like 2% of them. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the ways that you get eyeballs is through advertising, which means that your CPM is going to be this number and your click-through rate is going to be this number, which means your cost to— there's this thing called a CAC, which is cost to acquire a customer. That needs to be below the profit you make per pillow. Right. And that's like how I explained it to her. And anyway, she— and so now she's advertising and she— that's how she got her sales.
Oh, that's great. I love it.
Anyway, I, I can— let me lead you to this next one. This one's a little bit more related to what we typically talk about. Have you heard of Visualize Value?
I have heard of this. This is— what's his name? Jack Butcher.
Yeah. So I went to Jack's house this week, me and my wife Sarah. I met Jack on Twitter. I went to his house on like Tuesday and we got along so well that I went back to his house on Friday and we hung out all day. And so I have to tell you this guy's story and then I want to ask you your opinion of which lifestyle you'd rather have.
Yes.
So the way that his life has worked out was he's 32. His wife is my age, about 30, and he's a British immigrant, came here at 21 and worked a bunch of agency jobs and wasn't poor by any means, but like was just like a normal, just kind of scraping by ad agency type of guy. And then 18 months ago, he started a Twitter handle called Visualize Value, where he would write, create one. It's almost like an infographic where he would explain different things with one infographic. And that got quite popular to the point of in 18 months he got 100,000 followers on Twitter. Then he created a course that teaches people how to make these things. And in his 18th month or in the trailing 12 months, 18 months into his journey, they'll do close to $1 million a year. Close to $1 million this year in adver— or in revenue. Yeah. From— yeah, pretty amazing. And I went to his house and he like, we were, we had family time where we like just talked about, you know, podcasts and life and dogs and whatever. But inevitably we did talk a little bit, a little business and he like showed me his setup and how he was doing it. What a fascinating lifestyle this guy built. It's crazy cool. And so what I want to know is what do you think of that? And also, would you rather have that lifestyle where you have like a very steady not passive, but 25 to 30 hour work week, which I have no idea actually how much he works, but it could be low, or would you rather have like a different lifestyle where you work harder and swing for the fences?
So I think about this a lot, and I don't view— I don't view the distinction about the number of hours worked right, so I don't have too much of an opinion on that. I've found that when I work 20 hours on my job, I just start to work 20 hours on my side hustle, right? Like, you know, I just, I just fill in hours with other stuff that I want which tends to be business projects or projects of some kind. Um, so I don't think that's the distinction, but I love the model of I know this one thing really well, I can become a sort of authority in that niche, and because I'm an authority, I can get followers. And because I have followers, 2% of them are going to want to be me and learn my shit, and I can charge those, you know, that 2% of my 100,000, which is 2,000 people, I can charge them you know, $500 for this course, and I can make a million dollars a year off of my audience. I'm not spending to advertise, um, and that's money that's almost pure profit that I can, you know, live on, and I could be a solopreneur. And so I am very into this solopreneurship path, to the point where, uh, right now, you know, I've been thinking about, okay, what, you know, what do I want to do for 10— the next 10 years of my life? And, uh, I got offered like some pretty sick jobs, but I'm like, I can't imagine working at a big company like that as like, you know, the path for me going forward.
What type of jobs? Like at Fortune 500 companies?
At like a startup that's gonna like IPO next year in a space that I really care about, um, at like a C-level role. So it's like exactly what I would have wanted.
Um, what would the pay be?
So I asked him because I was like, hey, look, um I need to— I know, you know, usually you take some steps before you get to this, like, kind of job offer part, but, um, just frankly, where I'm at, I'm making a lot of money, and this may make no sense, and I don't want to waste either of our time if it's just financially, it's just not in the ballpark. So give me a sense. And, uh, they were like, well, the, the salary part can't match where you're at, but like, you know, if the salary is, let's call it, between $250,000 and $350,000 a year, and then the stock options would be worth let's call it $2 million, but we're growing. And if we IPO where we think we're gonna IPO, that could be $10 million if you, uh, you know, over the next 2 or 3 years.
And that's a lot of money.
It's a lot of money. And so it's like, financially it's great, prestige is great because it's a company a whole bunch of people have heard of and think is cool and stuff like that, right? Um, so I thought about it. I said, okay, that's one path you could take a career. Uh, another path is the traditional startup path we hear about a lot.
Well, let's, let's dumb that down. I don't think a lot of people can have that path, but I do think a lot of people can make very cushy—
that's the top of the mountain of the corporate track, right? That's like, yeah, yeah, that's like as far or higher— you can't really go higher than that on the corporate track. Maybe, you know, there's some crazy exceptions, but like, that to me already sounds like an exception. Um, so it's like, well, but if, if the, if the top of the mountain is not that appealing, it's like, well, that's just not the mountain for me. The top of the mountain for me is something else. Uh, so that's kind of the question you have to ask yourself. So One path is, you know, the corporate track. The other track is like, I'm going to start my own company, you know, uh, what you're doing with The Hustle, right? Traditional media is messed up for reason A, B, and C. I'm a startup, I can flip it on its head and I can come in and, you know, be disruptive. And if I do it right, I can make a big prize, I can get a big prize, you know, which ranges from, you know, let's say in the, in the success case, you most likely will fail, but if you succeed, you might walk away with $50 million, $100 million bucks for your company, or up to $50 billion if you build the next Slack or the next Airbnb or whatever it is, right? But it's going to be long, hard, super intense, um, and you know, it's a lottery type of, type of game. Most people will never ever have that type of success.
Would you raise funding?
That's in that path, yes, I would raise funding, right? So then there's— okay, so that's another option. Then the third one is bootstrapped, kind of indie maker, uh, which I actually don't consider what he's doing out of that. Like, that would be like, literally, we're going to build a maybe a SaaS app that's going to be profitable and we can, we can grow it, you know, based off our profits and it'll be a small team. And then you have the Jack Butcher visualized value path, which a bunch of other people are doing, right? So like, um, that guy Tiago Forte is doing this, he's got a course. And then there's, you know, Ben Thompson, our best—
my best friend Neville Medhora.
