2 Trends Hidden in Plain Sight (+ $1M ideas)
Screw Nick Huber talking about RV parks and storage units. We're going to be talking about flea markets. That's what I think is going to happen.
I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off.
On the road, let's travel, never looking back. I want to talk to you about a topic, and I think this is a topic— it's my passion, this topic, but it's also— I'm going to bring it up because I think it's a trend, and that's what we're about. And B, I, it's sort of a prediction. I think I have a prediction here and it's going to be like, be interesting in the next 5 or 10 years.
Okay. Sweaters, denim, tobacco.
Yeah. You're in the ballpark. Media. Yeah. We're in, we're in the zip code. We're definitely in the zip code. Newspaper industry. We're, we're in the, we're in the zip code. So years ago, uh, this doesn't matter to you because you're not from the South, but if you're above the age of 30, a lot of people here probably remember this TV show, American Pickers. Do you, did you ever even watch that show?
Never watched it.
Okay. Two guys who go and buy junk and they tell the story, uh, of the junk and then we would—
Buy it from storage containers? So that's a different show.
That's a different show, but again, same ballpark. But basically they would drive around the South. They would knock on old people's homes and say, can I come and look in your barn? And they would find old cool stuff, tell the story of it, clean it up just a little bit, bring it back to the store where I worked and we would resell it. That's basically it. That was, that's all it is. Uh, but we would have lines out the door because at the time this show, we were, It was like David Letterman was number 1 and like American Pickers was number 2 in terms of the most watched shows on TV. There'd be days where we would sell, I'm not exaggerating, $100,000 in American Pickers t-shirts because all these guys would come in and want to buy anything that was American Pickers related.
How much revenue do you think that store did overall?
I would imagine, uh, $10 million. One location.
One location. Yeah. Big store or just like a normal shop?
It was so small. That we had a script to let people, to, people would come in and be so disappointed at how small it was. 'Cause they would think it was like this big, like, 'cause the cameras made it look huge.
And like, sounds familiar to my life. I, I too had a script.
Uh, so it, it was like a tidy store, but we killed it. But I experienced something that, but the thing was is that it was all like hillbillies. It was like redneck hillbillies from like Alabama for some reason. The picking culture, it's all like hillbillies in like rural Alabama.
Like how you said, for some reason.
Yeah, I don't know, like, 'cause they like old shit or they like to reuse stuff. I don't know, it's just part of the culture. But this, this weekend I experienced something that has totally changed my worldview on this topic. So there's this thing called Alfargo's Marketplace and I went to it the other day. Click this photo, uh, that I'm highlighting right here. So it's based, the story of is basically it's these 4 guys and they're— they look like they're 24 years old. And they started organizing this flea market in New York City, and they host it at this place called Newhouse, which is like the hipper version of WeWork. So it's this like weird combination of like urban New York stuff, but like flea markets, which are historically like old people and Southern like heritage. Like it's not like a New York cool kid thing. It is now though.
All right, can I just describe what I'm seeing?
So describe what, uh, what you see and who you see.
Every photo looks like it's taken with a Polaroid, even though we have like 4K cameras. Everybody has a beard and a bald head, so a lot of hair on the face, no hair on top. Um, I mean, the style is eclectic. There's a DJ. It looks like— is this a party in a Goodwill shop? Is that what's happening, dude?
It's a high-end vintage flea market, and it was packed. And I'm 35. I was the oldest person there.
All the guys are dressed as girls and all the girls are dressed as guys.
There's a lot of weird stuff going on. And when you— and they're all wearing— it's all like 24-year-old single guys wearing suits and ties. I went there with my daughter and it was just me and her. I was— I felt like I was the oldest person there. No one had children.
Took your daughter to this?
We were just like hanging out for the day and I like, I was like, let's go to the fucking flea market.
And it was like Adam Sandler and Big Daddy.
Yeah, dude, we more— we wore matching sweaters. We were, we were, we were the hit. We made the, uh, the Instagram of these guys. But they built this flea market and it was packed. It was like, like, it was like I was like regretting bringing her because I was like, dude, this is way too packed and I can't even get around. So we didn't even stay for that long. But it kind of got me thinking about flea markets because I think that like, have you noticed that by the way, that like millennial hipsters have just disappeared? They're just gone. They're no longer a thing anymore. Hipsters, I've just like, where'd they go?
Uh, do you have a theory?
These are the new hipsters. Young people who wear, uh, like nice clothing like this and are into vintage. This is the new version.
Doing this, there's like a branding genius. Look at these posters. Just like, this is just so well done. Like, how do you turn— this just shows You can make anything, anything can be done anyway. You can make a sandwich gourmet. You can make a sandwich terrible. You could make a flea market cool and you can make a cool thing feel like a flea market. Like this is all, this is so well executed as far as the branding goes. It's unbelievable. Like this thing, the Instagram looks like a magazine. This is unbelievable.
But here's the thing. This is why I'm bringing this up. It isn't just these guys. So go to the Instagram. It's, if you're listening, it's called Alfargo's Marketplace. And look at the photos of, of the, whoever you see that's a stylish young man, click their pro and their tag, click their profile. Tons of them, tons and tons of them have 100, 200, 300,000 followers. And it's these like young 23-year-old guys showing off their outfits and the engagement on these Instagram handles It's insane. So I'll give you an example of one. Or do you see one right there?
I'm trying to find it, but give me an example.
So go to— the handle is @denny623. So I'll post it in here.
Dude, what a big day for Denny. He had no idea this was going to happen for him.
So look at Denny.
All right, Denny. Wow. Cowboy hat, flair. Just— he's wearing Chris Sacca shirt, but the rest is fantastic. 112,000 followers. He's a digital creator, a menswear blogger. Content creator since '08. Oh my God. He's been in the game. He's a creative director. Is this a, what flag is this? The Philippines? What is that?
