#130 - How Solopreneurs are Making $1m+, Why Lists Suck, and The 5 Minute City

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. Oh yeah.

Feeling like gold. I don't wanna hide it. Ain't no money. We live, we live, we live.

All right, I'm looking at Sam. He's got a like crazy background, a purple background right now because he created a podcast studio in his closet, I think, which is kind of amazing.

It's, uh, we're at our office. I, I took over a closet and I put like the, uh, what are these things called? These panels. Why, we put these panels on here. So like I built a studio for I think less than $200, and I think it probably looks pretty good and sounds good.

It looks better than Joe Rogan's ugly red capsule that he sits in. Uh, imagine being so rich and famous and then building your custom studio and then it looks like that.

Uh, that's all right, he did it. I think he said he, he said he was gonna move and in 2 weeks he moved and had the studio. Maybe he'll fix it, right?

Um, all right, what are we talking about?

Let's talk. Okay, you tell me. Okay, so Sean, first of all, you're in Business Insider today.

Yeah, congratulations to me. I bought the— I bought the $1 pro trial so I could read the article because I was like, I was like, yo, to the writer, I was like, could you just send me the PDF of this? He's like, no, you have to buy the trial.

I have a— I have a subscription. I would have given it to you.

Um, yeah, it turned out okay. I—

yeah, how'd that come about?

Um, some— so a guy reached out and he was asking about I remember what he was asking about originally. He was asking about something else. And so he's a journalist, and he was asking about, um, something for my opinion on something. And then I was like, by the way, um, what happened? He goes, oh, he was asking me because I had talked about Parler. I had tweeted about Parler, and he was like, yo, do you know who's behind this? And, um, and I was like, I was like, no. Uh, and he was like, okay, whatever. And then he was like, hey, congrats, you made the top 100 list of emerging VCs, which who the hell knows what this list is. Really? Yeah. And so he's like, you made this list? And I was like, thank you. He's like, can you send me a picture? I was like, yeah, sure. And then I was like, uh, and then I like shot my shot. I was like, by the way, like, um, you should do a feature on rolling funds. These things are interesting. Uh, like, look at this. I just like, I tweeted out on September 1st, dear internet, I'm gonna raise a million dollar rolling fund, uh, only from Twitter buddies and internet strangers, not taking any money from real life friends. I'm trying to go from zero to one million in 21 days. And I said Um, and look at this, like within 5 days we crossed a million, and within 21 days we crossed 2.5 million, and then we shut it down, we stopped taking money in. I was like, there's a good story there, you should tell it. And then he wrote the story, uh, so that was good.

That's great. Um, I want to talk about 2 things, but the first thing is, what was the outcome of that article?

I shared it. Um, and the second thing, um, which is not—

it's behind a paywall, right?

I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm a subscriber. This is not a disrespect to you, but those lists— can we talk about how bullshit all those lists are?

Such bullshit. Like, there's that— what's that quote where it's like, I don't want to be a part of any club that will accept me as a member? That's how I feel about these lists.

Like, here's what I think is just nonsense. The So I remember when I was a little bit younger, I was like, I want to be on Forbes 30 Under 30. And then I got— I was like, I went through the process and I was not— I think someone nominates you. I got nominated. It might have been my coworker who I really don't even remember, but I went through the process. I was like, oh, this is bullshit. This is what— this is fake. This is awful, right? This is not prestigious at all.

And, um, and it's kind of laughed at in the— in our community at least. It's like a negative mark of honor. It's like, oh, you played that game to try to get that? Like fake prize. Oh, that tells me all I need to know about you.

Yeah. So let's walk people through this. So the Forbes— first of all, I don't want to sound too harsh, and because Forbes is still good in many real— in many ways, but in general, Forbes.com is kind of bullshit. It's like a pretty laughable publication. Um, the magazine I think is still kind of cool, but the, the good contributing system on Forbes is just utter bullshit. And in order to get into that Forbes 30 Under 30, like, your PR firm will, like, submit you. And then if you, like, buddy up to the people who's making the picks, you get in. It's bullshit. It's horrible.

