Are the Olympics a Waste of Time?, The Tinder Swindler, Paper Cut Companies, Money Therapy, and More

Yeah, we have the big spectacle, we have the screens, we have the thing when we hit our donation goal, there's going to be the big like fireworks or whatever for doing the— that's the moment. So the difference between us and everybody else is that we also care about the moments between the moments.

All right, Sean, do me a favor. Go to our document and look at the video that I posted to to the Instagram, the Instagram link. So I found this this weekend. I was sitting in the bath.

I just watched this right before the pod. I watched this.

Yeah. Does that—

okay.

So I was sitting in the bath, just chilling, watching Instagram. You ever sit in the bath? You ever like bath Sundays and just kind of sit for a few minutes?

I have kids, dude. My bath is very different than yours now.

Well, that's true. So I just, it was Sunday bath, just chilling, going through Instagram and I got this video. Of this lady, uh, it's a woman from Germany, I think, is she— she's German— and, uh, a guy, and they're running together on a 200-meter race at the Paralympics. She's blind and he's the guide runner, and they win the race and they start hugging and she's all crying. Is that the coolest video you've seen today or what?

This— I didn't actually understand what was happening. It just looks like they're racing against each other. Uh, I wouldn't have even known what this was if you hadn't said anything.

So she's blind and she's— must not be fully blind. And what they do in the Paralympics is she's like, if you're, if you're not— yeah, they put a blindfold on everyone because some people might be legally blind and they could still kind of see a little bit. And so what they do is they put this blindfold on everyone and then these women are, are like really fast women. So like another woman can't be their guide because there's just, you know, faster men who could keep up. And so it's, they're all teamed up with a guy who helps their foot into the blocks and puts their hand in the right place and then has to run alongside them stride for stride. And they'll say like, all right, you're in second now, or like, you're in first. Like, all right, we're on the straightaway. Like, pretty cool stuff. And it seems really rewarding. I'm going to do this. So I've contacted, um, a track coach.

You saw this video, you got emotional, you know, the bath bombs started hitting and, uh, the eyes started getting misty and you just decided This is what I'm born to do. I'm going to be a guide runner. Or you want somebody to guide you, which one are you trying to do?

So, uh, so here's the deal. I am now, I'm still fast enough that I am as fast as some of these blind women. I'm not as fast as the blind men, but I can keep up with the women a little bit. And I probably have 5 more years where I can keep up with them. And so I can't, I'm not good enough to go to the Olympics. I never was. And particularly now, as I get older, I'm not good enough. This is my shot. This is my way to get into the Olympics, is to be a guide runner for a blind lady.

This— somebody called you out on Twitter for this. They go, he did it, the perfect Sam backhanded compliment.

Because you were like, backhand complimenting myself?

Yeah, kind of yourself. I don't know, the whole sport. Because you were like, I'm not as fast as I used to be, but I'm still fast enough with this to keep up with an elite blind woman.

No, that wasn't my point. I'm just saying, like, it's just a fact. They're like, this lady, she ran 23 seconds. I can run 23 right now. I'm not— there's no—

there's not even stretching.

No. And this isn't even like, uh, this is like awesome. I think it's awesome. I think it'd be way more fun. I'm not like making fun of these people.

You have to be a good person to do this at the Paralympics. You're not a good enough person, dude. We, we were too rough around the edges. Me? Yeah, you're going to get canceled before the race.

You're going to say something like 50% when I go out to eat. I'm a great guy.

Yeah, that's what you got to ask yourself. Where's that coming from? What are you trying to cover up with these 50% tips?

I'm a good dude, man. I'm glad you could do this.

I'm glad you brought up the Olympics. So, probably don't even know this. The Winter Olympics are going on right now.

Half the people learned that like yesterday.

They're going on right now. The ratings are like the lowest it's ever been. All right. And then I forgot to tell you this, but this is the most important thing. Uh, I can't believe we didn't talk about this earlier, to be honest with you, because if you're listening to this and you like what you're hearing right now and you haven't gone and subscribed to the My First Million podcast, wherever you get your podcast, then that's the thing you gotta do. There's nothing more important than doing that right now. And don't do it cuz I said to do it. Do it because you wanna do it. Do it because that's who you are. Winter Olympics in general are like, you know, less popular than the normal Olympics. Some people are super into it. My buddy Trevor, he's my roommate, he loves the Olympics. Like, the Olympics would come around, he's like, clear the schedule 24/7, I'm just watching whatever's on. And like, I kind of got into it with him.

I do that too, by the way, only for the summer. No, no, no, winter, like, winter aren't real.

Exactly, exactly. So You should say that when you're in the Winter Olympics, uh, guide bobsled team. Just be like, can't wait to do this for a real sport. Um, so I was, so I, I was watching the Super Bowl, then like after the Super Bowl, just like immediately auto-cut to the Winter Olympics. And, um, and I was watching somebody do like the toboggan, and I just thought of a very controversial take. This take was too spicy for Twitter. I didn't even dare put it on Twitter because I was like I'm gonna get so much heat for this.

The toboggan is the person who lays on the sled. I thought that was a luge.

Okay, maybe I— maybe it was a bobsled, maybe it was a luge, maybe it's a toboggan.

Was it like one person?

It was one person.

They were running different, pushing the thing. Yeah, the difference is, is that one they go face first and one they go like on their back, on their back, on their butt, legs first.

So completely irrelevant to what I'm saying. The— yes, one of those was happening, and then I thought I— so our buddy Nick tweeted this out during the Super Bowl because Nick likes to just like stir the pot on Twitter. That's like his character on Twitter. And he was like, watching sports are a complete waste of time. You know what I'm doing right now? Working on my business. That's how you get ahead when everybody's zigging, you zag. And he's doing something like that.

And then by the way, earlier that day he was texting us photos of him partying.

