9 drunk ideas that sound stupid (but are secretly genius)
All right. If you're out there, raise a glass. We are doing a favorite of this podcast. One of the favorite episodes. The people demanded it. The people begged for it. This is Drunk Ideas.
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.
The premise of Drunk Ideas is I have a lot of business ideas. that are awful. And if I came to the podcast and I told you the awful ideas were great, you would think I'm dumb. So we created Drunk Ideas where I could take my bad ideas and under the guise of alcohol, you know, more things go. Yeah, it's a, you laugh it off. And so these are ideas that are half-baked. They're, they're a little silly, but there's a nugget. There's a nugget of something in all of these ideas. All right. They're not just completely silly. Um, so that's Drunk Ideas. We've done this a few times before. I always love doing them. I beg Sam to do it. I don't know if Sam loves it as much as I do, but I'm like, dude, you ready for one? I've got like 20 ideas in the hopper. And he's like, all right, fine.
You're like the funny guy. But also, is it true that you actually keep a running list of this?
Of course. Yeah. Like in my Slack, I just write the ideas and I write drunk ideas. So then when the time comes, I just search drunk idea and I got my whole list filtered for me already.
What are some— okay.
I think that's in Atomic Habits. Well, that system I just described, I think that's the featured case study.
How, uh, how long is that Slack and who is in it? And are the other people in it like, dude, shut up?
Yes to the last one. I don't even know what the first 2 questions were. Also, producer Ari is actually not producer Ari today, co-host Ari today. Ari, how does it feel we brought you out of retirement back onto the pod?
Back by popular demand. Is that the phrase? I don't know.
Actually, no, it's like back by, um, like assistance. We were like, Sam, do you have any ideas? And Ari's like, for example, and then she said a great drunk idea and we were like, no, no, no, that's your idea. You have to bring that to the table. And so now she, she got dragged onto the show.
I've got a couple, Sean. I've got a couple that actually are pretty awesome, but you wanna go first?
All right, I'll start. Uh, there's a lot. Lemme give you a little diagram. All right, let's make it visual for all our visual learners out there. Sam, this is you normal routine, Monday through Friday, Saturday and Sunday. You do whatever you do. You have a certain level of productivity, a certain level of happiness, a certain autopilot that you go into. Now, when you want to relax and you want to be less productive, more relaxed and more happy, we call that going on a—
I don't know. What am I saying? Break?
Thank you, Daniel.
So, all right, so that's called going on a vacation. So you could think of that like the pen moving down in productivity but up in other factors like relaxation and enjoyment. Now let's go back to our baseline. Now, Sam, when you want to be way more productive for a week, if you want to kick ass for a week, if you want to truly lock in, what do we call that? Is there a word for that? I think not. And so I'm going to pitch you my first drunk idea, which is reverse vacations. It's basically a lock-in camp. You take a week off of your normal routine, but you're not going to relax. You're not going to sit in a cabana at the beach. You're going to lock in. And it's— you go to these essentially, um, like professional penitentiaries, and you go and you lock in. You are literally locked in. You set a goal. You were given like robe, like a new clothing, like you're wearing like, you know, track jumpsuit, like, uh, Maybe not like full like prison garb, but maybe like an Adidas tracksuit, I'm thinking. And something that just changes your identity. You're not normal Sam. You are here on a mission. You're here to do a thing. It's not— again, it can't be luxury. We're not trying to get you to relax. This is David Goggins is playing like kind of like on the ambient sound. Um, you know, there's just pull-up bars in random places. Yeah, ice baths everywhere. The showers are all cold. You're eating slop. We're not optimizing here. Your health doesn't matter here. This is actually not a wellness retreat. You should feel a little unwell by the end of this. Yeah. But you know what you're going to do? You're going to lock the hell in, and we're going to give you something to brag about. It's going to have a little bit of status to it. It's kind of like people when they sign up for a marathon or an Ironman, what's the first thing they do? Is it train? No, it's tell friends that they've signed up for an Ironman. And similarly, I need this to be a place where you're pseudo bragging, like workaholic style of how hardcore you are. Like, there's no way to tell people you're being hardcore about your projects right now. And I think we need the reverse vacation. What say you?
That, I think that you, you came out hot. That's a 9 out of 10. I just watched this YouTube video of this guy and the title was, I spent 11 days walking in the mountains in order to break my iPhone addiction. And it was pretty amazing. And, uh, I'm so on board with the, uh, with screen addiction stuff, but also with the reverse vacation. I think this is fantastic. Have you ever had any buddies who have gone to the silent meditation retreats?
Have I ever? They don't shut up about it.
Yeah, they saved up all their talking to tell you about it.
Exactly. Like, that's like a— it's an extreme way to do the kind of like self-introspection. But I'm just shocked. There's no— where is the extreme way to go be super productive. You can do it in fitness, right? You can go put yourself through a really hard fitness challenge. There's a lot of high rocks, there's Ironman, there's other marathons. There's plenty of ways to do it in fitness. But what about in work? Like, why is there only normal work with deadlines and whatnot? But there's not like a place, there's not like a way you can opt in and go be hardcore for 48 hours or 72 hours, something like that.
That's pretty awesome. I dig it. I give that a 9 out of 10.
This was inspired by one of Sam's original drunk ideas called Hostage, which was a guaranteed weight loss program. Where he pulls up in a van, takes you hostage, doesn't feed you for two weeks, and you will lose the weight guaranteed or your money back.
All right, let me give you a related one.
Hey, I want to tell you about something pretty cool. We have a database of all of the business ideas that have been discussed on this podcast. So hundreds of episodes, the team at HubSpot went through; they pulled out all the simple, relatable, interesting, profitable ideas that we have brainstormed, and they're all available for download for free. Just click the link in the description below. Thank you to our friends at HubSpot for sponsoring this podcast and. putting together this free resource for you guys. Back to the show.
Sean, have you guys— and Ari, have you guys ever seen like the meme or a video or in real life of like a ripped black guy doing pull-ups like in the corner of a busy street and just looking yoked?
Yes. Love those.
Did you ever want to monetize that?
Wasn't my first thought. I'm curious.
So, so check this out. I just— Rolling Stone did an article on this thing and it didn't get a lot. It didn't get picked up a lot, but it's— it was so cool.