I, I wrote a recommendation letter this year for somebody. They— so this is some— somebody who is— they're my friend, I think they're cool, but they're not, like, the 30 Under 30, right? That should be, like, something really remarkable and prestigious. And, like, why not? Why not just make the list of badass people? Why, why does it have to be this weird, like, not pay-to-play, but like if you play the game, you get to—

you get—

you get to be in. So as I referred this person, first of all, who am I to even be able to write these recommendation letters? And then who is he to actually get it? And he became 30 out of 30, like mission accomplished by just trying. He asked 2 people to write recommendation letters and they did it, and then he got in.

It's such bullshit. And I don't like want to hate on it because a lot of my very close friends who I love, uh, are on it and it makes them feel good. So that's cool, that's wonderful. But let's just acknowledge that it's like stupid, right? Right. Uh, they're not stupid, but it's stupid. Uh, the— there's a very few lists that I think are worthy. One of them is Inc. Inc.'s 500, or what's it called?

Inc. 5,000, I think.

Well, I'm judging off who's number 1. I, I would— that's not the builder. Greg didn't make this.

I love that. That is an ex— that is a perfect example of this, this marketing idea and tactic that I've always like, again, observed, hey, this is pretty effective. It's also kind of bullshit. Wait, could I create some bullshit like this and have those effects? And I've always wanted to have some excuse to do it, and I never really did have the excuse to do it. And that is an amazing, perfect example.

I love that. I'll, I'll find it. And the way that we did this was— and like, look at this, like, I just found an article. Like, so we did it about different neighborhood— different neighborhoods. And check this out. So, um, I just sent you one that we did.

I think I might have seen this, by the way. Before I moved to San Francisco, I think I saw this because I wanted to know which neighborhood to live in, and, uh, there was this one and there was another, like, guide to San Francisco neighborhoods that were, like, designed like this. Like, you have a— for people who can't see it, uh, he just sent me a article on Curbed, Curbed.com for Chicago, and it's like all the different neighborhoods and there's like a little illustration and it's like, here's what the rent is, here's kind of like where you're gonna find this person, you know, like Bronzeville, you'll probably find this person protesting a new billboard on 31st Street. So it's like these things that are gonna get a reaction out of people. Smart.

I, I call it king-making, um, when you decide who's, who's who, right? Like, so, so a brave founder, uh, Silicon Alley Reporter 100 was a list of the 100 most influential people in New York technology. Put like your you're just deciding who's the king. And because you're deciding who's the king, you're the actual king, right? Your name is on the list. Everybody starts catering to you. You start getting access. People start submitting applications. And literally the fucking thing didn't exist before you just arbitrarily decided to name it. And everybody, you know, even if they mock it initially, they will buy in. Nobody wants to be at the bottom of the list. Nobody wants to be left off the list.

And the thing is, is that a lot of people are like, well, who am I to start this list? Um, it doesn't matter as long as you, as long as you make it, the people who are involved will likely share it. Like, I share all that shit if I'm involved in it.

It takes some finesse. Yeah, like if I told you right now, we just shat on Forbes 30 Under 30. If they said, Sam, push this button right in front of you, if you just put the— push the X key on your laptop right now and you're on the list. And if you don't want to be on the list, just don't push that X key. Would you push it? I'd be like, I'm on.

Yeah, yeah. And like, I realize that sounds hypocritical, but yeah, whatever, fuck them.

But it's not actually, if you think about it.

Yeah, I'm saying it's a bullshit game, but I'll play it every once in a while. So this— what I wanted to talk about was you, you had this thing called All Access Pass and you shut it down. Can you tell me why and what it, what it was and why you shut it down?

