How Dave Ramsey Built His $300M Empire, Trademarkia, And MFM Rip-Offs
Dave's back and Dave's back in a big way.
In a big way.
All right, we're live. All right.
So what do you wanna talk about today?
I've got a bunch of good topics. Let me bring up one juicy one. Last year or 2 years ago, you asked me a question. You're like, who do you admire? I think you asked me that. And I said, this guy named Laird Hamilton. Laird Hamilton is this like beautiful surfer dude. He's like in his 50s now, basically. He's beautiful. Like, we gotta acknowledge that. He's got like beautiful wavy blonde hair and like nice skin and he's pretty ripped for his age and he always was ripped. He's like this tough guy that surfs big waves and whatever. He launched this thing called, what are you gonna make fun of me? 'Cause I'm dreaming about this guy?
I don't even need to make a joke. You've done it all yourself here.
He's a kendo. Like, this is like objective. Like, I'm just stating facts here. He's a human kendo. He launched this thing called Layered Superfoods. Have you heard of that? It's like a coffee creamer that's made out of like Coconut, I think, right? Anyway, I— they took the company public. I don't know why they did that, but they took it public at a $300 or $400 million market cap at the time. They were doing $50 million in revenue. Look up the company now. Can you look— can you go and look up the— do you know what their market cap is today?
Let me find it.
I know what it was yesterday. I don't know what it is today.
Well, why would it be so different? Oh, wow. $9 million.
$9 million. So this company, uh, I, if you click, uh, I have a bunch of notes here. You can click 'em and read 'em. But basically this company, they sell like a fair amount of like coffee creamer. So yesterday I think it was $8.8 million, dude. So listen, they have $20 million in cash, no debt at all. Their revenue is decreasing. So it like in Q3 it was $8.8 million. Q3 of last year was $10.9 million. So what's that like? A, like a, like a 4 times 8. So it's a $48 million or $50 million a year business, but it's declining. They're, they have good, decent gross profit. They have an okay balance sheet, but like the business, for some reason it's valued so low. I, I'd have to dive deep into it and really look at the numbers, but it's kind of ridiculous, right? So you were talking about wanting to buy a company. You've said this before. This is your target, dude. You get to hang out with Laird Hamilton.
Sounds like it's your target, dude. That sounds like this is like, you know, those things where it's like, we're auctioning off a date with Laird Hamilton.
It's like a hug.
Why don't you buy this? Yeah, you just bought yourself a $9 million hug, dude.
Why is this— why is this company— you haven't looked at this, but why is this company so cheap? No, I don't know.
I don't know how much debt they have, but none.
I said that. So I read their report. They had their Q3 report. I never understood that. $21 million in cash, zero debt, zero debt.
Or sell the inventory. They have like $13 million or something in inventory.
Okay. Uh, interesting. So yeah, so I haven't, I mean, I haven't looked at this cuz you just mentioned it, but, um, but yeah, there's a bunch of these right now that are like this. Uh, there was one the other day that I, that I saw that was kind of in the same, same bucket, but there's a bunch of stocks that are down like 95% right now that seem like, you know, interesting takeover targets. And, uh, we have a friend who was interested in doing this and so I, you made a list of like 10. I was like, here's 10 that I think you could buy.
Uh, is this friend aggressive?
It's an aggressive friend.
Got it. I know who you— okay. I know which friend that is.
How tight is that, by the way, just to be able to say this is an aggressive friend and you're like, yeah, I know who it is.
Does this friend— would this friend say to a, a, a budding entrepreneur, your business is one Google away from me ruining you?
No, I don't think so, but maybe they usually don't say things to their, to their faces like that. They, uh, they're more just like an under, under, like, you know, those sharks that swim only under the water. They don't put the fin out. He's more like that.
Got it.
Okay. But like wish.com was the, was the other example that, that I had recently seen that was like this, which is, uh, Wish, you know, pretty big brand name because they spent billions of dollars marketing this thing.
$10 billion market cap at one point.
Now $360 million. So $10 billion to $360 million, has $700 million in cash with no liabilities. You know, so, so I don't know exactly, you know, I don't think— I don't know exactly how you can buy these things. I think that's the challenge is like to actually acquire the majority. In doing so, you would push the price up because people would know what you're doing. So I think you'd have to make like a tender offer at a specific price that's like, you know, whatever, whatever, you know, some something above. But, you know, the board will just reject it. They'll say we have more cash than that on the balance sheet, so we don't need to sell at this price. So I don't know exactly mechanically how somebody does this. I don't know if this is like, you know, fantasy math where you're like, dude, what if Shaq was in the, you know, the 100-meter race? He could just knock people over. It's like, dude, that's not— it doesn't make sense. It's not how things work in the real world. So, you know, this idea of like public company takeovers is not something that I understand, you know.
Is that like a drunken conversation you've had, which is, can Shaq win the 100-meter dash?
You know, the one thing about this podcast is the number of on-the-fly analogies you have to create. It just really brings— it's a, that's a different skill. That's a different muscle. And, uh, yeah, that muscle's not, not so strong yet. Still working on it.
So anyway, Laird Superfood, interesting company that I was, that I was eyeing. Laird, maybe a little less hot in my book now because this company is worth only $8 million as opposed to $300. Now he's just a really hot fit guy. Before he was hot fit and rich.
So he lost the third leg of the stool.
Yeah. He's still famous and famous trumps wealth in most cases, in most people's eyes. But anyway.
All right. Well, let me tell you, let me tell you about somebody who is rich and somebody who is famous, but he's not hot. Oof. Can I tell you who this is? Okay. Are you familiar with Dave Ramsey?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Very. Tell me what you know about Dave Ramsey and I'm going to fill in some gaps for you.
So Dave, uh, he's like a personal finance guru. He's based out of Franklin, Tennessee. He's in his 70s probably now. He started as a radio host where it was just like Dave Ramsey, like, show. And then he parlayed that into like the Dave Ramsey Network. So now he has like 400 or 500 employees based out of Franklin, Tennessee, and they do like 400 or 500 million a year in revenue where they sell like personal finance stuff. A lot of his— I think he's pretty controversial because a lot of his like rules, his— a lot of his personal finance rules are based in like biblical like rules. He also believes in like zero debt and he, um, he's pretty conservative. So people who aren't conservative aren't into him.
Okay. Well, you do a lot more than I would have guessed. So I guess the segment's over. Franklin, Tennessee. How do you know this stuff? What's going on here?
He also bought all of his buildings without any debt, so he owns like a campus in Franklin, Tennessee.
Yeah, yeah. So I didn't know all this.
Did I?
