Drunk Ideas: Only Fans For Therapy, A Secret Bookcase for your Phone, and More
This business I'm calling Only Problems because forget about crime. The biggest battle is what's inside. So people in life have basically the same 5 problems: health, wealth, relationships, happiness, purpose in life. Everybody's got the same 5 problems, right? That's the dirty secret. I saw Tony Robbins once. He goes, I've helped 4 million people in these seminars, 22 years. And guess what? People have 5 problems. And he goes, if you think, woe is me, if you think it's a big burden on you, guess what? In this room right now, there's probably 500 other people who have, you know, this can have the same problem as you, whether it's with their, their, their husband or their kids or their parents or their health or whatever. And so a lot of people need therapy, but guess what? A lot of people aren't going to therapy. It's too taboo. It's too expensive, too vulnerable. They don't wanna do it. People would rather sit on Netflix and just watch reality TV for distraction and entertainment. Wait a minute. Is that a great idea? Is that a great idea I just heard? Yes, it is. You turn therapy into entertainment. So it's called Only Problems. It's OnlyFans for therapy. And here's how it works. You are going to, um, you pay a monthly subscription and you get to sit in fly-on-the-wall style to somebody going through an actual therapy session with the problem that you have, right? With the, with the area of your life that you're most curious about. You can go listen to somebody vent about their relationships, about their health problems, about their career problems. Whatever it is, they're getting real therapy, but they get it subsidized. So they get cheap therapy, maybe free therapy because there's 25 people, anonymous people who don't know their identity. You don't know the, you don't know the listener's identity that get to listen in and they get to backchannel talk a little shit in the chat. You don't get to see that. And, um, they get to sit in on a therapy session. Therapists get more clients, people get more help. And other people get kind of secondhand smoke help by being in the crowd and getting to listen to— they get the entertainment and they get help. All right, so we're here, we're gonna do a fan favorite, the Drunk Ideas episode. This, this episode started when I had some business ideas that I'll admit it. I knew they were bad, but they weren't all bad. They were bad good. And bad good is a separate thing altogether. Bad good. How do you explain bad good? You know what I mean when I say that, right? Yeah.
It's like the lady who sells farts in a jar. Like when you're telling someone about it, you're like, that's, that's the stupidest shit I've ever heard. And then she makes $500,000. Have you seen that lady?
Yeah. Yeah. This, this idea is like the Beefy Five Burrito at, uh, at Taco Bell. It's bad good. And so So, so basically these are ideas that I know are not great, but there's some nugget of gold in them. There's some truth to them. And so they need to be said. And so, you know, I think being drunk is like air cover to saying some silly stupid things. Neither of us drink. I don't drink. Sam doesn't drink. When's the last time you drank? Like 10 years ago?
8 years ago. When was the last time you drank?
8 years ago. Oh, well, I'm not like, you know, I don't have like my sobriety coin or whatever the hell. Like, I just like, I just generally, I generally don't drink.
It's not like I'm not a dork. I didn't have a problem.
Yeah, yeah.
You should lie and say you did.
No, no, no. I didn't have to overcome this. I just kind of got older.
So, and the best drunk idea last time that I still think about all the time was called the really long distance girlfriend. Which was a service where you just text a lady and she just becomes your companion, but you never actually see her cuz she's just a really long distance girlfriend and she's the best kind of girlfriend.
She's only supportive. Why? Cuz she's paid. That's it. She's paid to be great. And so you don't have to, and you don't have to be great. You don't have to be a great boyfriend. She's just a great girlfriend, but at a distance. And so she's a really great girlfriend for like a lot of people. And, uh, You know, I should set up a call center in the Ukraine because I think that idea still has legs. All right, so let's do— we— so this time, last time it was just me. This time we both were supposed to do this. How was this for you?
I do—
I'm good. It was hard. Yes. How are you?
All of my— I've got a few, but some of them are actually like good ideas and some of them are not even that funny. But I've got a couple. I've got a few. I want you to start.
So you only have most of my ideas are like bad, bad ideas.
No, I've got a couple of good ones. Most of mine are things that already kind of exist, and I'm shocked that they work. And I have what those are.
All right. All right. And so, all right. So pitch— we're going to pitch each other these. I don't know what yours are. You don't know what mine are. We're going to pitch each other these. And then Ben, producer Ben, young, powerful producer Ben, man of God Ben, Ben who can still dunk. And we're going to see it this weekend. Ben, he's going to be the judge at the end. You're going to give us the, the, the best and the worst ideas. You know, you can give us the winner and the honorable mention. All right. Uh, I'll go first. Can I go first?
Yeah. You're going to end up going first and second and fourth and fifth, probably.
Yeah. It's like a fantasy draft where I have 3 of the teams.
Yeah.
Um, okay. So, all right. The first idea, Sam, it's called Hideaway. All right. Let me just, I'm going to ask you a question. You need to think of the scariest things in the world. Maybe you're thinking about snakes. Maybe the public speaking, the right, that's, we've heard those studies, but public speaking is, is sort of silly. Nobody's actually afraid of public speaking. They're afraid of public humiliation. And there's no greater humiliation than digital humiliation. I'm talking about you're in a work presentation and you try to share your screen and you still got a tab open from last night. You know, that's, that's public humiliation. But the worst one is if somebody just takes your phone and opens it up and you don't know where they're gonna go with it. You don't know what they're going to open. And the most, I think the most—
and like when they go to your browser and the first letter they're going to type in starts with a P and you're like, what's good, Autobill? What's good, Autobill?
