Blue Collar Side Hustles, Covid Businesses, and Going Viral On TikTok For An "A"

Somehow 5 years later, COVID hits and you know what they decide to do? They're like, you know what, let's go all in on creating like safety, safety stuff for COVID, like masks, respirators, um, gloves, things like that. And they become one of the like core providers right at the start of COVID They shifted all their production manufacturing stuff. They're like, forget the vodka bottles, forget the LED screens. We need N95 masks and we need respirators and we need, you know, these testing kits and we need— and they started producing this stuff and they started just winning all these contracts.

All right, we're live, Sean. Uh, we have a bunch of stuff. You, you have a, you have a, a full menu over here and so do I. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. I want you to look at my menu here and I want you to just pick something off the menu. Go ahead. And I'll riff off it. I will. For people who they don't, they don't know, we only write like 1 or 2 words. So you get like a teaser. You're like, man, what the hell is this about? But you don't know what it actually is.

But I have, I put all my stuff in here on accident. I have this new researcher who's crushing it. He just gives me all the content like 5 minutes ahead of time. But, uh, Rich Neighbor.

How did I know you'd pick Rich Neighbor? So there's somebody in my neighborhood who I bumped into and I've, I've, I'm, you know, I, I sort of get out there and I collect signals. Is this, you know, where, where do I place this person on the, uh, the, the Billy scale? Like, are they, you know, are they on their way up? Are they, are they, have they made it in life? Are they really balling out of control? Where are, where is this person? And these people have been balling out of control. Like when Christmas time came up, there was just like, the wife went outside and was just pointing at windows. And all of a sudden the house was lit up like a Christmas tree. They had like so— they had the most like decked out things. And they go, hey, hey, um, invite your kids over, uh, this Thursday. We have a snow machine there. We're building a snow hill in our driveway. Like, uh, you, you want to do sledding without going to Tahoe?

What's that, like a big snow cone? Is that what that is?

No, it's like a giant truck that comes that creates snow and it piles it up so that you're like— their house looked like it was in, you know, Michigan or something like that.

Yeah. But it's just like, like, like it's like an ice machine or something. Yeah.

It's like, yeah, something like that.

Yeah. Like a big snow cone, like a big shaved ice thing. Yeah. Yeah.

You were right from the, from the beginning. You're right. So they did this and they had a fake Santa there and I was like, man, this is a lot for a Thursday afternoon, but okay. Uh, this is cool. Like these people's style, they seem really nice. And I didn't know what they did. So I kind of, I hit them with the Google the other day and I was like, let's see who these people are. And they have a crazy story. So they created a company that back in 2014 did this thing. It basically, it lets you take a vodka bottle. They had a vodka bottle that had an LED sign going around it. So you could give somebody a vodka bottle that would say happy birthday, Sam, or like you could program any message. I could be like, you know, uh, whatever. I could be like, you're getting old, bitch, whatever. I could write any message on it. It would go on your vodka bottle. All right. It seems kind of gimmicky. I don't really, you know, not a bad idea, but, but balling out of control from that didn't, didn't 100% make sense.

But that was, that sounds like a dropshipping, like joke.

Sounds like my first idea out of college. Like, this is like me in college would've been like, bro, next, next Google. I got it. You know, like what if we took, you know, this Jägerbomb and we put an LED screen on it? Wouldn't that be incredible? And so, So they had this thing and they were like licensing this out or something like that. Somehow like Shaq became an advisor to their company.

It was really crazy.

you think it's that small?

Masks. I think for things like that, probably it's like 10, 15% is my guess. Maybe that maybe during COVID everyone was completely price insensitive and they could just charge whatever they wanted. I'm not sure. I would have thought that, but, um, but wow, dude, what a, what a pivot. And, uh, you know, that is not just kind of crazy. And that was an opportunity kind of available to a lot of people.

Right. Dude, I know, I know a bunch of people who did that and like, I had a friend that did it and he's like, dude, check this out. And he sends me a picture of a Shopify store and it's doing like $2 million a month. I know a lot of people who did that and I've only followed up with one or two of them. And, uh, I have a feeling that like of the 8 people I know who did it, like 3 of them, it worked out. And then the rest, it was like a really quick cash grab, but then they overbought inventory and it's like nothing. Do you know people who did that?

Yes. We, we, there was a guy in, um, I had started this mastermind group. That's actually where I found Ben. Uh, but like one of the other guys in the mastermind group, he like, every time he came to the mastermind—

does he live in Texas?

No, he's in Canada. Every time he came to the mastermind group, I feel like he had a different business, which is like not what you want in a mastermind group. But he was a good dude and he would always be like, oh, I have this other business that's like, oh, you know, for auto repair, blah, blah, blah. We do their SEO. And I was like, okay, but then what about that thing you told me last time? And then one time he came and he is like, dude, we're doing mobile COVID testing trucks. That will drive up to places and we can just do rapid testing for COVID. And we were like, all right, that's, I mean, that sounds cool, but like, are you like, do you know anything about COVID testing? Like, does anybody in the world know about this? Like what? He's like, oh, I got the scientists. It's going to be great. And then he came back and he was like, hey, uh, really excited to be here. I need to use you guys' help. Um, like 3 months later, he was like, really need you guys' help about going public.