I don't know. You know, well, you spitted my food, but all right, I'm still hungry, so let's go. Um, so Dave, he's 62 years old. Uh, he was a realtor turned radio host, and yeah, he's from Tennessee. Uh, so basically what happened is by By his mid-20s, this is like back in the '80s.
So back in the day, you didn't know who Dolly Parton was and she's also a Tennessee person.
So like, yeah, I guess I, lesson learned. I'm not coming at you with any Tennessee trivia anymore. You're a ringer for that stuff. So by his mid-20s, he's got like a $4 million property portfolio, real estate portfolio, and it's kicking off some cash, maybe like 5% a year cash on cash return. So he's making $250K a year off his real estate portfolio at that stage. Um, at this time, 1988, so the, you know, the year I'm born, his bank basically revokes his line of credit and, um, demands that he pays it back. And he couldn't sell fast enough, so he gets foreclosed on and declares bankruptcy. This is like the trauma of why he's like, um, don't use debt. No debt. He's like, debt bad, debt bad. Why? Because I burned my hand on the debt show before this. And so he's like, he's got no money now. He's, you know, uh, his marriage is on the rocks. He says he's, you know, considering committing suicide. Uh, but you know, he gets back on his feet. So this is kind of like his story. So anyways, today, fast forward to today, Dave's back and Dave's back in a big way. In a big way. Here's some things that Dave has said. He says he has a $600 million real estate portfolio that is fully paid off. So $600 million of real estate equity that he, that he owns. That's kind of insane. His media empire, which is like, you know, the combination of his radio shows and then all of the financial like courses, training, seminars, all that stuff that they do outside of that, he says on their website makes $300 million a year in revenue.
I believe it, which is absurd. I don't know any people that go to that.
What's that? No, I don't know anybody that goes.
So, dude, in the South it's a thing. So I had Texas employees and like, if you're just like a normal couple where each employee makes, or each wife and husband makes like 60 or 70 grand a year, you'll like pay to go to like a Dave Ramsey. Like he trains these financial advisors and they host seminars and you'll go to this like 5-day weeknights thing where it's like instead of Bible study, it's like we teach you how to like save and like invest.
I guess it's like Jesus on the front and a P&L on the back. It's like this new remix Bible. I love it. And so his company, his company Ramsey Solutions is just absolute juggernaut. It's insane. So, so, okay, let's break down the media side. So he launches this thing in 1992 and basically he's done content for 30 years about the same 7 steps. It's like this guy's just been talking about the same thing. I don't know how he fills like hours. I've never listened to it to like a full thing, but I don't know. He feels like 4 hours a day of radio.
It's a good show.
Just saying the same thing every time, like, oh, uh, you got debt, pay that off. Right? So he's got these 7 tenets. So here's his 7 tenets. All right. Uh, number 1, you establish an emergency fund of $1,000. That's your first baby step to financial freedom and Jesus bliss. Second one, you want to pay off all your non-housing debts ASAP, starting with the smallest one. So he calls this a snowball. So don't pay off like the highest rate interest, just pay off the smallest thing you can just to get momentum. All right. I like that. Then you increase your emergency fund to 3 to 6 months of income. Then you put 15% into a 401k or IRA. Then you start your 529 plans or whatever, like the college funds. Uh, you pay off your mortgage and then you, now you're fully paid off. You got your, you got your safety net. Now you start to build wealth. And so that's his, like, those are his 7 steps. His company, Ramsey Solutions, is a Biblically based, common sense financial education media company. Not going to lie, that's a bar.
That's a bar.
Absolute bar. You know, like, you know, I was like, hey, YouTube editor, play that clip of like, you know, Jay-Z, the first time he hears like the intro to like, you know, Timbaland's playing him a beat and he's like, ooh, that's nice. That's how I feel when I hear the biblically based Common Sense Financial Education Media Company. So that's amazing. Then he's got— you said you talked about this, like, uh, Nat, like his Tennessee, like, empire. He's got, he's got 1,000 employees working there. He owns all the real estate. So he's got, uh, he owns— I don't know if this is correct. The researcher might've just gone off the rails, dude.
He owns a lot. He owns a lot.
He owns 2 office towers that are 200 million square feet. That sounds absurd.
I don't know. That's, I don't, that's too much.
Not real. Um, you know, we got to get the researcher, you know, stop drinking your product that you were selling from college.
Yeah, strike one.
Um, but he's got basically like, you know, a 50,000 square foot event center. He's got 60 acres of just like property land that he bought for $10 million. So owns a bunch of land, uses that land to run his kind of like, you know, you know, common sense biblical financial empire out in Tennessee. He's doing his show for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. People call in and they're basically like, all right, Dave, Longtime listener, first-time caller. And there's part of it that's sort of like My First Million. I actually think we should steal his shtick, which is he goes like, they'll call in, they'll be like, I'm worth $4 million. And be like, how old are you? They'll be like, I'm 32 years old. He'll be like, fantastic. $34 million. He's writing notes this whole time. And then he'll be like, how much debt? And they'll be like, yeah, I got my mortgage, $800,000. And you could just hear him like just hit some with a little tsk. It's like, dad's disappointed in me. And then he'll be like, you know, I'm making this much a year. I put this much away and blah, blah, blah. And then he gives them financial advice, which is kind of the same financial advice every single time. But somehow people like get really into this, uh, this thing. And then the other things he does, which are just these hilarious segments that he has. Uh, so he's got Everyday Millionaires. So somebody calls in, he interviews somebody that's, that's worth a million dollars, but then he has And this is good. The debt-free scream. Have you seen this before?
Well, I, I used to think that it was like the equivalent of ringing a bell. Like, yeah, he had like a, he had a thing where people would call in and be like, I finally paid off my debt. And they like celebrate it.
They celebrate it with the debt-free scream. I think there's things we could learn from this guy. I think we should steal some of this guy's shtick. Um, and, uh, and so he's, he's, he's really got something going here anyway.
So you wait, you've never heard of him?
No, no, I've heard of him. I didn't realize how rich he was. I just thought he was like someone's dad that gives basic financial advice because he's got the dad vibe.
He's got the vibe of someone who calls diabetes diabetes. Like, that's what the, you know what I mean? Like, like the thing above your head is definitely a roof to him, not a roof. Uh, he's got that type of 100% on the diabetes thing.
Yeah.
So good.
And the podcast is too good. I need to now laugh for 30 minutes. I don't want to do the rest of the That's, that's his vibe.
He's a little judgmental too. And he's like, uh, this is the only way.
Yeah. He's got his opinionated. I mean, he's Dr. Phil for money. He's exactly, you know, he, he's got his thing, which is like, this is how you do things.