Please let me have Google PBS recently. Yeah. And so, um, so what's the definition of pork chop? So what Hideaway does is it takes the sensitive parts of— and this is our first product, right? We're, we're really all about preventing digital humiliation, but our first product, our keynote product, the iPhone of our mix, is a private camera roll. So it's actually going to combine two of my favorite ideas. So one, we solve the pain of somebody taking your phone or you're trying to show them a photo but you're scrolling through your camera roll of all your photos, which is ridiculous, a ridiculous invasion of privacy. And one of my favorite ideas, and something I've always wanted growing up was in a movie you see those secret, you know, rich people have a, they have a room in their house with a secret bookcase. Yeah. So they, you know, they pull the fourth book on the, on the second shelf and a, and a secret door emerges. So it's that, it's a secret bookcase. It's a Murphy door for your, for your, uh, phone. It is Hideaway. And so what is it? It's basically a camera and a camera roll that is private and kept separate from your main camera and camera roll. So you open up the app, It's disguised to look like a harmless app. It looks like an Amazon Kindle app. It's like a book, bookshelf, but only when you tap the 3rd, 7th, and 8th books does it flip over and it's a camera. And then that, that camera roll is for your eyes only. Hideaway. That's the idea. It could be a calculator app. It could be a, a book, book reading app. It's gotta be something that looks harmless that even a, if your parent looked over your shoulder and saw, oh, My son is just browsing the latest books. He's just doing some quick calculations. They don't know that you're actually going to your secret camera roll. All right, what do you think?
All right, let me, let me elaborate a little bit on this. Um, so do me a favor and— all right, you're on your computer, go to search Photo Vault app.
Okay, Photo Vault app.
No, the first result I see is Private Photo Vault Picsafe, and it's literally— the icon is incredible. Hey, you YouTube guy, put the icon of this on the screen. It's a manila folder, but Photoshopped onto it is a giant key lock, and the key is just going directly through the middle of the manila folder, which is incredible.
So this app, it, it's been reviewed 807,000 times. And it's 86 in the App Store. This app has been around for a while and I've looked into it a fair bit. The founder, his name is William Sidwell. Sidwell. He's based out of Vegas. I can't find much information about this company, but— as you shouldn't. Yeah, he— as I shouldn't. He's done a good job. But I believe he's one of the only employees because I can't find anything on LinkedIn and an app that's been reviewed 800,000 times. I mean, it must have been downloaded tens of millions of times and they have a premium version. And the premium version, they like— it does— the premium version is like $50 a year and it does and it stores photos and stores documents and stores all this shit. But what it does is like it makes your— it makes the app look like a game and you have to do photo ID and then type in like 3 different passwords in order to get to just the photo vault password. It's pretty interesting. And this app, I've not seen a lot of people online talk about it,, but it's kind of a juggernaut, man. It's been around forever. I have to imagine that pictures is one of the most popular category in the App Store, and this has been ranked 86, or it is 86 now. And I bet you this has been ranked like that for a long, long, long time. It's crazy the amount of reviews.
This, this is incredible. Uh, so, you know, so if you go to the Google Play Store, it'll tell you the rate download range, right? Apple doesn't do that, but on Google Play, this has been downloaded at least 10 million times. It says 10 million plus. So that means it's, above 10 but less than 50 million. That's that range. And, um, and that's just on Google Play, let alone, and we, I mean, you know how I feel about Android. So, so we know, you know, I'm already, I'm already thinking if Google Play, if Google Play is at 10 million, you just, you know what my boys on Apple are doing. And by the way, I don't know why I said that. There's a guy in the YouTube comments is always like, dude, Sean's always, Sean's always got a comment about Android. He just does a laughing emoji. So I decided to make that my thing. Um, but I don't really have anything against it. Uh, but for the record, I do. All right. The, the key feature of this that I didn't have in my pitch, decoy password. So, uh, sometimes a nosy person wants into your private photo.
Yes.
He has that dummy password that will show you just a random set of safe images and they think they got in. This guy thought of everything, bro. This is amazing, dude.
It's fascinating. So let's just, if we assume that Google has 10 million, which would mean that, um, Apple probably has 5 times that, right? So 50 million. So he probably has 50 to 60 million downloads ever. If you assume—
okay.
Why would Apple be 10? Why would Apple be 5 times more? There's more Google users. It's more Android users.
Well, then maybe my math's fucked up. So let's just say it's equal. Let's just say, let's just say that it's, uh, 20 million.
You don't have to bleep that. He did that with 2 Gs. Fucked up with 2 Gs. In fact, if your kids are in the car, turn the volume up. That was fine. Yeah. What he just did.
So that was good. Like, fuck this Shiv. Um, no, it's good. Uh, so like if he has 20 or 30 million downloads, do you think it's, I, I don't really remember, uh, like app conversion rates. Is it crazy to think that he would have, uh, a 3% conversion? Is it crazy to think that you'd have 1 million paying, uh, premium users?
Not crazy. Not crazy.
Let's just put it this way. At the bottom of the page, the copyright 2011 to 2020 says it's from Legendary Software Labs LLC. And I just got a call from the state of Delaware and they said there's never been a better, better named company. That company name was perfectly appropriate. We've reviewed it. We, we, We triple stamped the double stamp, and that was correct. This is a legendary software, and my drunk idea is validated. All right, you're up.
All right, I found something that it seems like it came out of a drunken, like, bar hangout one night. So do me a favor, go to santasclub.com.
Santa's Club. Oh God, is this— are we going NSFW here?
Uh, no, it's safe. It's that it could go either way, but no, that's actually—
everything's safe for work now. We're working from home, bro. Like that, that, that thing needs to be gone. All right.
Uh, so I'm here. Have you seen Not Safe for Life? No. On Reddit? On Reddit, I go to these, uh, forums and some of the stuff are tagged, uh, Not Safe for Life. And it's hilarious. It's, it's, it's a pretty, like, it'll be like someone popping a zit and it says not, not safe for life.
Okay, so I'm on Santa's Club.
There we go. Thank you. So Santa's Club, it was started in 2020. This guy named Will Evelsizer started it, and each year about 15,000 people come to his site and they spend around $75. And it only— this business only operates 2 months out of the year. And basically, if you go to the— if you go to the website, what you're going to see is like your typical looking Santa Claus in a studio. And he— you get to spend 15 minutes and you do a virtual Santa, sit on their lap, ask what you want for Christmas type of thing for only 10 or 15 minutes. And he's got like a studio probably in Nevada where instead of cam girls, it's just fat Santas. And he makes— according to the— I read some articles about it. In the first year, he had 15,000 visits and prices range from $35 to $75 per visit, which means he's doing around $500,000 to $1 million in only 2 months. And if you go to the website now, he's got like a presale. It's 100% sold out. You can't buy anymore. The guy's got to go get more Santas.