And I was like, what the hell?

And he's like, yeah, we're going to do like $85 million this year in revenue. And I was like, I was like, what? And he's like, yeah, we're getting all these contracts with the state of, uh, with like the, you know, the, the country in Canada, like these country, countrywide contracts. And, um, you know, yeah, we think maybe we should take this public next year.

I was like, what the fuck is going on? So how did it end?

I don't even know because I, that, that guy, my head was just spinning every time, uh, you know, he would talk. Cause I'm like, this is either too good to be true or I'm too dumb and this is amazing and I can't tell which one it is. It's probably some mix of both. But you're right. I know several people that went all in on COVID right when it happened and like low-key got like an absurd amount of traction very, very fast.

Yeah. Like a ton.

And he wasn't willing to take the risk. You're sh— you're throwing shade on your dad right now. I hope he doesn't listen to this. And you called him boss. If my son calls me boss, he's getting in a headlock.

Yeah. My dad, my, yeah, we, we make fun of each other. Like we call it like it is. I do a bunch of dumb things and I say when I do dumb things, this is his dumb thing. He is high planning, low action on these things. And he says it all the time. Like, um, we went, I went, I took him to Tony Robbins and Tony Robbins is all about like taking massive action on like the things you want.. And he's like, I was like, what's your big takeaway? He's like, ah man, I need to take massive action. And I was like, yeah, that's, you did it. You learned the right lesson from this thing. He goes, that's my problem. I don't take massive action. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. He started slipping back into like, basically he's like, I've identified my problem, but not like I'm gonna change it. Just like, so right. So true.

Whatever. It worked out for him.

Yeah, he did great. Like, right, for like village in India to like live in like owning multiple homes.

Dude, the story, the story of you tell of your mom of like, I think you said she like had never eaten with a fork or something and she just comes to America when she's 17. Is that what you said? I'm not exaggerating. I don't want to be disrespectful. I thought you said, I thought you said like she hadn't, they didn't use like utensils or she went to a restaurant and like, or she actually, you're right.

You're right. That, that did happen.

No, I'm not being disrespectful. Uh, Mrs. Puri, that's the story. It's on record. And then also when she used a, a payphone to call her brother to say that she was in town. She didn't know like that you hang it up, so she like let it hang.

Yeah, she was just crying at the airport and some guy was like, hey, uh, do you need help? Are you okay? She's like, I need— like, my brother's supposed to pick me up. I don't know where he is. Like, she just landed in America and he's like, do you have a phone number? She's like, yeah. So he— that guy picks up the payphone, puts in the quarters, calls the brother, tells him, hey, she's at Terminal 2, she's waiting here, I'm gonna tell her not to move. Brother didn't even know, oh, your flight was today? Like, they had no correspondence. Like, okay, I'll hang tight, I'll be there. And she talks to him and she's like, he's like, don't move. And then that guy had left, the helper had left. And so she didn't, she's like, not only did I not know how to use the payphone, I didn't even understand how do you put this back? And she's like, I kind of was like fiddling with it, like kind of like, like trying to get it to stick. And I didn't know what to do. I looked around, nobody was there. And I just left it hanging and I walked away. She's like, I'll never forget. Like just feeling so clueless about the world.

Um, and there's like 5 stories like that on her just trying to get to America. Now they have a house in San Francisco. So it worked out. That's the, uh, that's the American dream.

Um, um, all right. Another topic.

What do you got?

Awesome. How old is she? Young looking or older?

Younger looking. Um, yeah, she looks like, you know, she looks like if you were 12, she would be your friend's mom.

Um, got it.

All right. So something like that, whatever age that is.

Perfect description.

So, so basically, uh, I thought this was amazing and it got me thinking like, really, how many more classes at a university should be taught this way. So for example, like, why isn't there a class at, you know, why isn't there a class at school where it's basically like, okay, we're going to have 4 lemonade stands on campus, break up into teams. You're each going to run a lemonade stand, like, and you know, the top lemonade stand is going to get an A+, the next one gets an A-, B+, B-. And if you, if you're not able to break this threshold of sales, you fail. And just let them go and do their thing and let them learn.

That's 100% how it should be.

Dude, uh, Ramon, our friend Ramon, his son goes to a school here in Texas and he, his kid had a class where he had to go haggle and it was like, you have to get this much of a discount from a retail store or something like that. And I was like, oh, that's awesome. That was awesome. It's like great for a 12-year-old. So I love that stuff. I, dude, I didn't have class when I was, all right, my sophomore year of college, I was a Division I athlete, a runner nonetheless, a runner, peak physical condition. They made me take an aerobic walking class, which was like, if you add up the tuition, it was like $9,000 or something like that. So I'm all, it was aerobic walking. You show up and you go for a walk. So I'm all in favor of this stuff. I think it's awesome.