You took that as validation?
So it doesn't have a name, but it's very similar to a UFC event.
Okay. It just starts with just— first of all, there's just people kind of hooting and hollering, screaming in the background right now just to start the video. But this guy's doing push-ups, squats, dips. Okay, so what am I watching? This looks like a rap battle, but they're just working out instead. Exactly. So check this out.
out. There's no name for this. There's only a couple posts about it, but there's this whole community of people and I followed them on Instagram and they're obsessed with calisthenics. This one guy, he basically, I think his, he changed his name. It's like Abu. He went, went to prison, he got into calisthenics and he got out and he decided to turn it into a competition. And it's exactly like a rap battle meets a UFC fight. And so basically there's, looks like there's 100 people in a room. And they are all crowded around a very small circle where there's a pull-up bar. There's like
an area to do great. There's a guy doing a walkout like a UFC fight, right?
Yes, exactly.
And he's got like a— he's got like a character. He's got like a mask on and like a cool-looking chain.
His name is Extra Money. So it's Extra Money versus Calisthenics the Prince. And it's basically— they are, they are the final— they are the, they're the main event. But leading up to it, so it's like 150 people. They go in this room. And they are surrounding this little circle area, and there's an opener where like some guys are doing like cool tricks on the pull-up bars and showing how strong their abs are. Then there's an undercard where there's two guys going after it, and they do a battle, and they do face-offs. They do what they like have music walking in, and they get face to face, and they're talking trash to each other, and people are betting on it, and they're throwing money at them, and they're hooting and hollering at them and shit. And then there's a final battle, and it's like I think it's like. 70 pull-ups.
I have it up here. The battle set is what they call it, which is a great name. 100 burpees, 50 muscle-ups, 75 dips, and then 75 squats with a 65-pound dumbbell.
How great is this?
And then there's like, they're enclosed like a rap battle circle or like an Indian wedding.
But yeah, and there's no— I don't think there's a name for this, But there's this entire community of people who are into this. It's like, it's like in mostly cities that these guys are doing it, and they do it sometimes on like the weirdest objects that they can find, like a street pole or something like that. Right. And they are jacked to the gills. They are just, they're just like ripped. And this guy, Abu, I think that's his name, he turned it into a competition. I don't even think it has a name, but 100%, this could become a thing and be all over the country. This is the coolest thing I've seen this week. How great is that?
This is great. The name is great too. Last Man Standing. I feel like that's— is
that what it's called? I think that's the name of the video. I don't know if that's the name of the video or the name of the competition.
I think they should just call that the name of the competition. This is, this is actually pretty excellent. Um, it reminds me, I mean, it has elements of one of my, one of my favorite, um, films. It's not a foreign film, but it was a little foreign to me at the time, which was the Kimbo Slice backyard Street fights.
Yeah. Yeah.
Um, you know, but, but this is like the, like, more good-for-you version of that where you don't feel like so dirty at the end of the whole thing. So this is really great. I just want to say that, um, to all the combatants that, that participate. Um, I could totally see this being a thing. It's kind of made for content. I'm surprised this video is not more popular, meaning, uh, you know, I don't know if a lot of people are going to attend in person. But the whole thing makes you want to stop and watch, which is, which is cool.
It's the best. They have nicknames. Do you remember XFL? Remember, uh, He Hate Me? So for the young guys listening, when Sean and I were like 8 years old, there was this thing called the XFL, which was an alternative to the NFL.
And by Vince McMahon, Trump was a part of it. They were trying to compete with the NFL.
And they all had great, and they did like a bunch of, like they allowed like celebrations and They also had funny nicknames. So like the jerseys oftentimes didn't have people's last name. One of the most famous guys, he was called He Hate Me because whenever he hits people, they hate him. And this one, there was Spec Nasty, there's Extra Money, there's all these like awesome names in the calisthenics world. This is so good. I saw this and I was like, this needs to be a thing.
You know how offices name their meeting rooms? I think I found one for the Hampton office that you're in right now. I think you're in Spec Nasty. Yeah. He hates it.
Like, Pink Juice is right down the street.
Yeah, exactly.
So I like that. Another less good one that I actually am training for, and this is similar to something you had talked about. Go to— there's another link that I sent. It's called apexathleteofficial.com.
Oh, dude, I saw this. Is this the idea that I've been begging for? Like the combine, but for— I was saying for youth athletes, but it looks like maybe it's for adults.
Yeah, for I guess for anyone, but it's like you know, like over the hill dads who like want to stay in shape, and the tagline is like finally something to train for. And I'm actually training for one of them, so I got a coach through the. It's great, right? It's it's uh. So basically this thing
doesn't say that on the website, but I think it's hilarious that you called it their tagline.
It says it on. It says it all over their Instagram. It was like finally something to train for. And this guy Tim started it, and it's basically they're doing competitions all over the country, and it's very similar to the combine. It's a little bit different. It's like run a mile, bench press 225, deadlift, sprint 40 yards, broad jump, vert. And I think that's it. And they have like a leaderboard and they have like records and they do, I think, a dozen or half a dozen events a year. I'm signed up for one in December. I hired a trainer through them. It's pretty sick.
This is awesome, Tim. Good job with this, Tim. I would love to talk to you and partner with you on a youth version of this. I think youth sports is the place to go for something like this. But this is really cool. So you go, you do the vertical leap, a 40-yard dash, deadlift, bench press, run a mile. You do all these in a row?
Like a day, like a couple hours.
Gotcha. Yeah, that's, that's very cool. Okay, I like that idea. I, I mean, I don't know which one's your idea. I think the last man standing one's technically your idea for this.
Not technically.
For Drunk Ideas. Actually, it seems like it's their idea.
Yeah, it's their idea.
I think what you're saying is I stole their shit. Yeah, yeah, I, I, that's valid here. Um, Ari, what you got?
I've got an idea that I'm gonna run by you. What's more profitable than casinos?
I do not know. Church? I don't know.
I'm thinking, uh, casinos for children.
So are you coming in with pure Dr. Evil? Uh, okay, go on.
So have you seen one of these? It's a claw machine arcade.
Yes.
They have one in my town and there's probably, it's just like this small space. It probably has about 150 claw machines in it and it's token-based. So you're like, it's not real money.