Right, okay, what it was. So, uh, the podcast that we do here, we just do a bunch of ideas. So let's say, let's take the idea we just did, uh, hey, there's this business model to type that you— or maybe it's a marketing tactic called kingmaking that you guys talked about. That's really cool, cool idea. And what we do is the conversation has now ended and we're going to move on with our life. We're going to talk about the next topic and the next topic, the next topic, and we're never going to go past that surface level, right? Like, the podcast is designed to be about ideas and it's about— it's designed to be more like rapid fire. We're not like promising some thorough investigation of ideas. So the number one question I would get, and I'm sure you get it too in your inbox all the time, is like Dude, I love that idea. I want to do it. Like, will you advise me? Or like, how would I— how should I do it? Or I have this other idea, how would you do it? And it's like, dude, I don't know. Like, he's so context dependent. I don't know. I'd have to take time to figure shit out. I don't just like know the answer. Like, the answer is in spending a bunch of months trying to figure it out. And so, um, so I was like, okay, well— and people were asking me like, do you want to do a course? Uh, like a course where you teach people about like how to do a startup? I was like, well, there's no like just catch-all, like how to do it. Uh, that's too generic. I said, but maybe I could do something different. I said, I spent a lot of time in my life doing like zero to one of businesses. Uh, I ran a freaking Idea Lab for 6 years. And an Idea Lab, you're just cooking up an idea and you're trying to make it, make it happen every single time. Zero to one, zero to one. And so I thought, I'm pretty like, I am, I have gotten good at this over time. What if what I did was I have a few projects in mind of things that I think could be cool to do Um, what if I just built them in public? So what if I just published, uh, not just like how it went, but like the day-to-day? What did I do today? What did I do tomorrow? What did I do the third day? What did I do the fourth day? And so people can follow along. And like, it's not gonna really like apply to their project like one-to-one because they're not gonna be doing the same thing as me and they're not gonna have the same exact skill set as me. But I thought, you know, the way— one of the ways I got good at shit was just by shadowing other people who are really good at shit. And then you see how they execute and you're like, oh fuck, That's the level of aggression, action taking. That's the framework they use to think about things. Like, I should be like that. So anyways, All Access Pass was this experiment where I said, all right, if you pay me $200 a month, you get on my paid newsletter and the paid newsletter is going to go out 5 or 6 times a week. I'm basically going to say day 1 of this project, what did I do? Day 2, what did I do? Day 3, what did I do? And I said, I'm going to do this for a season. My season is going to be 4 months long. And so I've now done it for 3 months. And I just yesterday emailed the whole list Um, of people and saying, hey, I'm gonna shut it off after 3, like, and here's why. Um, so that's a high-level, like, overview. We can take it in whatever direction you want.

Can you say how many people signed up, or do you want to—

Yeah, yeah, sure. Like, now that's over, who cares. Um, so basically I was like, this will be good if I can get, uh, it's $20K a month of revenue coming from this.

I thought that would be like $20K as in, uh, 200 times, or, uh Sorry, 100 times 200.

Did you— do you think— so when I hear $200 a month, I'm like, that's pretty expensive. Do you, um, was that priced correctly?

I think so. So I think it's the most that you can charge for something like this. I think once you go into like $1,000 or whatever, you're really like only a certain type of person who has a certain business that's already really successful can pay for that, uh, can justify paying for it, or you'd have to get their work to pay for it. Um, so for this case, I think this was like— it was high, right? Most paid newsletters, if you go to Substack or whatever, like, I bet you I was like, I don't know, in the top 0.01% of Substack earners.

You would have been the most expensive one.

What was your churn?

So over one month or, or the three months?

Over the three, yeah.

That's great.

Do you, um, I— the business that you're— did the business that you were documenting— I know you don't like talking about it, so we're not going to talk about it, but was it— is it doing well, like well enough that you're like, I gotta focus on this?

Yeah, that was part of it. Um, like, you know, the business itself is an asset that's like, you know, that the time spent there versus writing the email is, is, you know, better spent. Um, so I basically did— I promised 3 things. I said I'm gonna launch a fund, which I wanted to do anyways. I said I'll show you how I raise this money, how do I launch this fund, and what are my tactics to do that, and what goes into this. And so I did that one. That was successful. That was the first month. And then the second month was e-commerce. So I showed people how do you get e-commerce ideas, where do I look for ideas, how do you validate demand for that product, how do you know you're not, you know, working on a dud, uh, how do you get it sourced, you know, how do you work with a factory, how do you negotiate all this stuff, and then, uh, how do you actually grow an e-commerce store. And so that's kind of what I, you know, was showing, um, and I was using my wife's, uh, like, e-commerce store for that. So I didn't have to— I did the sourcing separately, and then for the growing a store because sourcing takes time, right? There's like a lead time of like 2 months to get a product. Um, so I didn't want to leave people waiting, so that's kind of how I did that one. And the last one was going to be an online course, and I ended up doing like a workshop and some things like that. But I was like, this is just, A, too much work, and B, I invested in, um, our mutual friend Gagan Bhayani's new education startup, uh, new course platform. And as part of that, that deal was obviously very hard to get into because he's a baller entrepreneur. He built Udemy, he built Sprig. Like, a lot of people wanted to invest, and part of my pitch to let me into the round was, yo, if you let me invest, I'll launch my course on your platform when it's ready. Um, and so it's not ready yet. So basically I hadn't done that project.