Neville's been doing this for years now, right?
15 years.
15 years, exactly. Uh, where you become a niche authority, you blog about it, you get free followers, and you get some paid followers, right? That's it. That's a model. And I think that that path is really appealing now, um, more appealing than it used to be. Like, when Neville first started, I would bet that the, like, the, the success case, the top of the mountain there, was not as big as these other paths. But now I think that the way that the tools work and how big this sort of the— this market is getting on the internet and for paid education and stuff like that I think these guys can clear somewhere between, you know, half a million bucks to $4 million a year, um, just being themselves, just like talking about the thing they're, they're into that they're known for, and then sharing their, their wisdom with the world. And they don't have to deal with employees, they don't have to deal with investors. They can work 10 hours a week, they can work 100 hours a week, it's kind of up to them. Um, they are a little bit of a dancing monkey on the stage, right, because you are the product in many ways. But, uh, I think that path is pretty dope. What do you think? So that was a long way of answering your question of saying I think it's dope.
Yeah, so I think it's definitely awesome, obviously. But I actually think that we need to break it down a little bit differently, which is regardless if you raise funding or not. So like there's this mentality of I want to grow 2 or 3 times a year. I'm willing to work a shit ton, which all parties actually of all these examples definitely could do.
If you want to have outsized success, you're going to end up working pretty hard.
But like I'm going to hire employees. So like, so like I don't actually think that it's fair. I don't like doing this like VC, not VC thing. I would say like, are you going to hire? Are you going to have like a— are you going to have a fair bit of headcount? Right. Are you going to not optimize at first for a profit and you're going to try and 50% to 200% grow every single year versus are you going to just coast a little bit and just make potentially a substantial amount of money, uh, but you're gonna operate like a small business that doesn't exactly want to grow revenue significantly, and you're not going to optimize for that. I don't know, are those the two categories?
Yeah, well, if you just think about like, there's a bunch of different ways to break down the business side. Let's just break it down from a lifestyle perspective, right? So it's like, do you want to be managing a bunch of people or not? Do you want to be like going for the absolute grand slam? Do you want to be being profitable and trying to make payroll every, every month because you didn't raise money because you bootstrapped it? Um, or do you want to be like in the— what Jack's doing, where it's like you have very low burn and, um, you may have low profits, you may have low revenue at first, but it's very, very profitable because you have no headcount and you have no fixed costs and you have no, uh, you have no, you know, cost of goods sold because you're selling a digital product?
Do you know how I actually— and this is going to sound super disrespectful, but I don't That's not my intention because I actually tend to side with the side I'm going to disrespect. But I would actually kind of say that it's almost like, do you want to be significant or not? Do you want to be— because in order to be significant, you have to build something very large. Like I'm talking significant on a grand level, like either it's a business that impacts millions or hundreds of thousands of customers, or that makes you so wealthy that you can donate money to a hospital or something like that.
Well, it's like significant in what way? For example, I have friends that have way bigger success way bigger successes than me, but because of this rinky-dink podcast, I have a large audience of people who think I'm, you know, cool, and, and I'm able to influence them, and I'm— and, uh, they, they know my name and they don't know his name, right?
Yes, but they built a much bigger company, right? But they can use their money to do things that someone who doesn't have money can't. They can, they can do a significant—
but here's, here's the other argument, right? I was talking to, to my manager at Twitch one time, and, uh I had always thought like, you know, big company, my mental model was big company, you're a cog in the machine. Small company, startup, you're like kind of the key player that, you know, putting the team on your back, putting the company on your back and you're making shit happen. And he had the exact opposite point of view. He's like, well, I thought about this, you know, 15 years ago when I was deciding which path I wanted to go down and I wanted to optimize for where I can make the biggest impact. So I thought that meant startups. And what he meant was, look, this is a company that, you know, the company I'm working at at that time was Google. He's like, I can— if I just make this one product work, it's going to affect hundreds of millions of people. And, um, so, so that's, that's the highest impact thing for me to do. And I was— I had always thought about the other way. I thought high impact was you're in a small company, therefore your fingerprints are all over the whole thing, compared to Google where you're just trying to get your pinky to touch the machine, and then, you know, that, that's the level of impact you can have.
I— and, and I actually agree with that, which is, um, and I, I just— I still want to blunt this because I, I don't mean this in the form of disrespect, because I don't think it's important to be be significant. But I really do think that if you have a chip on your shoulder, like I was listening to this guy Chamath, whatever his last name is, Chamath, billionaire VC guy. He was like, yeah, he's like, my goal is to be one of the 150 people in the world who control the world. And I'm going to do it by getting incredibly wealthy and controlling the capital and deciding how I want to allocate the capital. And when you hear him describe that, you're like, well, that's definitely more significant than making $800,000 a year in revenue and living a very happy life. That doesn't mean that Chamath's way is that will actually make him happy because I bet he's incredibly unhappy.
But that interview you're listening to, by the way, I think is from a few years ago. And since then, his whole like investment company blew up. All his partners left. He had a midlife crisis, left his wife. Like, you know, like, I don't think he was happy going down that road at that time. Yeah, he's openly admitted it.
In that interview he did, he goes, I'm not really happy. I'm very lonely. So I'm not saying that that's the way to live, but I am saying that that generally is the two sides of it, which because you're going to be kind of unhappy, maybe unhealthy, and you're going to optimize for cultural significance through obtaining massive amounts of capital or creating something that's world famous or impacts a lot of people, or you're potentially going to be much smaller, maybe work less, make a fantastic living, and not be as significant. And which one appeals to you?
