#194 with Justin Mares - The 4 Types of Side Hustles and how to launch a $100M DTC brand

I feel like there's a world where this, like, let's be conservative. I feel like there's a, like, this is very clearly a $10 million a year thing that makes $2 million in profit.

I feel like I can 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.

Dude, there's like a picture in the background that is just getting my attention so much. That crooked there's like a crooked picture.

You see it?

Yeah.

Yeah. There's a whole subreddit called like, I forget what it's exactly called, but it's about like minor things that are just slightly off. Like, what were they thinking?

It's like mildly— like there's Mildly Interesting, Mildly Irritating or something like that.

No, it's called Mildly Infuriating.

Mildly Infuriating.

Did you— did you just guess that?

Well, I know about Mildly Interesting, so.

Yeah. Anyway, what's going on, Justin? Do you know, you know what you're getting into? Like, do you know what we're, what we do?

Yeah, no, I know a good bit.

All right, good. So you, uh, we'll just do like a really quick intro, but you, uh, you've done a bunch of stuff. I've known you since 2013, I think, right?

Yeah, I think actually a little earlier when you were doing the roommate thing.

How'd you guys meet?

We both had roommate businesses and he, we just became friends. He moved to San, you, you moved to San Francisco. I ended up introducing him Uh, or no, he met one of the girls, a girl he dated for a long time in the elevator on his way up to our meeting, who was my coworker. And so we just ran in like the circle of friends for years.

That's pretty good. So did you get the number in the elevator or what was the, uh, the elevator's not, it's only a 2-floor, you're on the 2nd floor, right? So that's not too long to—

it was a fast, it was a fast close. Yeah.

How'd that happen? Tell me about it.

Yeah, we met. Do you want me to share this? I'm happy to do it.

I don't have anything to hide.

That's sweet. Yeah, I mean, we met and this girl walked into an elevator and I was like, just making a joke. She was, I think, like maybe a tiny bit drunk and tried to hit a button, but there were no buttons in the elevator. It's one of those fancy ones that like you walk into and the attendant sends you somewhere. And so I just started sort of making fun of her for that. And in the several-story ride with like 2 other stops, I was like, hey, we should hang out. And then we hung out at Sam's apartmentless party and exchanged numbers and have been friends since.

Amazing. Okay. And Sam, did you, did you know that Justin was going to go on to do great things at the time? Did you spot that early or no? Was he just another dude?

Yeah, well, we were both scheming. We were only 22, I think, when we met. That was a while ago. And he, he had this roommate thing and I had a roommate thing. And I think anyone who ever started— that's like there's like 3 things that you start right when you graduate college and that like, that's like one of them. And so they never work out well, like they're never that good. So anyway, by the way, these three are like music discovery.

Oh, why is it so hard to find new music? We can solve that problem. It's roommate, roommate discovery is another one.

And then food delivery, it depends who you're—

and then like, or like college Craigslist.

Yeah, exactly. Local, local Craigslist. Sometimes it's to-do list, or sometimes if it's like your first time commuting, you're like, If you're, I know this for engineers, I've met like 10 engineers that all made the same thing first, which was basically like a bus tracking software. It's like tells them when the bus is coming because they just like, you're so tired of the unpredictable. Like, is it 7 minutes more or less? And they're like, I need to make an app for this.

Well, so yeah, we were, we were both doing that and I knew, I mean, whatever we've, that was a stepping stone for both of us. And then he started, um, you co-wrote a book with a guy or no, you. You sold a company or you joined a company somehow. You were working with my friend Terry and their whole business was buying and selling stuff. And that was like pretty successful, I believe. And then you also started working on writing this book called Traction with this DuckDuckGo guy. Gabe is his name, right?

Yep, exactly.

And then it was, and then he was doing Udemy courses and I was like, yeah, I mean, we're all like schemers. He had like Airbnbs and I think you, did you buy cars and rent them to Uber people?

Uh, no, my roommate was doing that. I was looking at doing it but decided it was a miserable business, so didn't end up doing it.

And we were— so we were always doing stuff. We had— you had a Udemy course. I probably was selling some type of information stuff. And then he started this thing called Kettle and Fire, which, first of all, like, I thought it was so stupid on so many capacities or so many, uh, players. So first I was like— he was like, I'm gonna start like selling like this, uh, like hard good. I'm like, bro, like we work in the internet. Why would you ever want to like start like a goods thing? Then he was like, it's going to be food. And I'm like, ah, you're kidding. Like, why would you ever do that? Then he said it was bone broth. And I was like, bone broth? People drink bone broth? And then this was like before like this whole, like, I don't even think the word D2C was a, was a thing. And so obviously, I mean, I thought it was the dumbest thing ever and I was wrong, right? Like it was, it's been a, it's been a smashing success. And he started this Kettle and Fire thing and it's quite big. You've also started, uh, my neighbor Sean is this guy named Anthony. I don't know who did it first. One of you guys like had this thing called, uh, Perfect Keto where you're selling keto products and then you guys like combine you.

So we partnered up on it basically. We, I was like running Kettle and Fire and as I do sometimes looking for like another side hustle thing to start on the side. Uh, and he had another business that was in the supplement space, but the two of us were just like, hey, we should work on a small side project together, make something that does $20 grand a month. And like, once we hit that threshold, we'll like blow it all on a ridiculous trip to Japan. And that was like the whole goal of the business.

And it's like, we thought it'd be big, right?

Yeah. I mean, we thought it would take like a year or two to get to $20 grand a month, and we did it in the first like 45 days. It was insane.

And then Kettle and Fire is like a big thing too. You guys like, I think, did you raise money or did you sell a portion of it?

Yeah. So Kettle and Fire, we, we raised money, we bootstrapped for the first 18 months, raised a tiny bit of money, less than $1 million, ran it another like 16 months and then decided that the opportunity was big enough that it made sense for us to raise. So we raised $16 million in 2018. About half of that went to secondary and the other half went to like actually putting money into the business.

So I've heard a number that either Kettle and Fire or Perfect Keto or both did $100 million in revenue. I don't know if that's a cumulative lifetime number. I don't know if that's an annual number. Is this a public number or is this— what can you tell me about this? Because that was a big number. I was very surprised. And I'm a customer. I have like 6 of your bone broths, you know, sitting in my pantry right now.

Yeah, I really like— I love that.

There's one flavor I really like and I feel like I never get it in any store. And then I'm like, all right, let me try these other 5 and see if any of them can match that one I really love.

What's the one that you're super into?

I don't remember which one. It's like the top. It's like— I think it's like one of the top Thai lime. Yeah, I think it's either the tom yum or one of the other ones like that's like that's like a Thai curry type flavor.

And yeah, yeah, yeah, that's one of my favorites.