So yeah, dude, he parties all the time. Like, this guy's not like— Nick lives like the most charmed life. He's like, oh, You know, I'm tired of playing golf, so I'm gonna now relax, right? Like, guy's got like, I guess self-storage is a pretty hands-off business, so, you know, he's got a lot of time on his hands, but he likes to tweet stuff that's sort of pop. And, uh, so people started, you know, fighting about it. Here's my take that's kind of like that, that I just didn't want to get into on Twitter. The Olympics are an example of how to waste your life. So here's, here's the spicy take. So I, I'll explain. I, I understand that's, that's harsh, but, uh, but here's the, here's the take. I once was, uh, listened to an interview with this guy, Max Levchin. Max Levchin created PayPal, which is a pretty important like internet invention, ability to send money to each other on the internet. So he creates PayPal, PayPal becomes a huge success. And for his next act, do you remember the company that he started next?

It was called Slide, I think.

Slide. And describe what Slide did for the people.

It was advertising technology or games, I forget, but it didn't work that well.

Mini, mini little mini apps on top of MySpace and Facebook. So it'd be like—

that's right, it's a bit of a shame.

Yeah, like you want to put up a slideshow of like photos with some music on it, use Slide. You want to throw sheep at your friend, use Slide. Slide makes all these apps that are like, you know, poke your friend. Oh, we created an app called Double Poke. It's better than—

they made money through ads, I think. It was so— it was ultimately almost like it was just like a way to get lots of impressions.

But you are so wrong when you're talking about the Olympics.

All right, I'm gonna make an argument to say why you are entirely incorrect, and I've got wonderful examples.

Correct. Oh, I thought you were gonna tell me I'm an idiot.

Incorrect. You're an idiot, and here's why. Sports represents so much more. There's only basically two things that transcend language, religion, and culture. It's basically art and sports. I think those are the only two things, maybe family, but that's about it. And so What sports represents is so much more than just optimizing the seconds. Not only is it about like the, um, being disciplined and all that and how those are good qualities, but it's, it's, it's about culture. So think about this in the 19th, uh, I think it was '33 Olympics or '32 Olympics in Berlin. It was in, it was in, uh, Berlin and, and Hitler was in the stands doing his Sieg Heil and they were still getting there at that point. They just started like, you know, messing around with the Jews and getting rid of them. Jesse Owens wins the long jump and 100-meter dash when Hitler's saying like, well, the Aryan race is the best race and anything, you know, outside of that is inferior. And Jesse Owens sticks it to him. Another example is this woman named, um, Kathrine Switzer. You probably don't know who she is, but have you ever seen this famous picture of this woman running a marathon and there's a priest pushing her out of the road? So, okay, so her name's Kathrine Switzer. Look it up. So look up, uh, marathon woman push and you'll see this famous picture. So for a long time, women were not allowed to run marathons. So there was no such thing as— first of all, women weren't even in the Olympics. And they thought that like, oh, women are just too weak to run. And this woman came along and I don't remember what year it was. I think it was the '70s. And she starts running this marathon. And there's this famous picture of this guy pushing her out of the street. And that like signals to all women like, no, eff this, you could do it. All right, you got this. And then you got guys like this guy who you can't see all the way. His name's Steve Prefontaine. Steve Prefontaine. He ran in the 1960— 1972 Olympics, I believe, in Munich. Munich. And what happened at that Olympics was basically a bunch of terrorists took over and they killed a bunch of Israeli athletes. Have you heard about this? They took over this helicopter. They kidnapped these Israeli athletes, these wrestlers. They threw them in the helicopter. The Israeli army tried to, like, capture them and it blew up and it ruined the whole Olympics. And you know what they said the next day? They go, F this, we got to go compete. This is what we have to do. We got to compete. We got to bring this together. And Steve Prefontaine, this guy who's on my wall, he was at the Olympics and he said these amazing quotes like, to give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. He eventually inspired this guy, Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman, to go start a company that they called Nike. And Steve Prefontaine was their first athlete. And this is all because of the Olympics. And this is all because of sport. And the Olympics happen just every 4 years. And it's one way to, like, bring a beginning and an end to the last trailing 4 years of training and preparing and discipline. And accumulates in this thing. This is incredibly essential. It represents race relations, women's rights. Fuck, go look at the, every year at the Olympics they do the procession where your country comes in. They've got this thing called, I forget what they call it, but it's for people who are going through war and who don't have a country. So for example, I believe in London, I think it was like Sudan or the Congo Republic, I forget, one of those countries was not considered a country by like, they were going through civil war. And so they just said, hey, we're just gonna create a refugee country. You now have your own country. Or when Taiwan and Hong Kong are going through their issues, it's a huge deal that for the Olympics that they announced, well, are they going to have their own country or are they not? Or recently a Kenyan swimmer was in the first ever Summer Olympics swimming. This is beyond sports. This is a really big deal. That's my plea. That's why I think this is actually awesome.

Tell me how you really feel.

That was good, right?

That was good. Just tell me one thing. Who's the, who's the, who's the greatest, um, luge, uh, competitor of all time? Can you just name them?

Um, everything that I just said was only for the Summer Olympics. The Winter Olympics are fake. If you need a judge on your sport, it's probably not that real of a sport. That's why track and field, swimming, and all those like races, that's why they're like real sports. Yeah, so everything I said, no, no, no, that, that, that, it's only every 4 years.

So I'm mostly just messing around. Also, I like, I like watching the Olympics in general. I think it's cool. Obviously, I think it's cool if people like excel in things. That's awesome. My point is, I think that there's like, uh, you know, like for example, if my kid was like, had the potential, if you told me right now, hey, your kid has the potential to be the greatest, you know, like at, uh, whatever, um, the greatest third person in the bobsled in, uh, in the country. But here's what you have to do every day, every weekend for the, you know, the, the next 20 years of their life is going to go into optimizing their body and mind to be able to do this, which essentially is what goes into like becoming an Olympian, right? You're trying to become the best in the world at an arbitrary game that was made up and you have to sacrifice a huge amount of your life and focus and attention and energy and talents You decide to invest into this, and the thing you get out is character building, life lessons, and you can get that from the Boy Scouts, you know, potentially a moment of fame when, if you want, if you actually did achieve the thing and you have the, you know, sort of the, the, the knowing inside your heart that, that this was, this was good. So like, you know, would I rather be, you know, Steve Prefontaine this, you know, this good-looking mustached runner guy, or would I rather have been Phil Knight? I'd rather be Phil Knight. I think actually he's the perfect example. What did Phil Fontaine get out of, you know, Nike? Nothing.