Um, I think it's Puerto Rican, but I bought this sweater from Denny. Denny was a vendor at Alfargo's. I bought it from him because I want to be part of this trend. And so my point here is amongst young people, this is a huge hit. And if you click around on these guys' Instagram, you know, there's this joke about whatever the Silicon Valley nerds are doing in 5 or 10 years is going to be mainstream. This is the New York cool kid thing. This is like walking around SoHo and seeing what, what people are wearing. This is it and is happening right now. And I have two ways I think this is going to be a big business.
Okay. So wait, wait, is your take that flea market— if I understand you correctly, you went to this cool flea market, you, you— I can't even call it a flea market. You went to a party.
No, it was a flea market.
Okay. It was mostly a party. Happened to have some goods.
It was a flea market with a DJ.
You took your daughter, it's hilarious. You're saying flea markets are a bigger deal than most people realize, especially people like us who live on our computer. And then you're, are you saying there's an opportunity here? Are you saying somebody's going to build the Crumbl cookie of flea markets?
What's going to happen? I think two things are going to happen. I think that there's a massive like PE opportunity here. I think flea markets could potentially be the new RV park and you could purchase them at a real estate valuation. I also think. That there's a huge amount of male— well, female as well, but male, like, fashion influencers. And that's like a hot trend. And I've spoke to like 10 or 20 of them and they're all fucking broke. All of them are like, I wish I could just pay my rent with this.
Right, right.
I think this business is a beautiful business. And these Alfargo Marketplace guys are a really good example of how it's done well. And I think that they're probably not savvy when it comes to business. They're more like artists. And that there's something really interesting here.
And so you're saying this Rose Bowl flea market, 20,000 visitors, 2,500 vendors per month. All right. So basically based on that, 20,000 visitors paying $12 to enter, the vendors paying $150 to be there, they're making $600 grand per flea market, which happens what, once a month?
Once a month. But you're forgetting like so many other things like table rentals, chair rentals, things like that.
So about $7 to $8 million in revenue you see on this one, uh, from this one flea market, basically.
I think it's even more. And I also think the other point that I'm gonna make is that it's pretty like, it's obviously very old. So there's this one called Brimfield Antique Show. So do me a favor and go to their website. So Brimfield, uh, is a, is a flea market that gets a million people a year coming to this festival, which is huge, right? That's like, we're talking like Coachella. Coachella-sized stuff. Scroll to the very bottom.
True.
That's true. So if, if you wanna contact someone, you go to the, go to the very bottom and look at where it's, tell me what it says about Jody.
Oh, Jody, jmjy2@aol.com. Just send her a note.
If you wanna learn, this is a, an event with 1 million customers. If, if you wanna learn more about it, email jody@aol.com. That's what it says at the very bottom. Go to Jodi's LinkedIn. I looked at— I looked her up on LinkedIn. Can you click Jodi's LinkedIn? Where is it? It says, look at Jodi. Jodi's great. Jodi's— her name's Jodi Young. She is the owner of this, of this business with 1 million customers. Jodi looks lovely. Jodi looks like a nice woman. Jodi doesn't exactly look like what I think is going to be a younger generation of people who are interested in this topic.
So you're saying the owner The owner of this business, these types of businesses is gonna look different in 10 years.
And I would say that they're probably not the most—
choose your words wisely, ants are listening.
The, they're probably not the most uptight operators. Uh, that's what I would say. They're probably very passionate about this. And sometimes when you're, when, when passion leads, maybe you're leaving, you know, dollars on the table. That's what I'm saying. And I believe that in the next couple of years, screw the RV, screw Nick Huber talking about RV parks and storage units. We're going to be talking about flea markets. That's what I think is going to happen.
All right. Bold prediction. I really like this, by the way. This is a— this is a Sampar special. Round of applause for the Sampar special. Cool find on the trend. Cool find on the underrated business. Flea markets, how big they are. Wow. They're kind of stunning in terms of like the visitors that they get. I like how you wrote at the bottom, and AI ain't gonna fuck with this. Yeah, this is part of the thesis. Um, this is a good like private equity roll-up thesis by you. Good job by you.
Yeah. And it's— thank you, thank you for that, uh, condescending patronizing. Good job for you. Uh, you like that? No, good job by you.
That's a real compliment.
Amongst young people, Dude, they buy a huge amount of vintage clothing. Something like I said, I saw some crazy stat where it was something like 80% of Gen Zers regularly shop for secondhand clothing. And so you have companies like Depop. Have you heard of Depop, Sean?
Yeah, it's like a secondhand marketplace, secondhand app.
Do they have 80 million users? And then there's Poshmark and then there's Grailed and then there's like 10 other ones. These young people are buying vintage and secondhand clothing at like alarming rates. Not alarming, but you know what I mean? Like surprisingly high rates. And, uh, have you ever seen like thrift hauls on TikTok? Have you seen that?
I've seen, uh, a lot of things on TikTok. I've seen a lot of things. That's one of them. I've definitely seen that.
It's a sh— it's a huge thing. If you like type in thrift hauls on TikTok, I follow so many of these people on Instagram. It's like a really common thing. And so my whole point here being young people are buying this shit up, man. They're buying this, these secondhand clothing, this secondhand clothing like crazy.
I'm just looking up Goodwill's numbers. So Goodwill's revenues last 10 years starts at $4.8 billion, $5.7, $5.9, $6.1, $6.3, $7 billion. Uh, pandemic goes back down to $5.5. Uh, then it goes $7.5 billion, $8.2 billion, and $9 billion projected for this year. Or for, for the last year.