Yeah. And some of those, by the way, are nasty, but some of them are really good. And so I'm like, it's like, you know, those like when you get a pack of cards, you're like looking for a hologram, like a holographic Charizard inside, and then you get a Squirtle. That's how I feel about Kettle and Fire. I know this is not common, but that's just my personal experience with the, with so far.

Thanks, man. I'll take that as a compliment, I guess.

Okay, but back to the business side. So I was a customer, but I was shocked when I heard that $100 million number. What is that number?

Gotcha. And what is Perfect Keto? So I know Kettle Fire. What's Perfect Keto?

Yeah, so Perfect Keto is a line of supplements and food products for people interested in lowering their carb and sugar intake. And so, we have a clean label line of foods and supplements for people on a ketogenic diet or who just want to eat fewer carbs and no sugars.

Gotcha. And are you keto?

And Shawn, the guy who started it, or his partner, is literally my next door neighbor.

Yeah, but you also say everyone's your neighbor, so I never know what to believe. And then, I came to visit you and you drove me around. You're like, "That's where this guy lives. That's where this person lives. That's where this person lives." So now, I believe you. Somebody's listening to the pod, they're like, wait, he said his neighbor is Neville. Then he said his neighbor is the guy who made the ice barrel thing that we talked about last time. Then he said his neighbor's the student loan guy. Then he said his neighbor is this other thing.

And student loan hero guy and ice barrel guy are the same guy. So they live like, he lives like 20 houses down. Anthony literally lives direct, like, uh, like 30 feet from me.

Right.

Uh, Yeah, like literally right there.

So the context, I guess the context here is you knew Justin and Lucy, um, and I've never met Justin.

No, I did not.

Not Lucy. Oh, you know him well. Okay.

And, um, intimately.

And you've done two things I think that are really interesting. One is the Perfect Keto stuff and Carol and Fire, basically building a brand that's been pretty damn successful. And then the other is you write content and I want to actually talk about some of the content stuff you write. So you have the book Traction.

That's a good book.

But on your blog, there's one blog post that I remember. It's been sent to me several times, so I know other people like it too. So let's start there if you're cool with it, which is you have this side hustle post on, on your blog, and I'm assuming this is probably one of your more popular blog posts. Is that right?

Yeah, definitely.

And you basically outline that you've done a bunch of side hustles and then you have like kind of like you break it down as like there's these 4 types of side hustles. So can you give us kind of like give us the side hustle bit here, which is like—

and if you scroll all the way down to that sheet you're on, you'll see your—

yeah, which is basically like, what are the side hustles you've done? Or like, how do you think about side hustles? And then break people— break those 4 down for people.

Totally. Yeah. So the reason that I got into this is when Sam and I met, you know, the 2 of us were like, we want to do this entrepreneurship thing, but in many ways it's actually a lot easier and like emotionally bearable to start a company if you have just like income coming in that's covering your expenses. And so when I moved to San Francisco, you know, the city is super expensive. And so I started like doing a bunch of side hustles just to try and make income that would give me the freedom to like spend my time trying to launch a company that would really create a lot of like equity value and sort of like life-changing, you know, financial freedom.. And so when I, what I did when I moved to SF, I like started Airbnb-ing our place. We, at one point, you know, this was 2013, we had like the number 3rd, like the 3rd ranked Airbnb in San Francisco. And so we were, we were like renting out either our living room most nights or, you know, over summers we'd rent it out for like $15,000 to $18,000 a month. And then we just, and we were paying $3,000 a month for the spot. So like that was incredible at the time. And we just travel and then launched like Udemy courses. There was a period where I was buying motorcycles that were on Craigslist in Oakland and selling them in San Francisco because there was like an arbitrage there. So I was just doing a bunch of random, uh, random stuff. And so when I wrote this article, so many people that I've talked to were like, you know, I want to understand how to make side income and how to think about this stuff. Um, and so I just kind of like broke down like the, the different sorts in my mind, like the 4 kinds of businesses that you can start as a side hustle. You know, some of these that I've done actually ended up being more, more real businesses.

But like, do you want me to just talk through the categories and kind of what I've also had a good disclaimer, which is like, look, first things first, accept that what you're doing is not meant to be the next Facebook. It's not meant to be a startup. It's like you're trying to make money, you're trying to get some profitable cash flow from a business quickly. Without a ton of like, you know, without waiting 7 years for this thing to pay off. So like, first, let's call it what it is. All right, let's call a spade a spade is, I thought, an important disclaimer. And then you had these 4 groups. So let's run through them. And then, Sam, you tell me if you've also done any in these categories.

Yeah, I was, um, my friend Ramon bought something that I had a small part of, um, and it was a software, very small software app that when we bought it, maybe it was doing $20,000 a month and all we did was we doubled the price of the product and it doubled the revenue.

Amazing.

And you did that too, didn't, didn't you own a, or you bought a thing called FOMO, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So a partner and I bought a Shopify app called FOMO. Uh, it was doing $14K a month at the time we bought it. Uh, you know, we bought it, uh, we paid less than $400. I'll say that less than $400,000 and yeah, which was like a super good multiple.

You did put the whole thing down, right? So you get seller financing or what'd you do?

How big is it now?

Sounds like a good deal to me.

Yeah, it's a good deal. I mean, it's a good deal for everyone. The guy like has gotten his time back. He started other companies in the interim and like when we exit this thing, he'll make probably more than he would have made on the exit than, you know, had he continued to run this for the last 3 years and with no headache. It's like a nice—

So you're talking about buying— so category 1, buying an asset. This can be a house that you Airbnb. It can be an internet company that you just, you know, you do what Sam did, you go in the code you push, you know, Ctrl+F, you find the price, and then you change the number to double, which is like Sam's genius. Or what you did was—

By the way, in the blog post you had a couple examples I think are useful. We don't have to go too much into them, but you were like, you talked about this thing which is like, okay, if you know you have the skills to like improve the value of the asset. So for Airbnb, you were like, all right, to get more Airbnb bookings, like, you know, first, if it's not on Airbnb, we should put it on Airbnb. If it is on Airbnb, we can like boost the bookings by like these 3 things, right? Put more and better photos up. Okay, easy. Anybody could do that, but most people haven't optimized that. Second, like instantly respond to every inquiry so that we get a fast response rate. The algorithm likes that. And then the last thing is like whatever, like 5-star reviews at the end or something like that. And so you're like, I can just take those 3 levers and I can apply it to any property now that isn't optimized for Airbnb. So if they think it's worth $100, I already know it's worth $120 because I know I can just do that playbook again on, on, on any property.

And you did that with like, you used to have a thing, it was called SQL for Programmers or what was it called?