Like, are you walking at least at like a fast pace? Why is it called aerobic walking versus just walking? Is that just branding?

Is that just the gym teacher had to justify their, their, their pension or their, uh, salary? I don't know. It was the stupidest thing ever. Like, it was, it was crazy. It was crazy to me. I had to take aerobic. I remember this. It was ridiculous. Uh, you just like showed up.

What do you mean you had to? Seems like they don't force you.

You have to get like these certain amount of credits. And it was like this aerobic walking class is available.

Was your major like PE? Why was this in your requirement?

Dude, because they make, I don't know. I don't remember exactly why I had to do this. No, I don't even remember what I majored in. I think just like accounting or business or something.

Accounting?

It was a— so I left school early, so it was accounting. And then I, and then I left school and then I finished online later and I was like, okay, you know, give me, just give me any diploma that I can get, please. Why'd you leave school? Because, um, I moved out. So I, the summer I had to take like some summer classes and one extra semester. And, uh, I heard about Airbnb and I was like, that's where it's at. So I moved out there. Yeah. Yeah, so you, you know, I think I told you this. I had heard— I remember you applied.

I didn't know you were in college and dropped out for it.

I didn't drop out. I, well, I don't know if it's technically drop out. I just like quit going and I finished online and like, like I converted to an online student. Yeah. Like I took like some time off and then I eventually like finished and I would have to go like to a Kaplan, you know, like those Kaplan like testing centers and I would have to take these nonsense nonsense tests. But basically there's this famous runner. I was a runner at the time and there was a famous runner named Chris Lukasik and he quit running, which wasn't exactly lucrative, but he was like the 7th most fast— fastest miler ever. And he was like, I quit. I'm quitting running at my peak to join this thing called Airbed and Breakfast. And I was like, what the hell is that? That sounds awesome. And so I emailed Joe Gebbia, the founder of Airbnb, and I was like, hey, I like Airbnb. I came up with this interesting hack that I think can help you grow. Here it is. And he forwarded it to— like, it was at the time, there was this thing called Reportive that had just come out. And I built an Excel sheet where you could type in someone's first name, last name, and like their Gmail or their company name. And then it like permutates and you put into this thing, it tells you which emails there. So not like that sophisticated of a hack at all, but it was like new technology. And I emailed him and he, in his head, he's probably like, this is dumb. But like the fact that you came up with this, like, whatever, we'll interview you. So they interviewed, and so he puts me to a minion. The minion was like, hey, do you want to come to the Bay Area? Um, or, well, I don't know who the guy was, but the guy is probably worth—

really underused word. I'm going to start using that. That's an amazing slander. I love it.

Well, that minion is probably worth $20 million. I mean, you know, because at the time there were only like 200 people and the guy who he referred me to was like the 17th employee. And so his name was Justin. I'm still friends with him. Sorry, Justin, call you minion, but maybe you were.

I didn't realize that's your friend, dude.

it is until proven guilty.

Yeah. They're like, but that was sneaky. Like, we asked you if you've been charged or whatever. And I was like, you're right. I'm sorry. So I didn't actually get the job. I was hired for like a second, but I never had my first day. And then fast forward 2 years later, my wife ends up going to work there. And I remember walking around, I'm like, ah, my alma mater, my old stomping grounds. So I never ended up working there, but I had a job there for like, you know, a few minutes. And, uh, you know, it could have been something great. I would think I would have been like employee 200. I don't know, maybe I would have made some money or not. But that's the story of Airbnb.

That's an amazing story.

I love that. And while out there, I also had to like take these classes. And I remember I didn't have any money. I had the $1,000. That was my my money. And I used to have to take this bike and I lived in the Dogpatch in a warehouse that was $900 a month. And I have to— I used to have to ride—

people that don't live in San Francisco, they're like, he lived in a dog patch warehouse.

It's called Dogpatch. It's like, uh, the industrial part of San Francisco by the water. And I used to have to ride my bike because I didn't have any money. And I had to ride a bike that I took from my roommate all the way up to Twin Peaks to go to the Kaplan, like, place, which is like 6 miles away, literally up the steepest hills in San Francisco.. And so I used to have to do those classes and take tests for like months. It was horrible, but it worked out.

And now you're here.

Incredible. And now, dude, I used to, uh, like I, like I learned how to like get, get rid of, like you could jump on the bus and like when they, they would catch you all the time and they'd be like, where do you live? And I'd be like, I don't know. Uh, what's your name? And I'd just like give a name and they're like, do you have any ID on you? I'm like, no, I don't have ID. And so I remember like there was zero consequences. There was zero consequences. There was zero consequences. I mean, that's how little I had. Like I didn't have cash for a bus fair, which is $250. But, uh, uh, yeah, it turned out okay.

What did you do to, uh, to grow that $1,000? How did you not just wipe out, like, $1,000 doesn't get you very far in San Francisco. So how did you not wipe out in 3 months?

Amazing. Uh, wow. Great stories. I love this. Uh, I feel like, yeah, I feel like there's a bunch of, I've heard bits of these, but not all of them. Uh, this is great.