And so he actually, uh, where is he now, right? He died 3 years into founding the company from a drinking and driving accident. So yeah, you're right. Okay.

Joke's not so funny now.

It didn't work out.

Wait, so he was actually a co-founder of Nike or he just inspired them?

Um, he, he, he was a, he was in their crew. And he was their first sponsored athlete and like their 5th or 10th employee or something like that. And, um, if you ask Phil Knight who, you know, what's, who's Nike's mentor or sorry, who's Nike's mascot, they'll say it's Prefontaine.

Yeah. So anyways, my point is, uh, I think that there's a lot of things that are fun and they're best done as hobbies versus trying to become the best in the world at it. Right. Uh, I can play, you know, Call of Duty and have a bunch of fun with my friends. Um, I can even play, you know, the competitive side of things just because I like to scratch that itch and I play a couple hours a week. But once I try to become the best in the world at it, the level of sort of sacrifice and over-indexing on that thing— and hey, you could do it. You could over-index on anything. You can try to become the fastest typer in the world. You could try to become the best photographer of brown leaves in the world. And you know, like you could do all those things. So choose carefully, choose which one you want, what you really want to go into.

It's like people who dedicate their lives to be an average D3 basketball player. It's like, it could work. You could, you could, you could go to the NBA, but like, odds are the papers or the writing's on the, on the wall. Like it's probably not going to happen. So maybe you should actually like study a real major instead of basket weaving or communications.

That's how I feel about business sometimes. Like, whenever I go to— my friend Nick Gray always hosts these meetup, these meetups, and I'm his friend, so I go and he's like, say your name and what you do for work. And I'm like, I don't want to say what I do. I'm sick of talking about work. That's all I ever talk about is business. Like, I don't want to talk about that shit ever again. Right. So I feel you.

All right, let's do some other stuff. Um, okay, I don't know where we want to go. We can go ideas or we can just Shoot. Shoot.

That's all we have, I think.

Well, I have a couple things. I didn't actually put 'em on this list yet, but, uh, okay. So I'll give you a quick idea. Um, I was in a pitch meeting, so this founder was pitching me his company and, uh, he was just like screen sharing. So he was showing me a product demo and it was like a, it's like a data analytics, uh, tool. And he was like, yeah, so like check this out. If I go to Excel and then he like, he just opens up the browser and I never see this before. He goes, He's opened up the browser, he goes sheets.new, enter. And then he opened up a Google Sheet, like a blank spreadsheet. And I go, I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's just, what was that? And he goes, oh yeah, he goes, I'll show you later. Cause he was like, cause I was, he was so annoyed with me just going on tangents about every random thing he was doing. Like he wanted to show me his product, not the fact that you could type sheets.new and save myself. Like I fucking Google, I Google Google Drive, then I get to Drive, then I click new, then I go down the menu, then I find spreadsheet, then I click new spreadsheet. Then I get to a sheet. It's like this like annoying thing I do 6 times a day. And, um, and so just seeing this was like, well, that's awesome. And it reminded me that there's a whole company out there called GoLinks. Have you ever heard of GoLinks?

No.

What is that? So, so I saw this in a, um, or when I was working at Twitch, the kind of like whoever the, I don't even know his job title, like VP of everything, the, the kind of that number 2 guy at Twitch. My boss, this guy Dan, he was like, he's like, God, we have so many documents in this company and now I just have bookmarks and tabs just with like all these docs open at all times in this company. He's like, and if I ever want to look up like, oh, the annual plan, it takes me like 5 minutes every time I want to find it. He goes, I don't know why we don't just use Golinks. And what Golinks does is it lets you set up a thing that's like go.annualplan or like, you know, you could just basically type in like a human readable link and you could anchor it to any doc. And so let's say, you know, you've— that's anchored to the 2021 doc. Oh, now it's 2022. Cool. We just swapped the link out. We just— I said we like, we could still always type go slash, you know, uh, annual plan or go slash plan and go slash plan will now take us to the 2022 doc. And I saw this, I was like, wow, this is actually so useful to just be able to quickly find and like revoke access properly to to different documents. And so, um, so I really like this. Most people haven't heard of this and I think it's a very expensive tool. I think it's like a pretty like enterprisey tool. I see at the top here they raised a $27 million, $27 million series A. Okay. So doing pretty well obviously. So I think somebody could build, this is like a very simple product. I think somebody could build a GoLinks for like the startup level world.

More like— I got you, bro.

Indie hackers.

I just, I just invested in one.

Oh really? What is it?

Yes.

So I told you about it too.

I swear. I told you about it. Uh, it's called Mira and I'm in this too.

I'm in this too.

Oh, I, so that's the same thing, right?

So this is, this is slightly different. I don't think they do the shortcuts to the links. Maybe this is a feature they should add. What they're doing, what Mira is doing is we all, companies have all these docs and then people get fired or they move teams or whatever, but people still have access. It's like, oh yeah, I still got this link. It just opens up the, like, the numbers for the, for the company. Or like, yeah, this contractor we hired still has access to all of our files, but like, who the heck can go audit and keep up and scrub the access for this thing? That's like, it's like a very big problem. Like, your company's most sensitive data is all in the cloud, and then the cloud, like, access is shared amongst, like, so many people, and there's no central place to see who sees what. And so Nira's building that. They're building the who has access to what.

Yeah, but I think the link thing is a feature.

Maybe. Yeah, maybe it is a feature. I'm saying I think it's a feature that can be standalone because adopting something like Miro is like something that's going to go through my, like, you know, chief security officer type of thing. Like, this is going to go through our CIO or CSO. Whereas this GoLinks thing is something that, like, you know, me and my one person who I work with, like, we're both just irritated with these super long, ugly Google Docs GoLinks that like, um, you know, like we can't find anything. It takes forever to find stuff.

They, they have a free plan.

Neura does.

No, GoLinks.

Loom makes it better. I remember Bubbles. Is it working?

Uh, I don't know. I haven't caught up with them in a little while. I know it was working initially. They raised a bunch of money, uh, from that, but I feel like it hasn't taken over, like, you know, the Loom market yet, but maybe it's going into a different market.