Yeah, SQL for Marketers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Amazing. Damn, good for her. But yeah, I, I think exactly what you're talking about. It's like, find where people are searching for something and there's no supply there, and that's a really good place to focus. Like when I launched SQL for Marketers, there was literally almost nothing under the like marketing, like the technical marketing, or like the data analytics, data-driven marketing section for Unime. And so it's like, cool, if I put that up there, that seems like it'll, it'll resonate and do well, uh, which ended up being correct.

And what are the third and fourth ones?

Yeah, so the, the third one is, uh, basically like launch a unique product in an area where you can buy customers via paid acquisition. And again, I think all of this is like super important to, to remember that you're not building Facebook. You're just like, if you look at Google AdWords or waist trainers, as you're saying, and there's a gap there, you can figure out how to make a product. And your goal is not like make a $100 million business, but make one that does $1 million a year. Like there are almost infinite niches on the internet where you can just make a product, buy some rough keywords, and just sell through in a category that You know, where, where you're like the first to market or the first to do a really good job.

What's an example? What's an example in that category that you've seen either from yourself or a friend or someone you've seen recently that's doing that, that model?

Yeah, so there, there's a company actually that is doing, um, that's like vests for dogs, but the vests are spiky so that coyotes don't attack your dog.

So you can turn your dog into a porcupine.

Put this vest— yeah, exactly. Like, you could put this vest on a dog and then it won't get eaten by coyotes because it's got like spikes all over it. So I mean, what an incredible niche product, you know, that's definitely not going to like go public, but that could be an incredible business. And so that stuff like that, I mean, honestly, that's what, that's what Kettle and Fire was going to be when we first launched it. I had no idea that bone broth would be such a compelling category and, and the trend would take off like it has. Like our plan was basically we looked at we looked at Google searches and we were like, I think we can build a like $20,000 to $40,000 a month business.

So when you say you looked at Google searches, what does that mean in practical terms? Most people have never done that. So what would you—

Google is like, you know, it's like a magic lamp. And on one side you have all the Aladdins out there making wishes and then you just get to be the genie. So it's like, there are these tools that tell you, here's the wishes people are entering into this magic box. They're just hoping for something. And if you notice that, yes, that's more people than I would have expected saying this thing or asking this question or wanting this thing. And you go search for it and you're like, wow, these results suck. Uh, okay. How do I just become the top result for that thing? And so you thought, you thought Kettle and Fire would do that. So give me a sense of how long did it take for you to get from idea, like seeing that keyword and being like, oh, maybe we could do this to actually making like, I don't know, $1,000 a month? How long was that process for you?

Yeah, so the process took about a year. Most of it was because I'd never done a physical product before. And so it was like just bumbling around in the dark, like trying to find someone that can make this stuff. Had a bunch of false starts, but it took us basically 12 months to, to go from like, hey, I think this is an opportunity to actually having product in box. But once we had product in box, you know, we did over $20,000 our first month that we were live.

Uh, so, and you, um, you, are you the CEO of Kettle and Fire?

I am.

Yeah. You've got like 3, we're gonna talk about this other thing that you're thinking about doing. How are you balancing all this time?

It's a good question. Uh, I, I honestly, I've never had a good answer for this.

I just like, are you balancing it well?

Uh, okay. I mean, some of these things like Perfect Keto, like I don't have a day-to-day role in it anymore, you know? So I like co-founded it, but have completely stepped away. One of the things that at Kettle and Fire that I think I'm proud of that we've done really well is like we have a phenomenal team. And so to that, to that extent, I get to work on stuff that only I can do uniquely well, like writing long 15-page posts about how beef is actually like not bad for the environment and shit like this that I'm kind of interested in. But a lot of the day-to-day is handled by like the team that we've built. Over the last, you know, 5, 5+ years. So I really like am in control of my time in general, which is quite nice.

With a guy like Anthony or whoever you're partnering with, and you aren't doing— how many of these things do you have right now where you have your hands in, roughly, right now?

Like 5, probably.

Okay. And so, but there's one that's your day job, right? Yeah. Okay. So for the other 4, when you make these structures with people So a guy like Anthony, or it doesn't have to be him, but the representative that represents him, are you taking a draw from that business at all or are you just only going to pay yourself if it sells?

Yeah. So at this point I'm pretty focused on like creating equity value. And so, you know, for example, like a company I incubated, Shirley Wines, it's like a nonalcoholic wine company. We launched earlier this year. I recruited— I like basically had the idea, tested it, validated it, lined up supply chain. Hired in the operator, the operator and CEO, he's taking a salary and like, I probably won't get a dollar out of that business for until we eventually sell that business or whatever happens with it. Like I put in a bunch of my own money to capitalize it and get it up and running, but I'm just like, I'm not going to suck money out of that thing until, you know, until we have a good outcome.

So then really the only thing that you— not the only thing, I mean, the thing you're bringing to the table is you are bringing a little bit of cash and also you're bringing some expertise and your guidance.

Yeah, totally.

But it also like incubated the whole idea that in that one.

Yeah.

you do you regret or are you thankful that you raised money for Kettle and Fire?

Oh, definitely thankful. I mean, really? Yeah, for sure. I mean, with, with Kettle and Fire in particular, like the business had grown to a really meaningful amount and I still had like most of my net worth wrapped up in that. And so I think getting some secondary was like personally really meaningful. Um, and it also meant that like I felt more okay pushing for a bigger outcome. It also meant like I think I will probably raise for most things that I do going forward or invest my own money just because the caliber of the team that we were able to hire around us— like what we were doing on a shoestring budget versus what we could do after was just night and day. Like we have an amazing team, but amazing people are expensive. And so it's definitely like made my life 100 times easier and more enjoyable getting to spend other people's money to increase the value of my equity by hiring amazing people. It's like, that seems like a no-brainer to me in a lot of ways.

Yeah, when you explain that way, it does. But if I was one of your investors, and you're doing all this other stuff, I'd be like, what the fuck, dude, only do this thing. I just gave you money.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, it's, it's something that I had to work through with our investors, for sure. Was very upfront with it. With them about it and was like, look, this is my main focus, you know, which was very true. And it was definitely something to manage around. I also think, though, that like it's one of those things where as long as the business is going well, no one's going to complain, you know what I mean? But certainly if things went sideways, then it's, then it's like, okay, this is an easy area to point fingers.

Elon can run Tesla and SpaceX and everyone's like, wow, he's amazing. And those businesses are amazing. And then Jack does the same thing with Twitter and Square. And if Twitter misses its earnings, it's like, off with his head. How dare he? You know, he's a part-time CEO. What the hell were we thinking? And, uh, and so it's, you know, people are pretty, they do what's called resulting pretty hard in that case. Uh, and you also did, yeah, you also did a pretty fun experiment. Uh, I don't know if this was a side hustle or what would you call this, where me and Sam were both guinea pigs in your, uh, your continuous glucose monitoring trial.