Dude, this is— this is genius. This is hilarious. This is not even a good bad idea. This is simply a good good idea. So I like this. I think I kind of like a little bit better Cameo for, for Santas. So I'm going to, I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you a little side dish there, which is Santa for cameos for Santa's or Sam's for Cameo. In fact, Steven, he came on the pod, I think. Did he come on the pod? Former Duke guy built Cameo. He needs to just implement this into Cameo this holiday season.
Well, this is, it's very clear Santa's Club. They just got to get the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy. What are the other like characters?
Yeah, that's great.
That's what you got to do.
Uh, Ben, do you guys got some holidays where you need a little, uh, character of some kind?
Yeah, like a Joseph Smith, like a guy in a beard with like 8 wives. We got Pioneer Day. Yeah, maybe, you know, a pioneer type dude. That could work.
No, we're just gonna call it Advent Fest. We're gonna call it, uh, we got the Christian holidays. We got, we got Easter and Christmas. Sorry, I can't do more for you. We're going to call it Fairy Inc. and the employees are going to be the fairies. And we're going to have Easter Bunny, Santa, Tooth Fairy. What else is there? I forget what— I don't know what else there is.
There's— are we going to have any copyright issues? Because that's also what we call Morning Brew on the down low. Oh, got him.
No, this is a good business. It's pretty cool. So it started off as a drunken idea, But it's actually cool. I have this lady who I have no— I think she listens to the podcast and she friended me on Facebook and she dresses like Elsa, like from Frozen, and people pay her money to do a call. Like, she like has, you know, she's like a Disney, like, someone walks away.
This is great. It's cosplay, but like, you know, a paid little cameo call or recorded video. That makes a lot of sense to me. Like, I know that's like, you know, obviously copyright infringement, but like if it wasn't, right, Santa, that's That, that's, that makes sense. Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, those all make sense that you should be able to do this. You know, and especially if you did it on demand, somebody could just rip out like hundreds of these in a studio every single day, just being like, oh, Amanda, you know, ho ho ho, Merry Christmas. Your mom wanted me to tell you you've been doing great job with blah blah blah. See you later. Next video. And like each one of those is $40 a pop.
You know how like on webinars, I think you'll see, you'll see like business webinars and it'll be like Neil Patel who was on the pod and it'll be like, hey everyone, this is Neil. Are we live? Is this thing working? Is this on? And it's like fake, like it's a recording, but he, but he acts like it's real. And you see people in the comments like, hey Neil, what's up? And he'll say like, hey Derek from Chicago, how are you? And like, you know, it's just, it's just a recording. It's all fake. Yeah.
You know, you could do this.
You could, obviously you could do the same thing. I hate when webinars like that. Well, I don't know if Neil does it. I, he probably does. I think I have seen him do it, but there's a lot of webinars that are like that and it's like a recording, but what they do is they like put, uh, uh, like replies in there and they just, it's, you know what I mean? It's all artificial. It's all fake, but it may, they make it look real and it's pretty good. Wow.
Phoning it in. Okay. Uh, amazing. Okay. So I give this a good, good idea. I think that's, that's solid. Uh, anything else on this, or can I hit you with my next one?
Hit me.
All right. What's the name of a fast-growing company that does billions of dollars and serves creators all around the world? It's bigger than Twitch. They provide private photos and videos to their fans. If you subscribe, you might be considered OnlyFans. That's right. OnlyFans. Now OnlyFans is a great business model. The owner of OnlyFans listens to this podcast and they crush it. They are absolutely phenomenal business, but I got to thinking, what other space could you do this in? And so I was sitting there and I was thinking, and I, and you told me about an app that somebody had built called Police Scanner, Police Scanner Plus, or something like that. This app that does millions of dollars a year. And I just, I couldn't get that out of my head. I thought, who would do this? Why would anybody want to listen to like a—
Dude, I listen to it all the time. If I hear a gunshot or like a loud backfire of a car, I immediately open it up and I'm like, all right, let's see what, what, what's going on here. Was it real or was it not?
And so there's a curiosity component. People, I think, just like listening to a train wreck in a way that they like to observe from a safe distance.
Um, do you have the app called Citizen?
Citizen is just like this. Yeah. Where it's like, you know, I had to quit using that.
When I'm in Brooklyn, like, I'll pull it up. It looks like my phone screen has chickenpox. Like, there's red dots all over the place. And I'm like, there's crime everywhere. You know what I'm saying? Like, I can't be doing that anymore.
So, okay. This business I'm calling Only Problems because forget about crime. The biggest battle is what's inside. So people in life have basically the same 5 problems: health, wealth, relationships, happiness, purpose in life. Everybody's got the same 5 problems, right? That's the dirty secret. I saw Tony Robbins once. He goes, I've helped 4 million people in these seminars, 22 years, and guess what? People have 5 problems. And he goes, if you think woe is me, if you think it's a big burden on you, guess what? In this room right now, there's probably 500 other people who have, you know, the— this can have the same problem as you, whether it's with their, their, their husband or their kids or their parents or their health, whatever. And so a lot of people need therapy, but guess what? A lot of people aren't going to therapy. It's too taboo, it's too expensive, too vulnerable. They don't want to do it. People would rather sit on Netflix and just watch reality TV for distraction and entertainment. Wait a minute, is that a great idea? Is that a great idea I just heard? Yes, it is. You turn therapy into entertainment. So it's called Only Problems. It's OnlyFans for therapy. And here's how it works. You are going to, um, you pay a monthly subscription and you get to sit in fly-on-the-wall style to somebody going through an actual therapy session with the problem that you have, right? With the, with the area of your life that you're most curious about. You can go listen to somebody vent about their relationships, about their health problems, about their career problems, whatever it is. They're getting real therapy, but they get it subsidized. So they get cheap therapy, maybe free therapy because there's 25 people, anonymous people who don't know their identity. You don't know the, you don't know the listener's identity that get to listen in and they get to backchannel, talk a little shit in the chat. You don't get to see that. And, um, they get to sit in on a therapy session. Therapists get more clients, people get more help, and other people get kind of secondhand smoke help by being in the crowd and getting to listen to it. They get the entertainment and they get help.