The one that appeals to me is the, the second one. It's about I want the quality of my life to be high, right? The quality of my life and my family's life to be high. The quality of my life is going to be affected by do we have to slum it or do we have the means to do what we want, to live the way we want? But also, I'm going to be spending half my day working. I'd rather be working on something that I'm doing for fun, not because I have to do it in order to achieve some status or make some amount of money, right? I want to find that zone of genius, right? The thing I like to do feels like play to me, people want it, and, um, you know, I'm good at it. And if I can find the zone of genius, like, that's what, that's what works for me. Whether that's in a big company, a small company, or as a blogger or podcaster, it doesn't matter, right? Like, that's my, that's my personal focus, is find my zone of genius and then just operate from there, because that's where I have the highest quality of life. Not— I'm not worried about societal impact in that way. I think that's a byproduct of— if you live your best life, you're going to end up influencing and, and helping a whole bunch of other people. That's just like a a law of nature to me.
My personal flaw is that I am easily influenced by others and like, I'll hang out with—
you hear some shit.
Yeah, yeah. Like, I'll hang out with you or our best friend Ramon, who doesn't fit into either one of those categories. Well, he fits in the go hard category, but I'll hang out with Jack Butcher and I'm like, or whatever, Neville. And I'm like, man, it would be a little bit easier to just be a little easier. And then I'll go and read the Steve Jobs biography or I'll go and read about Chamath or go and read about someone who's like pretty significant. And I'm like, they fucking got after it. That is so cool. They like, they risked it all. And there's something fascinating about that, which is they just bent the world to their will. And I find that to be incredibly intoxicating and neat. And so I don't— I personally don't know where I fall, but I respect both, that's for sure.
Yeah, I agree with you. I respect both. I've been through that cycle where I can't figure out what the fuck I admire. One day I admire one thing and then I start to follow that path and then all of a sudden I start to admire this other thing because it's the opposite. And now I've gotten to a point where I'm like, look, there's multiple ways to win. Here's what I know. I know what I don't want. So the thing I am absolutely sure I don't want to do is trade time for money. So any sort of consulting, any sort of coaching, I know that that's a trap and I'm never going to go down that path. So even if there's people who are happy down that path, I know I personally am not happy down that path. Okay, cool, that's one, right? I want assets, assets that accrue in value over time. I think what I admire right now— and I, I used to believe that the, the Elon Musk path is like, you know, the gold standard, and now I sort of look at that as something that's a lot more fun to watch than to do. I don't think those guys are happy. I don't think they live a life that I would be happy living, and where you're you know, extreme amount of stress, extreme amount of, uh, busyness, not able to, to detach, not able to be learning, not able to be with your family as much, right? Like, it's always, you know, it, it's, it's, it's a high frequency where those same people have, you know, multiple marriages, they have, you know, health issues, they have other stuff because of the lifestyle they live. They live what I call an Olympic lifestyle. It's like, I think Michael Phelps is dope. When I heard what Michael Phelps's life was like while he was training to be Michael Phelps, I was like, that's a trap. That's miserable. I would never want to do that. Like, you can give me all the gold medals. I don't want that.
The thing that a lot of people don't do, and someone, a mentor of mine taught me how to do this at age 20, and he goes, you need to write down everything you want to earn this year, and then you also need to write down everything you're going to give up this year to get that. Like, what costs are you going to pay?
Right, the trade-offs.
And I think that's what a lot of people have to do. You're like, I want this, like, I want to win a gold medal, Therefore, I'm gonna be— I'm willing to be lonely, right?
Have you ever done it? Did you ever do that exercise?
Yeah, I do it all the time. I was like that.
I mean, what's an example of yours right now? What you want and what you gave up, or what you're willing to give up?
Well, like, I, like, I don't have— I don't see friends. Like, on school nights, I don't— I call it— we call it school nights. I mean, Sarah, it's like, no, it's a school night. We don't go out on school nights. Nights, right? Um, so like, do you do that? It's like Monday through Friday, like, I don't see anyone. I only see people Saturday and Sunday. It's a school night.
So that's funny.
Like, that's something we do, which is, um, like, you work—
okay, I have an example for you with yours, right? You wanted more freedom. You gave up control as CEO of your company.
Yeah, for sure.
You brought in a president and a CEO, whatever it is, right? And, um, and so I think that was like a— that was a give and a get that you— that you agreed to that I think most people would not, but you consciously chose to do that.
Yeah. And I actually do it right now. I'm trying to weigh a certain weight because I got a little chubby when I got sick. And so it's like, okay, I want to look good naked and weigh this weight. Therefore, I'm going to be hungry throughout the day. Like, I will literally write that down. It's like, am I willing to be hungry? But, oh God, what was I going to bring up too? Oh, I do think that there is a— and I hate saying this because it's such a pussy thing to say, but there is a middle ground with this. In that, like, I do think that there are people who are immensely successful that actually do work pretty calm. So I don't know that— I don't know this guy well, but Tim Chen is the founder of NerdWallet. He's one of my investors and I've hung out with him a bit. And it was hard at first when he started the company. But once it got going, if you pick the right business model, you can grow and be huge and be influential and impactful and also not kill yourself once the ball gets rolling. That is possible. And I bet you the Twitch guys had that happen with them.
Yeah, I think like, for example, from what I can see right now, I think, uh, you know, they live a pretty healthy, balanced life. They have the time that they would want to do what they would want. Um, but I know that there was a number of years where that was not the case, right? Uh, and so I think Paul Graham had this thing he said once, which is like, startups is basically a trade you make where you say, I'm going to compress a 40-year career into the next 4. So I'm willing to work insanely hard and, you know, do my absolute best for the next 4 years to try to get the value of a 40-year full career during that time. And, um, I think that was a good way of putting it.
Let me tell you this other thing that I saw that, uh, you were just talking about money for a second ago. So there's a subreddit that I like, and I don't like telling people I read it because it's quite embarrassing, but it's called FatFire. Do you know what FatFire is?
Yeah, we've talked about it a couple times, but go ahead. Okay, so explain it, explain it for people who don't know.
There's a lean FIRE, which is you try to cut your expenses as low as you possibly can, and then you try to—
and FIRE stands for Financially Independent Retire Early, I think.