Uh, and I would ride my bike to like collect these money. I would knock on their door after they got the apartment. I'm like, hey, you got my money? It was ridiculous.

Uh, that's so good.

Uh, After this, I have to go get a hearing aid and, uh, I'm going to get fitted for one. And I have to tell you why I forgot to tell you this. We are at the Vancouver thing and there was these two women speaking to me afterwards and it was loud. So like the problem with my hearing is I can't hear the difference between background noise and the person speaking for me. It's hard to tell the difference. And these women were talking to me and you probably noticed this. I lean in hard, so I'm only deaf in one ear. But I lean in, I lean, I turn and I get really close to you. And also it was a super loud afterparty, by the way.

It was like, it was like a club.

It was like a club. It was loud. And I also stare at people's lips. So I'll either stare at your mouth or I'll lean in.

Mr. Rolly signals over here.

The horrible worst signals. And this woman comes up to me and I'm leaning in and like I'm starting to get really close and I can tell she's really uncomfortable. And I go, oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you, I'm deaf. I can't freaking hear you. That's why I'm leaning in so hard. And it was at that point I told Sarah, I was like, I got to go. I got to get a hearing aid. I can't— I'm making people uncomfortable.

This is why you bring your wife with you to all events, just to, like, you know, totally, totally make it clear what's happening here, dude.

And I have a rule. I don't— I don't travel alone. I love having her around when I travel. But that is— that is definitely the icing on the cake is having her around for that reason.

Yeah. Yeah. You, you did the opposite of the billionaire hug. You like, you went in with the, with the broke boy lean. Yeah.

The broke boy lean. I'm just staring at her lips and she's just literally trying to watch as the words come out of her mouth and just staring, going down at her lips and looking and then leaning in and, oh man, I can tell she was uncomfortable. I was like, oh, I forgot to tell you I can't hear. So I'm going to go get one of those things.

Did you ever learn that like trick from, I don't know, this might be, it might've been in like those pickup artist things. I'm not 100% sure, but you ever look at their triangle?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like the third eye or something like that?

No, no. It's if you ever wanted, if you want somebody to want to kiss you, you're close. If let's say you're close, you're in range and you want to like kind of almost like hack their little like biology and get them to want to kiss you. You, you do this like triangle. So you basically look at one eye, the second eye down to the lips, back to the first eye. So it makes it, it traces like a little triangle. And if you do that, you'll just see immediately the person just fuck her up, baby. It's happening.

Yeah.

Right. It just happens.

Um, yeah. Right.

I don't know if it's because you're signaling that you want to kiss them or that it just makes them want to kiss you, but this shit works. This was like in college. I was like, you know, you would've thought I'm in the Illuminati, how many triangles I was throwing up everywhere because I was like, this is like a magic trick. This thing is amazing.

Did you get any girls in college? Probably. You're really charismatic.

Did you do well? First base king, baby.

You had a good batting average, but not a lot of home runs.

Got that leadoff, but never got to second. Yeah.

Oh, well, that's good.

The hard part too is my roommate was like, um, just unbelievably good with girls.

And so he's really good looking.

He's a good looking guy.

And he was like, right?

Yeah, Trevor. He's an athlete and he was just like a professional flirt. And so somehow this guy was just pulling crazy people from like You know, you have like an RA who's like the, the person who's like 4 years older that lives in the freshman dorm. He just started dating the RA's girlfriend. And then like, you know, he started dating this girl on the basketball team and started dating like all these seniors, started dating this like one really rich girl who's giving him gifts all the time. I was like, I don't know what's happening here, but like, um, you know, this guy's definitely sucking up all the, the alpha male energy in this room. And, uh, you know, I'm just sort of here along for the ride, but it's okay. It turned out all right.

Uh, well, you know, you worked out all right.

By the way, my dating life was a lot like my startup life. It was basically like fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, home run. It's like, you know, like most people in their career, they sort of get this like 10% raise a year or whatever, where it's like this linear, like steady climb up the ladder. But if you're in the startup world, you're often like making nothing or in debt or broke and all of a sudden for like 7, 8 years, and then all of a sudden you're rich.. And, uh, that's what my dating life was like. I was broke for like 10 years and then all of a sudden I was rich.

100% same. It like, it didn't, it didn't start picking up until my 20s. It was that 100%.

Your 20s? What you trying to get? What were you trying to do in your teens, bro?

I tried, I tried a lot. Trust me, I tried. I just, I looked like Napoleon Dynamite. I, I, with braces, it just didn't work out.

Dude, I didn't talk to a girl. I was sitting there reciting lines from The Rock in WWE when I was in my teens, bro. I was, I was jumping off the top rope in my bedroom trying to, you know, just, I loved wrestling and basketball and stuff. I didn't have time for girls when I was like 15.

It was a numbers game for me. I, I knew like, you know, 3% conversion, therefore, you know, you gotta try 100 times, right? Yeah. You never want war of attrition to describe it. Whatever. I, it worked out. We, we both, it worked out for both of us. Before we get into this, we gotta remind people there is a gentleman's agreement, except this time it's, it's different. So we have this thing at this podcast. Unlike everything on YouTube and on Spotify and all that stuff, our content actually isn't free. You're only getting this episode for free if it's your first one. And if it's your second or third one, you have to go do something for us.