Yeah.
Super colorful. They're using like toys that kids go insane for, like Neatos, LaBooBoos. It's a, It's absolutely insane. And there's no—
is there no other games besides claw machines? So it's like just pure claws?
It's claws, and it's those like totally rigged, like try to cut the thread,
uh,
and get like a 50-pound La Boo Boo.
Looks like one of them has like the, uh, the punch machine.
Yeah, exactly, where it's just like you try to get the thing to fall off the edge. Um, I went to one and there was probably 15 people, 15 parents in there, and they, they they give you a shopping cart, so they, they're setting the tone like you're gonna, you're gonna be in here a while.
Dude, that's genius actually, to give you a box to fill up. I've never found a box I didn't want to fill up if handed to me.
What, uh, did your kid win anything?
So I— they do a good job of like, I think the odds are better than like your typical grocery store claw machine because you do like, you see other people with things in their carts. TBD how long they'd been there, how much they paid for that ultimately. But I mean, of course, like the toys they're giving away, the machines that have the most like put out are probably giving away toys that cost 30 cents. And it's basically you're averaging like $2 a game. Is this like a go—
like, how do you compare this to Chuck E. Cheese? Right. So we— so Chuck E. Cheese, similar idea. Go play games, get tickets to get a prize at the end. This is like, the game is to get the prize. Like, to get the prize is the game. Are there other differences, uh, between these, like, what are they called? Gacha arcades?
Gotcha. Yeah, because it's, it is just like a casino. Like, you go in, there's only one thing to do. Like, Chuck E. Cheese, like, fun. You can go play in the ball pit.
So is your idea just, hey, check this out, or do you have a twist on this idea? Because I have a twist for you.
Because yeah, I got a good twist too.
Oh, go for it.
All right, Sam, you wanna go first?
All right. So, uh, my partner Joe helped fund this idea and didn't take off, but there's another guy in the space that it did take off. But basically what these guys did was they got a small warehouse and they put hundreds of claw machines in the warehouse and they turned it into an app where kids or whoever could download the app and watch the camera and they could control the claw machine and whatever they won, it got shipped to them. And, uh, it was called like Winner Winner and it didn't work out. But there's another company called Clawee. If you, it's the word claw and then E-E.
Yeah, they're big.
I think they do like $30 or $40 million in revenue according to the Financial Times. And they have like 400,000 reviews on the App Store.
So what I like about what you're saying, Sam, is in one way they decrease the friction, right? Because you can just play from your bedroom. You can just be on your phone. You don't have to go anywhere. On the other hand though, you know, there's this sort of delayed gratification, right? And there's, uh, You know, you got to wait for things to ship to you. It's not great. So I'm thinking we go the other way here. You know, like, um, Carvana? Have you ever seen where you— the Carvana buildings where it's a tall vertical thing and it's essentially a car vending machine? So you go, there's no car salesman. I don't think you literally just buy the car and then it gets dispensed out of this like gigantic car vending machine.
Yeah.
And it was very like striking. Like if you're driving on a highway, you would see one of these. It's like, what is this like Lego tower of cars? And it would be a Carvana. And so it had that kind of wow factor.
Have you, have you bought a car from there?
Well, no, I'm not, I'm not a dummy, but, uh,
dude, I did. I've bought and sold cars here. I, I thought the bit— I thought they were gonna go outta business because they bought my car or they gave an offer for the car, you know, sight unseen. And I, and I shopped it around and all the dealers were like, yeah, they pay like crazy high for cars. Just sell it to them. And I, it's pretty crazy to buy a phone, uh, buy a car on your phone. So it's pretty awesome.
So you, you got one out too? You sold and bought?
Yeah. Yeah.
No, they brought it to our house.
Oh, okay.
But, but it's a crazy service. So I'm a big Carvana guy. I don't know how on earth they make a profit, but it's amazing.
They're real people.
Finally, something for people like us, or whatever you said the tagline was of that other thing. So it's like a claw machine, but the thing you get out is like, you know, a PS5 is the smallest prize you could get. You know what I mean? There's like a baby grand piano in there. There's like like, you know, a small golf cart that you could get out of this thing. And so you just— entire, like, a family Trek bicycle with the buggy in the back. Like, you just— there's just huge prizes, but it's the same odds, but it's like, you know, $10 a go, right? You, you gotta, you gotta spend some to get some. And I just think that would be a spectacle, and I think people would want to see people doing it. And I think you could fake it till you make it with these types of things. So I'm a big, like, sucker for lines. If I see that there's a line to a place, my brain just automatically assumes it must be great and worth it.
Yeah. Or if it has a sign that says world's greatest, like world's greatest coffee, I stop every time.
Yeah. I'm like a personal Guinness Book, like, tester who's like, I'll tell you if it's the greatest or not. And when I went to go visit you in New York, New York is like the king of this. By the way, the best ice cream I've ever had, Café Panna in New York. That was unbelievable ice cream. That was, that was true. They actually did have the best ice cream. But most places just had crazy lines. And in New York, I went to one place and the guy who owned it fessed up. He goes, yeah, for the first 2 months, I just paid people to stand outside. He goes, we just faked the line for the first 2 months. He goes, and now we've had a line for 2 years.
And I was like, wow.
So I think you could do that with pretty much any of the ideas we've said so far.
Why would he tell you that?
What?
Why would he tell you that? Did you ask?
He knows I'm a guy who would respect the hustle, right? Some people hear that. And they judge you. I hear that and I, I dap you up.
Well, you judged them as being awesome. I hate when people say, don't judge me. You know, do you not want me to judge you as being amazing? That's pretty cool. All right, great idea. Did— how much did you spend there?
I gave each of my kids a $10 limit. Wow.
All right. Wow.
So you're there for 12 minutes? Like, how long did that last?
It was about 4 and a half minutes.
All right, Sean, what do you got?
All right, next idea. Okay, Sam, do you cook much?
Seldomly. Sometimes.
If you do cook, you ever cook with butter?
Love butter. Tons of butter.
Tell me, let's get a little detail. Tell me how you butter up. So are you a stick guy? You're a spray guy? What are you doing?
Definitely not spray. What's it called? The Irish—
Irish Gold.