I'm not— dude, the screen, the screenshot one's a good idea. Also the copy and paste, the copy and paste. I've been thinking for years, how can I optimize a copy and paste? Yes. A better clipboard. I've been thinking about that for a long time. Um, it's been, that's always an interesting thing to me is, is, is the clipboard. That's really intriguing. But the problem with these types of products is you have to truly be inventive. I don't particularly have that muscle to like be that creative. So people who invent things like this, or like even like, um, what's that guy named Howie who's got the huge company, uh, Airtable, Airtable, uh, creating something like Airtable, which is basically kind of like Excel but different and better, or even creating like a Notion. I don't like, these people kind of are geniuses who can like come up with like these weird product features and like, they just know that like, if you hover your mouse over this, it needs like that. They're so complicated. They're so complicated. It's pretty amazing. Yeah.

They, um, they're big on details and I'll tell you the best thing I heard about details like this. I'm not detail-oriented. Like if, if this camera showed my desk, you would see like, yeah, I'm obviously not organized or detail-oriented. Like everything is sloppy. Even my camera right now is actually slightly crooked, but I just don't care. I just don't care about details and pretty much anything I do.

So that's why you're talking with like your neck a little.

Yeah. That's why I like often do this. I end every podcast with a crick. Um, but you know, like I'm not a sweat the details person, but I remember the first time I used Slack, I used Slack really early on. It was like in beta. I should have invested in it. I just wasn't an investor back then. I didn't think about it that way, but I used it. And I remember the first thing, uh, one thing I did was I was telling our designer, hey, uh, yeah, here's the color for like our logo or whatever. Or they sent it to me and they just sent the hex code. So like, you know, hex, you know, like #CFFR, you know, 373. And it just turned it into a small tiny color swatch. And I remember thinking, why the fuck did they do that? Like, what level of care went into caring that the hex code would just auto-format with a little swatch next to it?

That's what I mean.

All right. Um, let me give you an example of another one. So I'm only bringing this up because of colors. So I've told you about this company called WGSN. They make $90 million a year and they tell— it's a bull— it's like an info product all about colors. I don't want to talk about that, but so Ben, go to— so it's called coolers.co, C-O-O-L, like cool, O-R-S dot co, coolers.co. So basically whenever I'm creating a new product or a new website, you have to pick like a good color scheme and like—

this is great.

This is badass, dude. It's so good. So basically, let's say that like, for me, mostly I'm just like a black and white guy. I want the text to be black. I want the background to be white, but then you still need like some gradient of gray. And then you want the links to be some like gradient of red.

What goes good with that? What goes good with this color of blue?

And so what you could do is look at the very bottom where it says, um, when you see the lock button, when you see, so basically it shows you 5 colors. You can randomly select one or you could tell it which one you want. And let's say you like the blue, you click lock on that and then it shows you 4 more that fit that. Then you click lock on the next one and it shows you 3 more that fit that. Is this golden? Is this website amazing or what?

That's amazing. That is so good.

Yeah. How does this one make money? Does it, uh, charge for anything?

So they do a couple things. If you look on the top, you'll notice that they have a Squarespace ad. So they ha— it has ads. And then they, they have a pro version. So it's only, it's billed $36 a year, which is stupid. And you get, uh, lots of different, um, features. Um, but I would charge like way more because you already know that this company has like a, like a, basically what you would do is if I own this, I log on, I look at all the email addresses I've ever collect. I do like a control find Uber. Adobe, whatever, like companies that have bought it, and I go and upsell them on some like crazy high thing.

Right. Can I tell you, um, the philosophy? Again, I'm not detail-oriented, but here's a philosophy I heard that I was like, oh, this explains why some things, when I— once I'm from some products, some experiences, some hotels, when I go into them, I'm like, this just feels good. What's going on here? I can't even put my finger on what feels good about it. I was talking to Scott Harrison. He's the founder of Charity: Water, and Charity: Water puts on dope events. Everything they do is dope. So like, I think when he was starting it, he heard some quote that was like, um, isn't it sad that charity is marketed with less, um, less like, um, less design and style than, um, you know, the, the 73rd, uh, brand of toothpaste.. It's like, yeah, it's like true. It's like, you know, like a Crest or like, you know, whatever, right? Aqua, Aqua, whatever it's called. Aqua Fresh. You know, like the, they, they put more design and marketing and energy into like how that looks and feels and the colors and the, the typeface and all that than a charity that's saving children would put into their brand. So he decided early on, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna build an epic charity brand because I think it's gonna matter. I think people are gonna donate more if we come across, if we do better marketing. Like we can't just like say that that's only for rich companies. And we're this poor nonprofit that always has to look crappy. And so he does— he's a photographer, so he takes photos, they put on epic events. So at their events, if you ever go to one of their events, it just flows. It's just nice. Like, every—

everything— just club promoter, right?

Now that I'm a hotelier, I'm reading the biography of the guy who started the Four Seasons, and he talks about— he started in the '60s, and he was like, before then, like, people didn't necessarily have like the fanciest mattresses, so we went and just got the best mattresses that money could buy. Or like, you couldn't get your, um, shoes cleaned at a hotel, and so we just hired a guy to clean shoes. Or, um, the showers weren't necessarily good, so our showers were just almost as good as every other shower, but we just got the best shower heads. And he was like, oh, we just focused on all these really tiny things and it added up and made it amazing.

Right. Do you, uh, have you read this, the main guy for hospitality. There's like the Shake Shack guy. I think he's written one.

Danny Meyer, his book called Setting the Table. Yeah, I read it.

It's awesome. And then there's that guy Chip. You know this guy Chip?

Have you heard of this guy Chip Conley? Yeah, he had a hotel business. Is it called Hotel Zephyr?

I think so.

It's a boutique.

I think that's one of his hotels. That's like the specific hotel. His group is called something else. He has a couple, like a bunch of boutique hotels.

I guess he's Chip Conley. Yeah. And he was like— he worked at Airbnb for a long time, right?

That's right. I think he was like the advisor, key advisor, special advisor to like the founders of Airbnb. So in, um, in Masters of Scale, did you ever listen to the Masters of Scale episode about Airbnb, the, about the 5-star experience thing?

Oh yeah. Go ahead.

But other things did. So for example, the Airbnb, uh, what was it called? Experiences or whatever. Where, okay, you get to the city. Now what? Well, my stay is not just the house I'm in. It's what I do outside of the house. Well, cool. Wouldn't it be awesome if we could take you on a wine tasting thing that could just be part of what was already booked for you? It just turned out to be amazing. It's like a local person guiding you through this thing. Not just this, uh, corporate, you know, um, you know, tour bus, but like somebody who really actually like works at the winery who just does this in their spare time. Wouldn't that be an amazing experience? And that actually became a part of the product. And, uh, you know, what if the photos weren't so crummy, right? So like all these things, they, they, they like put effort into doing them. To me, that's how you translate the moments between the moments thing into real life. So whenever I do this with our companies, it's like, cool. So what would be a great experience? Oh, you get the product and it works. Okay. What's a, what's a 6-star experience? Well, the packaging, actually our packaging kind of is weird. It's like hard to open. It'd be awesome if this just was easy to open. I didn't have to go get the scissors and fumble with this. Oh yeah. Okay. What else? Well, it'd be cool if inside every package there also was this other little thing. That would be awesome. Right? And then like, what if the founder followed up with like, you know, like, hey, how was it? 2 days later. And they, you know, they actually cared what I thought. Okay. What, what else? And so this, like this exercise of take your team through 1-star, 3-star, 5-star, 7-star, 9-star, 12-star experience is like, it works in any business, not just hospitality.

Damn.

Yeah.

I, I, I remember hearing this story years ago that I think this, he did this in like 2014 or '15 and it's always stuck with me.

Yeah.

It's good. Um, can, let me tell you about a company that I think, I think I could, I could start one of these and I think I could, I could knock it out the park. So there's this company that I, I've always talked about. Well, actually, no, I'm gonna tell you about that in a second. I wanna tell you about one other thing. There's this guy named Sam Ovens. Do you know Sam Ovens?

Sam Ovens? Uh, is this the, uh, very like slicked back hair guy? Uh, what's his thing?

Yeah, but it depends. Is that sustainable? And also, is that gonna grow?

So for example, I know, I don't think it's going to grow, but I think it could be sustainable.

When I did the like all-access pass, it was like I was making whatever, $50K a month off of the newsletter, a paid newsletter, making $50K a month. What were my expenses? It was like, you know, $300 a month for ConvertKit, uh, you know, like a VA for $500 a month, whatever. So it looked nutty, but like that's because I had an audience so I could just sell into that. If I wanted to grow it, I would have had to like, you know, my expenses would have had to gone way up, right? You know, like So it depends where— yeah, maybe his ad spend is really low now. Is that because his ads are ultra efficient or is because he had a lot, a big list?

No, they said that they don't, they don't spend ads anymore, but previously they had spent millions and tens of millions of dollars of ads. So the website definitely already has, yeah, uh, traffic, traffic. Yeah.

So yes, it's not like I talked to somebody who worked there, um, pretty early on. So they— I was like, is this guy legit? They go, he's legit, he's good. Um, they're like, he He lived in New Zealand or something like that. He's a digital marketer. Uh, then he has consulting.com, which is basically like a, they had a course, they had a consulting accelerator, and they're basically teaching people how to start their own business, their own consulting business. And, uh, they said, they told me at the time that there was like $10 million of free, free cash flow a year. And they said that, um, there, it was about $30 million or something in revenue. And he said like half of that, so like $15, $16 million was coming from one product, which was a $2,000 or $3,000 course about how to start your own consulting business. And then from there they upsell you into the $5,000 course about how to create a course. And then, uh, once you get to $500,000 in consulting revenue, then you get to join a mastermind that will help you get to a million dollars plus. And that'll cost you 25 or 50 grand or something like that. And so that was their, you know, that was their model. But, you know, half of it was coming from that kind of like entry-level $2,000 to $3,000 course, um, where they like kind of sell you, close you on the phone. To like get you to buy the course, which is—

yeah, I went through the funnel to like, so I got him to sell me online or to do the phone call, and I was like, I want to figure this out. Oh, and it's pretty good, man. And I gave the guy a hard time because he's just kind of weird. He just comes off serial kill— he kind of Patrick Bateman. He's kind of like the Patrick Bateman of our, of our friend Jack Smith, like the American Psycho version of our friend Jack Smith. And so he's like just like a little off. But that's actually really incorrect of me to say because I don't— I think he's just an oddball, which is totally—

because I don't know the guy.

Well, yeah, and I don't know him, and I think that my judgment is just totally wrong. I think he's an all right guy.

Yeah, I think it's wrong because it's all based on his haircut.

No, I watched a lot of this guy's videos and I was like, something is off here. And I— he was— he was aggressively selling. He was— it was the type of guy where he's selling like a private jet, like a video on a private jet. Right. So that's not wrong, but it's, it's, it's, you know, your cousins with the wrong, um, and so I think that, that it was just kind of odd, but I thought that was interesting. I thought you'd get a kick out of that. All right. But the second thing, so go to Boardroom— Google Boardroom Insiders.

Okay.

I think they can be if you, if you cared about it. I think if, I think there's a, and there's not like, I am, fairly passionate about the PitchBook version. Crunchbase is also a cool version that I'm like, oh, that's actually pretty sick. I think there's a world where it could be cooler.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it doesn't look like they have kind of like a lot of stuff on the person. So it's like, you know, I'm, I'm on one. So this is Doug Yum. He's the head of retail business. They have like sample profiles on their site. He's the head of retail business at Amazon. Okay. Personal interests are golf and Greek letter organizations. Bratz. I don't know. I don't know what that's about. And then it's like, here's a summary. He did this. Before that, he was working on this. Before that, he was working on this. It's like a resume.

Doug likes golf and boofing. Let's go hire him.

And then it was like, hey, he was born in South Korea, grew up in Kentucky. It's like, yeah, if you want to build rapport real quick, it's like, here's his wife's name. Hey, how's the wife? How was Youngnim? What— here's what he's focused on. He's bullish on retail business because on the Q3 earnings call they said we're bullish on retail business. It's like, okay, some of this is kind of like, who's typing this in here? But some of this could be useful. I could see why this—

Have you seen on The Office, Michael takes notes on all of his clients and he's trying to get— trying to teach Dwight how to do it? Yeah. And he goes— Dwight gets the note. He goes, hello, Mr. Smith. How is Greg, 14-year-old homosexual son?

How is your gay son?

Yeah. He's like, it was written in Greek. He's like, on green.

He's like, Michael, it cuts to Michael, he's like, green means go. I said, do not go there.

That's what this reminds me of. Oh my God, that's great.

Um, yeah, so, all right, so this is, this is a cool little website.

That's it.

Can I tell you something, uh, interesting I saw? So, um, the one, the 0.01% rule. So Nathan Barry came on the pod. And he was cool. So he's the, the founder of ConvertKit. He came on, he was telling us about some blog posts that either he's written or that others have written that he liked. So I went back and I read one of 'em and I saw this thing called the 0.01% rule. Have you seen this?

No.

Okay.

So I'll, I'll pull up, but he's pretty amazing.

I'm gonna pull up this, uh, where's the blog? 0.01% rule wealth. Lemme see if I can pull it up here. Um, okay. I'm not gonna be able to find it real quick here, but I'll put the link in, Ben, if you can find it or, or search Nathan Barry wealth ladder 0.01%. So basically the way the guy's thinking, he's like, he's like, you know, he's like, he talks about price sensitivity and he's sort of like, you know, as you get more rich, you, you know, the way you think about money should change, right? This is like when I came to your house and you had like CVS receipts in the glove compartment because you were like saving them for like the $3 thing and you're like, hell yeah. And I was like, dude, you just sold your company for like many, many millions of dollars. What are you doing with these CVS receipts? You're like, ah, I just like to do it. It's a habit. Habit. And so this guy talks about like the richer you get, um, you should sort of, he's like, he's like, this works for when you sell something to somebody or yourself as you get to that level, basically below 0.01% of your net worth. So that's, you take your net worth and you multiply by 0.000 whatever, you know, 1. So it's like, uh, 0.01% of your net worth. So let's say you're worth, um, let's do $100 million.

So $100 million, what is it times what?

Well, $1 million.

Yeah.

$1 million would be $100.

Yeah. So he's like, you know, at that point, like, you know, if you're at the grocery store and something costs an extra dollar, like you care, you don't want to buy the eggs that cost $1.99 more. You care. He's like, then the next level, the next jump up, is you're like, well, I don't care at like, you know, it's the way he draws the chart. It's like, what are restaurant prices? Then the next one was like, what are vacation prices? It's like, you don't even really care about how much your vacations cost. The next one is like, you, you know, you could fly first class. And then the final one is like, you know, or the next one's like, you can buy a crazy house and you, you know, you don't really get, you're not really feeling, uh, house prices as much. And then the final one is like, you know, what are prices anyways? Like, you know, this is when you're worth over $100 million. It's like, at that point, most things don't cost anything to you and you're pretty insensitive to the cost of it. So I'm just sort of summarizing the idea. The exact, you know, you can quibble about what you should or shouldn't care about, but I thought it was kind of this interesting number. And the reason I bring it up is very few people that I know are like properly price sensitive. So there's a lot of people I know, like my dad, who no matter how wealthy they've got, like these sort of like the trauma of not having money is so deeply ingrained in his body that, like, you know, Starbucks, he's just like, he's like pissed off when they charge. Even if he buys the coffee, like, he's angry at the price. He's like, oh my God, $4.99? Like, I could make this for so much less. And they're like, sir, you're welcome to do that. He's like, oh, like, what's going on? And, you know, he's anchored to prices from like the '80s when like, you know, that's why like he thought movie tickets should cost X. And also, you know, it just like hurts him to spend more than some amount regardless of what's in his bank account. And so he's kind of on one side of the spectrum, too cheap. And then there's the other side of the spectrum, which is more where I am, where it's like, dude, you should really kind of like pay attention to this. You're, you're kind of spending like pretty crazy. And, uh, you know, completely price insensitive is on the other side. And then there's like whatever the sweet spot is. And then school, they don't really teach you how to, how to like gauge that or what, what those kind of like, What even should be a good number for this? What should I spend on things?

So you, you don't get nervous? Like, I, I freak out a little because as an entrepreneur, like, some years I just like knock it out the park and make so much money. Other years I make nothing. Uh, I mean, hopefully I don't think nothing will ever happen again, but like, there's times— you don't get nervous about running out?

No, actually, like, 2 months ago I was like, oh my God, I have like no cash left, no cash on hand left. I was, I was investing in everything I saw I was putting money into startups, into crypto, into stuff. I was— then I was spending a bunch. Like, my payroll expanded, and I was like, oh my God, I have like so little cash in my account.

I felt that way too.

It was under—

I had $60 grand in cash, and I was like, I feel low.

Yeah, I think it was like $38,000 was in my, like, whatever, Wells Fargo checking account. I was like, where'd all the money go? This was like— and I was like, well, yeah, I guess. And I looked at the, like, out— outgoing thing, and it was like, it's not that my spending had gone up. I was really just investing a lot of money.. But I was like, wow, I should, uh, I need to manage cash. Most of the time for me it's like, oh, I need to send my invoices for like things, you know, like I was like, all right, I'm gonna teach a course and I'm gonna invoice, you know, for the podcast and I'm gonna like do the things that bring in like cash today versus most of the things I invest my money into are like long-term illiquid things or my, my own businesses, right? Like, oh, maybe I should take a withdrawal out of my business and like put money in my bank account. And so, So, you know, it was just like a reminder of that. But no, I don't really get too worried about that. Um, and maybe, you know, again, I think I'm too far on the dial of like willing to spend on whatever.