Yeah, I saw that. He asked me to— or he invited me to have a discussion about it. I didn't end up doing it because I was too busy and I just missed the call. We didn't schedule a call. I was like, I, I can't really focus on this right now.

Um, maybe I'll regret it, but, uh And you helped him figure it out because he did a course on the Trends community as one of his, like, like in his investor deck he's like, here's what I've been doing because like we don't have users, we don't have revenue, but how do we— how can I say I have traction? It was like, well, I've actually been prototyping and testing this. I did one, I did a course with the Trends community, I did a course with this other thing, I, I became a student in these 5 courses and that's how I've learned about— and that's informed my new business.

Yes. And, uh, he introduced me to his co-founder and I was like, hey, I just, I have way too much on my plate at the moment, I, I don't want to get I can't, I can't get involved in anything else. I'm sorry. And I have a feeling that's going to cost me some money, but that's okay. I couldn't get to it.

Um, yeah, that's a phrase I need to learn.

What's that?

Like, I just, I have too much on my plate. I can't do this right now. Sorry.

Yeah, I couldn't. I just, I didn't have time. And I actually, I acknowledged I would— he's, he's going to be at least mildly successful. I just, right, I didn't have the bandwidth. Um, what did people say when you canceled? Were they upset?

You know, by the time you get to like month 3 of a thing, and you know, I put out 50 pieces of content, uh, that were like not just like pieces of content, like I tried to make them all fucking good, um, and I put out 50 pieces of content in like, I don't know, 70 days or something crazy like that. So, um, by that point I think people, hey, understood like, yeah, this, this does seem like, you know, this is keeping you up at night, right? I'm sending these emails at like 1 AM because After work, after the baby gets to bed, after I walk the dog, after, you know, we do the podcast, after all my obligations are done, then I would bang this thing out. So I think they understood, like, yeah, this is probably, you know, a lot of work. And then the second thing was, um, I think you, you, you earned some loyalty and trust. I'm sure some people were like pissed, but people are polite to your face usually. There's— there was one or two people that were like kind of dicks about it. They were like, dude, you said— and I was like, yeah, I know I said, I'm sorry, like But, and you're getting your money back, right?

Or like you're canceling it.

It's not like they're paying for anything or something you're not getting. But they were like, oh, I really wanted to learn the course thing and you never got to it. I'm like, yeah, no, sorry, shit happens.

That's pretty funny. And did all the people come from this podcast?

Uh, majority, I think.

Uh, like, that's crazy.

To promote the thing, uh, I basically put out some free written stuff and then I did a 6-minute little podcast teaser about it, uh, that I posted on the feed. And so those are the two, and I posted in the Facebook group as well. So those are the three things I did to promote it. I didn't do anything beyond that to, to promote it.

It's pretty crazy how—

and I should definitely say, by the way, I didn't do this myself. So, uh, I recruited somebody from the community, this guy Ben, uh, to be like kind of like the main operator of this thing because I didn't have the time. And I was very upfront about that to everybody. I was like, you know, this email is like written by Ben. Ben did this thing, uh, it's not me doing everything. Um, And so Ben Levy was like the reason I was able to do this. If I didn't have Ben, it would have been impossible, and it would have sucked, and I would have quit way earlier because I'm a quitter in that sense.