And he's like a guy with a big belly who wears suspenders vibe. You know what I'm talking about? Like, like that, like that type of vibe. So he's not wrong. It just sometimes his energy I think is a little bit judgmental.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah, exactly. Okay. I'm, I was gonna make a bunch of jokes about his look, but I decided to, uh, to turn the other cheek or whatever he would want me to do. So his show is like nationally syndicated on radio, which I think is like the hack. So 20 million people a week apparently listen to this. I don't know how they— it's huge.
But like, when I used to drive, I would listen to it all the time.
Yeah, of course you did. Of course you're his target market. Um, so, you know, he's basically carried by like 600 radio affiliates. I think that's amazing. So he's got his books, he's got 23 bestselling books. I don't know what that even means. Um, that's like their, that's their, what do you think that means? That's their personality. So he's got like his daughter does it now and he's got these other people like Ken and Dr. John and like all these other people that he's created as other, other kind of personalities or brands and they're called the Ramsey personalities. Um, so he's, he's got them in anyways, live speaking courses. They got an app, they have, you know, all kinds of stuff. It's kind of crazy. So let me give you some of his, some of his tweets. Uh, some of his tweets or quotes I want you to. React to them with a hallelujah or a no, brother, not for me. All right, so the first one: if you're working and paying off debt, the only time you should see the inside of a restaurant is if you're working there.
Yeah, hallelujah. I'll give you that.
A half-hearted hallelujah.
That's fine.
If you come to work late and they're paying you, you're stealing. Don't steal and expect to be promoted.
Hallelujah.
I'm a capitalist pig. There's nothing socialist about me. I'd put my receptionist on straight commission if I could figure out a way.
100%. Hallelujah.
Love that one. All right, Dave, now you're talking my style. All right, here we go. If somebody calls in and they got more debt than their annual income, he'll say, that's a small shovel and a big hole.
I love that. Love that, Dave. Dave.
All right, fantastic. Okay, then he also says, he quotes, he quotes Proverbs 22:7 and states, the rich rule over the poor and the borrower is a slave to the lender.
No, I think that that's wrong. I think that you can use debt like effectively to help you.
Sure. Carries a gun. The guy's, guy's, guy's awesome. Guy's awesome. And I did not— he carries a gun, carries a gun, carries a .45 with hollow point bullets according to himself.
You know what a 45 is? That's a pretty big round.
Yeah, that's the biggest round I know of.
That's a big round. Yeah.
So anyways, fascinating guy in his 60s that I could not believe his empire generates this much cash. $300 million a year is a pretty absurd number for this dude.
And he's been doing that for decades.
It just shows you how big the Tony Robbins empire must be. Tony Robbins says this thing during his things. He goes, my businesses bring in over $500 million a year. Um, but I didn't know what that means because like, it's like when an ad agency guy's like, oh, I've spent over $100 million, you know, uh, you know, 100— we've— I've generated over $100 million in revenue. It's like, no dude, you took a— the company gave you a budget, you push spend at the average normal rate, um, and you've done this for 10 years and you added up their total revenue number. Like, that's, that's not you. Um, or like, you know, A lot of people will say they own $100 million of real estate with— and like, okay, cool, you know, so what's your equity in that? And they're like, well, it's 80% bank loan, so the bank owns 80% of it. And then, uh, of the 20% down, I syndicated that out, and so I got a 3% broker commission on it, and I own 2% of the, of the property. It's like, okay, let's be a little more real about it. So to me, it was pretty stunning to hear that he's got a $600 million fully paid off real estate portfolio and a $300 million a year business empire. If those numbers are to be believed. I could also see this being totally full of shit, by the way.
No, no, no, no, no, no. It's not full of shit. It's definitely not full of shit. I don't have any way to verify it, but I know his reach and I know that that is very attainable.
Antigod?
Dude, did you just read a book on words Christians say?
No, dude, it's the flooding. I just have a little special something in me today. Either I'm going to get canceled or I'm going to get a good laugh out of you. And that is worth the risk to me.
Have you been south of the Mason-Dixon line, man? Have you like been in the Midwest?
What is the Mason-Dixon line?
I don't think my skin color is allowed south of the Mason-Dixon line. I don't know what that is.
Have you hung out in like Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas, Alabama? You've never hung out in any of these places, have you?
Hung out? Is there something to do there?
Have you ever even been?
I drove through. When I came to California, I had to— step through the mud of the Midwest to get here.
Dude, you gotta go, man.
You're so untouched. I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, all jokes aside. So, you know, I got my Southern street cred.
Dude, that's like, that's like saying you—
My Southern birth certificate.
Just because you've been to the airport don't mean you've been there. That's like with this type of thing. You gotta get out, man. Even just go to like, this sounds very asshole.
Get out is right. If you're in Tennessee, you do gotta get out. Dude, just go. That's exactly.
You're, go drive an hour and a half north and go to a Walmart and just chill. And just watch what people purchase and watch what they buy. You gotta get outta your little San Francisco bubble, my man. You gotta get out and see like there's 350 million people in America.
This is, uh, I can tell you a funny story. Yesterday I went to go, I left my house for a meeting, so I go meet somebody very interesting. I might tell you about this later, uh, in the pod. So I go meet somebody very interesting and who, um, I, I'm deciding if I wanna save it to do a bigger thing or he's gonna come on as a guest or maybe I'll tell you about it. I, I haven't decided yet.
So do I know them?
No, uh, I don't think— because they're, they're not in your world, right? Like, you know about Dolly Parton, you don't know about, like, you know, the NBA, uh, you know, so it's like a different, different—
yeah, not a big baseball guy.
So, uh, uh, brought my, uh, my wife and kids came with me. It was like kind of, kind of a long drive. I was like, oh, why don't we all drive down there together? Uh, you know, nanny's out sick, just drive down together. We'll go to McDonald's afterwards that my kids love, like getting a Happy Meal toy. So it's like, we'll do that. There's none around us, we'll go, go out there. So we go to this McDonald's kind of out in the, you know, I've driven an hour away. We're going to this McDonald's out there and there's a— so I'm, I'm like waiting in what I think is the line, but you know, McDonald's is kind of ambiguous with the line. There's not like—
they don't have like the airport order at the checkout or you have the self-checkout too.
No, there will— there's like self-checkouts like to the left and the right. Then there's like the cashier in the front. Then there's some people just waiting for their order. You don't know if they're in line or not. Like you don't know what's going on.. And so there's a guy in front of me and, uh, the cashier's just like waiting. And I was like, I was like, oh, uh, you can go. She's ready. And then the cashier just goes, he doesn't have money. I like peek my head in front of like, oh yeah, sure enough, this guy doesn't have money. And I was like, I thought it was such a funny thing for the lady to say, no, he doesn't have money. Like, that's so funny to me. Like so outrageous of a comment. Like, why did she have to say it like that? But it was like the most direct line to the answer. Like, not like, no, you can go ahead. He's not, he's not ready. Or he's not ordering. He doesn't have money. Wow. Judging the book by its cover. And he didn't even, he just kept standing there just hoping that he could, I don't know, take someone's food that didn't show up or something. I don't know what he was doing.