Irish Gold.
Or whatever it's called. Kerrygold.
Kerrygold.
So you, you slice.
Yeah.
You drop in the pan, it starts melting. Did you put too much? Did you put too little? Well, your pot committed to whatever decision you just made. You put too little, now you gotta have ketchup butter where you're trying to catch up by adding more, but now you got 2 butters melting at different rates. One's gonna start, right? That's a problem. Put too much, now you're just a butterball. Pan's— so that's a problem. You gotta nurse the thing. You're sitting there swirling. Well, I saw something, and I'd like to show this to you. And you're gonna think this is a stupid idea. I can tell you that right now.
Isn't that the point?
Well, the secret point is I think I want you to like these ideas. But I want to just explain this thing. So you're gonna see this video, you're gonna think this is stupid.
It's a person who is putting a stick of butter, she's melting it, and she's putting it in an empty deodorant canister this way. She's gonna roll out the deodorant, aka the butter, and put it on the pan.
So she's, she's doing it on the pan. She's doing it on her toast. She's just rolling the butter like a deodorant stick. Super easy. No mess. Control your volume. Spread evenly. Tons of dispensing problems solved. Now you might think, again, stupid idea, but I just, I would like to draw your attention to the numbers in the corner. 2.8 million people have liked this video. 27,000 people have, uh, commented on this video. They love it. They hate it. Doesn't matter. It grabbed their attention. It's a very attention-getting product. And I just want to point out that in the comments, if you go study the comments of this post, as I did, and I ran a sentiment analysis and, uh, you know,
you crunch the numbers.
Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty, pretty advanced statistical stuff. I don't want to, you know, make you feel dumb by, by telling you everything that I did, but I will tell you one thing that I found. There is a non-zero number of people who are like, oh, I do that. I've been doing that for years. And I don't know if you've ever seen, have you ever seen a diagram of what's called a happy path? Do you know what a happy path is?
No. Is that the thing where it's, uh, someone walks across the grass diagonally?
Exactly. Like somebody paved a sidewalk to walk to someplace, but then everybody wants to walk a different direction. And so many people want to walk a different direction that they basically, it forms a trail and it's a trail of evidence that this is actually what people wanted. That's what I found. I found a happy path here. I think that people want a new form factor for this. And if you think that's silly, I'd draw your attention to something else very cool. Have you seen the new Vacation whipped cream sunscreen?
Yeah, those guys are wild. I've not seen the— I don't know about the new one, but I've seen a company called Vacation that makes whipped cream sunscreen. They
have a new version. There's— yeah, I think, I mean, I think I explained it pretty well there. So basically they have this new form factor for sunscreen where they do it in a whipped cream bottle. This thing's taken off, goes viral every time on social media because it's super fun. You spray it, it looks like a dollop of whipped cream, and it's just a more fun way to apply sunscreen. My kids in their school right now, it was swim team season. The most popular form of sunscreen was like a makeup brush powder. So you just like powder the thing and you just like rub their face with a brush because kids don't like when you sort of have to put sunscreen like cream on them and rub it in. They just— it kind of bothers them, or the spray goes everywhere. So form factor changes, underrated. Butter in a deodorant stick, make the butter that way. Make the butter a roll-on butter, and I think you have a pretty killer innovation in the butter aisle. The butter aisle is pretty, pretty stale. There's not a lot going on there. We got salted and unsalted. That's pretty much all we have.
Yeah.
And then the third one is you take like a thing and you make it really large or really small. Like the— that little— what are they called? Like Melissa's cupcakes. I forget what they're called. Like little mini cupcakes.
Yeah. Like a 10-pound burger.
Yeah.
And we had— I forgot his name. The guy who started Groons.
Chad.
Chad. Chad was awesome. And he was like, kept talking about like different forms and he made it almost sound like, well, I just took Athletic Greens and I put it in a gummy because it's easier. I just changed the form.
Right. He didn't say that. We said that. And he was like, I'm not going to say that. But yes.
But that is 100% true. This whipped cream stuff, another great— I mean, that is great. Just, it's— I don't even know. I bet you I would, I would imagine that this vacation sunscreen stuff, it's just fine. But the fact that they like put it in this weird form makes me want it and it looks delicious.
Right now, one of the biggest trends is liquid vitamins. I don't even know why it's a trend exactly. You have to store it in the fridge. It doesn't taste that great, but some people want it. So like Mary Ruth's, she's built like a, an empire on liquid vitamins right now. Ro Nutrition. They're, uh, like they're selling, uh, they're doing like, you know, millions and millions of dollars in revenue by just changing the form factor from vitamins are gummies and pills. Nope. Now they're liquid that you store in the fridge and you drink cold because different people prefer things to different things. And it also gets attention. It gives you a reason to buy it. RTB. By the way, I think I realized why I like drunk ideas so much.
Because some of them are, like, legit?
No, I think it's because it's like a challenge. It's like, how believable can you make this terrible idea? It's like, you know, debate club where they're just like, you have to argue, you know, it's not your real opinion. They just assign it to you. You're for this or against this topic. That's what this episode is for me. It's like my debate club practice where it's like, take any idea and figure out a way to make it sound, like, half plausible.
Um, yeah, until you're like, given the worst topic ever. I remember in debate class, they had given me this stuff that like capitalism is bad or something like that. And I'm like, I'm gonna fail. I can't do it.
You start talking, you rip your shirt Hulk Hogan style, then you just come out in favor for it because you just can't do it.
It's sort of like being a defense attorney. My sister was a defense attorney and she like had to like defend them. I'm like, how on earth do you do that? That seems so hard to be able to just like Defend someone you know is guilty.
That's us right now. Hey, let's take a quick break.
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Ari, you seem like you're you're itching to say something. What do you got?
All right. Have you guys seen this? Go to go to tin can dot kids.
Oh my god! I've heard about this. So tin can dot kids. Can you explain this?
Everyone is sharing their numbers for their kids. So this is like a it's a landline. But it works through the Wi-Fi and you can like pre-program numbers in it. Um, and this is so awesome. Super, super safe to use.
Physical phone, right? It's like a physical phone, old school with like punch numbers, swirly cord that was always fun to play with while you're on the phone.