Yeah, it, it really is. Uh, it really is quite shocking. Uh, but I think it's like, you know, this is the theory, right? Like, the reason I did the podcast, the reason I did the paid newsletter, the reason I do all that stuff is because like I'm a big fan of this model of solopreneurship and being a creator, making stuff, and then having fans who like the stuff you make pay for it. Um, I just think that that is a really good business model. I think it keeps you honest. I think it keeps you making good stuff over time, and I think it's really defensible. Um, and so, so I'm a fan of this. And like, you know, the company I work at, Twitch, is literally— the mission of the company is to like empower creators. Um, Twitch is just full of like a million, you know, creators who have their own channel and they run their own business and they share the revenue. And, um, and so I'm just a big fan of this, like, creator— like, the creator economy, basically. This is my experiment to dabble and be a creator and not just, like, building tools for creators.

Great, I'm all in. I think it was cool.

Um, I got a couple ideas I wanted to throw your way. Let me start with this first one. This is an idea that already exists, uh, it's called Cul-de-sac. Have you seen this startup called Cul-de-sac?

No, I'm pulling up our list and I'm gonna, uh, I'm gonna go to it. URL is like, uh, spelled it a little funny. A 5-Minute City. Call this app.

Exactly. So their tagline is it's a 5-minute city. So it's basically a startup where they're, they're in Tempe, Arizona, and they're building a little bit.

I know this neighborhood. I know this well.

So tell me what you know.

Well, uh, it's a— they have big name people. Who is it?

I think they're ex-Open Door people. Keith Rabois, I think, was one of their investors. I don't have a ton of information of who's ultimately behind it. I think they went through YC, or they're going through YC right now. Oh, no, they went through YC 2018, so a while back. There's not a lot of information about it, but basically, they're building a 5-minute city, which means that where you work, where you exercise, where you eat, where you hang out, your outdoor space is all 5 minutes away. So it's a walkable, it's like a total walking lifestyle. And you're in this little neighborhood that has every single thing you need from, you need to get fresh produce, you wanna get, you know, coffee, you wanna eat at a restaurant, you wanna work out, it's all there. And I, lifestyle-wise, I would love to live in a 5-minute city. I think that's like kind of a dream. What do you think of this concept as a liver and as a business?

Okay, so I first wanna acknowledge how douchey this is. Like, this is like, if it becomes like this startup thing and it's a bunch of like startup-y people and a very like homogeneous group. Like we have to acknowledge that that's just a circle jerk and it's kind of lame. At the same time, it's cool and I would want to participate in it. You know what I mean? Like—

That's the theme of this episode. Bullshit things that I'd love to be a part of.

Like I would probably have fun, but it's basically like a TED Talk that you'll— if it turns into a TED Talk that you live at, then it could get a little exhausting. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, that's great. That's a great way of putting it.

Like, that's, that's what it looks like. I see like 3 different golden retrievers in the picture, an Airstream, an Airstream shit trailer, and tons of white people wearing Lululemon. Like, that's what like the picture is. So I think like I would be a little nervous about participating in that, yet at the same time I'd probably be into it.

Yes, I also want to acknowledge that, which is I think this could be a great business, but this isn't like new. Like, there's— it's just a planned community, which they have— they've— we've had this since 1910. Like, this is like— it's— it, it works wonderfully, or it can work wonderfully. Planned communities can be pretty great, and they're great because they're often planned quite well. And so I'm on board with that. I do— I do want to acknowledge acknowledge that it is an old idea that's just, uh, done with cute branding, which I'm on board with. Um, so I think this is gonna be pretty cool. I don't know, man, can you convince a bunch of people to move to Tempe though?

Yeah, I don't think so. Um, I'm surprised, surprised they chose that.

Um, Austin, because that's where everyone's going. Austin or somewhere where, like, yeah, like Chicago, or like where there's a lot of people willing to be already.

Well, it's called a nursing home, but yeah, no, I'm joking. Um, so like my, uh, Neville, my best bud Neville, he's Zoroastrian, which is like a, uh, he calls himself, uh, he was like, we're kind of like Jews in India, uh, which I don't exactly know what that means, but basically it's a subset of Indian. I don't really know exactly what it is. I think it's a religion or a cult. I don't know how they define themselves anyway for even trying.

Okay, go ahead.