Yes. So it's like if you could save up, um, $100,000, you can effectively live off of $7,000 a year in interest or like in some type of investments. And so, right, it's like, all right, 'Let's see how high I can get that while seeing how low.' So it's like, 'All right, I'm only spending $2,000 a month right now in expenses. Therefore, I only need $24,000 or about a quarter of a million in savings and I'm fired.' That's what they call it. And then there's Fat FIRE, which is people who want to do that, but they want to do it where they are rich. And so they want like $10 or $20 million. And so, but it's a really cool subreddit where everyone discusses different ideas. And there's this one subreddit that said, 'Dear everyone who has Fat Fired for a rich family of 4, how much do you spend How much do you spend a year or a month in expenses? And I was actually shocked by how low it was. And so there's people, there's like a guy who has $50 million and he was like, we spend around $400,000 in living expenses and we live in a high cost of living city. And I was like, that's actually not that much. Right. Uh, how much is 400 divided by 12?
33,000 a month.
Okay. So $33,000 a month in, in living expenses is kind of, it is a lot for sure. But it's not like obscenely high if you are very wealthy. And I'm like, that's actually not that challenging. Um, what do you think would be your monthly burn if you could live how you want? And yeah, right.
So I did this. So I basically said, uh, and people have argued with me that this is not the right way to think about it, uh, smart people. So maybe I have this like totally wrong. Um, but basically I, uh, I said that I would need Initially, I wrote, I need $8 million to work for me. Um, you know, $8 million, that is, uh, capital I have invested where my money is earning me money. And I said, okay, cool, if I had $8 million that was working for me and I was getting, you know, uh, 5% a year of capital increase there, that's about a $400,000 a year, you know, net gain in, in asset value. And, um, $400,000 is what I put as— so I think that guy said $400,000. I also had put down $400,000. As what I thought it would cost me, um, to live every year, which is basically like live lavishly, live in the way that like what's— whatever's lavish to me today. Now maybe you escalate shit over time, you start buying tigers and shit for your house, but like, you know, without going crazy, it's basically like live in the type of house that I want, you know, travel as much as we kind of like to travel, and, uh, not really thinking about, you know, buying stuff and, and whatnot on a day-to-day basis. Like, we're kind of heavy consumers. We're not like Marie Kondo minimalists, right? Don't consume anything.
If you're spending $400,000 a year though, you're You're definitely not in the middle. You're on the upper—
Like right now I spend half that, right? So right now I spend $200,000. That's my current life burn rate is I spend $200,000 a year. And, um, so I basically factored in, okay, what if I spent double what I spent today? How much money would I need so that I could spend that amount and my total assets are going up, not down, right? It's what's my— that's my sort of break-even.
Why was that wrong? Because they said, here's— I imagine they said, okay, you're going to do that for a year and then you're going to go and earn more income by working.
It was our mutual friend, actually, Narenzra, who I think was the first one that was like, "That's not the right way to think about it." He's got a lot more money and he's older than me, so I was like, "OK, I should not totally blow this person off when they tell me that." He said two things, as far as I can remember. He said, "Your assumption of making 5% a year, kind of like good luck with that." I don't know why he said that. That seems like a pretty conservative estimate to me that it would compound at 5% a year. Whatever reason he said no. Maybe he was factoring in taxes or something, I don't know. And then the second thing was, he's like, when you get rich in this way, your expenses will inflate over time. You're not factoring in that your lifestyle will inflate faster than you think it will today.
That was his argument. That's interesting, because that guy, Narendra, he's one of my great friends and I love him. He's a little hippie-dippie. He's not materialistic. Money-focused. Yeah, he's not materialistic, and yet he's telling you that.
Yeah, right. Uh, and maybe, maybe I misunderstood his argument. It was a quick DM. It wasn't something that we had like some long conversation about. But, uh, but yeah, I've always had this number. Initially it was $6 million, and then I bumped it to $8 million. And because I was like, I had it $6 million at 7% a year, and then I changed it to $8 million at 5% a year. Um, but that's my like financial freedom number, um, is, is the $8 million in the bank. Uh, that's the, that's the— not in the bank, but $8 million that's put to work. Um, and that's the financial freedom number for me.
That's interesting. Well, if you like this stuff, that subreddit's kind of cool. I do think that going on that stuff can be kind of toxic because you compare yourself to one another, and it doesn't matter if you're on the low end or the high end, you— there's always someone better and always someone worse. So I think it can suck to do that, but it is kind of cool to see unfiltered opinions and thoughts, which are incredibly hard to come by when it— when it's about this topic.
Yeah. Also, just like a mini rant, um, I feel like people, uh, It's so fucking in vogue to be the guy or girl who's like anti-money, uh, where it's like money, you know, like, oh, too focused on money, money doesn't matter, you know, like, um, these arguments where it's like, you know, you know, remember, money's the tool, and if you forget that, you're the tool. Like, you know, there's all these like sort of quotes and, and lifestyle things, and it's like, dude, I've met a lot of people who are like me, and it's like they want to be financially free and they want to, uh, you know, live a certain way and they want to be financially free. And that's a valid goal. And there's so many people that like to shit on that goal that it's crazy to me. Like, okay, maybe there is this higher level of wisdom that they've achieved and that other people haven't achieved, but I don't think they're that wise because they're so fucking judgy. And if you were that judgy, you're not that wise as far as I'm concerned. And so, um, yeah, that's not my mini rant on like, look, it's okay to want to to achieve financial freedom, to think about what that means for you, and then to work towards it. I think that's a totally fine thing to do.
I agree. And I would say it's the other way around as well, which is it's okay not to want that.
And yes, exactly.
And I agree with you. And I would also say, like, I was talking to Jack, I was like, yeah, man, you could build this and then turn it into this and you hire all these people. And then I was like, but wait a minute, like, but also like, if you don't want to be, if that won't make you happy, I would say don't do that because that sounds, sounds like you're pretty pumped and happy right now. So maybe just do what you're doing. Uh, I think it's like far too often do people, yeah, I agree with you, where they like hate on someone 'cause they're getting after it and they are trying to become big and they're killing themselves to do it, but they're like, yeah, but this is just what I want. So it's like, all right, sounds good. And then also, like for example, I used to do this with my wife where I was like, you need to quit your own job, quit your job, do this, this, and this. And she was like, I like my job. And I was like, oh, well, okay, sounds good. Trump card, right? Yeah.