Have you ever seen a movie?
This honestly, honestly, I'm gonna just say it right now. I wrote this idea down and I got, I got goosebumps under this hairy arm. Yeah.
You got a little, little arm mountains, dude. Have you, uh, have you seen the movie Fight Club?
Of course.
So there's like one of the premises of the movie is that this guy, Ed Norton, I guess he's Tyler. I don't know. I forget his name. Tyler Durden. And then he meets that woman. That's like the love interest. And what they do is They go to Terminal Cancer Anonymous meetings and I don't know why. I forget why, but they like it. Makes them feel alive and it like makes them feel happy because they think that they're all screwed up and they're like, I want to go meet with people who are actually dying. And it's like oddly therapeutic for them. What you're describing is kind of like that where you sit and you're like, oh wow, this guy really is fucked up. I'm straight. I'm good. You know what I mean?
So you're incentivized to be screwed up.
You can just make stuff up, to be honest with you. But like, you're definitely Jerry Springer, right? Why do we like Jerry Springer? Why do you still watch Jerry Springer reruns every morning before work? Because we like to watch other people have effed up problems and then see them deal with it. And we like fights also. But that's the, that's what I'm tapping into here. I'm, but I'm doing it through an app. I'm doing it. It's called Only Problems. And honestly, if you're going to run with this, you better hit Sean@seanperry.com.
That's all I can say.
I need to, I need to see an email from somebody tried this idea. I feel like— I genuinely feel like this is one of those ideas that's like, no way, and then it gets huge.
It reminds me of, uh, like the people who want to go watch someone do surgery. Have you ever seen like those like setups where you were first? No. So for, um, for like if you're a student, like there's these medical rooms that have, uh, it's like a— it's like a two-way mirror almost. Yeah. And you have like a black— it's like watching an execution almost. Like you just like sit there and you just like watch what they're doing. That's what this reminds me of. Have you ever been to this subreddit called, uh, Popping?
No, but I was gonna bring up the addictive way that people watch you like pop a blackhead or a pimple or whatever.
There's this subreddit, there's a subreddit called Popping. I've been on the front of it. Yeah, you see, I've been on the front page. You see this scar right here?
Uh, yes.
Yeah, so I have a, I have a big scar on my— because I had like a ping pong ball size thing like growing like on my brain. And I had to get surgery like in 2014 to get it taken out. And right before I go under, I go to the surgeon, I go, hey man, do you have your iPhone on you? He goes, yeah. I go, can you save my number and take some pictures when I'm under so you can like get some like before, after, and during pics of my surgery so I could post it on r/popping? And he did it. He texted me and I got these like beautiful photos of like this this growth like being popped and scraped off my brain. And I posted it on that subreddit and I got like 80,000 views on my photo album. And so I'm a member of r/popping. I love it.
And so you may not have a blue checkmark on Twitter, but you always have this. Yeah. Put this in your bio. Put this on your LinkedIn.
Former front pager. Serial front pager of r/popping.
Dude, I have it. I have to find it and send it to you. But you see, like, you know, like, and then he also, like, cut some fat from my stomach and then he, like, puttied it into the hole. And like, you see, you, like, see this whole process of, like, there being a—
you move out of an apartment and you hung up some paintings and you got to fill a hole.
Yeah, he took a little fat off me and he just, like, puttied that bad boy in. And I woke up and, like, my stomach was hurting. I was like, dude, I thought you're going to take it from my leg. He's like, no, your leg was pretty muscular, so we just took some off your stomach. You had a lot there. And so it just kind of like tickled. But okay, well, I have muscular legs, not always a muscular stomach.
And he's like, one of our creeds, credos is we don't mess with perfection. So I couldn't touch the legs.
So anyway, on board with only problems. Good idea.
Thank you. Thank you. All right. You got one or you want me to go third also?
Let me, let me. This is the last one I probably have. Well, I got one more. But all right, the biggest— this is, this is a little bit of a stretch, but I actually don't think it is that much of a stretch. The most popular business publication in the world by digital audience. What do you think it is?
Most populous? What? Most popular?
Most popular digital business publication in the world by traffic. Um, so there's Wall Street Journal, there's Uh, I'm gonna go with CoinMarketCap.com. CoinMarketCap. That's a good guess. That probably does, uh, how much? Probably $50 million a month in, in—
something crazy.
Yeah. So there's Wall Street Journal, there's FinancialTimes.com, there's CoinMarketCap, there's Business Insider. Business Insider probably gets a lot. I'd hypo— I, I would say, and I'd hypothesize the largest business publication in the world is run by basically 2 people. And it is called SlideShare. You ever been to SlideShare?
I love SlideShare. Wow. That's so— I thought you were going to bring up Drudge Report again, by the way.
No, SlideShare. So SlideShare is this site that was started by— I forget her name, but she's an interesting founder. She's like pretty outspoken on Twitter and I like her a lot anyway. She's right. Indian woman. Yeah, she started it and she sold it to LinkedIn for like $150 million. And SlideShare was a what?
Most Indian social network of all time. Just PowerPoints.
That's what SlideShare is.
Way to slack off but make your parents proud at the same time. Yeah.
Did you see, uh, our, our buddy Sheil? He just got engaged and he's good. He goes, I have an aunt who doesn't speak English. She only knows a few words, but the only words that she knows, she texts me all the time and it says, are you married yet? And he like posted screenshots of, uh, of the, of, of her asking that in, in perfect English. Are you married yet? Please be married. Please be married. So SlideShare, it's just like a— it's just a website where you upload shit, right? You upload decks. Well, LinkedIn bought it in 2012 and it just sat there. And then Scribe, you know, Scribe, or is it Scribd?
Scribd.