Yeah, I think it's— I don't know if it's culture or race, religion, whatever it is, he identifies as Zoroastrian. And he said that when him and his parents moved here, they surrounded themselves on the same block with some Zoroastrians as well as other Indians. And so he was like, it was the best thing ever. We were raised around other immigrant parents, but we were trying to fit in and be American, but we still had Indian roots. So it was really nice to have that. And so what we're doing now here in Austin, where I'm living now, is I bought a house and Neville is going to move down the block. He's looking at a house on the block. And then Ramon is moving here in January, my other best buddy. And so we're all trying to move on the same block because we're trying to recreate this.

Yes.

So that's the dream. Totally. I'm totally into it.

That is the dream. Um, I love that. Uh, so anyways, I think it's a cool idea. And more than this cul-de-sac idea is actually, I like your idea better, which is I think, uh, life would be great if you basically had a, you know, your family lives in your house and then your friends live on your block. I think that's like, you know, the most, the most quality of life improvement you could possibly have.

And isn't— I, I mean, I don't know too much about Indian culture, but I do have a bunch of Indian friends. It's quite normal to have your— for the families, like mom and dad to live with you until you're old, right? I mean, like, it's normal that to have like a shared house.

Yeah, traditionally the parents would live with, I think, the oldest son maybe. Um, but depends kind of how old school you are. So like, for my family, my family's pretty like modern. My mom like, you know, torrents movies off of like BitTorrent shit. Like, you know, like we're not like in that like kind of old school mindset. And so, so that's not really kind of how we think about it. Um, although I think it would be great. I would love for my mom to live with me. It'd be dope. But, but, uh, she doesn't, you know, she doesn't want to.

You know who another guy who's trying to do something like this that I'm actually— I'm realizing it's not the same entirely. And he's— I think he wanted to come on here. And he's like a kind of a shady— well, I'm not going to judge him, but a lot of people would call him kind of shady— is that Grant Cardone guy. So this guy, he sells like courses like Tai Lopez for like $2,000 on how to sell or something. And he uses that money to buy property. And at this point, he's got this whole whole line of properties called like 10X, 10X Properties or something. And the reason why I thought of him is, Abrey, you just shared the founder's LinkedIn of this, uh, what's it called, this, uh, and people also viewed people who work at Grant Cardone's 10X Properties. So I wonder if they're trying to poach a bunch of people from there. Um, that's funny. But it's, uh, he's trying to do something similar to that as well. It's an interesting play.

So here's another kind of fun idea, uh, curious what you think about this. The, uh, do you know who this guy Tiago Forte is? Yes, he's like, you know, uh, also a creator, kind of solopreneur guy online, teaches courses about, uh, things called building a second brain. I don't know, it's kind of a weird, weird idea, but people are into it for whatever reason. It's like a note-taking app, a note-taking course, I guess, uh, how to be organized or something like that. And, uh, this dude's like crushing it. He's making like $1.5 million a year easily, uh, on Horses. And, um, he— I think it was him— he tweeted out like, yo, I, uh, you know, we've been talking about like these tiny homes or prefab manufactured homes. He tweeted out, hey, I bought these, I think in Austin actually, um, a few of these cabins. And, you know, uh, it's underway, and next year we're gonna have a retreat for, you know, um, makers and kind of creators to be able to just come and stay. And this will just be a year-round place you can come and stay and be in a little you're in your cabin and you're— the cabins next to you are other creators and makers, and we'll just be able to rent these out. And, um, I'm making my own little kind of creator village. Um, I think I got the concept at least half right. Aubrey just showed me the tweet. Um, so he says, here it is: Forte Shelter, uh, to be delivered next year to Creator Cabins by Jonathan Hills. Okay, so maybe it's not him. Um, a set of creative workspaces for remote workers, online creators, and entrepreneurs Um, which also fund conservation efforts. And it's creatorcabins.com is the, the concept of it, um, where you can go as a creator and go live in these fucking cabins. What do you think?

I'm looking at it now. Um, this is gonna be huge. I don't know if it'd be huge, it's gonna be pretty good. Um, there's another business that we mentioned a few weeks ago, it's called, uh, Getaway. Um, yeah, this is gonna crush this. I'm on, uh, fortishelter.com.