Ramit Sethi, this is pretty much what his entire, uh, not course, but his entire image and content is about, which is like he's got this podcast where two people, couples argue. Like, we have We're worth $3 million and he got into a fight with me because I spent $80 on this silly thing. And Ramit's all about that. It's— I have— I'm more like your father than I am like you. Like, and I think it's just rooted— it's, it's rooted in like trauma, like just fear. Uh, I've got the same thing where it's just like, it's like, it bothers me so much. Like for example, um, Cometeer Coffee. Um, I— they sent me some for free. It's so good, but it's $1.50 per cup. And compare that to like your bean coffee. I'm like, ah, $1.50. Sometimes I don't even drink the whole thing. And so like, I've been really struggling with like, is that worth it? Is this worth it? Or the backsplash on my sink in my kitchen, we need to replace it and it's $800. And I've been fretting over it for over a year now. I'm like, ugh, $800 to replace that. Like, you can't. So even though it will add value to the home and also make me happier, I understand why your dad thinks that way. It's really, it's real. I think it's challenging when you're, it's like, it's like, you know, it's proper trauma. I think of like, you felt one way for years and now you suddenly like, things are different.

Money therapy is a great idea, by the way.

Financial therapy. And it's like, yeah, have a money coach. Or you probably need to— switching therapy to coach is the hack to like, oh, I'm focusing on performance and not fixing a broken part of me.

Uh, but in reality it's that I tried finding people like this, and when I met them I was like, look, we're just getting to know each other.

Not a financial advisor, different thing. No, I know.

I thought when I go— I would go to therapy for a lot, and I would, and I would go when I— whenever I was trying out a new therapist, I'd be like, so I'm not gonna like— I'm not trying to sound like a douche or big-headed, but like, I'm a high achiever. Like, I want to like conquer the world and like do cool shit. And so I'm not want to talk like this is, this is the, the place that I'm coming from. Like, I'm high octane, baby. Can we, can we make this happen? Do you have the tools necessary or no? Or do you like specialize just in like, you know, like traditional?

What, what were you really trying to tell her? You were trying to tell her that my problems are not like I'm not broken. I'm trying to like just achieve a higher level of success. Or were you trying to tell her like, I'm an A player, are you an A player therapist? Is that what you were trying to ask her? What were you trying to ask her?

No, the blunt way to explain it is I've got rich— I'm complaining about some rich people problems. Okay, got it. And like, I'm just like mostly just insecure about certain things and I want to like use that to like conquer the world.

I'm not very good on Twitter.

Yeah, and like I'm gonna complain about stuff that sounds super weak because like on outside like everything's going great, but I need you to like empathize that like I'm trying to like go places and I don't need you to tell me that like Well, you made $1 million that last year. Isn't that good enough? Like, no, dog, it's not. Like, I need you to understand, like, what, what, like, what's, what's at stake here? You know what I mean?

Instead of what is at stake here?

That's like, you're a better money therapist than I am.

I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be your money therapist.

But you know what I mean? Like, totally. And so like, I would meet people and I'm like, oh, you've only worked with like a certain type of person. You have like, I don't think you unders— I don't think you'll be able to help me.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I know what you mean. It's the reason Tony Robbins gets paid $1 million plus per client, because it's like his clients are Serena Williams and Ray Dalio and, you know, or whoever.

And he's like, trades you rich. Yeah.

And he himself is successful and his other clients are, you know, objectively very successful. But everybody, everybody, you know, can improve the, you know, the little voice in their head. Dude, while we're on the random, random Random topics. Did you watch The Tinder Swindler?

No, but I saw your picture with it. So what's the, what's the, like the, the—

Well, what happened to him? So how does this end?

It ends with he gets exposed. So the women are like, oh my God, you know, they go to the credit card company. They're like, look, I have to be honest, like my kind of boyfriend, you know, or I don't know what's going on. This is the guy. He's tricking me. And like, they should— he's there. Can we see a picture of the guy? And he shows a picture on her phone and the two like agents from like Amex or whatever just look at each other like, it's him. And then she's like, what? It's like, we've been after this guy for years. Uh, he does this with tons of women. They're like, there's other women he's doing this to. And so it's like they feel cheated on plus conned. And, um, and so he—

but technically what happens is, is he breaking the law?

He's not breaking the law. They are giving him money. They're sending him money willingly and they are, um, you know, they're giving him their credit card and they're calling the credit card company and saying, no, no, it's me. Can you please raise my limits? Yes, I'm traveling. I'm in, I'm in the— I'm in Ibiza right now.. And so they're like, uh, you know, you're in a kind of a sticky spot. You can't really say he stole it. You clearly gave it to him. Uh, in fact, you kind of committed fraud, but like, well, whatever, we'll leave that aside. But like, yeah, you do owe this money. Like, this is not, um, this is not, you know, a stolen credit card. And so anyways, how much did he get? He ends up getting a 15-month sentence for not even for this. It's for like something else that he did, like associated with this. Um, he serves 5 months, gets off free. He's out there living. He's got a new model girlfriend. He lives somewhere else. Um, the girls kind of like exposed him in the press because they were like, okay, look, law enforcement is not doing anything or it's going to take too long. He's going to keep doing this in the meantime. So they come up, they go to the Norwegian press where they're from, and they, they kind of like expose it. Then Netflix turns it into a documentary. And, uh, and so the guy's still out there. And one of the things in the movie is he goes to a plastic surgeon and he's like, I want my eyes, cheekbones, chin, mouth all restructured. And this guy's like, I'm not going to do this. Only a criminal would want this surgery. And so he's like trying to change his face so he could keep it going, but he can't change his face. And now he's like, you know, kind of like public enemy number one. But a lot of people who watch this are like, dude, these girls are stupid. Yeah, you were just with him for the money and then he conned you for the money. You got what you deserve. So the girls are getting a ton of flak for it.

No, that's crazy.

That's, that's That's dumb, but I was just thinking, what a waste of talent by this guy.

Yeah, like, that's pretty amazing. All this energy. It's like a— it's like a— you know what's funny is like Leonardo DiCaprio played the same character in Catch Me If You Can, and it was awesome.

Yeah, he's became like a hero.

When I see this guy, I want to punch him in the face.

Yeah, exactly. He— that was the problem. It was a documentary instead of a movie about the con man itself, where you sort of fall in love with this smooth guy.

Uh, yeah, if a different— if, if like a lovable— if like If like Matt Damon played him, I would be all about it.

But you gotta watch the thing.

It's super punchable face, this guy.

Yeah, and the memes are just amazing around.

Well, I saw the meme with you with your face on it.

Yeah. Yes, I had somebody else like, hey, Photoshop my head onto, onto this photo where it looks like I'm with the guy, and I just tweeted out like, I'm with my sister's new boyfriend.

Like, it's American.

No, this guy's Israeli.

Dude, screw this guy, man. I, I'm happy they made a documentary about him. How did he get all the— so he's in a private jet and a bunch of these pictures. How did he get that?

Because he's using the previous woman's money to fund his, his lifestyle.

So he would fly private.

Yeah. Yes, he's actually flying private. I don't know if all the time, but at least some of the time. And it was just really wild. In fact, a lot of the numbers don't make sense. Like, he must have been running this on like tons of women at once to fund this lifestyle because these, like, the jets and the stuff that he was doing, like, okay, he conned this woman out of $80 grand, but $80 grand funds like one month of this lifestyle, you know, like, that's not very long. So he must have had a lot of people at the same time, or the documentary is a little inaccurate. I don't know.

But how much money did he get?

I don't want to travel. You got to diversify your assets, dog.

Yeah, you should own some crypto. Like, buy something. Buy a home. Do something with this money. You just blew all the money on overpriced, you know, like, bottle service at the club. Like, wow. All right, that's critique number 2. Um, number 3, go B2B, bro. Corporate swindling would have worked way better. So, you know, he could have been like, you heard about the guy who just started sending invoices to Microsoft and Apple and stuff and just got paid like millions of dollars. Just sending bogus— he was just sending an invoice to accounts payable or whatever. And, uh, and then they would just pay some of the invoices. Yeah.

Would he just do it like, like ap@microsoft.com? Yeah.

He was like, he's like, hey, you know, this is for the, uh, blah, blah, blah. And like And then they went back and they're like, what the hell is this? Who is this vendor that we've paid $1.1 million to this year? Like, nobody knows who this is.

I don't think that's illegal either.

Uh, I think it is because he was like, you know, uh, well, whatever. They were going back after him. You know, these companies have a lot of money, so that's the downside of going B2B. I feel like there could have been a B2B way of doing this. Should have actually just started a diamond company. Could have made a lot more money if you're this good at getting women's emotions tied up in your, your lifestyle. Just actually sell the diamonds. It would have worked. Use their money to fund a diamond company. That actually could have worked. This guy needs to be on— needs to be on the Facebook ad manager instead of Tinder.

That's my critique of this guy. I'm looking at him now. All those— these women who he scammed, they like— a lot of them look like models. Like, he was killing it. Also, like, you forgot the other option, which is like, just marry one of these ladies if they're rich enough to— like, if they're these beautiful women who could wire him $200K, like, I don't know, man. Bro, maybe you gotta keep her.

Well, in this case, he's like— he was telling him like, go take like a kind of like a collateralized loan or a payday loan and like super high interest. Don't worry, he's like, I'm gonna wire your money back in 4 days. And then he would like not wire them back. And then they'd be like, hey, did you wire the money? He's like, oh, sorry, they are like— the bank was closed. Okay. And then he would like show them a statement. He'd be like, I sent it, should arrive in a couple days. She's like, hey, it hasn't arrived yet, what's going on? Like, their interest is building up on this like flash loan you had me take. He's like, oh my God, let me call the bank. Another 2 days go by. He's like, called the bank. They said this thing got frozen. I got to— I got to deal with this. I'm so sorry. Here, you know, I'm going to send you one of my watches. In the meantime, you can just sell it. This watch is worth $100,000. Sends them a fake watch. And you just buy time doing that. It's like these women didn't have the money, but like, I think he could— he could have totally gone for a richer woman and then been like, you know what, baby? Like, I love you. I'm not going to make you sign a prenup. You know me, I'm a billionaire. I come from this lineage, but I'm not—

my dad says sign a prenup. I'm not going to do it.

And then she would feel a little bit of pressure, be like, okay, I guess I can't really ask him for a prenup anyways. This guy's richer than me. All right, I guess I also won't. That would have been a more effective con.

If this guy were in jail, do you think he'd be popular or hated?

I think popular, sadly.

You think popular?

I think, I think popular.

I could see this going either way, man. I could see this. I could see this going either way. I think like the swindler in prison, would he like— all right, so Bernie Madoff, I heard in prison was like a god. Which I get, I get that, you know, like he could teach people how to like corner like the chocolate chip or the chocolate, uh, hot chocolate market, like in prison, like he could like, you know, or he could like, you know, dominate the commissary and he could like teach you about markets. I get that. And also there was, it wasn't a violent crime, so no children or women would hurt. But this guy, is he, I would see this guy being unpopular. Uh, I don't know.

That's a good question. He's got kind of like a douchebag aura to him. So that's the problem. That's where he's gonna get in trouble. But, bro, The Swindler, The Swindler would do well in prison.

I guess I'll watch it. How many episodes was it?

He's not in prison, he's out and about. He's living a nice life right now.

Oh, screw this guy, man. And he stole a couple million dollars? Yeah. I think this documentary is good punishment though. That's fair. I'm okay with you not serving time and you have this documentary about you.

Our buddy Jack Butcher pointed something out that I was like, oh, wait a minute, that's true. He's like, yo, Netflix is gonna make a lot of money off this documentary. Pay off these women's debts. They have like a GoFundMe going. It's like, yo, Netflix, you need to pay off this woman's $200,000 debt.

That's true.

You did well on this documentary. So that's the— that's the real call out here. Netflix, cancel Netflix if they don't pay off these women's debts.

That's a no-brainer. You don't think they're going to?

Well, nobody said anything. These women are doing interviews everywhere. There's a GoFundMe out there. I feel like— I feel like they could have said—

or they're just, you know, swindling people.

One good thing that, you know, we didn't make a lot of money off this, but Netflix actually generously did agree to pay off the debt. You know, uh, blah, blah, blah. That— I feel like that story should have come out if they did it. If they didn't, then fire your— either fire your PR person, Netflix, or pay off this— pay these debts. You have two choices.

That's actually a great point. How many likes did that tweet get that Jack said?

Uh, probably not that many because now everyone's just looking at Jack for like NFT.

Oh my God. Um, all right, that's a good episode.