What is it? They, they gotta fire up YouTube, youtube.com, YouTube, the app, whatever it is, and type in My First Million. They're gonna see our pretty little faces right there. You don't even have to watch video. Just click My First Million, click, click subscribe, turn the notifications on. And we need, we need this. This is what we need, right? Everybody's got needs. Food, shelter, YouTube subscribers. These are your core, core primal needs. And we have ours.

And, uh, that's why it's called the Gentleman's Agreement. We're not on the other side, so you just have to do it. And everyone's doing it lately, so you should do it. And that's what we expect out of you. And also do me a huge favor and actually click follow on the podcast app and Spotify, because those help us actually go up the rankings. And then when we go up the rankings, we get more dopamine and we do dumber shit. And that's why we're here. So do that. Um, I have a story for you. So go to jupe.com. So it's J-U-P-E, jupe. So it's jupe.com. It's, they have a slick looking website. So tell me what you see.

I see some sort of like mega tent contraption. I don't know what this is. This is like, uh, some sort of structure. It's like Is this like a, like basically like an outdoor unit that's, uh, not like something more than a tent, but less than a house.

Yeah. I mean, these look super cool and I gotta give credit cuz I see a lot of these like, um, like this kind of like, I forgot what they call ADUs or whatever. It's like this additional dwelling unit or something. Um, and they're often just like vaporware. It's just a render of something that looks sick. And what I really like is if you click their vision tab, it opens up a Notion. It explains what they're doing. And 4 times in this thing, it just says, here's our thing, parentheses, not a render. Here's what it looks like, you know, after it gets delivered. Here's what it looks like the next day. Again, not a render. Like, hey, we actually build the thing. It exists. This is real. This is not like, some futuristic dream. Um, and so I think that's pretty, pretty, pretty amazing. This looks super cool. I don't know why you wouldn't do this just for even like the story.

So, uh, I can, I have an update. So my, I have this property, uh, marathonranch.com and you can see it. It's doing like, uh, anywhere from $13,000 to $17,000 a month in gross revenue. And, um, so it's doing well. I'm like making money on my Airbnb. Finally, I got like, like 40 or something like 5-star reviews on Airbnb. And I finally started going up the rankings and it's been really fun to do. And so I'm not sure, but I have 20 acres, 20 acres of land. I'm not sure if I want to like screw anything up because dude, at my Airbnb, we have like 20 cows. So my neighbor is a cow. Well, that's true. But like people, my neighbor owns these cows and they use our property and in exchange we pay less property tax. Cows and people like wake up to like a mooing cow because they sleep and wake, they sleep at all my property. For some reason they decided that's the bed. And I don't know if I wanna like screw that up. It's like so peaceful going out there. So I don't know if I wanna screw that up by having more units on the property.

But, uh, dude, MarathonRanch.com, your photo here, you chose the wrong photo. You chose like a not awesome looking photo for your hero photo. Then if you click gallery, You all of a sudden see all these awesome photos.

It's a work in progress, my friend. It's a work in progress.

It's a work in progress. It's still in beta.

Yeah. I, it's because one of the pictures, it, you couldn't see the writing anyway. It's a whole thing I gotta fix. But, uh, anyway, it's going well. I, I always, I basically to the listeners, I send Sean updates on my Airbnb and he's like, oh, that's neat. You're making 5%. You're making 5% return. That's, That's really, that's lovely.

What did I tell you? You were like, dude, this is, this is 5% or 7% or 7% a year. This is great. I go, and I told you, I go, I've lost more money in crypto than you'll ever make on your Airbnb. Yeah. Somehow that felt like a good statement to me.

It's been awesome, man. The Airbnb game, it's been fun. It sucked for a minute. And then once I started rolling, it is pretty dope. So maybe one day you'll, you'll be convinced, but right now it's killing it. I don't know if it'll kill it in like June when it's like 100 degrees, but we'll see.

To me, the only reason I would do this is the tax benefits if I bought property. Um, the actual like rental income and/or slow real estate appreciation to me is not worth it, especially given the headache of doing stuff. So you said, let's say—

From a financial investment, it's only been okay, but from a like reward, like it's been quite exciting. What is the margin?

So you say $13K a month, um, gross. Okay. So now we take out what Airbnb, we take out, Property management, we take out utilities, we take out what, what, what, how much, what's the gross on that? So what's that?

Like a, like a record month recently was like $17,000, but let's round down to $15,000. Yeah. Because that's what it's been lately. So that's gross. So I give away, so I own the property outright, but I assume that I have a mortgage. Yeah. So if you assume that I had a mortgage plus utilities and taxes.

Taxes. Yeah.

Yeah. That's nuts. So that means, let's see, uh, we do, we have $15,000, so 20% margins.

Yeah. It's, it's not like, it's not—

can you pay tax on the $15,000?