Right, okay, maybe that's, uh, I think cratercabins.com, maybe it's the same thing, I don't know.

Oh no, no, Forte Shelter, it's the guy, this is him, his picture's here. I guess he makes these little tiny home things, they're just trailers or something like that. Anyway, I'm totally in on that, I think this is going to be cool.

So what I think is cool about this, uh, what I'm studying about this, I, I don't really personally, just lifestyle-wise, I'm not going to go to this cabin now, but maybe when I was younger that would have been awesome. Um, You know, the, the— what I like is that the solopreneurs are, are dabbling with different models. So like, for example, I looked at all the different solopreneur models, um, that are out there. I looked at Tim Ferriss, I looked at Pomp, I looked at, uh, Tiago Forte, I looked at a whole bunch of different guys that are out there, Seth Godin. And what was striking to me was that the old wave of like most famous ones, like, uh, Tim Ferriss, Gary Vee, uh, Seth Godin, I felt like were hugely under-monetized. Like, the models that they picked to, like, capitalize on their, their rabid following were like—

Tim Ferriss is great. He probably made $200 million.

I think you're a little wrong. These aren't solopreneur. This is just like the Oprah, Martha Stewart type of thing. Like Seth Godin has a huge team, I think, VaynerMedia has like 800 or 900 people. I think what you're talking about is just monetizing influence, which like that Kylie Kar-Jenner, what the fuck is her name? The, what the fuck is that?

Like, yeah, Kylie Kar-Jenner. What'd she do?

Tell us, you expert. The makeup, the makeup girl, uh, the Jenner or whatever she is, the famous, the famous one on Instagram that my wife watches on TV. Um, I mean, she crushed it. She probably became close to a billionaire off that. So I do think some people are doing really well.

Yeah. Okay, so you could say this is influence. I agree with you. Uh, you know, I, I— the other word I'm using right now is like, is a personal media company. I see. It's just a— it's a person's brand. They are the media company. Uh, they're not a part of New York Times or Fox or CNBC or whatever. They're just— they're an independent, um, media brand themselves. And that's what, you know, the Kardashians are now, and that's what, uh, Seth Godin and Tim Ferriss and all these guys.

Another person who did it well is that Bulletproof Coffee dude. Um, yep.

Do you think that that will be more fun than starting a business where no one knows who you are? Um, like, just starting—

like, fun for me because I'm kind of an attention whore in that way. Like, I, I, I like being known for it. I know a lot of people who— this whole thing, doing a podcast and having people, you know, listen to you and having people DM you every morning— that the same thing that gives me energy would be a pain in the ass to Um, they're like, no dude, I just want to like look at a spreadsheet and I just want to like make a decision and I want to invest the money and then I want to like go play golf. And like, that's winning for them and that's not winning for me. So yeah, I think, I think it depends on the person.

That's interesting. I, uh, yeah, I don't know if I would want to do that or not. Maybe, maybe not. I, uh, I think it's interesting though, and I think that you'll definitely be able to pull this off, that's for sure.

Yeah, I think it takes time. Um, okay, I gotta— I got a couple more ideas I wanted to throw at you, see what you think.

Do the handwritten letter one, or a different one.

It's amazing. Why is that? So when I was in New York, I saw ads on the street constantly for this thing called Bond— Bond— what was it called? Bond, right?

Bond Letter or something like that.

Bond Letter. And they did the same thing. And I looked it up and I didn't think that it was booming.

Like, so they sold a few years ago, kind of like a modest sale, didn't, didn't go, go, go crazy. What they did wrong, in my opinion, as I, as I looked at this, was I think a lot of these companies that were doing this, they were trying to do it for consumer So they were like, oh, that's why they have a fucking billboard out there for you. It's like, you should use us to send a letter on your behalf to your mom and your auntie and whatever for Christmas. And what these guys zoned in on, I think, was A, their tech actually is really good so that, like, they can make it look like your handwriting if you want. Um, so like, the thing is not like laser printed on where it's like a handwriting font but it's printed. No, it's like this is an actual fucking pen that actually writes the thing. It really does look indistinguishable from a human doing it. The second thing is they went for businesses and the segment of businesses that really need this, that really have this problem in a big way. So they have like, you know, Salvation Army and a bunch of other groups that are like big, that spend millions of dollars a year on this stuff, who are now realizing, oh shit, if we do this, we get better results. And that's the last thing is that they actually track the full result. So they know who they sent it to. And because they hooked into your database, they can tell you when that person takes an action, they can show you the full ROI. On this campaign. So they turned it into like a Facebook ad, essentially.