And if you go to, uh, what's it called? Is it called Goodwill Finds? So goodwillfinds.com, they have their own, uh, like online marketplace where they auction off like a handful of the like nicer things, uh, that Goodwill collects. And people love it. I've bought a couple things from there. I think Ari said she buys stuff from there. Um, it's getting really popular.
I want to make sure I get this down for the record. What are you saying is the like someone could do or someone should do.
So there's, uh, so what I'm saying is that flea markets are a recession-proof business in a highly fragmented industry, and they last for many, many decades, and they're hard to disrupt once they work well. And also that young people are buying, uh, vintage clothing and are into flea markets more than other generations. And then what I am saying is I think that there is a roll-up opportunity Or what I would do is I would work with some of these broke, like, passionate fashion influencers. And I think I could create, if I— if that was my thing, a really awesome flea market business.
Can I give you one other random idea? So I used to live in Indonesia. In Indonesia, they do this thing that I've never really seen here, but I really liked it. So, you know, at a mall when you go into a food court. So in America, you go to a mall, there's a food court. And the experience, what's the experience? You basically, like the business model is you walk in, there's nobody there to like serve you. Um, you just go, what do you pick? Do I want a slice from Sbarro? Do I want a sandwich? Do I want some fried chicken? What do I want? You go, you buy your one thing and you go sit down, right? Is that, did I capture it accurately?
Yeah. And it's like, and there's a guy handing samples. I'm going to try all the samples and we're going to sit in kind of a nasty chair and just like eat this crap.
So in Indonesia, the malls in general are a lot better, but the one thing that they do for their food court is a little bit different. When you walk in, they give you like a wristband, almost like it's a Coachella or something like that. And this wristband is basically your way to buy anything you want. And the, the, the way they designed the flow, it's almost like an IKEA. You walk around and every booth has like cool stuff and they're, and they're like, it's not super low quality food. It's still obviously faster. Um, right. But it is, everything's like branded kind of well, the food, like the people who are working there, like you can tell it's like more, a little more upscale and you pick and choose. You basically start, you start with this tray and you just keep adding different little plates from the different vendors onto your one tray, right? So you have an empty tray and you're going to grab a small bowl or plate from all the different booths that you want to try something from. And at each one, you just tap your wristband so that the system knows what all you've picked up. But it doesn't feel like you're spending money. It feels like you're like opening a door. You're just having, here's my key and give me my thing. This is amazing. You sit down, you eat, and at the end when you leave, you put your tray down and you scan your badge and they tell you the damage and you pay for it on the way out.
That's awesome.
I've always thought that American food courts should steal this model. You spend way more and it's just a more fun experience. Um, like paying at the end once you've already like, you know, had the little like, you know, amusement park of food type of thing is pretty cool. I wonder if somebody could do a similar thing with thrift or flea markets. And so the thing I'm imagining here is like, remember like Spartan Race or Tough Mudder, how they turned this like thing that seemed like work and kind of hard into something that was fun, a bit of an Instagram opportunity and almost like an individual rate, like a, when you race, you're by yourself, you're into like a group fun activity. Exactly. So a social fun event that you're planning, it's basically a party. I think you could do the same thing with the flea market. So I think what you could do is you could basically arrange it, uh, whether it's a race or it's a, it's a one long path. And if you do the wristband thing, or you basically, as soon as you join, you get 10 tickets, you get 20 tickets, 30 tickets, whatever it is. And you get to, and now you just have tickets you have to spend, right? So instead of the goodwill problem, which is you go and you're like, should I get this? Should I not? Blah, blah, blah. Like upfront, you just make a commit. I'm going to find 10 things here. And then it's about just finding the most fun 10 things you could find at the event. And you go and you collect, you fill up your card. You could always get more tickets as you go. And then by the end, you walk out and you've got this new outfit. So like, you literally would have a photo at the start and a photo at the end because you put it on and you basically do like a makeover, um, on a, you know, Saturday afternoon with your friends. And you all end up with this like fun photo at the end of you guys dressed up.
That's fantastic.
Is that not a great experience?
It's, it's a fantastic experience. And also just for some reason scanning things at my wrist is for some reason like more fun than pulling out my credit card. Do you remember that? Didn't you invest in a company that was creating software so like Patagonia could sell secondhand coats or something?
I didn't. I didn't end up getting to invest in it. I really wanted to.
It's called— I think North Face uses it because I almost—
it's doing well.
I almost bought a North Face coat and they call it like reworked. Where you like mail in your old coat and you get some type of credit and then they like repair it, but it kind of looks funky and cool and like guys like me could buy it.
Yeah, I think the way they call it, the term for this like movement is re-commerce. So you have e-commerce, but then you have re-commerce, which is when you sell that secondhand thing again. I can't find the name of this thing. Uh, that's sad. I really wanted to use it. I think they're doing well, by the way. They've got a bunch of like big brands. So what, what they were doing was they're saying, hey, uh, they would go to a brand like us. They'd say, hey, a lot of people are already reselling your items. In, on these other platforms and Facebook groups and wherever. And they, they actually sell sometimes at a markup or sometimes, you know, they just, they, you know, it's a, it's a slight discount, but they're, they're used goods. Why don't you just make a central place on your website for people to buy, you know, already loved items? And so what you would do is they, customers could just upload a thing and you'd basically create your own little marketplace on your website. They power it with the software. And when somebody, uh, and then they don't have to wait for a buyer, so they could just put it on the thing and get basically store credit for it. Um, when somebody buys it, and so you could, uh, you're giving store credit, which is going to get them to come back, and the other person's getting the item, which they were going to buy anyways off platform. Makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, I almost bought something the other day from you with someone using their software, but they didn't have my size. Um, so that's my, that's my big—
the website was called Treat. The company was called Treat. T-R-E-A-T. EET. Um, that was the name of the company that was doing this. I still wish I had invested in this thing. This thing's great.