Well, but I have depreciation, so I'm able to like save a fair bit there. But, um, yeah, like it's a cash on cash return. It's going to end up being like 5 or somewhere between 5 and 8%. But if you assume appreciation, which is a big assumption, but I looked at the trailing 30 years, it'll probably be a 15 to 20%, uh, annual return if I own it for like 10 years. So, but that's a big if. So that cash on cash, it's only okay. It's only okay, but I'm completely hands-off and I also like it. And I, I learned how to do something. So I didn't, I didn't do everything. I didn't do everything right here at all. I, I, I think I paid a premium. I definitely paid a premium for the property.

But I have 20 acres. And so my plan originally, before the markets tanked, I was like, I'll put more— I'll build more crap there. And then when the markets tanked, I got cold feet. And I was like, well, let's just sit on it and just see what happens. And so now I'm just sitting on it and it's going awesome. Like, it's, it's, it's booked constantly. And so I'm happy with it. I don't regret it. I would, I would do it again. And I— but like, I learned it was a lot of money to like, you know, it was 7 figures to like get in the game. And so I was fucking nervous as hell, right? It's worked out and I've learned how to do it. So now I know more about it. So I'm happy.

I can't find this client info.

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All right, let me go. Um, I got two blue-collar hustles for you. So these are in the trash, in the trash biz. So, um, I've heard of two trash businesses recently that I thought were pretty interesting. I wanted to share them with you. I want you to tell me which one you like better. Okay. So the first one, our buddy Cieva told me about this. It's called Smash my trash. Have you ever heard of this? Has he told you about this?

No, but you want to know something funny? I've been very close with Sieva for like 12 years now, and I don't, I still don't know how to say his last name.

Kozinski, right?

Is that not it? I had to like, yeah, I just, he's in my phone book as the very first time I ever met him. I just, he said he was Russian. So he's just saved as Sieva Russia. And so I just assumed he was Sieva Russia. That's just like, I mean, this guy was like in my wedding clothes.

Sí, but tall, handsome, smart.

Yeah. I just call them Adonis.

Yeah. First name and then attributes, like visual attributes that I remember you by.

Six-pack, 6'3".

Got it. Yeah. I have a system and it serves me well. Um, all right. So he was telling me about this franchise called Smash My Trash. And so what they do is they basically imagine a giant crane. And so they drive to any business and like, if you've ever been to like, we had a warehouse. So our warehouse just produces like an ungodly amount of trash, just cardboard.

You don't just burn it.

Yeah.

Just be normal.

It's amazing, but there's a big downside. When was the last time you had a blue collar job? Do you remember? Have you ever had one?

Restaurant? Yeah. When I was restaurant, not 21.

Yeah. What happens at a restaurant when it closes? Do you remember?

Just carnage.

Carnage. Everyone goes and gets super screwed up. They get drunk, you take pills, you get high, you just do all types of shit. And then hopefully they show up the next day. And there's lots of like, I remember I've, you know, I've, I've been a janitor before. I've worked in restaurants, I've done all this stuff. And there was like, particularly in restaurants, there was constant, like, issues with this type of person who works there. And it sounds classist, but it is kind of the facts of my experience. I don't know, what do you think the trash— I guess if a trash person has a job, maybe they get up early. So, and I, when I think of a trash guy, I think more of a family guy.

Yeah, trash, for some reason I trust a trash guy. Like, you know, I feel like a trash guy is reliable, dependable. Salt of the earth, you know, like I feel like it's not the degenerates that you'll get. Like I would rather hire any trash guy than a barista at Starbucks, right? Like I feel like the barista is a flake and we never know what's going to happen.

But well, the worst is, is, is like a bartender or a waiter at a fancy like nighttime restaurant, like a, like a, like a, or like a, like a TGI Fridays. Like, you know what I'm saying?

Like the worst of the worst. There's someone out there right now listening to this that is a waiter at TG Fridays that just slammed their phone in disgust.

Dude, I've worked at all these places. I've worked at all these places. And like, this is probably why I had a little bit of a habit. It's, I don't know, man.

This is the downside of, of, if you have unlimited access to loaded nachos, then something just happens to you.

Yeah. Yeah. Like the Bloomin' Onion. It's like, it's like, it's like the full moon. You know what I'm saying? Like I turn into a werewolf. And if I, if I get that every night, You know, like, it's bad. I turned into like a Guns N' Roses afterparty. Like, I'm going wild. I'm throwing furniture out the window. So, ah, yeah, is this cool?

Yes.

I think there's a lot of headache, and I would be curious. We have a good friend, or I think you're friends with him. His name's Brian. Brian Scootamore, or Scootamore. He owns—

sounds like a good friend.

Another guy, another last name guy. Yeah, yeah. And no, not trash.

Junk. 1-800-GOT-JUNK. And Brian has been on the pod and he— I don't know if maybe I could say this, but the company's 100% bootstrapped. Revenue— this is public revenue, I think, is in the $300 to $350 million a year range. He owns 100% of it. He parlayed that. Now they own like a painting business and they do all these like services. I would be curious what he would have to say is like his trash guys, like, or his franchisees are like degenerates or not. And like, what's the headache with those type of people? We should definitely ask ask him.