She's like, I enjoy this.
She's like, I like my job, I make a lot of money. I'm happy, I feel good. I go, you're right, don't start a company. What the hell am I saying? You know, uh, don't, don't do that. You're so— sounds good. So I do think it goes both ways.
I went to, uh, I got invited back to my college to speak one time. And so, uh, I took my wife with me and we, we just made a trip out of it. So we go back, we fly there, we, uh, you know, the night before I'm like preparing my talk and, uh, and she's just like doing her own thing, whatever. She's just like walking around, she's just exploring the campus and, uh, And then I gave the talk, and like, I don't know what the kids, the students thought about it. Like, you know, they probably were like, oh yeah, that was like whatever, interesting, back to like whatever, figuring out what I'm gonna do this weekend. Um, but my wife got like really into it, and so on the plane ride back, she quit her job. And like, she had this consulting career and like straight up quit, uh, on the flight, sent an email out, and, uh, like started her next life. And I was like, well, that was not what I was trying to do. And he's just trying to tell the students—
not you, you should tell people people what your wife does, it's pretty fascinating. She draws animations for in-person events, right?
Yeah, it's like, it's called, yeah, it's called, uh, either sketchnotes or graphic facilitation. Basically, she would get— she— this is what she used to do. She used to get paid to fly to some boardroom, you know, Yahoo's having their board meeting, or Adobe was one of her big clients. And, uh, basically they're doing some kind of like executive meeting typically, or like an offsite or a conference or something like that. And she would be there listening. And while she— while they're talking about, okay, this year here's our priorities is, you know, but what about this and what about that? And like, she's actually creating a visual, like an infographic. So she's drawing the words that they're saying, mental models, uh, like little diagrams basically on this huge like wall-sized whiteboard. Um, and so they— and by the time they're done with their conversation, they like look over and like it makes their whole like messy conversation look like this totally coherent plan because she's filtering out all the bullshit and like connecting ideas together herself.
Which is funny, that's exactly what the visualized value thing is, right?
And so she just does it live, I guess. That's kind of the core difference.
She made a great living doing it.
Yeah, she did. Exactly. Uh, now it was a trading time for money thing, right? Like had to go fly a bunch of places all the time, which is not like super fun once you do it a lot.
And then, uh, for a lot of people, and what is a good place to like build, start building a career, then if she wanted to, she could have product— made it a product.
Uh, yeah, that's the step she didn't take, was like kind of like either create a farm system of talent. Because she got recruited because she was just doodling in her notebook in business school, and somebody was like, did you draw that? And she's like, oh yeah, sorry, I just wasn't paying attention to the class. And, uh, they're like, no, no, like, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, like, if you drew that, I have a job for you. And she didn't even realize this is a career. Most people don't even realize this is a possible career. But she had this artistic talent that she was just like, oh, art doesn't make money, I'm not gonna do art. Art. That's just a hobby, I guess. And then she realized, oh, I can pair business with art and I can do this thing that very few people can do because they can't draw.
Okay, so next episode, I want, I want to show you one more example, but next episode, what's— come prepared and we'll both tweet it out. We'll come prepared with 1 to 3 person operations that are doing awesome stuff and we'll just rattle off who they are. Does that sound cool?
Yeah, like a solopreneur slash duopreneur kind of, uh, success cases.
Yeah, just like small teams. So like your wife would count as one, on like just small teams that have internet or internet-related things that are kind of crushing it. Um, and I'll tell you one more. So I met with this guy named Steve. I don't know Steve's last name, but have you heard of Nerd Fitness? Nerdfitness.com?
No, but I like the name.
It's been around forever. He's been around for a long time. And, um, Steve does coaching and creates programs and his whole— and it all started with a blog. And his main audience are people like you you, um, I guess me, but nerds who want to get fit who don't know too much about working out. Um, and it's called Nerd Fitness. So he's like, we help people— basically his whole shtick, he calls them nerds, but it's people who are just not well-versed with gym equipment and don't want to go to the gym and squat because they think they're going to look silly. He teaches you how to squat so when you go to the gym you can, you can look like you know what you're doing, actually do it and feel comfortable. And it's pretty cool. And he— I have no idea how big his business is. I bet it makes $3 or $4 million a um, but I went to his house yesterday and, uh, I've loved meeting these types of people. It's been so fascinating to learn how different groups of people are building companies.
And, uh, tell people how you're doing this because I think what you're doing is really smart and most people don't do this. So you decided to go on tour just for a lifestyle decision of like, I want to go live in different places, but you are actually meeting a bunch of cool people in every single city. And what is this? Uh, is this— I tweet out when I go to a place or I put on Facebook like, hey, I'm in Detroit, who's here? Uh, something like that.
Yeah. So I just tweet out like, I'm currently staying in Cobble Heights or Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. One time I accidentally tweeted out my address and I got a cool, it was kind of cool. I got mail, but I didn't, it could have been weird.
Didn't want mail.
But, uh, I, or I'll be like, hey, I'm in, I'm gonna be in Nashville from this date to this date. Uh, holler, you know? And I just will get DMs and I, if I, if it's like a friend of a friend or someone in my circle, then I'll go and meet up with them. So I met up with this guy named Nick Gray who had this business called Museum. Tim Hack. He is friends of friends with Neville. And then Nick introduced me to, um, Steve, the guy of Nerd Fitness. And then, um, Jack Butcher, uh, tweeted at me and, uh, it's, that's how I've been meeting everyone. And so when I'm in Austin, I'm sure I'm gonna be quite busy. And then I met like this guy named Sweaty Startup. You know him?
Yep.
Uh, he's in Athens, Georgia. So I'm gonna go to Athens, Georgia, and I'll say hi to him. It's been awesome.