Scribd. They bought it. And I'm almost certain looking at LinkedIn and looking at the website that like 1.5 engineers are the only employees working on this. And they were for sale for a little while. So, so like, I don't think this is entirely guessing, but basically they get between 100 to 150 million visits a month and most of the content or about half, but it could be at this point most is like marketing decks, pitch decks, pitch decks, conference decks on business strategy. And it makes virtually no revenue. If you go there, you won't see any ads. And it's just this website that does 100 to 150, maybe 200 million monthly visits. It's this juggernaut of a website with— if you look at the website, it hasn't been updated in years and years and years and years. Here's my idea. If I were a B2B company, if I were Salesforce or HubSpot, or if I were, I don't know, anyone selling like software or anything that sells people to shit for people who goes to like, you know, these like business conference I would buy it and turn it into a B2B lead gen website. And I think that you can make a ton of money off this website because here's why. Any website that gets a ton of traffic from user-generated content, once it hits a critical mass, which SlideShare does, it's like impossible to stop, you know what I'm saying? It just keeps going and it's almost impossible to catch up with that. It's really, really, really hard. So I think that this website is just sitting there floating along, not doing anything. And it could actually be a business that makes 9 figures a year through ads, which is like the best revenue of all time when you don't actually have to like make anything.
Yeah, you have super high value customers because it's only business people that are going to be doing this. So who bought them? Didn't LinkedIn buy them at some point or no?
LinkedIn bought them in 2012 and it just sat there and they did nothing with it. And then they sold it to me. Yeah. And I think they paid $150— they paid 9 figures for it and then they sold it to Scribd. And if I had to bet, Scribd, like LinkedIn was like, just get this off our hands. Just don't fire anyone who works on it and like assume all the liability and like, just, it's yours. Just go, just go away.
So check out this tweet I just put in the chat.
Okay. It says it's from you. And it says free $500 million idea, reinvent and relaunch SlideShare. All right, great. Great minds think alike. If there's a, if there's a talented engineer designer who wants to do this, I'll give you money and share my one-page plan on how to attack this. All right. I, well, dude, we're on the same page here, I think.
Do you wanna see my one-page plan?
Yeah.
You can't, it doesn't exist. I just wrote that out and I was like, if somebody actually reaches out that's interesting for this, I will come up with a one-page plan. Of how I would do this, because to me, SlideShare is so ripe for the picking. It is completely neglected. It is extremely valuable as a, like, a potential tool. It never really got replaced properly by something else. It didn't, didn't become obsolete. And, uh, and it's just one of those, like, big opportunities hiding in plain sight. And I would love to basically brainstorm how to— how I would attack this kind of SlideShare problem.
But the opportunity was missed. LinkedIn, if, you know, one of us or someone listening had a little bit of like charm and suave and was able to get connected with the LinkedIn people, they would've given it to you. It would've been like, mm-hmm.
Yes.
It would've been free. I don't know about, cuz Scribd isn't a big enough company where they're like, oh yeah, here, we don't give a fuck, just take it. But when you're owned by Microsoft, they're just like, I imagine they're just like, we can't focus on this right now.
Yeah. An undisclosed price. This would've been, uh, I mean, I can't imagine this was that much. I could be wrong, but like, it didn't make any revenue. I feel like they probably got this for like $10 million or something or less. Yeah. Wow. Or less. Missed opportunity. That is a serious missed opportunity.
That's not that drunk of an idea, but anyway, it's an idea.
Um, all right. I got another one. Let me, let me, let me make it.
I'm all out, by the way.
I, you don't want to know how long this list is. Um, and it all came to me in one giant flood. Uh, you know, I just dumped them all out. Okay.
What do you, what do you do? Do you just like come up with like names? Are you like Michael Scott where he just like has a name for something and he builds a business around it?
No joke. That's part of it. Um, my thing was sort of like, you have to find something relatable, either something that really sucks or that's really awesome. And then just use it in an unexpected way. Right. So like, um, you know, it's like the Cronut.
You're just smashing two things together.
Exactly. So I saw this, like the hidden bookcase thing, and I was like, oh my God, I freaking always wanted one of these where I hit the three piano keys and a door opens, or I pull the bookshelf, I tilt the book out and it like opens a secret door. So how do I take that awesome thing and just use it in an unexpected way? And that's where that idea came from.
Have you ever seen, have you ever seen those for guns? So, uh, you, well, I've thought about buying one of these where you can put like a shelf— like, you know how you have a shelf next to your front door that you put your keys on?
Yeah.
You can buy some of these and you click a button and it opens a little bit on the bottom and you just grab your pistol. And they're pretty sick. That's pretty cool.
Okay, I like that. I put like my fanny pack in there maybe for when I leave the house.
Like some Cheez-Its.
But would it fit a regulation-sized bag of corn nuts?
Your cheese at storage.
All right. So speaking of work backwards from a great idea, here's the, here's the name of this one. I mean, Ben, you might want to get your pencil out for the top winner of the episode. Instagramahanas. That sounds a little weird. Sort of like Benihanas. It's Benihanas for Instagram. Photo opportunities. Okay, so here's how it works. It's a restaurant that's not about the food. It's a restaurant about the content.
Like the Museum of Ice Cream, baby.
People roll in their eyes. It's like the Museum of Ice Cream, but it's seated. And it is, uh, like basically people go to restaurants, they order food, and they'll order like, oh, we got a fishbowl drink, or we're drinking beer out of a shoe, and like, oh, we got the huge like donuts at the end, and they take pictures and it becomes content.
Or like they use sparklers instead of birthday candles.
Now I started a restaurant. I know all the problems about restaurants. You got all this food waste, you got high labor costs, you got all this. You don't actually— you're not running this like a restaurant. So here's how it works. It's like Benihana's. You go, there's like, I don't know, 30 tables. You sit down, every table seats like 8 people, and you go as a group and you're going for an experience. You're not going for the food. And, um, two things happen. So basically food is gonna come out that— and each one is photo-worthy food, either because it's gross, it's funny looking, it's huge, it's so indulgent. It's right, it's like, you know, a giant pile of sour gummy worms. It's, oh, it's a— it's the, the Mega Green Donut. How are we ever gonna eat this? Oh look, it's so funny to watch me try. That sort of thing. Oh, this guy's going to come out and, you know, we have to drink this giant beer can that's like, you know, 36 ounces or whatever. I don't know what a big beer can is. 360 ounces, let's say. And so that's the— that's the idea. It's all photo-worthy food. It's brought out like omakase at a sushi restaurant.