It's awesome. This is great. So that's my big pitch on flea markets. I think, I think, oh, and by the way, there are one or two PE guys in the space doing this. I think there's like unitedfleamarkets.com or something like that, but I think you're going to see more. So this is my prediction and also my opportunity spiel.
Okay. I like that you made a prediction because the next thing I'm going to tell you about is a giant, I told you so, but nobody likes hearing I told you so. Um, in fact, there's a great tweet that went viral over the last week. This guy, Matt Lasky, tweeted this out. He goes, my wife just taught me the professional way to say I told you so.
I saw that. So funny.
You say, this was identified early on as a likely outcome. Yeah. I'm going to be using this a lot.
So.
Let me just say that me and Sam identified this early as a likely outcome. And what I'm talking about is true crime podcasts.
Okay.
So this doesn't sound like the sexiest thing, but do you know what the most popular podcast in the world, in America is?
Correct. Do you know what the second most popular is?
I would have guessed like Call Her Daddy.
Okay, great. Also would have thought it's some famous personality podcast.
It's insane. And where is she based?
That's the crazy part too. So let me tell you the story here. So this woman, Ashley Flowers, she's working at a normal day job. And she grew up loving, like, Agatha Christie stories, you know, like, sort of these mystery crime stories growing up. In fact, so much so that she joined, maybe volunteered at this place called Crime Stoppers, a, like, local crime-stopping, um, you know, organization for her in her town. And it was supposed to, you know, just help people report crimes, um, to one central place. Now, to promote the organization, she volunteers and says, hey, What if I create a weekly radio show called Murder Monday? And she does it and she realizes like, hey, people kind of like this. Like, they like Murder Monday. This is working. And she's just doing this again for fun, volunteering on the side of her day job. And then she hears Serial podcast. It comes out and Serial becomes this phenomenon. And she listens to it and she says, oh, that's cool. What if I do Murder Monday type of like my radio show that I'm just doing for my local org, but what if I did it as a podcast? And she jumps in. This is back in 2017. She records, she, you know, comes home from her day job, records her first episode, uploads it, and off to the races. Now, here we are later. She's got 65 employees. Her business just raised $40 million from Chernin, uh, has valued the company at $250 million, and it has a reported or a rumored $45 million of EBITDA, uh, per year, which honestly sounds a little high.
Um, something's off. The valuation's off or—
Exactly. It's only 5x EBITDA. I don't think that's—
And why would you raise money if you're making $45 million a year in profit?
And the valuation is likely more true than the rumored profit number. But whatever. Let's say— I think, I think, I think $20 million would be a very real number at the low end here.
Insane.
She herself does two— she hosts two podcasts herself. She's the producer of the shows. She sells the ads. She closes the deals. She's touring all around the country, all around the world. She was working 15 hours a day, now down to 10 hours a day. She's got a little 3-year-old daughter. She has racked up 500 million+ downloads in the last 5 years. Just insane volume.
That's ridiculous. Do you listen to true crime?
I listen to a bit of true crime. So, okay, here's the I told you so part of this. If you go to the MFM Vault, mfmvault.com, which is a place where you can go find old episodes and you could search. So I just went on to MFM Vault and I just searched true crime because I know we've been talking about this. Guess when the first time we talked about this is, just like guess the year.
I don't know, uh, a year and a half ago.
So that would be like 2023?
23?
Nope, 2020, 5 years ago. And it was an episode where Lance Armstrong popped by the office, like literally popped into the podcast while we were recording. And you and Lance Armstrong are talking about your favorite type of podcast, and you both love true crime, and you guys are geeking out about true crime. Sam and Lance Armstrong, the greatest cyclist of all time. Like Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, Tiger owns a bike, and Lance Armstrong, the greatest biker of all time, talking about how we look.
Same, same. Yeah. Like, what do you like to get scared by? Like, that's the conversation.
Exactly. And we started talking about true crime. Then we talked about it again in 2023. We talked about, um, Parkast. You had brought up that this guy had created this, uh, True crime podcast network, 16 shows, and he sold it to Spotify for like $100 million, $50 million in cash, $50 million in the earnout.
What was his name? Mack something?
Something. And, um, then we talked about— then again, we talked about it a few years ago. We talked about Law and Crime, which was this media company that was dedicated to true crime stories as well as like just reporting on actual court cases that were going on. And it was also acquired for more than $100 million. And all along the way, we've been talking about how, like, true crime is this thing where there's this underrated appetite, more than you would think, for this. We had Mr. Ballen come on. Mr. Ballen comes on and he talks about how his content is all about telling strange, dark, mysterious stories. People just love this shit. And we've been talking about it, and every year that we've been talking about it, it sounds like it's too late. And every year we talk about it, another 9-figure company has essentially started or grown during that period of time. And so even now, now that this is still like, you know, super established, I still think there's a ton of opportunity here. And I want to brainstorm this a little bit with you.
I, uh, I'm totally on board with this. I am a huge fan. My, my new one is the Law and Crime Network on YouTube. And whenever like the Diddler comes about or there's like a new crime, like P. Diddy's like lube stuff, I was watching that like Like, what's this? What's the Luigi? Luigi Mangiani? Like, this is like a gift from God for the, for the, for the true crime people. Like, I've been obsessed with all of this stuff, like learning about freak-off parties, learning about, you know, like, deny— what is the Luigi?
When, uh, like LeBron James enters the draft, this is like, oh, we got a new hot prospect, we got Luigi. Yeah, like, oh, Diddy is here, oh my God, we're gonna have content for years.
Dude, I listen to this stuff on my runs and I, and I am all about it. So what do you want to brainstorm?
You listen to it on your runs like you're just running away from the problem. Like, what are you doing?
I think my, my hypothesis. So basically with the true crime stuff, it's basically me and 100 million women. It's like 80. It's like 80% women, I think, who are into this. And I think that women listen to this from the perspective of how would I, how would I get away? Like, how would I get out of this situation? And men listen to it from the perspective of like, how would I get away with this? That's like the perspective I think that each of the genders listens to these things.
Yeah, exactly. It's like American Kingpin. Yeah. My hero. My hero did this. Yeah. So, um, by the way, already opportunity. So, you know, when you run, I think most running apps or running like, um, music playlists, they try to have a certain beats per minute to keep up, keep like pace you during a run, right? They try to be up-tempo. Yeah, true crime, 150 beats per minute, dude. Already innovation, white space, you know what I'm saying?
For zone 2 workouts, I only listen to Solved Murders by Parkast. Oh, I gotta go do a, a 60-minute run, turn on Solved Murders. That's 60 minutes of like, we're gonna get through 2 30-minute episodes and I'm gonna learn about some crazy—
kind of slow, right? So like, what if somebody created a higher energy? All right, so here's brainstormer. Can I give you some pitches on, uh, my, my brainstorm? This was my 5-minute brainstorm before the podcast. What would I do? Because it's one thing to say there's an opportunity there.
Great podcast already. How, how I would do it.
But Sam, do we settle for great? I don't know about you, great doesn't get me out of bed in the morning.
I mean, great's pretty good to be, honestly, be a huge compliment.
Be greatly flattered.
I'd rest on those laurels.
But all right, here's the brainstorm. So, um, white space in the true crime space right now. Uh, first, okay, the obvious one— this is not that fun of a one— but YouTube. So, um, most of these that started, they were just audio-only podcasts like Serial. They were inspired by Serial. They were podcasts, and most people thought podcasts were all audio. YouTube came out recently and announced that a billion people a month watch podcast content on YouTube. So if you're a podcaster and you're not doing YouTube, where are you at? And if you're listening to this podcast and you're not subscribed to us on YouTube, where are you at? That's what I have to say. Go find my first video on YouTube. All right. But so the first thing is go all in as a YouTube-first podcast. Even Crime Junkie, she started off heavily in audio, then started doing video just as kind of an add-on. If you go watch their video, it's like, uh, you know, started off really scrappy and now it looks a little bit better there. She's not. And then when she raised this money, she's investing in like a full video studio to do this, like for real. But the format is actually pretty great. Have you ever listened to her podcast? It's basically, she sits on a couch with her friend, but unlike most podcasts where it's two equal hosts or something, they're going back and forth. It's her explaining to one friend what's going on with the crime. And her friend is like active listening. She's like sitting there and asking questions, nodding her, mostly just nodding her head and being like, ooh. And then like ask a clarifying question when the listener would have one. So smart, by the way, that little thing is so smart because most content gets better the more you narrow it to an audience of one. If you're writing, write to one person. If you're doing a podcast like this podcast works well because we kind of do that too, where instead of saying, all right, listeners, we'd like to tell you about some great businesses, it's like, dude, Sam, have you seen this? You're like, no, what? I'm like, check this out. And it's that vibe that actually works well on the podcast. So that's a little bit of the secret sauce. All right. I gave you 3 of Colonel Sanders' 9 spices there.
That's last week, last episode, it was leverage.
I just broke your brain.
What happened? It was leverage to the tits. Now it's, I just gave you 3 of the Colonel's 9 spices. That's fantastic.
I gave you a quarter colonel there.
I was going to say something and you, uh, that was great. Um, I nuked your brain.
All right, my bad.
Oh, I was going to say, with this podcast, like, I did not know that you were going to bring this up, and you didn't know I was going to bring the other thing up. So that's like a little bit—
that's how it works. We surprise each other, and intentionally, right? We could say, let's share notes, let's do research, let's be prepared. That makes for a worse podcast. We surprise each other because the show is—
you need a reaction.
I want to tell you something. I want you to react. I want you to riff for real. And then I want you to surprise me. And that makes it fun for us to do. So she does the same thing. She basically tells the story to her friend. Her friend sits there active listening. Um, she started off just taking existing shows and now has like a team of 10 journalists that do original reporting. She now has another show called The Deck where she works with local cops and they give her like access to evidence and they try to solve, actually solve cold cases. Awesome. Isn't that insane?
That's the greatest.
She is basically the MrBeast of true crime. Like when you see how she just took a very simple idea and took it very seriously. And she scaled it up. It's like, yeah, why not? Why not have our own journalists? Why not scour the country for stories? Why not partner with the cops? Why not build a studio? Why not have 100 employees? Why not turn this into a full-on production company? She just kept going with the very simple idea, right? MrBeast's like, what if I gave away $1,000? What if I gave away $5,000, $10,000, $100,000, $1 million, $10 million? What if you stood in a tiny circle? What if you stood in a big circle? What if you didn't have to stand in the circle? What if you had to lay down? Like, it just keeps going with these, like, ideas. And takes a very simple idea but takes it more seriously than anybody else. So I feel like she's done that.
She's coming to Radio City in New York in May. Should I go? I would totally go to one of her live events.
Yeah, you should go.
Why not? She has, like, a huge tour. She has a huge tour.
You're going to become a very big fan of her. Let me— I found something that when I found it, I go, oh, Sam's going to love this. And I'm like the mama bird and you're the baby bird. And I'm about to puke in your mouth with something you're going to love. Peter Chernin, when he met her, here's what— here's the quote he said about her, because he invested 40— he, he met her at a part of a TV show pitch and then was like, just like, wow, this woman is really impressive, and told his guy, go find a way to invest. And he like flies to Indiana and like, like hounded her for this investment. So here's what Peter Chernin said. He said, I find her uniquely impressive.
That's a good one. And he's good, right? He's been around everyone.
I find her uniquely impressive. What a, what a subtle but like powerful compliment from a guy who's met so many interesting people.
And I think her and Pat McAfee are both in Indianapolis. That's like, they're, they're like at a forum like the Indianapolis, uh, podcasting like mafia.
Two dots make a line. So, um, check this out. Okay, so here's the other white space here. Ready? Black true crime. Not a lot of Black podcasters doing true crime.
I am a, I'm a card-carrying member of Black culture. So yeah, I'm a part of.
Like, is DJ Vlad the greatest YouTuber of all time?
One of the greatest journalists of our time, of our era.
Yeah. Getting the Wade brothers to like dish on like what it's like or like. Club Shay Shay with Katt Williams getting off. Dude, how about Club Shay Shay getting like $100 mil? I think that was, I think before Trump on Rogan, or maybe even including, I think Club Shay Shay and Katt Williams is the number one most downloaded YouTube video or YouTube interview of the year.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's insane.
Are there not more of these, like these, like, true crime shows geared towards that audience?
There's only a couple. And the very first one was called like Affirmative Crime or something. I was like, nah, that's a bad name. This is not right. Right. This has happened in comedy podcasts. Like, comedy podcasts started with a lot of, like, white comedians in LA, but now there's, like, so many really funny, you know, just two guys hanging out, two black comedians hanging out type of podcasts, sports podcasts, etc. Like, I think podcasting started off pretty homogeneously white, and true crime, even just the way it comes across, is a little bit like, um, Midwestern NPR-y, right? Like, Serial kind of was in that lineage. I think she used to work for NPR, right? Something like that. And so it just feels very produced and almost, um, like New York elitist. Exactly, exactly. And it needs to be more, you know, country grammar. It needs like somebody who listened to a lot of Nelly growing up.
They all— like, a lot of those guys have like that Ira Glass, like, uh, today's episode. Yeah, this American Life.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know what I mean?
That cadence is so good.
Yeah, all right, so that's a cool one.
Well, by the way, world's worst impression to be good at: Ira Glass. This was the only time that was ever gonna land for you. Um, all right, next one is comedy times true crime. True crime. So I think a lot of the true crime podcasts are very serious, they're heavy, they're trying to be mysterious, creepy. Makes total sense, you get why I would do it that way. I think there's an opening for somebody to do true crime, but just with a comedy angle. And, um, you know, not to, not to toot our own horn here, but like, we did this a little bit in the business space. We, you know, a lot of the business podcasts, a lot of the interviews, a lot of the podcasts were, it was just an IQ contest. Everybody just wanted to be the bigger know-it-all than the other. It was very dry, informational. And, um, you know, me and you, this is kind of how we talk when we hang out, and we just didn't filter ourselves that way. And it's not that we're like, compared to comedians, we're not funny, but compared to most VCs, we're pretty funny.
And yeah, like the bar's low.
Let me, as a, uh, so, so am I talking out my ass? Are they actually funny ones? No. Well, you're, you're not, you're not off, but you're actually right. And I'm gonna give you one piece of evidence that you're right. So we are called MFM. I have gotten like hate mail from women who are like, you're not MFM. The real MFM is My Favorite Murder. So go to myfavoritemurder.com and read the headline.
Yeah, we're not even the most famous. We'll never be the most famous MFM podcast.
Yeah, it's my— have you heard of My Favorite Murder? Have people like said like, you're not really MFM?
I've never listened to it though. Is it humorous? It looks like it.
The— so go to the website. The headline is a true crime comedy podcast. Okay. And listen, it's hugely popular. Got it. It's hugely popular, but I actually have a bone to pick, dude. They're talking about like Ted Bundy killing people and they're like, isn't he hot? Like they're talking about, you know what I mean? It's kind of weird. Like they're talking about wanting to like get with Ted Bundy.
So I'm basically like, you know what we should do? Someone should open up a coffee shop with Wi-Fi. And you're like, yeah, go to Starbucks.
But you're, you're right. Look, it's like, uh, you know, had you developed the theory— you had— you developed the theory of relativity and never even heard of Albert Einstein, I would still say you're a genius.
A few other, uh, possibilities here. True romance. So, uh, I think there's an opportunity to do a true crime style genre but spin off into— combine two very popular genres, true crime and romance. You've— we've talked a lot of the past about like how the most read books and the most voracious readers are reading Danielle Steele, Fifty Shades of Grey-style romance, uh, novels. And I think somebody could do true romance as a podcast genre.
One of my favorite, uh, true crime podcasts, they have a series called Killer Couples, and it's all about lovebirds who go out and commit murder.
And maybe you should have done this brainstorm because I don't really listen to true crime. I listened to two seasons of Serial and like fell asleep to a few true crime podcasts.
Dude, Serial is like the JV team now compared to, you know, what's going on now. All right. I'm on board with killer couples. What else you got?
I mean, I feel a little bit discouraged, but I'll just finish out because quitting is the only thing more embarrassing than what's happening.
Wait, hold on. Speaking of true crime, I do think that there is this weird— like when I— we did this one like bit with The Hustle about romance novels and there was like these crazy weird genres of like, first of all, romance novels are like a massive hit. And then, but there's like women who want to like a romance novel about a military guy, but there's like, take it a step further. There was like women who want to have sex with werewolves. Like, you know, the, what was the, what was that Rob, that movie, that shit called? What was that thing? The Robert Pattinson, the Twilight, like there was some weird like undertones of like bestiality with all that stuff. Right. Uh, but so I think that there's always a niche for, uh, Yeah, but you know my, the bone I have to pick with this?
What? Nobody likes hairy dudes. As a hairy dude out here, where, where's that? Where's the appeal?
What? You just said you like werewolves, but not just hairy guys? Yeah, you need to get rebranded as a wolf.
I was excited when I heard that werewolves were a thing for women, and then it just did not translate whatsoever.
Look, gray hair guys have rebranded to the silver foxes. Uh, you know, we got to do something for the hairy backs.
I heard somebody say this the other day. They were like, oh yeah, I had this like salt and pepper thing going on. They're like, yeah, it's a lot of salt though. That's the problem. Just salt. Um, okay. So last thing, games. Do they make games? So there's that one, uh, board game. Do you remember what it's called? It's kind of a mystery board, like board game subscription series. Cat Catch a Murderer, Catch a Killer. Hunter Killer.
Hunter Killer, I think. When we talked about it, I think it was doing $30 million a year in revenue.
Tens of millions a year in revenue. I think that this woman, instead of touring, she should be creating, um, uh, board games. She should be creating a game that's in Target, in Walmart, on the shelf, and it's a true crime, uh, card game or board game that people can basically solve these cases, um, together, like cooperatively, or it's some kind of like Um, you know, like Mafia where like one person's the game master and the other people are trying to figure it out. I think a game, take a game mechanic like that, but apply these true crime things and use your brand as Crime Junkies. I think somebody should be partnering with true crime broadcasts to build those out.
Hunt a Killer, I think it's called. Um, my whole perspective on games got completely changed. We hung out with the guy, um, Elon at, um, he's coming on the podcast, by the way, we're doing it. Um, what was it called? Uh, Killing Kittens or something. Exploding Kittens. Exploding Kittens, a board, or it's a card game, but board game, I guess. And I don't know what, we'll wait to see if he's going to reveal anything, but shockingly large.
Like numbers are bananas. He's also like, yeah, of the top 5 most popular games in the world, we make number 1, 2, 4, and 5. Yeah. It's like, damn.
It was amazing, uh, how successful that is. And I was like, I should start a game company. Uh, he, he felt like a, he felt like a 12, like he had the excitement of like a 12-year-old, like he was so into like games and making people smile via these games that I was like, 100%.
This guy's too great. In fact, that was my takeaway. I was like, oh my God, I wish I was doing this. This is so cool. I could do this. Yes. And then I saw how truly joyful he was about making the games, not, not being successful at it, but the doing part. And I was like, oh, that's different than me. I don't have that. I just want the. I want to have done it.
He, yeah, you want the result. He like was showing us this game and it was like half done and he had a pen that he had written in like different points on the cards. Like the, he was making the game as he was going and he was like, wouldn't this be cool? Let's like, let's change the game to this. Like he was doing it in real time and we were playing the game. It would be like, you know, playing poker and he's like, did you see, actually we should come up with like an ace. An ace means this.
Yeah. He was like rapid prototyping on us. Did you see what he pulled out of his pocket while we were playing that game, by the way? Just total side note unrelated, but it was so funny. What was it? He's trying to read a card and he can't read it. He needs his glasses. And so he whipped out a pair of glasses, but the glasses had no sticks. It was like a monocle, but for two glasses. And he just rested it on the bridge of his nose and started reading it. And I completely couldn't pay attention to the rest of the game because I was just constantly trying to figure out, is it going to fall off his nose? And what are the physics of this? How does this work?
I think they're called readers. He had readers on or something like that.
Is that a thing? Is that a known thing? Like modern monocles?
It's like you— it's like at Walgreens, you see them like next to the aisle, next to the checkout. You know what I mean? It's like the—
but they don't have sticks sometimes.
Yes. Arms. Is that what they call it?
I've been sleeping on this trend.
I am— do— I'm amazed that this woman is potentially doing $45 million a year. I don't know if I believe it because that is so shocking, but we should see if anyone's listening can get us in touch with her, I would like to talk to that, uh, talk to her for the pod. That would be fun. Um, yeah.
Ashley Flowers. Very, very impressive.
Uh, how old is she?
36.
She's young. Wow. That's crazy.
Isn't that crazy, dude?
That's crazy.
I could be her. She could be me. We could trade.
Isn't that crazy that like, you know, it's, it's, uh, now we're like, yeah, that's obvious. Uh, But 7 years ago, to be like, I'm going to start a crime podcast and that's going to make me a billionaire. That's pretty wild to think, because she potentially might be a billionaire if after another, you know, 5 or 10 years because of this, that's absolutely wild. And we called it, so we're right and we deserve all the credit.
Oh no, we didn't call it. It was identified early on by us as a likely outcome. All right. Uh, do we, I have a bunch more, but I think we're, we're, it's time to wrap. So maybe we call it.
I think we should call it.
Wait, wait, wait. Before we go, did you see Fyre Festival 2?
He didn't listen to our advice.
Prison.
Yeah. I love that where that's like, you know, other people get like authors when they have their book tours. We get like the post-prison. We got Shkreli. We got Billy. We get them first, right? Right out of prison. And, um, you told him— you, what did you tell him? You gave him some advice. He didn't listen.
He basically was like explaining all of these ideas for his, the business that he, like, he owes money. So he has to like earn, he has to earn money.
Not just a little bit of money. He owes a lot. He owes like $27 or $30 million.
A lot. And he was like, I'm going to start this festival. Uh, we're going to do like this other festival. And we were just like, you know, maybe you, maybe don't, maybe you should, maybe you should, maybe I think you shouldn't do that. I think that like, maybe you can, there's a lot of things you can do because you're famous, but you know, a Fyre Fest 2, maybe you shouldn't do that. And he's doing exactly that.