Yeah, I think it's amazing what you're doing. And, uh, and, you know, most people would try this, but like, nobody's gonna respond to the tweet or the— so there is this precursor you have to do. It's like, A, be an interesting person who does interesting things yourself, because then people will want to meet with you. And second is like, build up an audience. Um, like we did this, we built up an audience, we asked for nothing in return, we spent time every single week doing this for like a year now, and It's amazing the value that we've been able to— it's more valuable than I realized, and we're small still. If we were big, I can't even imagine how easy it is for people who are big to get shit done.
I think, well, first of all, let me say that I did this in 2014 after the first HustleCon, and I definitely had a— I had like 2,000 Facebook friends, a lot of them like startup-y, business-y type folk, and I traveled on my motorcycle for 8 weeks around the country, and I met up with a lot of people. So your audience doesn't need to be that big, but I will say I, I think we're, we're definitely not like a big podcast, but I think that we're like, uh, maybe top 50.
Yeah, we're definitely top 100, maybe top 50 sometimes. Uh, yes, we're not small, but we're not like— there's famous people and then there's like nobodies, and we're somewhere in between.
And, uh, closer to the nobodies, but yeah, yeah, exactly.
Uh, but my point is like, if it works even at when we're at this scale, like, I can't even imagine how well it'll work as we get bigger. Like, that's It's crazy how many advantages there are to just having a kind of an audience of people. So I really encourage people to do this.
And then one thing that's crazy is like, imagine if you're Joe Rogan and it's like, he's like, "Yeah, dude, my buddy had COVID in Nashville." And he's like, "Who's your buddy?" He's like, "Well, like Sturgill Simpson, this famous singer." Or he's like, "Yeah, my buddy wrote a book on that." "Oh, you mean Malcolm Gladwell?" You're like, or like, "Yeah, you know, I met with this guy. He's got this car company." You know, like he, like, and he's cool about it.
But that's what you call too famous actually. You're too famous and then you're constantly trying to downplay other, you know, the shit that's happening in your life, as well as like you can't actually function anymore because people just keep mobbing you. Yes.
That's when you overshoot. Like, I, uh, so I just don't— I'm like, we're not famous at all, but I get a ton of messages. I just don't reply to any of them. Imagine if you're like Joe Rogan and you say like, uh, I have a cold today, and then you'll get 3,000 messages saying, have you tried Flonase? Have you tried this? Have you tried this?
You know, you know, my friend's the best doctor in the world at the So I have this guy now who works with me, and he's like my right-hand man. And he— I gave him access to everything. I was like, here's my DMs, like, you can read all those if you want. Like, just, just reply. I was like, because there's a lot of shit I just don't reply to. Because we would find that he would mention something that's like blowing up, I'd be like, oh, I think I've talked to the founder, I messaged him a while back, I don't know what happened. And then we'll go back, we'll find it. And it's basically 9 times out of 10, it's me saying, hey, this thing's dope. And they're like, wow, thanks, I didn't know, nobody knows about this yet. And I'm like, yeah, we'd love to talk, you know, we'd love to invest in talk to you about it. And they're like, cool, here's my email, let's find a time. And then I don't follow up, and then I never reply. And then like it's 4 years later and I'm like, hey, congrats on that, you know, $100 million round you just raised. Like, that's the next message that comes through.
What was that company, by the way?
Uh, well, like Airtable was one of them, um, but there's, there's two, there's two others that the same thing just happened. And so which ones? I told him, I was like, you have free rein. I was like, there is a lot of value in it just like not being a total dipshit that I am and like actually just reply to these people. And, um, and he's like, dude, we could just turbocharge your network so easily if we do this. And so I encourage you to actually do this. This has been a kind of a game changer for me because I think you're probably like me. You might be a little bit better about it, but you're probably like me that there's a lot of value on the table.
No, like these guys just DM'd me and they're like, we do $120 million revenue, $40 million in profit. Can we come on the podcast? And I, uh, I was like, I, I don't— I think I said I was going to talk to you about it. Um, but I would have forgotten about it had I not just come about.
Sounds great.
Yeah, that's the last, that's the last Yeah, I usually— I'll just say badass, and then I just like, I gotta go and answer an email. Um, what was the two companies that you're referring to? Can you say?
Uh, I don't remember off the top of my head, but I just know that this has happened three times to us in the last, uh, last three weeks. And so he was like, dude, can I just reply to all these so that this doesn't happen again? Like, that's three times we found this exact same thing. Uh, let's do something about this. And I was like, yes, please, please do.
I want to show you something really quick now that we're talking about this, because last time we had a podcast called Jobs That We Wish We Could have, or no, uh, jobs that we almost had, but like got fired from or something like that, or didn't get the, didn't get the job. So I went and so when I, I went and looked at my stuff, um, my notes from 2012, um, so in 2012, what I did was I created a Google Form and I put a heading for company name, company URL, job title, job listing, uh, hiring manager, and then I would email them and I would track the notes. Yeah, yeah. Let me show you some of the ones that I, I found my thing.
Oh, this is amazing. Okay, all right, can I just read these, uh, off that I'm seeing? All right, so Sampar Prospects. Okay, so company name Uber, and this is 2012, uh, yeah, July 2012. So, uh, not, not totally small. Hiring manager Ryan Graves, who's the CEO of Uber at the time, or maybe, maybe had moved.
No, he wasn't. I don't think he was. So look, launcher, whatever the community manager—
launcher was like the city launch your thing. Sales manager, sales rock star. So, Zozie, I don't know what that is.
Does that— look at this one.
I want to look up who these people are. Like, do they get like crazy rich now?
They're all on sabbatical, dude. They're all taking a, you know, a 3-year gap year where they're gonna go read about mindfulness.
Okay, but here's where it doesn't get good. So, Zozie, is this around anymore?
Anymore? I, I've never heard of that company.
So what do they do? I don't even— let's go around.
It's a watch company. Okay.
Oh, watch. No, it's not around.
Did not, did not win.
Okay.
Did not win.
No. Did TripTrotting win?
Okay.
Wow. That's good.
Account manager. Uh, that's all it was, was account manager.
No, no. University account manager. Even better. Um, zero cater. They— I don't think they panned out exactly, but they had a good run.
And then that's it. Oh, and then Cater2Me, a different catering company. Oh, there's more. Uh, EF Tours, that didn't pan out. Nixon Red Bull, every other— that's every company ever that you do. I mean, that everyone applies at Red Bull.
So here's, here's what's crazy. That's 8 years ago. Um, that's not like— 8 years is not that long. So, um, like, you know, I remember the president back then. So, so, so So projecting forward 8 years, imagine if— imagine what your life today is going to look like in comparison to 8 years forward. How exciting is that? Because like back then you would have been pumped to get this university account manager job at Zimride.
It's like, dude, well, here's the shitty part is I would be pumped now if I got that back then. Like I would have been— I should have done that. What was I thinking?
I got the Airbnb one. And then I interviewed at the other one. No, like, I don't think you understand how redneck I was. Like, I was in Nashville. I didn't know what the word startup was really. Like, I was like, I would call it like a startup company. Like, oh, you guys are like a cool startup company.
The dead giveaway.
Yeah. Like they would say the Bay Area and I was like, I don't know what the Bay Area is. Right. Um, and they're like, they were talking about San Francisco and I was like, yeah, like Silicon Valley, like, uh, by LA.
Yeah. Like I didn't know anything.
I was just, I was just a redneck. I was, I was country. I didn't, I didn't, I just didn't know anything.
Yeah, I did a lot of cringe stuff. I looked up the email that I had sent to, um, to the Michael Birch who was running the, the Idea Lab at the time, Monkey Inferno, and there's some stuff in there that I'm like, this is so fucking cringy. Um, but it's actually good to read because now when I look back, when now when people message me, I'm like, dude, I was 10 times worse at this than you are. Uh, so I should not judge anybody because I was, I was awful at this. Not, not too long go. That's like 7, 8 years ago.
And even if it is cringe, you could still tell like earnestness, and you could still tell if someone, um, is hardworking and like if they're go-getters. So like, yeah, like, like I used to make fun of my friend Tam. Do you remember Tam Fam? Yes, this guy was an intern at my company at like 19, and I would kind of bully him around because he kind of— I would treat him like a little brother because I was only 23, he was 19, and I would treat him like a little brother. I'm like, shut up, Tam, I am, like, you nerd. Like, I would tease him, but looking back, I'm like, that guy, he is like— he was like the most like eager dorky guy ever.
Yeah, he was a go-getter.
Yeah, he was just like Butters on South Park, and, uh, he was a great dude, but I would just like bully him.
But now I see him on Facebook, but he's like— he was like learning pole dancing or something in his house, or he's always doing stuff, and he would like—
he'd like posed to like some prom to a girl by like dancing and showing up at the side. And I would just like tease them. But looking back, and even then I knew it, I'm like, yeah, but dude, Tam, you're like a badass.
Like you're gonna— you want him around. Yeah.
Yeah. Like you're gonna be really special. Like all these weird quirks that you have, you're gonna get teased now because you're barely out of high school. But trust me, like you're gonna kick ass. Trust me. Like keep it going. Right.
I'm gonna keep making fun of you, but you keep doing what you're doing.
Right. Like, I mean, I'm— and when I make fun of you, I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just trying to like include you in part of the joke, but you're, uh, you're gonna be badass. And I think people can tell that, right, really easily.
Yeah, that's, uh, that's, that's really funny. Can we do 2 minutes on Khabib for the, like, 1% of the audience that, that cares about Khabib?
Fucking awesome. So awesome.
Where did you— where'd you watch it? Just at home?
Just at home. So the background for anyone listening, Khabib, his name's Khabib Nurmagomedov. What is it?
So I learned it. So his— so it's actually It's actually Habib, not Khabib. I know. If that's okay. And then it's, you know, Nurmagomedov is like the way we say it, but there's actually like 3 silent letters in there that you're not supposed to say. I don't know which ones.
He's like a stoic MMA guy. He's very Muslim. So he's like always says like, you know, al-salam or some type of praise be to whoever. And he doesn't bring his wife or his kids around. He doesn't drink. He doesn't smoke. He doesn't cuss. He's very calm, very stoic. Dzhobic, but he'll say very in a Russian accent, he goes, I'm going to bring you on the ground and maul you. Like, that's what he says.
Yeah, I'm gonna smash this guy.
I'm gonna smash this guy.
I'm gonna give him good smash. So he's from Dagestan, which is a place I literally never heard of till I heard of Khabib.
Um, and then it's like, it's like Afghanistan in Russia. If you ever look at photos, like, it looks like, it, it kind of looks like, uh, it looks like the Middle East, but it's technically Russia. And it's all Muslim.
So the thing that's interesting— so it's not about, oh, what happened in the match, right? There's like an interesting match, but this guy is just like a remarkable character that I think you could like pull a lot from. This is a character to hear about. So guy from Dagestan, um, which is a mountain town in Russia that's like not like— the Russian people don't like Dagestanis, so they're like this like outcast group of people. This is like a hard, hard group of people that live there, but they live a very hard life.
Like, and this isn't like condescending, it's the truth. If you Google his town and his house, like a stone home with not much electricity.
And so his dad is one of the— was one of the greatest, um, like martial arts coaches ever, basically, turns out. But at the time, like, Khabib was a little kid, and there's these videos on YouTube of him wrestling a bear.
A baby bear.
A baby bear. So he's a kid, he's probably like, I don't know, 6 or 7 or something like that, 8 maybe. And he's literally— his dad has actually wrestling against a baby bear, um, as like either—
they're like, they're like the same size.
Yeah, they're like the same size. It's insane. And so this guy from a young age trained wrestling in this, uh, in this, like, in the mountains of Dagestan. So he, he joins the UFC. He ends up now— so he retired after this match that just happened over the weekend. So he's completely undefeated, or as he says, undisputed undefeated UFC lightweight champion, greatest of all time. And, um, 29 and 29-0. Never really lost a round. They gave one round to, uh, to Conor McGregor, um, but like pretty— he dominated pretty much every minute he was in the, in the UFC. He dominated his opponent and he fought everybody. And so that was kind of crazy. So he, uh, and then like Sam said, he's, you know, like kind of a devout Muslim guy. What's interesting is he got super popular. So he has 23 million followers on Instagram. He has more followers than Floyd Mayweather. Um, he has made— his dad estimated that he made about $100 million total because because there's a billion Muslim people out there and he became the most famous Muslim athlete since Muhammad Ali. And so he developed this huge following even though he's a very kind of modest guy. You know, he was not like Conor McGregor or Floyd Mayweather who's really flamboyant. He wasn't like that.
And he got famous because after the Conor McGregor fight, who's an— he's an asshole. Khabib had a flip. He flipped out because Conor made fun of his religion a little bit and was disrespectful to his family. After the fight, he beat Conor McGregor up, jumped the stands, and went and beat up Conor McGregor's team. And, and that, that's why he got so many followers.
Yeah, that's one of the reasons. I think he's just in general like idolized by, by a whole bunch of like Muslim people. He's the most famous Muslim athlete, and you know, there's just a lot of people in that population. So he's like super famous across Russia, the Middle East, everywhere else. And so he retires undefeated, uh, dominates this guy again, you know, as he always does. And his dad passed away, I think due to COVID this year. Um, so his dad who trained him passed away a few months ago. So this is his first fight without his dad, and he surprised everybody. He retires. Uh, first he breaks down in tears because this first, you know, first fight post his dad.
And so you knew— I think he knew what was about to happen.
It was over, right? So he, he basically says, I promised my mom I wouldn't do this anymore. And he gives this like post-fight speech where he's like, look, spend time with your parents. I only have one now. And, uh, if you have parents, spend time with them. And he said, I'm gonna spend some time with my mom.
I remember, he goes, he goes, my— he goes, mother, mother asked me not to fight without father, right? I said this last— I said this, I'll do it. That's how he said it. He goes, yeah, I promised her this would be my last one. I'm done. Thank you.
I gave her my word, so now I must do it. And like, a lot of people in fighting retire, but they know they do not stick to their word because they retire as like a stunt to drive more interest in their next comeback fight. So there's guys who have retired like 5 times. Like Mike Tyson's coming back again to fight this year. And so like, that's a tactic, but this guy doesn't play around.
This guy is like— this guy, he's like, he's that type of guy, man of my word. I have no idea if it's true, but when I look at him and his crew, I'm like, you guys have killed people before for sure.
Like, they're just bad. Or you happily would.
Yeah, they're just like, they live— lived a hard life and they're real gangsters.
And there's this hilarious video. Have you seen the video of them playing basketball? Yes, they're playing what they call Dagestani basketball, which is basketball played like football. So you don't have to dribble, you just run around with the ball and there's 20 guys on the court and everyone's tackling each other to get the ball. And then like, you know, if you score, if you shoot the ball and you make it, like, great, you get like a touchdown. And that's Dagestani basketball.
It's the best. I, uh, it's made me, uh, like, I bet a lot of people are like us where they're like, I just want to see what Dagestan's about and I want to learn how to wrestle and do all that stuff. Right. It was pretty cool. I think people make fun of the UFC because they say it's kind of like redneck or barbaric, and it definitely is barbaric, but it's, it's so cool to be introduced to new cultures. And, and, you know, fucking Dagestan, who would have— we were talking about it.
Yeah, exactly.
And I think, uh, there's a lot I admire about, uh, the culture. It's very stoic, very, um, family, very mostly respectful.
Like the custom, they said you retired and like you, you were 29-0, you could have got to 30-0, which would have been the greatest record in MMA, uh, history. And because of this fight, you had the best, um, you had the biggest sort of like, uh, fights ahead of you. You could have fought Conor McGregor and you could have made another $10 to $20 million off that fight. You could have fought Floyd Mayweather. He wants to fight you because you're a big star. Um, you could have fought Georges St-Pierre, this old, you know, former great star who could— who wanted to come back and fight you, and that would have, you know, cemented your legacy. And he goes— I heard this interview— he just goes, um, what am I gonna do with money? He goes, 'Even like billionaire only eat bread one time a day. One bread a day.' I love you. That's hilarious. And I think, you know, there's something that is kind of amazing about this guy who lived his life in this way and got famous and got successful on his terms. There's so many people that are just copying the playbook. It's like, 'Oh, okay, Conor McGregor got famous this way and got rich this way.' So now you have all these wannabes who like try to wear his suit and try to talk trash and try to like be a fashion icon and like, you know, say brash things. And, uh, Khabib did the exact opposite and got just as famous and almost just as rich, um, doing—
and way more polite, universally, and respected. Universally respected.
Yeah. Um, so I thought that's kind of a great example or a great lesson to pull.
I thought it was special, you know. And I think that a lot of— very few people in America will know who he is, but he's— I bet you he's a top top 20 most famous athlete in the world due to him being number 1 amongst the Muslims, right? And, uh, the fight this Saturday was in Abu Dhabi. Is that how you say Abu Dhabi? Yeah, Abu Dhabi. And they said that they treat him like the king.
So like, he has a full-on coming from the hotel to the arena, which is a literal 2-minute walk, and there's a police escort driving like 40 feet.
He's just a badass, man. He's just a badass. And then And like Putin called him right after, like he's just royalty. And I think that's badass.
Yeah, he's insane.
So to all the UFC fans, uh, hopefully you like this. To the non-USV fan, UFC fans, Khabib, how do you spell it? K-H-A-B-I-B. That's right. Look him up. He's famous for saying like, that was incredible. I'll smash this guy. That's like how he talks.
All right, I'm gonna go smash my workout now. I'll see you later.
All right, bye.
See ya. Hi!