So you basically tweeted out, yeah, I was sending them like, I was sending them like shirtless pics of myself like every week.

Yeah, to be clear, that was not even like recommended.

Yeah, there was like a piss spot in one of my pics.

A piss spot? What is that?

In your boxers? Like, you know, when you go pee and you like leak a little on your boxers?

Yeah, so Sam sent me like a just him and his boxers photo and there's just a little pee spot to show his body fat.

I was like, all right, dude. And so you were doing this thing where you were like, hey, I need like 20 people or I don't know how many, maybe it's 40 people that you ended up using. Yeah, 50 people. And you were like, hey, we're going to do this experiment. And what you did was you sent us all a Levels glucose monitor and then continuous glucose monitor that we just, you know, punctured into our arm basically. Now, okay, that's measuring. And then you put us all in like a WhatsApp group and you're like, hey, here's the idea. And it was like financial incentive. I think it was like, yeah, you would pay us out every day that we stayed in range. And if we missed it, like you kept our money or something like that. What was that experiment and what did you learn out of it?

Man, it was awesome. Like that. That experiment was kind of like many things in my life. I just had the idea, tweeted it immediately and got such a strong response from people. We had like a waitlist. Yeah, totally. Where I was like, okay, now I got to figure this out. You know, Sam was texting me every day being like, this is sweet. Like, I'm going to get all my fucking money back. Like, you're very into it. I loved it.

I was into it.

Uh, which, you know, live—

yeah, yeah, people can still sign up. It's wearablechallenge.com. We've had one person go through it 7 times. They've lost about 50 pounds. It's like unbelievable to see the results of this.

Who's, who's running that?

Yeah, so one of the guys in the first cohort, Aaron, uh, got so excited about the idea, I was like, hey, do you want to run with this? And so he, uh, he's been running it.

That's amazing. And is that a business to you, or what is that?

Not really. I mean, we're kind of thinking about like how to make it a business, but, uh, but it's, it's actually a perfect example of a side hustle. Like, I will probably make you know, somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000 this year from doing it, right?

Yeah.

When I saw that, maybe more if Sam joins and blows a bunch of his glucose levels.

When I saw that, I was like, hey, this is fun. And it's kind of like on brand for you because of the stuff you talk about in your businesses. But then I was also like, oh, this is a great business because everybody wants the outcome. Everybody wants to eat right, lose weight. And the biggest hack is not knowledge, but accountability. And I liked that you were coming at it from an accountability point of view. And I actually think like, you know, the company levels could do something like this or there's going to be a company that does this right. Whatever Weight Watchers is as a business model, like I haven't studied it. I'm assuming you have given what you do and what this business is. But could this not be like Weight Watchers 2.0?

I think it could be. I mean, it just— it would need someone to like run at it really full time. But I do think that there's something here. I mean, there's a couple of companies like Stick and like one other that I'm forgetting where you can sort of like bet money on, on different outcomes. And, you know, I think that that sort of works. I actually think the really powerful part of this is like it's a cohort, it's a challenge for a set period of time, and you lose money only for that set period. Right. And so like I would love to expand this and we're sort of have some ideas in the, in the hopper about like what expanding it might look like. But it's definitely not my like full-time thing at all.

Have you heard of Stick, Sean? That's actually an interesting company to buy. I haven't been there in years, but when I used to go go there, it was even when I went there like years ago, it was considered like old. So it's Stick. It's spelled Stick, but I think there's two Ks at the end, right? Yep.

And it's like a physical place.

No, it's a web stick.com, but two Ks at the end. And, uh, is the website still all old and janky looking? Yeah. Okay. So it was like old back then when, or in 2013 or '14 when I used to use it. And what you do is you enlist a friend. To be the referee. And then you create, I believe, an anti-charity where you select something that you hate and then you upload money to it. And then if you fail at your challenge, your friend clicks a button and it automatically goes to that place that you hate. And I think you can— you— there's a varieties of this.

Tim Ferriss talked about this, I think, in 4-Hour Workweek. And I think it got popular from that. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you think this company makes money?

Justin? I would imagine so. I don't know how much, but I would imagine so.

It could be an interesting thing to buy. I mean, it's actually not that hard to replicate, but like if they already get traffic, it could be an interesting— it would be an interesting— this would be an interesting thing to buy and revamp and make a little bit better because I think they get a lot of traffic. When I, when we owned ToodleDoo, there was this one guy, an author, I think he wrote a book, Getting Things Done. G— what's it called? Yeah.

Yeah.

David Allen. Yeah. And he mentioned ToodleDoo, this app that me and Ramon bought. Um, and most of our customers came to us because they read about ToodleDoo. Like it just mentioned them in like a sentence or something in the book. And that's where most of the customers came from. And just because Tim Ferriss mentioned Stick, I bet that's where the vast majority of their customers come from.

For sure.

Yeah, that's funny. Uh, there was this thing called GymPact too. I don't know if you guys have seen that.

I don't know if it.

Made it. It was like, it came out 5 years ago or something like that. But it was, you would basically pledge that you're going to go to the gym with some, some frequency and other people would too. And it basically, I think what they were doing was like, in your case, you're the house, you're like the bank. It's like, I give you the money and then you pay me back. And in this case, it was like, it would match you with somebody else. And if you ever didn't do your thing, your money would go to that person. If they did it and you didn't go, your money would go to them. And if you both went, your money would be safe. And so you're like making a pact that you would go to the gym for, you know, some amount of frequency. But I do think there is something to this, like kind of financial incentive, accountability, you know, betting, betting on yourself, betting on your habit model that I think is pretty cool.

Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, we're actually looking now at like, could you apply this to run little, you know, health boot camps in like LA or Austin or something like that? Where you have 30 people, 50 people opt in, we'll handle your meals, we'll, you know, we'll give you levels, like we'll do all this sort of stuff and a more like premium offering that where it's like, hey, you're almost guaranteed to lose weight or get in better shape at the end of this month.

That would for sure work. That's a little bit better than my weight loss idea, which is called Kidnap, where you just go and you take a person and you bring them to the desert in like Vegas and you just—

Kidnap with two Ps at the end?

Yeah, it's called Kidnap SF, or we'll call it Hostage. And we just bring you to like a farm and we just like, it's like, look, you only 1,500 calories a day, do whatever you want all day. But like, this is it. I love that.

Um, can I ask you— Imagine the refund rates would be high on that.

Well, you know, it'll be guaranteed success. Um, so I want to get to some of these ideas, but I first want to ask you about DuckDuckGo. So you're friends with that guy Gabe, right? The guy who started it or owns it. And are you bullish on that business? Because you're one of the few people I know that has insight onto it. And I'm bit— I look at their traffic. Monthly, like, because they give out these monthly updates. Uh, that— does that— is that business like a, like, kind of like an under-the-radar thing? Do you think this is going to take over the world? Because that's kind of how I feel.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's crushing. Like, I think that you always see, like, there's always like a counterpoint to some massive trend or massive amount of success. Like, you have like Amazon taking over the world, but then you have Shopify, which is crushing it. And I think that DuckDuckGo is like the counterpoint to, uh, to like Google and, you know, privacy eroding across the board, all this sort of stuff. Like, I do think there's an opportunity to be a big tech company but with privacy, like privacy as a core value, rather than, uh, you know, selling ads to everyone. And so I think DuckDuckGo really has that, the opportunity to like be that company. And they have a lot of tailwinds that are working in their favor at this point. Um, it's also crazy, like Gabe, he's been working on that company for like 12 years. 5 of those years.

Yeah, 12.

I feel like it might be actually. Um, but like for a large chunk of that time, he was just a solo founder building a search engine to compete with Google. It's like, wow.

So they do north of $100 million in revenue, I believe.

Yeah, I, I believe.

Do you know how, like, I don't know if you, I don't know if you knew him during those early years, but like Did you know him at the beginning or no?

Not, not the very, very beginning, but I knew him when it was like him and one other person working on DuckDuckGo.

And so I'm guessing at that point it wasn't, it wasn't a case where it's him and one other person and man, it's crushing it. It's him and one other person and it's sort of crawling forward. Yeah. What were those like? What were your conversations like? What was the outlook? I mean, I find it fascinating when people work on these businesses that don't take off right away and they stick with it. And then they either like the world just changes or they figure something out or just compound so slowly, but then all of a sudden it starts to take off. Like, what was that like during the flat part? And then what do you think caused it to grow?

Yeah, I think that he was, he was just getting like small bits of positive feedback from communities like Hacker News community was like, DuckDuckGo is amazing for like Stack Overflow searches or, you know, X, Y, and Z, very specific niche sorts of searches. And then as he got good feedback from those groups, it's like, okay, let's invest in product to make this a little better, a little better. And I think that after, you know, let's call it 12, 14 years that he's been working on this, the product has gotten a lot better. But also the like sort of trend line of where big tech is going has— it's just gotten like way more, way more invasive and way more like privacy is way more of a concern for people today, especially as you're seeing a lot of the censorship stuff and you know, some of this that's, that's happening in the big tech world right now. I think that DuckDuckGo is like one of the few companies that for over a decade now has been like, privacy is one of our, our like core things. And they've built an incredibly complex product to compete with Google that is just not easy to spin up overnight. You know, it's not a side hustle. It's not like the type of thing you or I can build with a couple hours a week over, you know, a weekend.

Can we talk about— can we go through some of these ideas? You want to start with Airbnb camping? Because I, uh, you, you were texting me about this. I, uh, and I want to learn about it. I just looked at a house the other day, by the way, uh, down the street from my house to buy for Airbnb. I'll have to send you the numbers. I don't know if it— it seems like a lot of work for not a lot of output. We'll see.

Yeah, I think that's probably true for a lot of Airbnb right now. I think the thing that is compelling to me is like We talked earlier about new platform stuff like Hipcamp and some of these other like camping platforms are exploding. And again, I think if you could like leverage capital, build up the supply side and provide like, you know, water, toiletries, like all, all the basics in locations that people actually want to camp at, you could build a pretty material business. And again, it like may not be a $10 billion business, but I think it would be a really solid side hustle and cash flow asset, and it would require a lot less, a lot less like management and work than Airbnb, because at the end of the day, fucking camping, like, sorry, you know, it's not like the stove burner doesn't work or the AC is off.

It's like a plot of land. You're welcome for the authentic experience I provided for you where nothing worked and you had to fend for yourself. That's what you want.

Exactly. Maybe I can host Hostage on there. Exactly. Do you, when you were, when you were doing this, what numbers were you modeling out?

Yeah, so I was mainly modeling it for on like an NOI basis, which is net operating income, which is like a term that's used a lot in real estate. But basically, I think that you could get like 30 to 40% cash on cash returns by following this strategy.

That sounds like the greatest thing ever. Why didn't, why haven't you done it?

Because I am getting higher returns from my time elsewhere.

You know, so what we'll do is this.

I would love to find someone to run.

If somebody is listening to this, it's like, oh, I'm the perfect guy for this. I love camping. I know I have a camper. I have a camper myself. I'm in an area that's like a high demand thing for Hipcamp or AutoCamp or whatever. Yeah, great. You be the operator. We'll put up the cash, we'll buy the RVs for you and you run the thing and let's split it. So email me. Sean@SeanPoirier.com, and then I'll loop in these guys and we will, we will fund your— we will fund a small rental business of, of campers if anybody's in the location that does this, because that's a great idea. You're absolutely right. They're basically tons of demand and they're supply constrained. And so if you just build out more supply, you're going to get bookings and you're going to get great returns off.

So yeah, exactly. And it's one of those things that's like that could scale really nicely. These platforms are here to stay. Like there's a lot of venture dollars going into making these more of a thing. I think that you could crush it on these platforms. Is it something I want to do full time at this point in my career? No. But do I think someone younger who, like, cares about camping more than I do could really do well here? Like, absolutely.

Okay, great. That's a great idea. What else you got?

Alcohol, baby. Let's talk about that.

Yeah.

So near and dear to my heart as a, as a, as a, as a nonalcoholic beer drinker.

So I'm— I'm— you, by the way, I want to brag. I've been talking about this shit for like 4 years now, haven't I, Sean?

I don't know if that's a brag or really it's a— it's a knock on you. You had the insight. He took the action.

He— well, I don't want to translate. I don't. That's true. That's true. I mean, yeah, I'm just talking shit, but you have been— I get like a— I get like a— like a— just like a— like an attaboy. Yeah, yeah.

I deserve an attaboy for that. For sure. So I think you were going to kind of ask him something like, how much did you put in to start this? Basically, how much of your own money did you— did you have to seed into making a venture like this happen?

Yeah. So I put in close to $100K to make this happen, and some portion of that was a loan that that I got out just as like revenue started to come in. But yeah, it was about $100K to spin up.

That's not a lot. That's great.

No.

Yeah, it's not a crazy— that's a weekend for Sam.

Thank you.

I feel, I feel like, I feel like, like, okay, so if you're telling me you could start this with $100 grand and how many hours a week are you working on this?

To get it spun up? I mean, it was much more like hiring the right contractors and people, so it was 5, 10, maybe at most.