So he's doing Fyre Festival 2.
Is that what we said to him on the pod? Did we say anything else?
We told him you're crazy. And he was like, he just saw the potential. He was like, what if we did it right this time? Um, so article came out today, it says, uh, Fyre Festival 2 is off to a rough start again. Days after the tickets go on sale, which is, uh, allegedly taking place on Isla Mujeres, an island off the coast of Mexico, the local tourism board claims they have no knowledge of this event. The director of the tourism board says, we have never had any contact with any person or company about this. For us, This is an event that does not exist. And then if you go to the location that they list for where it's going to take place, so I don't know if you have Google Maps handy, but if you open up 21 degrees, 12 degrees, 32, you do all that. Just here's where the event is taking place. Take a look at this.
In the ocean.
RFS 2. The location in the middle of the ocean where there's no land.
Also, the most expensive tickets are $25,000. Like, he— you know how we've joked about entrepreneurs who have just taken what has worked and they just like say like, all right, you sold all this candy bars, just do the same thing now, but for a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup style product, right? He did that. So he must have exported the code for that old website and he just put a number 2 on it. And now he's doing Fyre Fest 2. It's the same thing. What did that woman's— what did that guy's wife say? Instead of "I told you so," it was, uh, "This had a bunch of predictable outcomes." What did she— what's the— what's the line?
"This was identified early on as a likely outcome." Yeah, you called it.
This was, uh— this is insane. I, I don't even know how he's allowed to leave the country.
Uh, yeah, it's not good. But hey, listen, I'm an optimist. There's a chance. There's always a chance. Uh, here's some other great quotes from this article, by the way.
We tried.
Billy, uh, took to Instagram to address the concerns. Here's what he said. Um, Fyre Fest 2— Fyre 2 is real. We have incredible partners leading the festivals. They're in charge of all logistics, production, operations. Uh, there's no way they would ever take on a fake festival, right? No, he didn't say the right part. And then the next thing he says is, uh, The tourism board responded, the organizers did not even bother to approach the authorities. It's very strange because anyone who organizes events knows if you're going to hold an event, let alone a massive event, you need the municipal authorization. I think they thought they could just announce it, see if it got traction, and then ask for permits halfway down the path. It's a bit naive. McFarland responds, we have accommodations.
Is that really what he said? That's what he said before. Also, there's— you could buy tickets on his website for up to $20,000. But there's a great way to accept your money as a user, but they don't list any bands. It's a show, right?
Yeah. So that's the other part here. At this point, no talent has been announced for the festival. However, McFarland responds, we have talent. Artists, athletes, and other performers are on board. So did I ever tell you about the time my dad, uh, I went on a trip with my dad and I learned the power of just being absolutely delusional?
The negotiation?
Um, it wasn't even, not even a full negotiation. It was, I mean, it wasn't even a negotiating situation. We were at the airport and my dad is cheap and so he doesn't want to pay to check luggage in. Oh yeah. So he just like bought the, he got his bag that's too big to check in and stuffed it. And then they're like, you want to check bags? He's like, yep, just that one, like the free one. And then the lady looks like poor little lady from Singapore Airlines behind the desk was like, um, sir, like, uh, you'll need to check that one too. And he goes, no, no, I'm carrying that on. And she goes, uh, sir, it's too big. And my dad responds, no, actually it's too small. Not even, not even, no, it's, it's not, it's not too big, it's okay. He says it's too small, which makes makes absolutely no sense to anyone in any situation. There's no such thing as it being too small. And by the way, she just kept saying, I think it's over the limit. And he goes, no, it's too small. I checked, it's too small. And it worked. She let him on the plane and we got it on the plane. At the plane, they're like, sir, it's not going to fit. He's like, you need to check it up front here because it's free to check when you're up there. And he got it for free. And then he just kept doing this on the trip. We were trying to get into this, like, he's like, oh, let's go to the Four Seasons. They have this, like, the New Year's festival. Like, they're doing this big celebration there. And we're like, we're driving up, it's like all these signs, like, you must be a mem— you must be a resident to attend. I'm like, Dad says, uh, we have to be staying here. We're definitely not staying at the Four Seasons. So like, we can't do this, we should turn around. He's like, no, no, it's gonna be fine, it's gonna be fine, it's gonna be fine. And we're like, what do you get? There's a guy at the front, like the gate, he's checking everybody, like, what room, give me your ID, all this stuff. And, um, so like, my dad just goes up and he just pulls up and he goes So what, do you need to see some ID or something? And the guy just goes, nah, it's good, you're fine, go ahead. We got in and I was like, wow. Somebody had tweeted this out. He goes, Delulu is the salulu. And I've been saying that for the last 2 days. My kids, they know I'm just obsessed. Delulu is the salulu. If you got a problem, I got a salulu for you. Delulu is the salulu.
Who said that?
Who tweeted that? I tweeted out this long, thoughtful thing and this guy just responded with that. Dilulu is the Slulu. And I was like, this is amazing.
That should be the new small boy stuff.
I don't have any tattoos, but I did. It's up there. It's a contender. My kid's name's in that.
Dude, that seems like a cute thing like a Gen Z woman would say on a true crime pod that just like we stole MFM, uh, you know, we're going to steal that one too. Thank you. That is now ours. Yeah.
Sorry. I wish I could remember who said it. I don't know your name.
Um, this is a good podcast because I'm exhausted from laughing. That's how I know.
I had a really good time. Yeah, let's do it again sometime.
All right, uh, great show. See you all out there. Have a good night. That's it. That's the pod.
I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off.
On the road, let's travel, never looking back.