I was in the bathroom at the airport recently and there was like a, there was like a line for the urinal, but there was also like a line for the stalls. And the guy walks up to me and he looks at the stall and he looks at me and he goes, you wait to poop?
Yeah, dude, people say the weirdest shit, man. And then you have to answer too, right? Like, you can't not answer at that at that point. Oh my God. Why am I, why am I paying it, playing into this?
It was just a dead face. It's just looking at it. He goes, you went to poop? And I was like a 12-year-old. I don't know why I thought that was so funny. Oh my God. I have another business. You wanna talk about business or no?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Of course. We're idiots. By the way, if you're listening in Austin, Um, we're doing an event. Well, actually we're doing two events. I think the second one's not confirmed. The second one is Sean and I doing a live pod late April. We're going to have more on that, right?
Bro, that's, it's confirmed. We're doing it. We just don't know the venue yet.
We don't know the venue yet.
We need to know, is it going to be 300 people, 1,000 people, or 3,000 people? That's, that's kind of the only thing that, that we're missing here is how many of you will show up to this live show in Austin where we can, we're going to, we're going to put on a little show. We're going to meet and greet, have some fun. Maybe do a little private dinner, uh, with some people afterwards. So, so I think we should, we're gonna do that end of April. Where do they go to like sign up for that? We'll put the link in the description here.
Yeah. And then go to, what, what's our website called? Mfmpod.com.
Mfmpod.com, which is like myfirstmillionpod.com.
And then we're, we're doing another one. This one is not a we, this is a me. Sean's not coming to this one. It's just a casual hangout session. We're doing that. Uh, mid— when is, when is that? Oh, in a week, mid-March. Is it March 15th? So Wednesday, March 15th, it's free. You can just show up and we're just gonna hang out and you can find that also on mfmpod.com or by the time this episode airs, I will have tweeted it. So you can go to my, uh, Twitter handle, @TheSamParr and see it.
Sam, I'm in a great mood. Can I tell you why? Yes. I did something that I forgot is an amazing tactic and technique. So I'm gonna say it out loud here so other people could do it, but also it's a reminder to myself to do it. Have you ever heard of something called flooding?
No. Is that when you text someone a lot of— no, I have no idea.
It could be a lot of things. Don't Urban Dictionary. It's probably something weird. But, uh, here's, here's how I learned about it. Uh, Tony Robbins talked about this thing. So he goes, somebody asked him, they go, what's a, like, you know, marriage, like advice or a thing you do in your marriage that like, you know, uh, makes it better. And he, he basically had like two stories that I, I really loved. I'll skip the first one for now. I've told it. I teach it in my course, but I'll skip that one for now. The second one that he had said was, he goes, about once a month we'll do something called flooding, which is basically us, we sit down on the couch, you know, like we're about to watch Netflix or something else. But instead of just mindlessly vegging out to some TV, we watch videos or photos, uh, we go of some part of our past, some era of our past. So maybe like this vacation that we went on or our wedding or whatever. And you basically, you'll get this flood of memories and emotion that are linked and anchored to those moments. Uh, but most people don't like revisit it in a kind of like in, in a, like a spec— like a conscious way or an intentional way like this. And I do this in two ways. Um, one, I'll do it with like life photos or memories, uh, videos or videos or photos. The second one is And this is the one I did before this, which is why I—
Like old blog posts or something?
I will pull up a bunch of videos that were really funny to me back in like the day, back in college, like back when YouTube was like the new shit.
E-bombs World.
And like, you know, things would go viral, but it was like, yeah, E-bombs World, like things would go viral and like everybody knew about that, that video, you know, whatever, that Charlie bit my finger or whatever. But there's this set of videos that were so funny to me and they're not even that fun. Now that I go back and look, it's kind of like an old movie where you're like, Dang, this movie doesn't— it doesn't hold up. It doesn't— it doesn't have the same juice. Like, things are much funnier now. Like, the average TikTok is funnier than the best videos back in like 2006.
Which— which videos did you look at?
Uh, okay, this is gonna sound, uh, dumb, but have you ever seen this video? Uh, you know, 12-year-old boy, uh, disclaimer, here we go. I've ever seen this video of this cop pulling over this guy. He's got his hands above his head.
It's like this. Yeah, yep, yep.
Yeah. Yeah. And he goes, he's patting him down and he goes, he goes, all right, let me just check your pockets. Hold on. Here we go. Up. Hey, what's this? And the guy goes, that's my penis. And he goes, that's your penis. And then he continues on. And this video cracks me up just the way he goes, that's my penis. And the guy goes, that's your penis. And so there's that video, but then there's just a whole bunch of these that were like just goofy videos. A lot of them were like, you know, the news anchors interviewing some, like that kid who like, I like turtles kid or like, The Grape Stomp video, or like whatever. This is a whole bunch of these, and I watched like 6 of them, and they just cracked me up in this like way. It's like, uh, a simpler time.
Yeah, the evolution of dance.
I didn't have a wife and a mortgage, and I didn't have it, you know. It's just literally, that was like— those videos were just— took me back. They just teleported me. And so highly recommend this, this idea of flooding. Uh, you probably have done some version of this on accident, but like Make it a practice. It's pretty awesome and it just puts you in an amazing mood. This data is wrong every freaking time.
I can see the client's whole history, calls, support tickets, emails, and here's a task from 3 days ago I totally missed. HubSpot.
Grow better. So I did it recently. So I'm gonna tell a story that I, you and I were texting about and I can't reveal what I was selling because it was kind of against the law and I didn't know it at the time, but I tweeted out recently— Wait, what's that thing?
Statute of limitations? You're way past that. It's been more than 10 years. Is that a real law?
Or is that just something that you said? That's definitely a legal term.
It's like figure of speech.
Here's what we'll do. We can mention, I'll say it was alcohol. That's all I will say. It was legal alcohol that I was selling. That's all I'm gonna say. I was like, so basically—
Anytime you have to specify it was legal, Probably not a good thing.
So, well, so here's the story. I tweeted out that I think I, it always bothers me when, when people collect domain names. That's a, that's a pet peeve. Cause I, cause I'm saying if you're doing that, you're doing the wrong stuff. Cause people will say, I'm gonna, I've got this great idea. I'm gonna buy a domain name. Or even worse, they'll say, I've got this amazing domain name. I should build something for it. I'm like, dude, don't build something just cause you have a domain name. So anyway, I tweeted out, I'm like, just make money first and just use like a, you know, storename.squarespace.com for like the initial like $100 in sales and then go and get the domain name. Like, and someone's like, you can't do that. And I was like, oh no, I've done it a bunch of times. And like, yeah, well you're doing it because you have a name. I was like, no, I did it actually in college tons and tons of times. In fact, I found this old website that I had and it was, um, alcoholname.wordpress.com.
Right.
And I went and looked at the old stats and it's getting 5,000 views a month still on a wordpress.com free website. And this, it's a store. It's a quote, a store that is a blog post and a click to PayPal. And basically what I did was there was this really unique drink that was sold in Nashville, and for some reason only one or two stores were carrying it. But this particular type of drink was popular across the country. And I thought, well, I should set up an online store to sell this stuff. And I did. And I made friends with the person selling at the, the liquor store, whatever. And I go, hey, I'm gonna sell this for 3x. The markup, but I'll buy a bunch of it from you. So whatever. And I did it and I didn't, I'm an idiot. I didn't realize that like as this thing was growing, I was making like a lot of money and I went and told the legal team at my college. I was like, hey, I think my business is like working really well. Do I need to set up like an LLC or something? And they're like, oh, you're breaking the law. Like you can't, you can't sell this without like a liquor license. I was like, but it's like a collect— basically this thing that I was selling, it was a, it was a very rare whiskey that was in a very particular type of bottle that was like a collector's item. And I thought like, oh, it was just like collector's item. I don't even know if people are gonna drink this thing. So anyway, it was making like $1,000 a day sometimes. And I looked at the old blog post that I was selling this and it was hilarious. And it reminded me like of a simpler time when I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Yeah. And life was good and I was building motorcycles in my living room and it was working out well. So I was like, I was building motorcycles in my living room.
Sleeping on the floor and selling collector's whiskey illegally on the internet.
It was a simpler time.
You know, the American dream. The American dream.
I was one of those kids that had, you probably had this too. I didn't have beer. Like you remember those college kids that would have like beer cases, the cardboard on their walls.
Yeah.
I wasn't that bad, but I did have an American flag. I definitely had the American flag. So I was pretty trashy. But, uh, yeah, I was, so I was looking at my old, like, blog that I used to do and I couldn't even remember the password. And, uh, so I flooded myself a little.
I'm just flooding my pants today.
It's great.
The good thing is, by the way, this whole, if you're not watching on YouTube, you're missing half of it because Sam's wearing a Harvard sweatshirt while we tell these stories.
We just talked about selling illegal whiskey, Wade the Poop. You made a bunch of jokes about the South. This is so stupid. So stupid. Uh, oh my God. Um, all right. I have something for you. So there's this company that's for sale that I came across. So check it out. Go to Chambers.com.
Chambers.
Okay. Yeah. Like that Harry Potter stuff. Chambers.
Chambers and Partners. Is that it?
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Okay, dude, check this out. So this website, they, uh, I think they're mostly in Europe, but they are in America as well, is they put out these rankings once a month or once a quarter, something like that. And they go and they interview lots of, I think they have 200 employees who do this, 200 employees who go out and interview different lawyers. They talk to your past clients and they try to like see which cases you're winning. And it's all done manually. Like there's not like a lot of like tech behind it. And then they create these rankings for like best legal firm or whatever like that. Or like, you know, uh, a good firm for this, good firm for that, like different niches. And then they put out these rankings and if you are a lawyer, you can pay money. And get like a plaque. They'll send you a plaque and then also they'll allow you to use their like thing in the, in the, like when you send an email, it could be like voted a top lawyer by Chambers and you could do, and you could do all that. Dude, this company, they do €44 million or yeah. So, or sorry, £44 million. So what's that in real, real money? That's like £60 million in revenue and then £18 million in profit, and they're selling right now for close to $500 million. It's a crazy company.
You saw this like for sale somewhere?
Uh, just like on a trade magazine for, uh, media companies that I follow. It's like this small thing called Flash and Flames because this, that website, they cover like B2B media stuff. 'Cause I'm like been obsessed with B2B data.
What's the name of the B2B media thing?
FlashandFlames.com. I love it.
Okay.
It's like my favorite site. I didn't even wanna tell people about it.
'Cause I'm like one of those— I like how you tried to just mutter it. That's when you know it's a good one.
It's a good one. Like, I'm a paying subscriber to it, which is like ridiculous. Uh, but dude, these lawyers pay like $1,500 to $4,000 a year. And they said they have like no churn. They're like, we have no insurance from us because these lawyers want it for so much. These lawyers want it for so much. And I, uh, am interested in this. And I found like 8 or 9 other businesses. They call them like data businesses or databases or intelligence businesses. And they're not really much tech, but right now a lot of them are selling for 8 to 10 times revenue. And I found 10 examples of companies that have sold in the 8 to 10 times revenue range for one of these data businesses. It's ridiculous. It's crazy. And this sounds like a scheme because what they do is they rank you and then they go, hey, if you want like to make like a special profile on our website, we'll do that. And it's $4,500 a year. And what we'll do is like once ranked, you could purchase this one-pager where you get a profile on our site. It's almost like a Wikipedia page where they like one of the journalists just writes like 2 paragraphs and it says like, this legal firm is known for X, Y, and Z. And then you could put that if you're a lawyer, you could put that in your email signature and you're allowed to do that. And then people can click and see whatever. It's crazy, man. This is a caper. They're pulling it off. And I, and I love stuff like this. You know, it's like J.D. Power.
We talked about, you know, you know, they're smart. Because their logo is like, it looks like a medallion, like a, like it looks like a special emblem or award. Like it's a C with this, like, I don't know what you call these, but like the petals going around it. Um, put this on the YouTube channel so people could see it, but like a wreath. It's, yeah, it's like a, it's like a wreath around it that like just looks like, you know, what the Olympics in Athens would, would, would award their, uh, the top performers. Right. So like you, you, they're, they're really playing into the whole thing with their brand. Uh, So I think that's pretty cool.
I have a business that's sort of like this and, and their name is Partners. I'm gonna create like something like this. Just, do you know, just Partners, Mayonnaise and Partners, you know, like we'll just do something for the people, you know, we rank, we rank best condiments, Mayonnaise and Partners. I gotta figure this out and we can put this on the logo. But I love these rating businesses. What's the one you have that's similar?
Uh, so I was, I, have you ever done like, like, uh, trademark search yourself?
No, what's that?
Like when you start a business and you wanna look up, uh, is this a good name? What do you do? Do you pay a lawyer and say, hey, could you just tell me if this trademark's available? Do you do that later once you get going a little bit?
I do that later once I get going. Is there, is there an importance to having a trademark?
Yeah, it's very hard to sell a company without a trademark. Did you sell The Hustle without a trademark?
I didn't have a trademark.
But maybe my name, I mean, it was called The Hustle. Maybe it was too broad of a name. You know what I mean?
Well, I don't know. There's probably some troll out there who listened to this being like, hey, hang on, let me go get this guy.
So, um, dude, I'm, I'm past the reps and warranty. Like the escrow has been paid out.
So there's a great, uh, there's a great, story, I think the early episode where Moise came on and told the Native story. So it's like, I don't know, episode 10 of this podcast. Moise tells a story about like when they tried to sell Native, they got in trouble with this. So they go there, they have a deal to sell Native. And as they're doing the diligence or like as they're prepping for the diligence, they're like, shit, we don't have the trademark for Native, Native deodorants. And they're like, okay, well, let's just get it. And they're like, well, you can't get it because somebody else owns it. They're like, what? Who owns Native Deodorant? There's no other Native Deodorant. Look, I have the domain. And they're like, well, no, there's this guy. And I think it was like someone in Palo Alto, if I remember the story correctly. I might be butchering a little bit of this, but somebody in Palo Alto who was like kind of like a patent troll type that owned the name to it and owned a bunch of names like this. And they were like, and he's like, okay, I guess I can go buy it off them because they're not doing anything with it. So he goes to them, tries to buy it for like whatever, $20K. They're like, No. He's like, okay, whatever. Goes up, $200K. No. And the guy wanted millions of dollars for this name because he knows your business is valuable. You need this name. You're going to change your brand name for your consumer package good? That's like, you can't change Doritos to be called Fluffies tomorrow. It doesn't work. You lose a lot of value. And so they were going back and forth. I forgot exactly how he got resolved. I think he ended up buying it for $2 million or something like that.
Or—
Moistid? I think so. Or, um, something else happened where they like threatened to— they were just like, all right, screw you, we're not going to do it at all. And the guy like realized it was like his last ditch effort and like, and they ended up getting it for whatever, some amount. Um, you know, I forgot, I forgot what it was, but they acquired it in the end. But yeah, anyway, so, so I've had this problem with a business of mine, which was that I up— I'm, I'm like you, I'm like, Oh, I don't need a fancy domain. I don't need a fancy name. Let me just start the business and go. And then I start and it goes and it gets popular. And then I'm like, okay, I should probably like incorporate the company and do like payroll and do like all these things that I should, I, you know, I should have been doing in the beginning, but like I didn't want to do all that stuff if there wasn't like a real business here. And so then you try to go back and some things are easier than others to correct going backwards. One of the things that's hard to correct is if you chose a name that wasn't right, you know, you have a problem. And so with one of my businesses, I had done the actual search myself. I should have just paid a lawyer to do it, but I went on the USPTO search website, which I don't know if you've ever gone there, but it's like, you know, imagine like a government, it's like the DMV website. And so you go there, you try to search, and I search for our brand name and nothing came up. But it turns out there's like a fancier way to search where it's like, yeah, that brand name, or like with an S at the end, or like with associated other words that would make it too close.. And I didn't know that. And so I remember being so frustrated with this interface and I was like, somebody should make a, cuz this is a, it's a public database. It's like somebody should just make a more consumer-friendly layer on top. And then I found a business that does this and I got in touch with the guy who, who does this. So there's a business called Trademarkia.com. So it's like trademark with I-A. So Trademarkia.com. If you go to it, all of a sudden it's like, like if you just compare side by side, like in the YouTube chat, you should do this. Like take USPTO. And try to find even where do you go find search for trademarks and then like how that looks versus this where it just says search 11 million trademarks for free, search your thing, example, Mickey Mouse. And it's like you can just type in your brand name. So like if I typed in, you know, The Hustle, uh, I'm going to search for this and it's going to tell me what trademarks exist for this, who owns them.
This company kills it.
What categories are there? Okay. So, so HubSpot, HubSpot owns it now. So it says The Hustle, HubSpot owns it. It's pending and it was filed December 3rd, 2022. When did you sell?
Uh, December 3rd. Uh, when did that— 2 years ago? What would that be?
'21? Yeah. So, okay.
So wow. So they, yeah, I didn't own it.
And they also, it also looks like you abandoned one in 2020. Um, so, you know, somebody did something on your team, maybe tried and didn't get it or whatever. It tells you what class it's in, et cetera, et cetera. So it's a great, great little thing and you could search for associated names or whatever. It's a great website. And so I reached out to the guy who owns it. I was like, dude, this is a— and so I said, trademark is a great idea, brilliant interface, props to you. And he goes, so the guy lives in the Bay Area actually. And he goes, yeah, it's a really cool website. 5 million in ARR, um, and I can't, you know, uh, we never raised VC. 5 million in ARR, it was kind of declining from the peak, but I just came back to the company, we removed the subscription, I got big plans now, you know, I want to talk to you about it. And, um, you know, he's gonna try to bake this like he wants to go for like the billion-dollar outcome. And I was like, dude, I think you have a $5 million a year cash cow, um, that you could probably get to like 8 or 9 with just like some simple tweaks. And like, you know, chill. Like that, that sounds awesome. Um, but, but I thought this was a really cool website. And again, it's just a simple, like these businesses are everywhere, man. These businesses are hidden in plain sight. And in this case, it took a public dataset and just put a much more user-friendly wrapper on top versus what you were talking about with Chambers is they created their own dataset and then have, then they own that proprietary data.
It's called, uh, You know, on, uh, um, who was it? Uh, Anand from CB Insights was on and he was like, no, we just like taking public data that's messy and we just make it a little bit easier to under— yeah, we just make it clean. Um, by the way, My First Million is owned by Advanced Magazine Publishers, which is a big company in New York. And it's an entertainment services, namely an online non-downloadable video series featuring star athletes explaining their life as millionaires. I guess it's that GQ thing, which I, Search or where I see when I search on YouTube. But, uh, anyway, badass.
I love this company. Uh, you want to hear, I'm going to go trademark this before this episode comes out because now somebody's going to go squat on this.
Do you, uh, and, um, a funny story about Native deodorant. I've always remembered the story. I never brought it up to you. So you and I, the Hustle's office and Twitch's office was just a block or like 50 yards from each other. So if you know, there's, there was like turning or whatever you were, and then you were the left. If you go to the right, there was a little cafe that was lovely that I, that I really liked. And I believe Moïse, the, so Native Deodorant is a company called, uh, Native Deodorant. They sell deodorant. It was sold for $100 million in, in cash, and it probably does hundreds of millions now. And it has like a really cute branding. They make shampoo, they make everything. And I remember walking by this lovely cafe and I thought, huh, This cafe is called Native 2, and their logo looks just like Native deodorant. And I realized that Moyes worked nearby. Uh, and so I put kind of 2 and 2 together. So if you Google Native Co SF, you'll see a little, you'll see a little cafe. Uh, you'll see their Yelp page. They've changed their logo to, uh, green, but it used to be yellow or sorry, it used to be blue. The exact same as Native deodorant. And so I have a feeling that he was just thinking of like good branding.
I bought this and I was like, this is— I remember thinking, dude, boys, they're ripping off your brand. Or are you doing it? Exactly. And now it's realized the obvious. He was like, so, all right, I need a name. Looked out the window, saw it. It was like, that's my name and my logo now.
facing is exactly the same.
It's exactly the same, and it used to be blue. It looked like they're— it looks like they're in COVID.
Exactly, like Nivea blue.
It was, it was the same white background with the same blue, and now it's green. It looks like they closed in COVID and they moved to a new location, but that old location that we were at, it was the same logo and it was called Native Co. And I think Native Deodorant was—
Yes, it was. It was the exact same thing. And so he must have been just walking down the street and he goes like, yeah, that's me. That's mine now. You know, it's just like there's that meme on the internet of like a stick figure handing an item to another stick figure saying, hey, I made this. And the second stick figure looks at it, goes, I made this. That's basically what just happened. And I don't think I've ever like said this to him, but I would love to hear what his rebuttal is. But he 100% stole the entire branding, the name, everything from this company. I don't know if stealing is the right word, but kinda.
I mean, that one looks like stealing. It looks like he actually went to— took a screwdriver, took off— took their sign off their office, moved it across the street, and put it on his office. It's the exact logo. I remember seeing that for years and being like, huh? And I just never like put two and two together. I didn't realize he worked there, but I was like, wow, they're really ripping off his branding.
No, that's ca— that cafe has been there for years. I remember walking by it for years.
Well, now they're shut down. That's, that, I mean, this is like everything that's wrong in society. You know, he sells his business for $100 million. Poor cafe, you know, shuts down, you know, you know, sadly during COVID during the pandemic. This is the way the world is going. Dude, have you seen people ripping us off? I don't know if you've seen this, but—
No, but that's cool.
In the next 2 weeks, you're gonna see Twitter threads, LinkedIn, short videos on TikTok, other podcasts. Talking about the exact same stories that we tell here. There's like this group of 10 people that just take our content and then they just say the exact same thing. They just tell that exact same story. They're going to be like, dude, Dave Ramsey, Dave, how Dave Ramsey built a $600 million empire, animation, this, that. And then they're just going to like literally steal our shtick. It's kind of annoying. I get it.
Michael from Our Future has done it a few times.
Yeah, they do. Yeah. He's one of the 10 that does this all the time.
Who are the other 9?
Uh, I mean, I don't even really want to give them shine of, of doing that. Yeah, this is literally, if you're one of those people, just, you know, this is, have your own silent embarrassment. There's nothing wrong with sort of like taking ideas and remixing them. Uh, but what most people do is they just take the same idea. They just tell the same story, uh, the same way that we already told it in their own Twitter thread or their own LinkedIn and, and whatever else. Um, which is fine, but like give credit at least if you're gonna, if you're gonna say the same thing, be like, oh, I was listening to My First Million. And they told this great story. Check it out. Right? Now, yeah, that, that's, I think, a slightly better way to do it. Um, but you know, whatever it is, whatever.
But this is why, so I have a new project. I'm actually gonna announce it in about a month or 3 weeks. This is why I didn't announce it. I've been working on this for almost a year now. I didn't wanna announce it. Copycats. Everyone, everyone talks about build in public. I hate building in public. Building in public is not cool when you're popular. Building in public's really cool when you want to get popular. Yeah, exactly. But once you already have a following, I don't wanna do it. Like the Milk Road. Did you guys have a bunch of copycats?
Yeah, yeah, tons. There's like, there's tons of embarrassing ones that are out there. There's like people that literally just took the same exact newsletter and they would, some people would translate it. So they're like, oh, I'm, you know, leche, leche, whatever. And it's like the Mexican Milk Road. And then they would translate it to Spanish and just like Google Translate and then publish. There's another one that there's one— I don't know if I want to put this guy on blast, but, um, someone who tried to buy the Silk Road and failed.
Yeah, I know.
Then just tried to copy it in his own, like, way. And you could just— the funny thing is they very rarely work.
Um, they don't.
And it's like kind of surprising. Why don't they work? I kind of expected them to work. Um, like, for example, when people take our content and then write a thread about it on LinkedIn, like, it does pretty good. Like, it That, that kind of works for them. Otherwise they wouldn't really keep doing it. But the copy the whole newsletter thing, like for some reason that doesn't really work. I'm not sure. I'm not 100% sure why.
I'll explain why I know why. Do you want to know the, so basically if for people who have been raised on the internet, they have a very high bullshit detector. And do you want to know the best way to circumvent someone's bullshit detector? Yeah. Don't bullshit. You don't bullshit. Don't bullshit. That's how you circumvent that. Bullshit detector. You don't bullshit. And people could sniff this out. And so if they read something and it's like, dude, you're like a not cool older guy trying to act like a cool younger person. I know that this is not good. Like this doesn't work. Yeah.
I told you about the, uh, NQR, right? The, the, the KFCs in China, not quite right. It's like, dude, it's the same menu. Like this is, this is the spicy chicken sandwich. And it's like, that's not quite right. And people, it just doesn't taste right. The taste buds reject it. Now, I believe that when it comes to if I use one product and then somebody tries to copy it, I'm like, why would I want the shitty copy? I'm just going to keep going with the original. But in markets where you're reaching a new audience or people who haven't heard of the original, I'm surprised it doesn't work. And I think my theory of why it doesn't work in those cases, I think you're right when it's, uh, when people have tasted the original that they don't really want the shitty copy.
Or when it's like a community, community brand, uh, like personality driven, you know, it's, it's that one moat that Peter Thiel deal doesn't understand Fran.
Yeah. The one, the Asperger-proof, uh, defense, but that one Asperger-proof, uh, weapon we have. So, you know, the one thing that I think is, is true, which is like this like iceberg theory, which is, which is like, if you look at an iceberg, like the part you see at the top is like, you know, 5% of the total mass that's there. And so what I think people get wrong when they try to copy a business is that they only see the top, the 5%. And they're like, okay, I'm going to copy that. But they don't know what goes on underneath. They don't know that basically the uncopiable thing is the, the people, the personalities, the engine underneath that's coming up with the creative ideas, that's coming up with the next marketing thing because this one starts to decline. And so I think that's the part that's typically hard to copy. But honestly, I'm surprised that more of them don't work because if you're sufficiently talented, I think it, I think it sadly does work more often than it doesn't.
We should do an episode where we talk about the things that people have copied and it's become better than the original. Um, like there's stories of the Samwer brothers. So it's these 3 brothers in Germany and they have a company called Rocket Internet and it was a clone factory. And they basically, it's a, it was publicly traded until recently, but the reason they started this company was They like cloned Amazon and all these other companies, Zappos, Uber, things like that. But before they started company, started that company, they cloned other things and they sold it to the original. So they cloned eBay in Germany and they sold it back to eBay for $90 million in like 3 months. And then they were going to do the same thing with Groupon, but they, uh, got bigger than Groupon and they realized. Oh wow, once you get huge, this business sucks. We gotta offload it. And then they try to do that with Zappos, the shoe company, but they got bigger than the original Zappos. So the bigger they were, their market cap was larger, so they couldn't sell it. And they, uh, like, this is their whole strategy. It's a very fascinating strategy. And so far it's not panned out for them other than like HelloFresh. They did HelloFresh and they copied Blue Apron and HelloFresh worked, right?
Yeah. I think, um, there's an art to, there's an art to copying. And this is, this is a whole, whole, I think we could do a whole podcast about like, if you're gonna copy, here's how to do it. Here's how to do it in a way that feels good to your soul, feels good to customers, actually works, and is not just going to result in like a massive waste of time. And so I think there's, there's a bunch of different little factors there. I think one thing the Samwar brothers did, one of the factors for example, is they, um, they did the same business in a different country. And so I think, you know, geographic, geographic differentiation is important. Um, I think that's one that, that, that you can, you can copy and make things work when you do geographic difference. Uh, but then there's some traps with that too, that we could, we could talk about, but, um, all right. Where do you want it? Where do you want to finish up? I think we should, well, there is one thing that we should do and yeah, I forgot about that. You're aware of it. I think I'm aware of it. I can't seem to find my pen, but I need it. Okay.
You don't need, you don't need a pen.
So basically I thought I decided something. Some sort of agreement.
You do, but you, you sign it, but just with a click of a button. So basically at this podcast, My First Million, our content, unlike every other content on YouTube, it's actually not for free, right?
Not a free podcast.
It's not a free podcast because what you have to do, if you've seen one more than one episode, you have to do this thing called the gentleman's agreement, which is, it's called that because we're not there. I'm not behind you to stare at your screen. That's why it's a gentleman's agreement. It's an honor code. You have to basically go and, uh, click subscribe on YouTube because we'll get more subscribers that helps. It helps the algorithm, we get more views, and then we'll do more dumb stuff for you. So it's called the gentleman's agreement. If you watch more than one video, you have to do this. Everyone's doing it.
I have an addendum to the gentleman's agreement. Came from a, from a listener. She pointed it out. She goes, not only have I signed the gentleman's agreement, I've signed the lady's understanding.
And I thought— What's the lady's understanding?
You know, there's not many phrases that will stop me in my tracks, but I was stopped in my tracks. The lady's understanding. I thought that was Phenomenal.
The Ladies Understanding, that's actually when you also click subscribe on the iTunes or the— I always call it iTunes— on the podcast app and the Spotify app. Go that extra mile. Go that extra mile and give us the Ladies Understanding along with the Gentleman's Agreement.
Since we started doing this, so two things about Gentleman's Agreement. Number one, it's funny because we were talking about copying. You stole this shtick from somebody and we're trying to make it—
dude, I stole it. He called me, by the way, and he was like, isn't that awesome? It works so good. And he invited me to go to a UFC fight.
And you did it right because you gave credit to him. Uh, you put your own spin on it and, uh, yeah, you, you credited him most importantly as being like, this guy did this awesome thing. And I was like, wow, I, I gotta try doing this. Um, so, you know, you credited him and that's cool that you guys are, are going to see a fight together. That's, that's amazing.
Now, cute.
The second thing is we have grown a lot since we did this. So we started doing this, we were at 100— would you— the first time you did it, I believe we had 145,000 subscribers on YouTube.
It was like a month ago.
We have, yeah, that was like, yeah, maybe 45 days ago, something like that. And now we're at 180,000 and the people who watch the YouTube videos, they know this. In fact, I'm looking at a tweet right now, which he goes, he goes, he just @mentioned us. He goes, watching on YouTube is better than Spotify.
Yeah, no shit.
I told you this. It is way better to watch the show on YouTube. And in fact, what I think we should do to really like juice the agreement to even add more You know, see Appendix A of the Gentleman's Agreement. I think we should do a piece of content that is only good when you watch it. So, so here's my, here's my proposal to you, Sam. I think we should do basically like shirtless. Yeah. Sam's going to be shirtless and I'm going to screen share. But I think we should screen share us going through like a pitch deck and making it, taking one from average to awesome or like good to great. And just show how we would tweak the copy, how we would make it look like better, and we'll use a real one. And so I think we should do that and put that only on the YouTube channel because it would only make sense to see it.
No, I think that on YouTube you should log in to chase.com and show your checking account. Okay, and it will react, but we won't say the number.
That's genius. You know, this is why you complete me, bro. I gave you a shitty idea and you gave me the old yes and.
We're going to go to chase.com or whatever, Bank of America, whatever you use. And you're going to just, we're going to watch you log in and we're just going to react. And that's it.
By the way, the yes, yes, and is the corniest thing that the startup world tried to take from, from like the cool, like, you know, people who are actually funny world, because actually it's a no, but which is what you just did there. No, but we should do this instead is a better version of yes, and.
Improv people are one step below a cappella people in terms of the nerds. So like, there's no way we're cool. And improv people— you ever been around an improv person? It's like being around someone who does CrossFit, you know? Like, just stop talking about it. I can't stand improv people. They're exhausting. It's like a— it's CrossFit, people without muscle. Dude, Theo Von said it's like a blind Jack Russell. You know what those are? It's like that dog that's yapping everywhere, and when it's blind, you just can't stop it. It's going all over the place. That's how I feel about an improv person.
Yeah, I think you're right. I did improv, so I can confirm this is correct. Um, and you're correct that it's below a cappella, which is below anything that's actually cool.
Yeah. A cappella is the worst of the worst. I remember hanging out with people from New England and they like were bragging about a cappella and I was like, dude, shut up. Why are you talking about that? You don't want people to know.
And, uh, they were like, people hang out with each other and they're like ordering or they're like waiting for their food at the table. And then one guy's like, And then it's like, hmm, they start like harmonizing. It's like, dude, you gotta stop.
Like, you know, yeah, if I hear the Lion King song one more time, I'm gonna put a bullet in my head. That's how I feel when I'm with these people.
I've ever trapped on a subway and like they do a flash mob around me and start singing.
Oh, those people are above. Flash mob people are are above the a cappella.
I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna start vomiting just to outrage them in that moment.
That's the pod.