Look, they feature it right on there. Twirl that cord. Okay, so they know, speaking my language. But this reminded me of a time a few years ago where I was like, you know what, I'm not I'm gonna get rid of my smartphone. And what ended up happening with that was that I was like, okay, well now I need a Garmin GPS. I need an alarm clock. I need to get a camera. You have to, like, unbundle all of these things. So when I'm looking at this, I'm like, okay, so these kids can reach each other at home, but how are you gonna catch 'em? So I was like, how about beepers for kids?
I love how some entrepreneurs right now are trying to ride the AI wave. And Ari's like, I'm going to ride this tin can wave. Not a lot of people surfing this tin can wave right now, but I see the future. Wait, by the way, a little stat on this. So the thing costs like $10 a month as a subscription, uh, to, to use. And they say they've sold hundreds of thousands. They just raised, they've raised a total of $15.5 million.
I'm looking at it now.
To grow the business. Uh, you say you buy the phone for $100 and then it's $10 a month to be able to call non-tin can phones. So, okay, free to call other tin cans, $10 a month to be able to call normal people's phones.
This is awesome.
This school in Kansas delivered free tin cans to 200+ families and students. Uh, it's a, it's like kind of riding the trend of getting kids off of smartphones, as you said. And it's super like viral, like looking product. Like it makes you kind of stop and the name is great and stuff like that.
Yeah, they keep selling out.
Have you guys seen, um, uh, what's the little radio, Sean, that I have at my house?
Tony's?
Tony's. There's Tony's is one. And then the other one is called like Yoto. Is it called Yoto?
Okay.
Uh, it's like a little box and there's cards. You buy the cards for $10 and cards are sort of like a CD album where you like one card will have an album. We have Beatles, we have Frozen, and then you can also record your own and you put it in this box and it plays music and it's screen-free music. It's so good. And I think that business is doing north of $100 million in revenue.
It's music, but it's also like nighttime stories and things like that. They do a little bit more too.
And you could also record your own. So I actually recorded like, or we had grandparents record a story and we put it on our phone and then the phone can then be attached to a card. And it's like, it's absolutely amazing. This business is so good.
But Ari, I think your Beeper idea is genuinely a good idea. I don't even, I mean, I almost feel like, are we going to need to edit it out of Drunk Ideas and put it into a main episode? Because kids love— like, my kids love anything they could take with them. In fact, it's the bane of my existence that anywhere we want to go, they bring, like, so much junk. It's like he's bringing his Pokémon book collection when we're going swimming. It's like, you don't need a binder full of Pokémon cards. It's completely irrelevant. Or we're going to a doctor's checkup and they pack, like, a backpack of junk. And so they like having things with them and they, uh, they like wearing things. They like, you know, if you give them like a bracelet or a necklace or a chain or whatever, they like that type of stuff. Uh, we got them like a fanny pack. They loved a fanny pack. Like they kind of just like having their own stuff that they can bring with them when they go out. And so the idea of a clip-on beeper, I know for a fact my kids would love that. Now the question is, what do you do with it? Who beeps them and what is going on? And so like, You know, 'cause if I'm with them, you know, they're never really alone, right? My kids are not really like by themselves where I would need to page them or beep them to get them to like do anything.
This, okay, this actually is one of the things that I think is going to be a future trend. So this is TikTok research that I'm quoting here, but I saw— By the way, how old are your kids, Ari? Mine are 9 and 7.
Okay, so they're more away from you more often than mine are. I'm, I got like, yeah.
So she was saying, this woman, this like TED Talk lady, was saying that the statistic was like 60% of parents won't let their kid go to the next aisle over in a grocery store. And my thinking is—
Are you a 60 or are you a 40?
Yeah.
I'm a 40. I, I was trying to convince my kids to walk home from the bus.
To go get the groceries themselves.
Charge it. I think there's going to be a backlash. I think there's going to be a trend later where, like,
free-range kids,
free-range, more, more independence, unreachable but still reachable.
I think you're 100% right. I saw a TikTok that was like this. I mean, she just said free-range kids, and I immediately was like, yes, what is that? I need to know what that is. I'm already like, I vibe with whatever that philosophy is, and I know I'm overparenting. So definitely, I don't even know where to start, but I'm in line with that philosophy. It'll be a countertrend to like a lot of parents' instincts are just to, like, overparent everything, overcoach, overparent, overcontrol kids. And it's exhausting for the parent, and it's kind of exhausting for the kids. And you raise, like, a more fragile kid is the idea when you do that versus, like, letting them build a little independence.
Are you 60? Are you 40?
Grocery store? I probably would not let them go an aisle. Well, I mean, they do, so, like— but I'm not, like, trying to let them just wander around by themselves.
What about walking to school?
No chance. No chance.
What age, at what age can you, can they do that?
Dude, these are, these are tough questions. I mean, I kind of think like a 9, 10, like I think that's when I would be like—
That seems super reasonable.
Yeah, agreed.
But I still might be like walking 200 meters behind them, you know, for now, uh, you know, for a little while at least. Or, or I need the beeper. I need the AirTag on them to see their progress and see where they're going, which I guess is the opposite of free range. I'm just sort of like—
Dude, I know people—
Spying on them.
I was out with this, uh, or we met, hung out with a couple recently and they, you know, they Nanit, like the baby monitor with the camera,
the baby whoop band.
They had one of those things. I don't think it was a Nanit, but they had the camera and it was on their 12-year-old, like in bed. And I was like, you know, at what age are you gonna like start exploring and doing some crazy stuff and don't want a camera on you? But it was insane, these people. I was like, you guys, 12's old enough. All right, so you're gonna see some stuff you don't want to watch.
So what would be the twist on this beeper thing? So what would they get? So one is All right. Were you going down the path of location tracking or no?
No, it's like, okay, so now just riffing off of the tin can, if your friend can only reach you, it's like, it works the exact same way a beeper used to work.
I think I'm confused about beepers.
You beep in the number you want to call back. That's the way beepers work.
Dude, imagine this. You see a small, you have a tiny screen and you basically can only see like 10 numbers. And so oftentimes the 10 numbers would just be the number you want the person to call back. But if you're, if it's your dad, like what I used to do with my dad, I would just type in 911 and he knew to call home.