You can even— that's like a horrible idea.

So hold on, hold on, hold on. He goes, um, he goes, we're gonna, we're gonna like basically leave little flyer brochures on top of everyone's bin. So when they take out the trash, they're going to see that, you know, this trash can is dirty. We clean them out. We leave your trash can so clean you could eat cereal from it. And he's like, that would be my— he's like, my— I put a spoon in it, be like, you're so clean. You could eat cereal out of this. Um, so he is like, that's what I would do for my marketing. He goes, I think one truck can do about 100 to 200 homes a day. It's a few thousand dollars a day per truck in revenue. Um, you'll use that to finance the second truck. Your costs are gas, water, maintenance, some chemicals, assuming you're the one doing the truck. And he is basically like, this is a blue collar side hustle. If somebody wants to themselves get out there and get to that $10K a month of, of, of income, uh, that they may not be able to get outta their job. This is, this is his idea. So he goes, what do you think, fella? So Sam, you said it's a horrible idea. Tell me why.

Uh, okay. So completely uneducated here. So, uh, two doubts. Uh, I don't think that you can do, I, I don't think that that many people would want this. And number two, 100 to 200 a day. That's so many. That is so many. I would, how much it would take? 20 minutes to drive somewhere. I don't want— that math is wild to me. Yeah.

You, you basically have to get to a like dense area and then, and then do a route, but that would kind of assume that they're all your customers, which they're not going to all be your customers at the start.

Did he call us out and say, what do we think?

No, but, oh, you know, he listens to the pod. So, uh, and by the way, there's two people, there's two people in the comments here. One, sparkling bins business. They make the trucks. So there's a woman in the comments goes, it's a fantastic business. We've been, we manufacture the trucks. It's been going great since 2020. And then another guy goes, um, yeah, I do this. Mine's called Bin Busters. I'm 2 years in. It's going great. Okay.

Well, I mean, what the hell do I know?

And by the way, that guy, his bio says living the American dream.

Yeah. Not someone's dream. A dream. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. A dream. Living an American's dream.

Yeah. Yeah. One person's.

Good.

Good for him. He's— this is their dream and they're pulling it off. I don't know, man. I'm out. I'm out on this one. I don't want to do this.

It was like, start a newsletter.

Yeah. Start a newsletter, dude. I've— people make fun of me because I bring this up so much. I had hot dog stands, whatever. But I used to work with my hands outside. It's so hard, man.

It is so hard. By the way, you said you were a janitor. When were you a janitor?

Uh, when I was in 8th grade, I worked at a bakery and it was my job to like mop the floors, take out the trash, clean the dishes. And so that was like my first job, $6 an hour. And then, uh, yeah, that's what I did.

Dude, I am so mad at my parents for never giving me my, my, my grind story. Like, can I brother get a little hardship? Yeah.

Like, yeah. You ain't gangster at all, dude.

Throw me in, in uncle's store for a month and just, just give me that story, $5 an hour and I had to enter, empty the trash. Like nobody knows how long I did it. Like I got nothing, dude.

I grew up, dude, a lot of Asian parents don't want you to do that. They say, do your homework.

My hand's got no calluses.

Yeah.

And my kids, I'm gonna give 'em one hustle story. You know, they're gonna have some very token small hardship that will sound good later when they make it because you need that story. And I, I just don't have it.

A lot of my Indian friends, which I have a ton, they, their parents were like, You don't even clean your room. Just do your homework.

Just study.

Is that what they said to you? Like, like, don't cook, don't clean, just study.

Well, they didn't say it like that, but, uh, I wasn't asking to cook or clean. So, you know, it just never came up and they were like, yeah, your, your job is to study and do good in school so you can get like a good job. Don't go be a janitor.

And I was like, I did it all, man. I did the janitor stuff. I was a waiter. I was a busboy. I was a valet. Driver. I did it all, man. I, and, uh, I'm happy I did it, but, uh, I don't want to do it anymore. Oh, and by the way, I need to redeem myself. I made fun of like the, someone the other day said the retail class. So this is like the, the blue collar class. But, uh, I read this, there was this funny article on Business Insider. It had the worst but hilarious title and it was, I'm a millennial manager who works with Gen Z. And then it said like colon, but Gen Z workers, they have a lot of feelings. And so look, you're either gonna like, somebody either you're gonna have drug issues working with one group of people or you're just gonna have to talk forever about like bringing your whole self to work and all that nonsense. So like we all have our faults, we're all screwed. You know what I'm saying? I hate when people say bring your whole self to work. I'm okay with you just bringing your work self to work. That's cool too. You don't have to be— I prefer that. Yeah, I prefer that. If you wanna bring, a little bit more of yourself. We could talk about that too, but like, you don't have— it's not mandatory. You don't have to bring your whole self. Right. I'm okay with just your work self. So we all— every, every, every class and every generation has issues. So I don't mean to throw shade just at one.