We're going to call it the Food Porn Cafe.
Instagram Mahonez is the name. But if you'd like to launch a competitor, bring it on. Um, there's a drone camera that just flies right above the, the table and it's just recording the whole thing and it's just gonna— it just dumps it in a Google Drive folder and there's a guy in India, one guy, who's editing everybody's photos all night, everybody's content all night. And at the end you're gonna get the 3 or 4 best reaction shots because the food gets revealed, you know, like it's—
no, it's like, it's like when you get a picture on a roller coaster.
Exactly. It's exactly. But we're using outsourced labor. The drone is capturing everything and, and the food and it feels like a party. There's a DJ, you know, like those New York brunches for cool people. This is that for fat people. So instead of being cool and having to like know how to dance and stand up on the table and drink champagne at 9 in the morning, you sit and food comes out. That's crazy. And you get to eat it and you get to make a big mess and it's going to be your reactions and your and your attempts are all all photo and video recorded, $100 a person plus tips, 8 people per table. I'm thinking, you know, 20, maybe 30 tables, uh, you know, 2 or 3 turns per night. And, uh, we're talking a million dollars a month easy on this. Food cost is way down because it's not even real food. You're just doing like giant popcorn and silly stuff. You know, no proteins. You don't have to worry about that. There's no food waste because it's— you're just bringing out one thing for the table to react to. Yeah. Yeah. Like eating each person, you're fine.
Your 5-pound burger doesn't need to taste good.
Exactly. It's like Benihana's. There's like a Harvard Business School case study on how amazing Benihana's is. And one of the reasons is like they, because they put, there's no kitchen space, they use the whole restaurant for like, uh, for, for dining because the, the chef is at the table, the stove is the table basically. And, um, they have like higher labor costs because they have skilled chefs, but they have way lower, like, you know, uh, they use the real estate better and like their food waste is way down because they have a limited menu. So it's, you kind of do all that smart stuff. Have you ever— Instagram on this? What do you think?
I'm in. I'm into it. Have you ever heard the background of Benny Hana?
The guy Rocky, I think is his name.
Yeah. So he's basically— we wrote about it and it was one of our most trafficked articles for a long time. He's basically, you know, he's an immigrant, came here with nothing. And then, you know who his son is? Is Steve Aoki, the DJ.
Oh, no way. I did not know that.
Yeah. And this guy Rocky, I think he— I forget the article, but it was like one of those like most interesting man alive stories. Where like he had been involved in like porn, and then Benihana's like got big and then went bankrupt, then he bought it back and it went big again, and then he was like this international man of mystery. Like, it's a really interesting story, and people love that company, and it's still crushing. I went— I— we used to go to team dinners there. I fucking love Benihana's. But dude, I'm into this.
Bring it up, dude, when we're in like a car and it's like, oh, we're gonna be— I'm like, I think there's a Benihana's around here. I'm just like, I'm just waiting for that to latch, somebody to be like, oh, That'd be fun. Never. I never get any support on it. I'm always tossing the little Benihana, you know, test flare out there. Be like, you know, I guess we could do big group stuff at Benihana. They got good tables. And then like, no one ever bites.
I don't know why.
I'm like, I've been— I'm 0 for 12 on this thing.
How is that? Remember that guy you brought up on Instagram during the pandemic who started that cookie business that just made the most ridiculous cookies?
Remember, like, what's that guy's—
I think is my cookie. How's he doing?
He's great. I checked in with him. I don't know. I think they're doing fine. I'm not sure. I ordered cookies. Honestly, they were not great. So then I'm sort of like, uh, what's the fuss? But that's kind of how a lot of these food crazes are. Like the expectations get way out of whack.
And what about Museum of Ice Cream? So the Museum of Ice Cream, they started a little bit before the pandemic and you and I like, or a bunch of, a lot of people made fun of them because they raised like $50 million at a $250 million valuation. And basically, I don't even think they serve ice cream there, right? It's just like a ball pit and like funny ice cream stuff, and you pay like $20 and you go to take pictures, right? Yeah.
You never been to it?
No.
But there's— it's like a haunted house. You walk from room to room. Each room has its own like kind of crazy thing, and sometimes you get to eat a little bit, but most of the time it's just photos with like cool— in a cool room. It's Instagram content.
In Manhattan, I walked by one recently and the line was around the block, and I've gone by it a few times and there's always a long line to go in. I think they, they have to be killing it, right?
Uh, I thought so, but then the SF one closed, so I don't know what happened, but, uh, well, SF closed, right?
So, uh, but the Manhattan one, the Manhattan one is just, I mean, that's really what's, it's like SF just like shut down for maintenance and they just been down for like 4 years.
The Museum of Ice Cream said the same thing that every like tech person in San Francisco said, just, ah, fuck it, I'm outta here.
Yeah.
Uh, it was like an audible sigh of just like, fine, I'm out.
Yeah. Uh, I think, um, yeah, I'm on board with this. I think this is good. We did a breakdown where we talked about like the companies like Cronut and like fondue-only stores and like all these companies. It was like, what do you have to do? You have to take like, you gotta take a food and put it in a weird shape or a weird size or a weird color. Yeah.
Or you match a weird container.
Weird container. Yeah. Or you mash two things that are kind of related but not entirely related, like a burger in the shape of a hot dog or a Cronut or something like that.
Exactly. Or you take something that's typically a side or a topping and you make that the only thing, like a cookie dough only place that serves it in an ice cream tin or an ice cream thing. What else were they? I forget what they were.
You're like the, the Rain Man of figuring out this food. Trick. Like, everybody else just saw each one of these, it's like, oh, that's weird, that's weird. And you're like, I see the pattern. Yeah, we're like, what's wrong? What's wrong with the left side of your face right now?
I need to go to your—
downloading it. I figured—
I'm figuring it out. No, it's, it's all rooted in like an eating disorder. Like, I go to, I go to food therapy in the, uh, like, you know, I need to go to your therapy and talk about— I use— I pay a lady $700 a month just to talk about food every single morning. Clearly there's issues there. Yeah.
So I just study that shit, man. You would sleep with a T-Roll under your pillow for some reason.