Uh, I honestly think I'm gonna make this idea. I think this is like my daughter, if she had, if her friend had one of these and she had one of these and she could send little secret messages basically, but like they're obviously innocent because there's only limited things you can really say, whether it's like, I think you could do voice to text now, right? So I think you could hold a button on your beeper, say something into it. and that would turn into text because voice to text is awesome now. So like WhisperFlow, I think you could send emojis or whatever, but basically anything. If they could just buzz each other basically back and forth, they would do that all day. They would never stop. That's— And the profits would never stop. Ari, pay per message. It's free. You pay $0.01 a message and we just count on the addiction. Today's podcast is brought to you by my friends at Mercury. They make the world's best banking product. I think you know this already. I use Mercury for all of my businesses. I think I have like maybe 7 or 8 businesses. We use Mercury as our business banking. across all of them. And now they actually just launched a personal banking account. So I have my personal account there. I moved off of Wells Fargo and Chase. I'm just all in on Mercury. Why? I like products that are easy to use. I like products that get me and the problems that I have. So like very easy to make a joint account with my wife, very easy to spin up virtual cards. One click and I get savings yield. It just has all the stuff that I need in one place. So if you're looking for the best banking product on the market, it's definitely Mercury. I will fistfight anybody who disagrees with me on that. Go to mercury.com/personal and learn more. Mercury is a fintech, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group and Column and A members FDIC.
All right, what do we got, Sean? What do you got?
Okay, here I'm going to— okay, here I have one that's an AI defense called Slop Stopper. And then I have another one called Mexican Benihanas, which I think you kind of understand the idea. You tell me which one you want.
Benihana's. What is it? It's like hibachi, which is Japanese. I mean, they make like fried rice and they toss like shrimp into your mouth. So it's not Mexican.
As Japanese are known to do.
Oh yeah. It sounds like it sounds like you want you want Mexican Benihana's. All right. So here's the thing. You
know it's already so in your mouth.
Yeah, exactly. Chips, dips, guac cannon. In the third course. Tell me you wouldn't want the guac cannon. Open your mouth.
I'm not opening my mouth.
So the best cuisine is Mexican food. I don't even think we really need to talk much about that. It's the best cuisine. The most fun dining environment is chef making food where the table is the stove. The guy's making it for you fresh as can be. Food to mouth doesn't even hit the plate. Unbelievable experience. Pre-canned jokes, magic tricks. Blah, blah, blah. You're sitting in a semicircle. So I think Benihana's has already found an optimal food social experience. I think Mexican food has found the ideal food. 1+ 1= 3.
Great. I'm in. Have you seen that?
I mean, dude, a fajita. Just an open casket fajita right in front of you right there. When you bring fajitas to the table, they already bring it in a flaming skillet. Come on, let's make the table the skillet. Mariachi bands, entertainment is built in. I've already mentioned the guac cannon, and I also have one more innovation that I was planning to keep close to the vest, but in the spirit of transparency, salsa lazy river running around the table at all times. Constant motion salsa. Just dip as you go.
Were you laughing at yourself?
Maybe I should have saved this for the end.
Were you laughing at yourself when you wrote that down? Babe, I got it.
No, I was like, salsa lazy river. That is primo shit. I was like impressed with myself last night. I was like, that is a great— I mean, that was the cherry on top.
That's so good. I mean, I don't even know what to say. That's great.
No, dude, look him up. I've read his story before. He got it. It doesn't even have like a great story.
Yeah, his name's Rocky Aoki. You know who is, which is a great name. They should have, they should have called it Rocky Aoki. You know who his son is, is Steve Aoki. Yeah. And, uh, he was kind of like a wild man.
Imagine being Steve Aoki and you're not the coolest guy in your family.
It says that he competed in Japan, uh, in wrestling in the Olympics. And then he was like an ex— he was amazing at track and field. But then he comes to New York and I think he starts like an ice cream truck, which like goes okay. And then he eventually starts Benihana's, which goes public. And while he's doing this, he does all these weird competitions. Like, I think he was a professional powerboat racer at one point. He like set a record for like flying a fly, like a hot air balloon, like across some distance. And he even got in trouble by the SEC for insider trading because I think he was trying to like buy back Benihana and he like thought like, like a, a bad report was going to come out, something crazy like that. But he's like this, like, amazing entrepreneur with a crazy, crazy, crazy story.
He passed away at age 69 due to pneumonia, complications from the liver cancer, and hep C.
Yeah. So
we like to feel like you didn't need to add the hep C in there.
It says that his hep C was reportedly because his, his hep C came from a blood transfusion after a speedboat crash under the Golden Gate Bridge.
First of all, you did a cover story on this guy for The Hustle. This photo you have of him, absolute gangster. Look at this guy. I love this guy. By the way, his quote at the top of this is maybe the tagline for the podcast. Money's not everything, just 99%. Rocky Aoki.
He's— this guy's awesome, right?
Classic, classic Rocky. All right. Uh, who's got one, Sam?
I blew my load early on, dog.
You had one?
It was kind of one and a half.
Bro, I was setting the expectations low and you somehow, you somehow came in below the expectations.
I've just, they're just so much lamer than y'all's. Okay, listen to this. So about 8 months ago, we did this thing. So with Hampton, we build core groups. So it's a group of 8 people.
That's
an incredible pivot.
So we—
Trump-esque double down on your part.
I'm never saying sorry. We, we make core groups in different cities. And so, like, if we have like 6 people in Austin and they need a core group, we have to go out and find like 3 people that'd be a good fit for them. And so we hired this kid, we came up with this idea because we couldn't find a good service that did this, but we hired this kid and we paid him $100 a person. And he went and he found, I think, 200 people that could be potential fits for that core group. And he researched each person and we sent the thing we call bulky mail. But that's like a, it's like a direct marketing term. But we sent a gift that was super customized and directly related to that person. So for example, there was a company called like Honey Beekeeping or sorry, Honey Bookkeeping. It was like a bookkeeping service and we sent them like this artisanal, like amazing honey. And we wrote this like special letter just for them. And it's taken about 6 or 7 months in order to get the ROI data on this. But it was one of our best marketing channels where we like made this super customized gifts. The problem was that I had to find a kid who like kind of knew how to do this, but we were just making it up as we went. And so I think that someone can truly make this a product where you upload your lead list and you make heavily, heavily customized gifts based off the person's social media or their website.