Um, we throw shade at all here. We're an equal opportunity shade thrower.

Yeah. We're all screwed up. I hit my dad.

Sam hit the trash man. Who else did we get? Who else caught a stray today?

I'll make fun of myself. Someone made fun of me the other day because I've got these surgeries on my ear. I was talking about my ear and my glasses. Glasses sit funny. I don't know if you notice, my glasses sit crooked because like it's my ear. And someone said, uh, looks like Sam got brain— Sam got head surgery, didn't pay for him to put the rest of it back in because his glasses are sitting. And I was like, yeah, that's kind of true. Yeah, yeah, you're kind of there. Um, dude, I told you the other day, I want to tell you about a media company that most people have no idea about, but they kind of killed it and I love it. So I told you the other day about about Parcast. I tell you about Parcast.

Yeah, yeah. This was the, uh, podcast network that was doing true crime stuff.

We should just make up fake true crime shows like Stabbed But Not Dead Yet.

Yeah, The Black Eye. Yeah, just, just like Stories of people just got kind of hurt.

Was it really an accident? Yeah.

Spit on by a homeless guy. Stories of NYC.

Exactly. Not injured, but it was gross.

Yeah. Barely assault.

Uh, you hurt my feelings.

True crime thrills, dude. And, but like, this is the reason why I like this is It's not like, uh, it's like, they're just like, you know how we were talking about like people who do things beautifully done, like, you know, uh, This American Life and it's like thoughtful. It's like thoughtful. Like today on This American Life, we're going to talk about like the opioid crisis and they like go out and interview people. This is not that. It's just someone who read a book, summarized it, and then is reading it. And they pump out like literally one a day and they have like, uh, you know, 40 shows and now 40 shows now. And it's just a volume play. And this guy was like, Dude, this true crime shit to their audience is 75% women and then me. And they're, they're like their audience. Like, it's crack. It's crack to me. I cannot stop listening to this shit. And it's the same thing every single day. You know, it's kind of like Family Guy, you know, Family Guy. They've been doing it for like 25 years now. It's the same shit all the time. It works every time. I'm going to watch it every single time. It's just like that. It's the same shtick over and over and over again. And they were acquired it was— they were acquired for something like $53 million or $54 million in cash and then like another $50 million in earnout. But pretty fascinating that this guy bootstrapped this and they're not popular on social. 20,000 followers Twitter, 36 on Facebook, 50,000 on Instagram. They just dominated like people searching for their— their one podcast is called Serial Killers. That's all it's called. And they just like dominate when people search these. So it's like long tail. It's like, what's the— what's, what's SEO for podcasts? PEO? I don't know. Uh, and they just crushed it. Really fascinating business. And I, and I brought that up, so I, I needed, I hadn't done the proper research. I, I needed to kind of close that loop.

You know, there's a, we had talked about the beautifully done, like, you know, just X, but beautifully done. There's another version of that that we haven't talked about. And, uh, I don't know about, I don't know about you, but like when I was growing up, like if I had like a plate of food and it's like, let's say it's, I had a bunch of veggies, I had a broccoli, a Brussels sprout, something like that. I didn't really want it. I was kind of like tired of eating it, but it's still there. And I know I should eat it. Me and my sister used to have this thing where if one of us was like in that spot where we wanted it, we know we should do this, but oh God, just the idea of sitting here for another 20 minutes, just spoon after spoon of this, I just can't bring myself to do it. One of us would look at the other and just say, savage it. Just savage it. And savage it means you start to eat just like an absolute animal. And you, in like 30 seconds, you just basically, it's like chugging for food. And so, um, we used to say that and they would be like, all right, we gotta savage it. And we would just quickly down the whole thing. Now there's a version of that for businesses. That's kind of what you described here was this guy was like, oh, okay, people like this true crime audio.

I'm pumping this out.

They're like, and that works more.

What's the theoretical limit of this?

And that works more. I remember when I lived in San Francisco, when I started The Hustle, I was like, originally I was like, let's just pump out blog posts. And people were like, well, what about quality over quantity? And I was like, dude, did you bring yourself to work again?

Yeah.

Steve, I was like, dude, I, I, well, I was, I would always turn on, I go, no, our quality is quantity, right? Like we are not, we are not an article business. We are a, How many, how, how can these operations be where we pump out lots of articles? That's the product we're building.

You're not a journalist, you're a blogger.

Go, go blog. It was like, and then another, I, that was always one where I'd be like, people are always like quality versus quantity. And I'm like, uh, you need both. Or if I wanted to play with their heads, I'd be like, no, the quality is the quantity. Another thing where people would say is like, uh, well, it's a marathon, not a sprint. And that was like a, a, a reason for them to slack. And I'm like, Yeah, but have you ever ran a marathon at world record pace? It's gonna feel like a sprint. So like, you know, it feels pretty fast when you're running real, like top marathoners, we're running fast. So it's gonna feel like a sprint. Uh, but yeah, this guy's a quantity over quality guy and I love it.

I love it. Exactly. Okay. I think we should, uh, we should wrap it here. That's the pod.