How many people work there?

Still a small company. It's pretty cool though. Based in LA.

How much— is it public how much they've raised?

If you want to invest, you should invest in this company. I think it's gonna be a good company.

I'm interested. Is it—

they had only raised, uh, up until now they'd only raised like $1.5 million. So they were, they were doing well on a small amount of money.

Wow. I'm super interested. Who's the— who started it? What's their story?

Uh, the guy is an engineer. He was, uh, engineer at OkCupid, which I was like, boom, love it. Yeah, I love that. You know, anytime when you come from a company that's like pedigree is like kind of like growth hacking, I'm like, yes. Uh, so OkCupid engineer, then Facebook PM. I was like, okay, great, love it also. And then, uh, this whole thing made a lot of sense to me.

It sounds like your portfolio is going to be pretty badass. Is that— do you think so? I mean, like I hope so.

I'm also just easily excitable, so like, you know, there's always a counter-argument to fucking everything. But, uh, but yeah, I like it, you know. If I didn't, I wouldn't invest.

That's pretty badass. No, I'm into it. I, I don't— I think that's a company that for sure can make tens of millions in revenue and be very profitable. Can it be like— right, who— like, does someone— like, if you have to act like a douche VC, you have to say like, all right, who's gonna—

who's gonna— can it be huge?

Who's gonna buy it? Or like, and to those, like, I don't know what the obvious, obvious answer is to that. I'm sure there's some direct mailing company that makes billions a year in sales who exactly none of us know about.

What's the URL of this company?

I think it's addressableapp.com. I mean, I shouldn't even have to give them money after that fucking testimonial. That should be the whole investment. Uh, addressablemail.com. Sorry.

By the way, we talked about, uh, the Fascination recently. Yes. They, the founder reached out to me. Um, I'm gonna, uh, meet up with him, uh, online or on Zoom, I think on Friday. It's the guy who started Leesa Mattresses. Yes. I didn't know that.

One of the co-founders.

Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. And, uh, anyway, he, I was gonna, I'll have to talk to that guy, but Addressable Mail. That was cause that's another hard name to spell addressablemail.com. I'm on the website. Uh, yeah, this is going to be pretty sick.

Cool. All right, I had 3 more ideas, but we're out of time, so we'll save it for the next one. All right, sweet. Abreu, what'd you think of that episode? Let's leave this in the episode, but give us the, uh, give us the rating. And Abreu, by the way, loves shitting on me and Sam, so, so it's— he's the right person to ask because he'll give the real deal. No, it was a fun episode. You guys know I'm ADD, so whenever you guys are rapid fire, those are my favorite.

This wasn't rapid fire. No, this was, this was boom boom boom.

And what do you think, uh, what was the most interesting one of this to you? I like the solo entrepreneur talk, 'cause I think that's a little different than the stuff that we normally talk about. And I also liked Sean, you opening up about the all-access pass, giving a little perspective of why you're shutting that down. I think that's a little different. And we can take this out. Would you be willing to, all the paid newsletters, to put it out to the members of our Facebook group?

Oh, you should, no, you should sell those. Don't give that shit away for free.

That's what Ben keeps saying. Ben's just like, dude, you should just sell these for $100. Sell the whole archive. Yes. You know, just day one through whatever. And I was like, ah, it sounds like a lot of work.

Work.

We'll leave it there. I don't know, I was like, I don't want to do the work of going and finding customers to buy this, but like, yes, we should sell it for anybody who wants it. The Facebook group can look forward to that at some point. Uh, yeah, if you want that, I don't know, just email me and I'll sell it to you for, I don't know, $100. You get the whole thing.

Let's see if this little mention actually gets you anything. All right, thank you guys, we'll talk to you soon.

Cool. All right, later guys.