That's a great story. Good recovery. There was a guy who was doing something called Jumbo Mail or Dumbo Mail or something like that, and his tagline was, everybody— nobody opens their mail, everybody opens a package. And I was like, yep, actually makes total sense. And it was like a big kind of like what you call bulky, like kind of like looking package and then you put whatever you want inside. But I don't think he was doing the like full customization for sales. But that's pretty cool. I like that idea. How much would you pay to send those out? Right. You have a pretty high LTV product.
We are paying $100.
Per person?
Per person. Yeah.
That's probably too low for like buying stuff, putting it in a package, sending it out, doing the research. Like, that doesn't make sense, right? It'd have to be like much more than that.
Yeah. I mean, it was just like a kid doing a one-off thing for us. So like, he probably made—
But you had to include the The cost of the stuff inside.
It could have been $200, but a lot of the gifts weren't expensive. They were just very relevant. So like someone could have tweeted out their favorite band and it was like a vintage t-shirt of that band or something like that. Like it wasn't like, or for the bee thing, it was like a $20 thing of honey. Like, but then it was a handwritten letter and the ROI on this marketing campaign that we did was amazing. It was really good. It was very, it was very, very, very good. And there's this other company called World 50. Have you ever heard of World 50?
No.
World 50 is a community for Fortune 5000 executives. It does hundreds of millions a year in revenue. If you go to their website, you will not see anything about it other than like a login. And the way that they get a large percentage of their customers is sending mail, like really cool letters to executives. And so that's where we were inspired by it. Very effective.
Very cool. Ari, did you have one more? Otherwise I can bring us home.
Are you just gonna—
I also blew my load, so
you're a load blower, huh?
Oh, you shot a
little different when you said it for some reason.
No, you had another one. The, the, the before Mexican Betty Hannas.
I got several more, but I mean, I don't— now, now it's embarrassing for, for you guys, so I will graciously pretend that I was also out of ideas.
No, tell me, uh, Slop Stop.
Oh, slop, slop. Oh, this is stolen from a guy. I got to find him on Twitter. Basically what he realized is like, hey, you know how AI is making it really easy to do like mass outreach, mass personalized outreach? It's like, you know, here's an AI sales, uh, SDR, right? A sales development rep. Um, so they, you know, they scrape email addresses, they email you, they text you, they call you. It seems like it's from a real person, but it's not. And so that's just going to be like a huge problem in the future. So this guy, Said, if you can't, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. So what he did was, uh, a very interesting thing. He created the defense. He was like, I'll catch the slop. So he basically, you reach out to him, his AI will reply. It'll ask several questions. You need to now go research and, and reply to those questions. And he says, you know what? I'm kind of interested in a call. Let's book a call. He books a call and, and you know, it basically like just wastes the other person's time right back. Okay. And I thought, oh, that's kind of cool. And I thought he should go further. He should have an AI show up to the call, and on the call he should ask more questions and request detailed follow-ups that they have to go produce, you know, case studies and whatever else they're trying to sell. And then he should ask for the contract, be like, I'm, I'm, I think I'm almost ready to sign here and get the contract. Then he'll send back red lines, absurd red lines. Now you're paying a lawyer to have to deal with that. And at the last minute, he just ghosts you and never comes back. And I think that is gonna be the defense that you need to, to stop the— The insane amount of slop you're going to have coming at you from, from sales reps. If you have, if you have any, if you're any kind of business owner, you're just going to get bombarded from all directions.
So at The Hustle, we sent so many emails and we would get like tens of thousands of vacation responders and stuff like that in like the company inbox. And I would browse them to see if there was anything interesting.
What would have possibly been interesting?
Like sometimes people would actually tell us like, like it wouldn't just be, it would be replies. Even if we didn't ask for a reply, people would reply back with like interesting insights. And there was this one service, you might remember the name of it. I can't remember the name, but it was like, hey, it would auto-reply and it would say, hey, in order to combat spam, I make emails who I've never talked to, I make you pay me $1 to read your email.
Yeah.
And it was pretty brilliant. Do you remember what that was called?
There's been a few of those. Balaji started one called Earn. that he ended up selling to Coinbase. But the same thing, it's a reverse inbox. So you, you publicly put out an inbox with a price and it says, I'll, I'll read a reply to all messages that paid my vig. So it's the only like true defense of spam is if you attached a price to everything you had to send. And if you're a normal person, that price could be so low, but a spammer spending, sending millions of emails. So you would make it expensive for spammers, but essentially free for normal people because it's such a low low amount. It was never implemented in the email system because there was no micropayments when email and the internet was early on. Now with crypto, you could do it, but it's too late. We've already set up all our systems, so nobody wants to adopt these things.
This thing was really cool. Um, I don't remember what it was called, but it was, I think it was really effective because every once in a while I would pay a dollar to reach them to like test it.
Ymail or something like that. There was like one other one.
That's what I'm talking about. It was called something mail.
Yeah. It was in their email signature. It was like, by the way, if you really want me to reply, Do this. You know what you should do, by the way? I think, why don't brands do this? When you send out mass mail and then you get like a vacation autoresponder, like, oh, I'm back on July 15th, I'm in Aruba. You should just have the AI respond, be like, how was Aruba on the 16th? So thoughtful, right? Nobody's ever, nobody's ever asked you how your vacation was after the vacation responder.
What's the, I'm like horrible at names right now. What's the name of the company that I think we both invested in that does mailers? For e-com brands?
Oh, Postpilot.
Postpilot. They're killing it. They're killing it. People are sleeping on mail, man. And then you and I, you know, we had Alex on, our friend Alex. Alex Daniels has a company where he sends like hundreds of thousands of magazines out, which are basically just advertorials for a particular brand. And I know his revenue and profit numbers, they're pretty amazing. It's pretty crazy how much we're still sleeping on mail.
Yeah, we use Postpilot for like our e-com brand and we would do like re-engagement campaigns.
Was it effective?