I feel like there's a world where this, like, let's be conservative. I feel like there's a, like, this is very clearly a $10 million a year thing that makes $2 million in profit, right? Like, like it could definitely be way bigger, but I feel like that's a relatively like—

I'd be disappointed if it didn't hit that mark, right? That's kind of what you're saying.

Yeah.

That would be expectations at least.

Yeah. So, right. Like, and let's give me, let's give it 6 years to do that. Let's go. Let's grow slow. I feel like that's like a pretty surefire way you're going to get that. Would you agree?

Yeah, I certainly do.

And so it seems like a good way to do it, right?

Yeah, I'm being like ultra—

Yeah, I agree.

Um, but yeah, I mean, that's a basic thing.

Where are the other opportunities in the space that you— when you're researching?

Yeah, I mean, there's a ton, right? Like, I think that we're at this generational shift where people, you know, 10 years ago, everyone was like, let's go out. Maybe this is just me getting older. I don't know. But all of my friends were like, let's go out to the bars and get really drunk. Now all my friends are like, let's have one glass of wine and then like have a great long dinner and, or try, you know, or not drink at all. And instead, young people, I don't, young people, I don't think drink. Yeah, it's, it's becoming much more common, shockingly.

That's what I'm saying, like the Gen Zers, like, like, uh, it's not as common. Like when the second I could drive—

have you heard Sam's Gen Z analysis that he does? His trends analysis on Gen Z. He's like, they don't have sex, they don't drink, and they're depressed, but they're really cool looking. Or what do you see?

What do you call them?

Yeah, they're really cool. They got, they got nice teeth. They, uh, always wear Vans and they like, they always have like proper fitting.

What color do they like?

What do I say? Like red or millennial?

You'd have like a really sweeping generalization for that, dude.

It's like the truth.

You have to use TikTok.

Like they all have like sick-ass haircuts. Um, it's true, they all got like amazing—

I mean, Justin's got a Gen Z cut right now. He's looking, he's looking Gen Z, dude.

The young people, I'm saying, they don't, they don't have, they don't have a lot of sex, not nearly as much as before.

And they don't, even with all that teeth and hair, they can't, they're not having sex.

What's going on, dude? I don't know.

Male testosterone is down 50% over the last like 40 years.

That's right. Yeah, maybe that's it. It's like This is something— there's something going on here. And they also don't like alcohol. Like, it's a health thing, or I don't know what it is, but they don't drink.

Yeah. I mean, I honestly think one of the reasons I'm bullish on the non-alcoholic space is like, we are getting to the point where there are just better drugs. Like, if people want to, you know, alter their state of consciousness, I'm seeing a lot more friends that are like opting into cannabis or ketamine or some of the, you know, psychedelics or some of these other things. That don't give you the hangover, don't give you the 30 extra pounds over a year of heavy drinking. Like, I just think people are opting for different sorts of compounds, different highs, give them the experience they want. Yeah, exactly.

I tried that Recess drink.

You guys tried that?

Yeah. Don't do shit.

CBD kind of like carbonated drink. Great branding. Amazing branding, I would say. Drink tastes like shit and didn't do anything. So I was like, well, I'm out on that one. But I love the idea of it. I kind of wish it— if it just— if they just put LaCroix in that can, I'd feel amazing. I'd be like, yeah, this is the best. This is the future., but instead, you know, they tried their own thing. Um, what are some businesses that you're like, you mentioned testosterone, we invested in this testosterone, uh, replacement company because we were like that same, which one, uh, it's called Peak or they're just rebranding to Hone, but basically it's at-home direct-to-consumer, you know, testing for your T levels. And then when you get tested and it's, if it's low, you're, they'll, there's like a telemedicine doctor who will be like, hey, by the way, if you want this to go up, you know, like there are some solutions that we can offer you. Basically, they have their own—

you've not heard of that, Justin?

I've heard of TRT. I didn't, I didn't hear of like Peak or it's basically DTC TRT, right?

Just to throw 6 letters in.

Yeah, you don't believe in it?

It's real. Yeah, yeah, maybe that's not a well-said thing, but I tend to think that some of these things, it's like, you know, your testosterone levels are low, it's like Okay, the reason that they're low is some inputs from your environment are not healthy. And so rather than trying to fix the symptom, like you should try and fix the environment.

But what are the biggest inputs you can change to boost testosterone from your opinion?

I think diet, sleep, and like inflammation, and then also trying to cut out like endocrine disrupting hormones, which are, I think, like a horrifying thing that not a lot of people are talking about.

What is that? Talk about it.

Go on. So different plastics compounds, like you've heard of like BPA-free and all these sorts of things, the whole class of something called phthalates, which is P-T-H-L-A-T-E-S, that effectively have like a really strong negative impact on one's testosterone, one's like endocrine and hormonal systems, and they're, that are in like everything. They're basically from plastics or they're from something else. Yeah, a lot of plastics. Yeah. So these are like synthetic materials that are just in like water, plastics, food packaging, creams that you use, like they're all there and they're everywhere.

What's something you do lifestyle-wise that I'd be like, dude, why are you doing that? Like, I went to my friend's house one time and he, instead of using toothpaste, he was like, he dipped his toothbrush in like this powder and started brushing his teeth. I was like, hey man, what the fuck is that? Because he's always like 3 steps ahead in health and like products. And so any— at first I used to judge them, and now I'm like, oh, am I killing myself by using toothpaste? Should I be using this powder shit? And like, you know, what are those? What would yours be?

Can I guess, Justin? Can I guess? Um, do you use a microwave? No, no, I didn't think— okay. Um, although that's like— yeah, but like, you go out of your way to not use a microwave, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay. Do you, um— you definitely only have glass Tupperware, correct?

Yeah, for sure.

What else is there? Do you— I've got a few more. I've got a few more I could peg you, but you tell me.

I got this like 19-step home water filtration thing installed at my house.

That's like a metal one.

It's like 25 feet tall. And in this outside, it's insane. It's outdoors. The plumbers. Yeah, yeah. They're at every step. So there's one in the sink. There's one outside that like filters all the home water. The guys came in to install it. They're like, we have never seen anyone install something like this. But yeah, so I have that setup that I just recently got the Tupperware stuff. Pretty diet cautious in general.

Are you super ripped? I can't see your neck up here. Are you like, okay, no, he's lean.

Yeah, you're lean. You're like 10% body fat, right?

I'll send you a P-Spot photo.

Yeah, I was going to say I need to pee.

Well, I've seen you without a shirt. Like, you're not like, like huge, but you're like, you look like a, like a, like a soccer player, right?

Who's more fit, you or Justin?

Uh, it depends on what we're talking about.

Who is— do you aspire more for your body or for his body?

Go. Uh, I would prefer— I right now I prefer to be leaner and skinnier, so I'm trying to lose fat and look a little bit more like his body.

All right, great. All right, so you have the insane water filtration system. And what is that, by the way? What's the name of it?

Uh, it is called the Radiant Life, I think.

But there's another one, Sean, that all the people I do.

I have a sauna.

Do you like—

I have a sauna in my backyard.

Is it infrared or is it hot stone?

No, it's the— yeah, it's like the hot stone one.

And like red lights on your toes or something in the morning? What do you— do you do anything with any kind of light, UV, anything?

No, I try to get outside. I mean, this is one of those things that I think is like there's some people that I think overoptimize where they're like, oh, I need more light exposure, so I'm going to stay inside and like shine red light on myself. And I'm like, Just use this one.

Do you only use zero-drop shoes? No.

What is that?

I did for a while. I just didn't realize that.

What is a zero-drop shoe?

So basically shoes with no heel.

Yeah. Most shoes have some type of like— Yeah. But like a lot of people believe that that ruins your Achilles and hurts your calves and a bunch and ruins your posture. Do you only eat meat? From Salt and Thyme?

I try to when I can. It's the best meat in Austin for sure.

Where do you get your meat from?

So I now I eat most of my meat is from Salt and Thyme or stuff that I've hunted or a friend has hunted.

I love it.

This is awesome.

Okay, great. Did we miss any other ones? Any other good, like sort of self— I don't know, what do we even call these?

Well, look, I think what we're teasing, but there is truth in this, like guys who are on the cutting edge and things that we joke and laugh at, I believe that's going to be normal. You know, like, totally. I remember like years ago, I got into this hobby about raw denim, which is like, at the time, it was like super nerdy, and everyone made fun of me. And it didn't get entirely mainstream, but a little bit mainstream, it got quite popular. And that was, that's kind of like what we're talking about here. So like, I remember years ago, people were talking about ayahuasca. And I was like, what the fuck is that? And now like, I know so many people that are doing this stuff. Totally. Oh, and Dan said you use nonstick pans. You definitely— you don't use nonstick pans for sure. I can tell that.

Yeah, I use a ceramic set or cast iron.

Yeah. Yeah, that's an easy one. But anyway, go ahead. What was the answer? Were you going to— are there any other things that we can learn from how you live?

Yeah, I mean, I think that like cutting out things that are causes of inflammation or the obvious ones, it's like don't microwave stuff in plastic, try and like buy stuff that is overly— not overly processed and packaged. And I think actually like avoiding vegetable oils is a tremendous, tremendous thing that like you said about raw denim or ayahuasca, you know, 5 years from now, 10 years from now, a lot of people are going to be way more conscious about vegetable oils and the damage that they specifically like a compound called linoleic acid in there that the damage that does to like your inflammatory system instead.

Olive oil or Peanut oil or what?

Yeah, I mean, hopefully olive oil, avocado oil, animal fats, lard, ghee, butter, stuff like that. Coconut oil.

Do you want to talk about, you want to talk about one or two more of these, Shawn, or what?

Yeah, let's do, let's do, you pick, you pick the topic. Let's do one more topic.

Oh, I know what I was going to ask you really quick. All these things that you're doing, this like no microwave, all this stuff, do you actually feel a difference? Or is it, is it like—

Are these all long-term or is there any short-term pleasure and benefit I can get out of these?

Like, do you feel different?

Yeah. So I, the way that I think about this is like from a baseline standpoint, uh, you know, if you, if you have a pretty high baseline, uh, like imagine you're super strong, it, it's gonna be really hard for you to notice if you're a bodybuilder, if you're putting on like 1%, you know, 2 pounds of muscle or something, if you already, or if you're already like weighing 225. Um, so I think that I have a pretty high like health baseline. And so a lot of these things are more preventative and not like, Oh my God, I feel amazing. You know, whereas I felt like shit the other day. But for I think the average person, like, if your baseline is relatively low, you want to lose like, or average, you want to lose weight, you're not sleeping well. You know, your stress hormones are all over the place. A lot of these interventions, like you'll feel a material difference after like 20 or 30 days.

I think there's a world to build like a Wirecutter version of this. So for example, like you're saying a lot of stuff and my friend, my best friend Jack is into all this stuff. And And, and when I stay at his house and I visit him, and so that's how I like, I see how he lives and Jack's really honest. And I'll say, he takes all these supplements. I go, do any of these do anything? And he goes, no, like, I don't feel any different. Um, and like a guy like you, I imagine you actually care about longevity and also you just like to tinker and you like trying gadgets. You know, I like trying gadgets as well. I just want to like see the latest and greatest. It's fun to experiment. I would love, but, but the issue is, is that. Someone like you, like, or not you, but some of the folks in your world, like they can get a little woo woo. And I'm like, I don't know if they're like talking about fucking crystals or if this is actually going to make a difference in my life. It's really hard to know, like, uh, if like this actually truly is meaningful. I wish, and I went to Peter Attia's blog about this as well to learn about fitness. And he talks about so much stuff about fitness and diet. And I'm like, just give me the, if you just do this, life will be a little bit better and you're 80% there.

Yeah, I think there's a big opportunity for that. I think that one of the problems is like if you're an influencer, you're going to get way more attention and interest from people when you talk about butthole sunning than you are about like eat a healthy diet, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, totally.

Like, I think that's the problem.

Yeah, you've seen that.

Yeah. Or perineum bathing.

What's that mean?

Same thing. You never seen this article? It went like super viral.

Basically, I'll send you a bunch of naked people. They were going out like they're tanning.

Tanning, but then they raise their legs above their heads so that the sun goes directly into their butt. And they're like, oh, you know, never felt better.

You know, the sun's energy right into your fourth eye.

Do we want to go over one more thing or two more things? What do you want to do?

It's your call.

Well, we can't end on butthole summoning.

Yeah, I guess, uh, I guess that will probably leave a bad taste.

So I've got an interesting— you, you have something interesting, and I want to— so I've got a friend named Nick. You know Nick Gray, I bet. And Nick, um, he, he jokes about it, but he's being serious. He matches with girls on Tinder or whatever app he uses, and he calls them for a pre-screening for a date. He's like, let's just talk to each other, because he's— Nick's, uh, he just wants to get down to business, like, do we want to date or not? And he calls them, and one of the questions he asks Sean right away is, what's your credit history? Or, uh, like, do you have direct And on here, Justin has— he goes, I think I could create a dating app that based off your credit card history.

But this wasn't— just to be clear, it's not your credit rating he's talking about. Not like I only want to date rich creditworthy people.

It's more like if I know what you want to be rich to have or whatever.

What he's saying is I want to look at your purchase history. Basically the stuff you buy. If you shop at Whole Foods, if you go to the gym, if you don't, whatever, you go to a bar and you ring up a bill, that'll tell us how compatible we are. That was your idea.

Yeah, exactly.

And are you dating right now? Are you single?

I am recently engaged.

Recently engaged. 6 months ago. And if you matched you and your fiancée's bills up before you got engaged, would you have been a good match?

Great fit.

Great fit. Yeah, for sure.

Sam, what do you think?

All right, let's do— yeah, I mean, I mean, I think no, this would work. I think this is one of those things that people say.

I think we're going to give that one a no, but I enjoy that you said it.

Yeah, like, I think my opinion is like, when it comes to dating, um, you really just like, you want to optimize for getting laid quickly. I think like, regardless if that's what people admit or not, but like, they just want to get to like date one so they can get in bed, uh, for step two. And I think that really people like, they say they like, so, um, uh, when we had our roommate matching app, I don't know if you could actually vouch if you saw this on your end, people said they wanted this, they wanted that, they wanted this. And then they would meet someone and they're like, nah, fuck it, like, I'll just do it, uh, right? Like, and so I think the same is with dating. You say you want to do this, you want to do that, but then if I show you like a person who you just think is attractive, even though you had all these rules, uh, you're gonna say, ah, all right, whatever, let's just do it.

Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's probably true. I think this probably would be better as a like matchmaking service than a broad-based dating app, right?

And, and then, uh, well, let's, let's wrap up with the one that we've actually talked about before, about this automation office.

Where did you learn that from? Who? That's so, so interesting to give VAs to every 2 people.

Yeah. Uh, I just started doing it when we started the company.

I think that's pretty amazing. Right. It's been great.

How did you learn the how to, how to manage a VA, what you can use them for, what you can't? Where did you learn that part? Obviously some trial and error, but like, what was the spark?

Yeah, when I, when I left, when I left, like the company I was working with Terry at, we got acquired and then I was kind of like starting to do my own stuff on the side and was like, okay, I want to try and scale myself to do more stuff on the side. So like originally hired VAs to help with responding to Airbnb requests and then Udemy requests and then like slowly got them more integrated into my life. I love it.

And did you take a course or something like where did you— this training that you have? For your employees, is that modeled off something or what?

No, we basically like we have some internal documents that myself and other people on the team have written up around how to leverage virtual assistants and we just do that.

You should publish this.

Yeah, I feel like that's— I feel like you're kind of like this. You're not dismissing this, but you're kind of like brushing over this. I feel like that's actually one of the more interesting things that I've learned today. I think that's actually pretty amazing.

I've had a lot of people ask me for this and I actually suck at using VAs and don't really use them, but I know I should and could do more. And this is one of, if I kind of like pinged the audience, I was like, all right, if I could teach you anything that you think, like, what do you think I could teach you that I know that, that you want to know? And surprisingly, this was like number 5 on that list. And so I plan to eventually, A, learn it myself and better so that I can like, uh, offer this to others. But I was very surprised to see that on the top list of things people wanted to learn that they felt like they were just curious about and they felt that there was value there, but they didn't know how to unlock it.

That's interesting. Yeah. I mean, maybe this is something that I should publish at some point and I don't know.

How much do you, what, what, what, how much budget do you allocate? Is it like $2,000 a month per 2 people or what?

We, yeah, we probably about that, like call it like $10-ish grand across like the whole company.

So you, what do you guys have? You have 20 people?

We have 33.

Dude, that's pretty sick how you've kept it like relatively small for, I, I, I have no intel. I would imagine your revenue is in the $60 million range if I had had to guess. Um, and that's pretty a lean, mean team for how value— how much value that is.

Definitely. And I think the VA piece is a big part of it. Like, we just have a very efficient team that's pretty focused on getting stuff done that they uniquely can do, and the VAs are super helpful with the rest.

Well, dude, this is sick, man. I, I can't see Sean's face. I can't see where he's at.

Yeah, my camera overheats. Uh, this is a recurring problem. I moved it all— I moved my whole setup inside for this, but then I also got 2 babies inside, So I thought, all right, do I want to risk babies crying or my camera overheating, guaranteed camera overheat? And I chose the camera.

Justin, do you want to promote yourself? Where do you want people to go to? A lot of people are going to listen to this. So what, your .com, your Twitter, where are you going to pimp?

Yeah, so probably my Twitter. I'm @JWMares or my website, justinmares.com. I have a monthly newsletter that I send out. Where I talk about various things I think about health, business, and whatever else is kind of on my mind. That seems like people like— I think, Sam, you'd like it too, right?

Yeah, I'm looking at your stuff now. I'm a subscriber. I get your— it's not a Substack, it's just a blog, right?

Yeah, but I have a monthly newsletter that is on Substack.

But yeah, that's right. I get your emails in my thing, or in my email, and I, and I message you about it. I'm like, oh, I just saw your Airbnb thing. I'm Cause I actually want to do that. I think that's sick. I think that'd be a great way to finance a pretty large bit of land. I think that's fun. I went gun— I went shooting. I went to this place out in Texas where you shoot guns and then afterwards you go and ride ATVs. And it was like, I was in heaven. I was like, this is just the most fun I could possibly have. I have to go and buy a place so I can do this all the time.

It's awesome.

What are you going to say, Sean?

I was going to say, Justin, I got to give you the compliment. I'll give your blog is that your Your content is so good. It made me question. I was like, is this guy really like a good entrepreneur? Or is this like, cause like usually like there's some people who are truly great at putting out content and truly great at doing actually like walking the walk and doing the, doing the business side, have actually done it themselves. They're not just like studying others and writing content. But often what you'll find is that people are good at one of the, I know a bunch of amazing business people who don't want to or suck at creating content.. And I know some great content people that I'm like, once I meet them, I'm like, oh, you've, this is what, this is your business. You've never done a business outside of this content business. And so then when I found out that you were good at both, I was like, okay, you know, props to you for both. But that's how good the content was that it made me, it made me do the research and say, is this, is this guy legit or what?

I appreciate that. I'm definitely not good at like the content business side of things or posting frequently, but I like really enjoy putting it out.

You've been doing this for years.

Yeah, you've been doing it for years. I'm looking at your site now. I'm reading your 2020 review. I just clicked off Central Athlete because you talked about Central Athlete. I mean, it seems like you've been doing this for years. So I mean, that's consistent. Definitely.

I like it, but in small doses, not as a full-time thing.

All right, great.

We should wrap it up.

Um, dude, thanks for coming on. This was fun. Uh, you're like a perfect fit for like the type of audience that we have. They're going to love, I think, the content that you, uh, the ideas and stuff you shared. So that was great.

I appreciate you coming. Thank you.

Thanks for having me on, guys.

This is fun.