Yeah. The amount of times that I've eaten a jar of Jif peanut butter in one sitting is goddamn just way too high. It's way too high.
We need a GIF of you just eating a jar of Jif in one sitting. That's the— have you ever done that?
Dude, I've eaten a full jar with just a spoon multiple times. It's just too addicting.
Habitual line stepper. All right. I have more. Let me give you, I got maybe one, maybe two more. Let's see how it goes. Um, you probably don't watch this show, but there's a show that's hot on Netflix called Indian Matchmaker.
Have you seen it? Of course I watch that show.
You watch it? Okay. I thought this might be only entertaining to Indian people because it's like, no dude, are you kidding me?
I watch it all the time. And in my head, I'm just thinking, y'all are screwed up. You guys are so weird. Like, are you kidding me? Like I, How is the suicide rate not higher amongst you people?
You're like, yeah, don't make me send the British back in there, all right? You guys gotta get your shit together.
Yeah, what the hell, man? Like, there'll be this like beautiful doctor in her 30s making money, she's pretty, she's nice, and her mom's like yelling at her, like criticizing her for not being married. It's crazy.
I can't find this client info.
Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares connects data across every application. Every team can stay aligned.
No out-of-sync spreadsheets or dueling databases.
So, uh, my sister called me last night after— she's like, I finished season 2. And she just goes, I need to ask you something. I hope it's not too personal. I was like, oh, what's it gonna be? She goes, when you first met, uh, when you first met Sonya, did you Did you have game? Because on the show, the Indian guys have zero game. And I was like, like, what do you mean? Like, I guess so. And then she's like, no, think about it. She was like, she was like, these guys, they're nice guys, they're smart guys, they're like, you know, they have good job, they're normal people, they have no crazy drug habits. The reason they're still single is because they don't know how to look at, talk to, or touch a girl. And I was like, Oh yeah, I had that problem. Yeah, that's me too, actually. You're right, dude.
I saw, uh, I saw someone post a picture of a painting of a naked woman from like the 1700s, and it was all Indian guys commenting saying like, hey baby, I love you, I love you for a long time, text me, call me.
Yeah, that's like if you're ever a girl who does like live streaming on like whatever or Twitch or like whatever, Periscope, whatever, whatever app, uh, they're all like, what is, why are there so many men in like Turkey, the Middle East, and India who will just, they just flood their chat and they just keep saying, show bobs, show bobs, show bobs. They don't spell boobs. And they just say, keep saying, show bobs, show bobs.
What? So you didn't have game?
You were, you were, you were, uh, so, so I asked, then I asked my wife, I was like, I was like, yeah, my sister asked me this. I was like, I don't think I did.
Did I?
She's like, no, you didn't. And I was like, uh, I was like, she's like, yeah, you had a different type. You had like intellectual game. Like, she's like, you were good at like telling stories or you would say interesting things.
That counts. But like, that's game.
Like the basic like man shit. She's like, you didn't know how to like kind of like, you know, there was no smoothness to like the, oh, we're walking down the street. Like, let's just hold my hand without like us having like the first time. Like, how do you do that smooth the first time? Or You know, like in San Francisco, the streets are a little dangerous. She's like, you know, you would always like walk on the inside of the street. I'd be on the edge, like right by the cars and the bums. And like, you know, you didn't know to just like stand on that side, just like the little kind of male protective instincts, a little bit like, you know, pull my chair out, you know, let me sit down first.
It's like, you know, don't give me a high five when we're, when we're like, you know, ending the date.
And don't say like, see ya when we leave. Like, you know, say something else. Like, you know, like, don't touch me. And it's like, I was like, I opened the door for you. She's like, yeah, you would like open the door and be like, scoot in. Like, I like scoot all the way across and then I'll sit on this. I'll get in after you. It's like, you know, you're supposed to go to the other side and like open the door for me and then you go to the other side. And I was like, oh yeah, like that's so much effort. Like, you know, it's fine. Um, and so there was a whole bunch of things like that. And I remember I dated a girl once in Australia and I'll always give her credit. She was, she kind of was like an amazing girl and She taught me one thing, which was she was like, whenever you're— actually, we didn't even really date. We were just kind of in the flirting phase. But she was teaching me how to— she was like a dancer. She was teaching me how to do— she was like sambo champion or some shit like that.
Or sambo. I think sambo is fighting.
Yeah.
Is it sambo like Russian jiu-jitsu? Yeah.
Samba, I guess, and salsa. And she was like, okay, so just put your hand here and whatever. And then she looked at my hand. I was like, I put it right where you said. And she's like, yeah, but look at it. And I looked at it, my hand's like limp, basically. It's like my hand was there, but there was no firmness to it. It was nothing. And she goes, if you're going to touch a girl, touch with intent. And I was like, oh. And I literally have never forgot that. That was like 15 years ago. And in my head, I'm always like, I got taught a real lesson in man stuff that day of how to do do things with girls, like touch with intent. Yeah. And I was like, I didn't even really understand what the hell she meant, but like that was the first time I got taught. So here's the idea. Basically it's swag school and it just teaches Indian guys how to have a little more game. So you go to a seminar, it's like Toastmasters or Alcoholics Anonymous, and you go and you sit in a circle and first you just say, uh, you know, my name is Sean and I am awkward. And then everybody says, welcome Sean. And then the next guy says, hey, my name's Pradeep, uh, Dr. Bay Area, um, And I am awkward ever so much. Welcome. Thank you, pretty. And it just goes around the circle and it's gonna teach you how to, how to look at a girl, how to touch a girl, how to have some presence, how to sit straight, stand up straight, how to dress, how to go in for a kiss. And there's just a girl there to teach you how to do it. 'Cause guess what? You can't learn it in a textbook. So that's it. Swag School. What do you think?
Love it. Um, have you heard, do you remember Art of Charm? Our friend Jordan, he's got a new thing, Jordan Harbinger, but now it, it, it used to be called Art of Charm. Do you remember that? It's like a— was it like a 5-day boot camp for men? Is that what it was? It 5 days?
I don't really know. I know he has the podcast and I used to read the blog.
So listen to this. He spoke at one of my events and he talked about it. And so it was him and 2 other guys. They had like a falling out. So this is like before they had the falling out and the business was called Art of Charm and it was teaching men how to be more charming. And he would also teach like he would go and talk to like Navy SEALs and talk about like how to use charm to like you know, like blend in and shit like that. And so they were making, if I remember correctly, $10 million a year hosting these.
What did you just say? They used to go teach Navy SEALs how to use charm to blend in with what, like the water? Like what do you mean?
The water.
Like he was like, you know what, all this espionage training you're doing, No, no, no, that's what he did. You need to learn from me.
No, that's what he did. It was like, uh, like, I don't fucking know, like, uh, that's just what he told me. He was like, they called it, uh, operators or something, or special ops, special ops or something.
Dude, I want to start a company just called Fortune 500, and so people can be like, oh yeah, I work with Fortune 500 companies, like, you know, hey You're not lying. It sounds cool when you're pitching your services.
It's like DMV.org or whatever that works.
Navy SEALs, S-E-E-L-S, and you could just say, yeah, I train Navy SEALs.
Well, dude, so he was making like $10 million a year hosting these like 4-day boot camps. And I knew a guy who went to one and he said, it changed my life. And this guy ended up, he was this dorky guy who I'm friends with and he married this beautiful, awesome woman. And I was like making a joke to him, like, how'd you pull that off? And he's like, man, I went to this Art of Charm boot camp and he just taught me how to like be more confident and like talk to women, and it totally worked. So long story short, Swag School, down. I'm DTF with Swag School.
All right, well, you validated me there. Okay, great. So I think we— I have more, I have so many more, um, but I think we save it. If people like this, we can make this a recurring thing. This is the second edition of Drunk Ideas. Let us know what you think in the YouTube comments.
Pretty good, right? At least pretty good.
All feedback now in the YouTube comments. I'm replying, I'm reading every single one. I don't want emails. I don't want Twitter. I only want YouTube comments now.
Are you, you're, you're on board this YouTube train. It's going to my head. Is it going to your head?
Dude, it's so much fun. Yeah. Like, A, the videos get more views now. We're out of the pathetic range where it's like 3,300 views. I'm just like, oh man, like, you know, it's like, I kind of want to, it's like, I need to like make a disclaimer. It's like, but the podcast is bigger. Like, you know, like, yeah, I know.
I used to say that all the time. I'd be like, well, the podcast is mostly, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's mostly podcast.
It's okay. No, now I think a lot of episodes will get 20, 30, 40,000 views on YouTube. So yeah, and I'm about it.. And the comment section, it is interesting. Also, some of these people are just really stupid. There's so many stupid commenters. Like, you see some of the stuff they post, it's like, what do you— what, what's this have to do with anything? Uh, so there's a lot of stupid stuff. Oh, and there's so many scammers. The typical scam is—
the scammer is so annoying.
So there's one scammer that acts like he's us, and then there's another scammer where it's like, um, I totally agree with you.
And that's why I started following the first guy. This guy is pretending to be us. He replies to every comment and his thing is my first million, but he's using like emoji for the letters. It's like the M is like a yellow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, come in my WhatsApp group. He's trying to scam you on WhatsApp. And then the other one is so annoying. It's always the top comment on every video. And I'm like, my mission in life is to like eviscerate this person.
I hate it. And it says, I totally agree with what you just said. In fact, that's why I started following Aunt Linda. She's taught me all I need to know about forex trading and crypto trading. If you're interested, here's her information. And then somehow they get like 80 people.
Yeah.
To comment. And so it like goes up number 1 and it looks legit.
I hate those people. Linda's the best. I was skeptical at first, but she really turned it around for me. Oh, I turned $2,000 into $18,000. Thank you so much, Linda. Linda, if you're reading this, blah, blah, blah. And it just goes on and that's all the comments and it's the top comment on every YouTube video. I hate it for any finance related channel. It's so annoying. It's like, you know, with the economy the way it— totally agree. But with the economy the way it is nowadays, investing is harder than ever. I'm so thankful for, for, you know, Dr. Baldwin's investing, um, uh, WhatsApp group. I, you know, it's really been a life changer for me. And then everybody's like, Dr. Baldwin is amazing. And it's like the same thing every single time. It's such a good—
it's —such a slick scam. It's a really well-done scam, and I can't— but I can't stand it. Um, so anyway, yeah, I'm on board YouTube. That's our place now, which means you're gonna have to start, like, wear— this is my jacket, so you gotta, like, you gotta get, like, a jacket or something. You gotta get, like, a look. Well, I just have this—
so yes, I gotta have a look. You're absolutely right. In fact, I tweeted that out. I said I need a look, and, uh, people gave me a bunch of bad ideas, so I'm still looking for a good idea. Um, all right, all right, who won?
Uh, okay, am I giving grades or am I not giving grades?
Pick a, pick a best idea, honorable mention, and a worst idea.
I think, uh, OnlyFans for therapy is the best idea. It is like both funny and is actually a good idea. And, um, I, I just like, I would watch. I know I could pass like 4 and a half hours on one afternoon. Like the first half hour I'm like, this so stupid, but I don't quit the app. And then like 4 hours later, I'm like, this is so stupid. And I'm still—
honey, come listen to this guy, he's so stupid. Hey everybody on social media, come listen to this, it's so bad. Yeah, it's like me and John at K+8.
Um, uh, for worst idea, I gotta— since I just pumped up Sean, I gotta take him down a notch and say Instagram Ahana's worst idea. Uh, because I feel like you need one Food. If you, if your whole shtick is like all these different foods that are Instagrammable, uh, also just like a lot of people are doing this in different ways. Instagrammahanas. 0 out of 10.
No points. One food would be enough, but I just like to overdeliver. So, yeah, you know me. It's one of my greatest weaknesses. And what was the third one you asked for? Uh, what is, oh, I was gonna say you can honorable mention one of Sam's ideas perhaps because, you know, otherwise I, you know, my honorable mention.
Is I wish that Sam had done Swag School. I wish Sam had come on here and been like, so you know how Indian guys have no game?
Yeah, absolutely.
Missed opportunity. That's hilarious. All right, uh, I'm out.
We're out.