You, yeah, you bought before, we haven't seen you in a little while, like send a little thing that's like a postcard essentially. And they're super effective. I mean, the ROI, I don't remember off the top of my head, but it was like 5 to 8x return on your investment. So it's like, it's kind of a no-brainer to do. It's just like unsexy. So most people don't do it. Uh, and most people believe it's kind of like, uh, You know, ads don't work on me. And they're sort of like, well, you know, junk mail, that's junk. And it's like, nope, there's a reason it's being sent to you because people are still getting a return. They would not be spending the money to send this to you if there was no return.
I just went to the Postpilot website and they have an explainer video and it's you and me explaining what it is. What?
Okay, you're welcome. All right, uh, one last idea for you. Very simple, very simple, before we sober up and get out, get back to our day, day, daily life. By the way, if you like these episodes, in the comments on Spotify, on YouTube, tell us. I'm gonna read all of them after this. Uh, we'll do more because I have to kind of, as you can see, coerce Sam into doing these episodes. So I need, I need some ammo to back me up when we're doing these.
I gave great commentary.
You did, you did, you did. In fact, I might have you just pitch this idea. I'm gonna give you the name. You gotta pitch it like debate club. Ready? Take your roommate to work day. Go ahead. You have 10 seconds. I have to think.
Well, uh, you are 22. Your roommate works at home and just faps all day, and you decide to get him out of the house and you want to bring him to, uh, learn how to be an accountant. It sells itself.
Something like that. So, you know, I was thinking about this because sometimes we get asked for advice, God knows why. And, uh, and one of the things I consistently see is that there are smart, hardworking people that just never find their thing. If, in fact, if I look at like a lot of my friends from high school or from college, much smarter than me, much more like hardworking and kind of fastidious, they'll, they'll, stick with things. They're consistent. They have all the elements you need to be really successful. But I feel like if you never find your thing, you'll never find out what you're made of, right? You'll never get to your 100% of what you can do. So I think although I'm not particularly intelligent or hardworking, I did find my thing. And in finding my thing, I got out whatever juice I had and my fruit got squeezed out. And I only got there through happenstance, through luck. I stumbled into— I met the right person at the right time, at the right conversation, got the right exposure, tried the right thing, and I stumbled and bumbled into it. I think people don't really have, there's not really great ways. There's no food courts for your career. There's not great ways to go even find out what are my options, what's on the menu, what's possible. And so I kind of think if the world had a take your roommate to work day where you could kind of go see what life is like at somebody else's job for the day, it would just broaden the exposure of what you even see. And you might like get inspired. You might realize like, damn, the place I work is, It's crappy. I need to get like, this is my roommate. They're not like, why do they deserve to have such a better environment? I need to upgrade.
So it might just cause you to raise your standards. It might cause you to have new ideas, to discover a new industry, to discover what a new role is like.
So I think people don't really have good ways to get exposure to different career paths to ever find their thing. And instead they're just asked the question, what do you really love? What's your passion? And it's like asking my, you know, 4-year-old, What's your favorite food? And he's just only eaten cheese pizza and mac and cheese. Like, you know, he doesn't really even know. And, you know, I got him to try salmon recently. He loves salmon. He just had no idea. And, you know, you got to broaden the horizons. And so that's Take Your Roommate to Work Day.
Oh, you want to go do it for the day?
Yeah, because I've always like when I see Mike Rowe, remember the show Dirty Jobs? I was like, I want to try it. So you don't know that show?
No.
So I don't remember which channel it was, but when you and I were like 8 years old to 15 years old, it was on all the time. And he— it was called Dirty Jobs. He kind of had an Anthony Bourdain energy where he was like this. He was a successful, like, Hollywood guy, but he like kind of had blue-collar energy to him. And he would spend the day with a blue-collar guy explaining how this dirty job works. But it was more like teaching you about life and getting to know the characters. So it was like a guy whose job it was to clean sewers or to do porta-potties or garbage man or work, you know, like, or work on a farm, whatever. And he would like explore. And now it's sort of become his shtick where he, um, has lobbied the government and he's done well where he is getting funding in order to help, uh, fund electrician schools, or rather he funds scholarships to those things. And he's a little bit of an American hero if you ask me. Like, he's like pretty badass. And this show was on forever and it was so good. And I always remember thinking, I'm like, I wish I could explore Because I always was entrepreneurial. And when you're thinking of like a new idea, when you think of a new business idea that's totally outside of your realm, what do you do? You have to like figure out who the person that you need to contact is and then like beg them if you can come and like shadow them or do something like that. Like our friend Austin has a new company and it, it's related to some type of blue collar industry and he's like cold emailed a ton of 'em and he'll go for a day to like shadow them and search for problems that he could try to solve on their behalf.
Well, we at Take Your Roommate to Work Day appreciate your support for the idea. It's a little wind in our sails. Uh, all right, should we vote for our favorite idea, the winner of Drunk Ideas round 3 or 4, whatever this is? I will remind you of the ideas. So I brought reverse vacation, butter deodorant, stop the slop, Mexican Benihanas, and Take Your Roommate to Work Day. Sam had Last Man Standing, the calisthenics showdown. Uh, he had, uh, the Jumbo Dumbo mail idea. And then Ari had the claw machines idea, the kids casino, and she had kids beepers. And so those are the ideas. I know what I'm voting for. You can only vote for one.
Write down what you want.
All right, we're gonna reveal. Everybody got theirs? Yep. Three, two, one. What do you got?
None of my kids.
You can only see mine.
So, Ari, you voted for.
Have you ever seen the look on women's faces when they do the guac tableside? I'm going Mexican fettuccine.
Mexican fettuccine. Yes. Sam, what did you have?
Kids beeper.
You had beeper. I had beepers as well. So Ari, you on your first time came in and just stunted on us. And, uh, or as what, what did they say last time you were on? You mogged us. Ari came in and just idea mogged us. And now, uh, and Beepers is, is, is ready for action. I think we should create this company, by the way. Uh, this is a, this is a great idea.
All right.
That's it. That's the pod. Road less traveled, never looking back.
All right, let's take a quick break. I wanna tell you about Marketing School. It is a podcast that is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network, and it is run by Neil Patel and Eric Siu. And these guys are both marketers who are running businesses.
And so if you want real-world tactics from practitioners who are actually out there in the field doing it, this is the podcast for you. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts.