How To Get the Most Out of Every Event, Surprisingly Successful Keto Businesses, and the World Premier of Southern Sam’s Sticky Icky

Like, yeah, if you want to— if you want to pre-buy Southern Sam's Sticky Icky, you need to just, uh, I don't know, DM me on Twitter. My Twitter is SeanVP. DM me and say, I'm in on Southern Sam's Sticky Icky. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.

I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back. All right, before we get in the episode, we gotta say something really quick. Sean, I sent you that thing to share. So if you go to Sean and Ori's Twitter profile, you'll see it. Or you go to ratethispodcast.com/mfm. It stands for My First Million. ratethispodcast.com/mfm. If you leave a review for us on Apple Podcasts, we're going to select one person. Are we selecting one person? Oh no, we're selecting 6 people and we're going to give a grand to 6 different people and we'll announce that winner in a couple of weeks. We're doing this Because if we get more reviews in a very particular amount of time and you get more momentum, you go up the charts. And if you go up the charts, you get more listeners, or at least that's the hypothesis. So we're incentivizing people.

We get more excited. We, our egos grow, and I know that's what everybody wants. So let's do it.

Uh, yeah, I just went to a conference today, um, Cody Sanchez's conference to talk. And, uh, dude, everyone listens. It's pretty fun.

How was, uh, how was the conference? So she has, uh, her brand is like Contrarian, Contrarian Capital, I think it is. Um, And so this was the, the Contrarian Conference or something like that.

Yeah. And I love her and I love the conference, but I, it's, it was kind of silly. Like in my head I was making a joke because they had contrarian, um, merch and they had like hundreds of the same ones. And I was like, well, if we all bought this, like that's, you know, it doesn't really work that, you know what I mean? Like, uh, uh, so anyway, it was great though. No, she was cool. I asked, I think there was probably 300 people I asked who listened. I feel like everyone all their hands went up. People, uh, were talking about us. They always confuse our voices, but we get that all the time.

All right, I love it. And I was supposed to go to that, I didn't go. You went, uh, there's like a bunch of different motivations people have for going to these things. What was your motivation? Because some people would say, oh, going to these conferences is kind of a waste of time, and other people say, no, I love it, I network, I learn things.

I just went because she's, she's my friend and it's near my house.

And then in general, but you, because you've gone to some of, some of the, some other ones like this, like the podcast one you went to recently or stuff in New York. What, uh, I guess give, give people how you think about this stuff. Uh, because I think it's good to have like a frame of like, okay, this is why I go to these. This is how I go to them. And this is what, what's come out of it for me.

Yeah, I agree. I'm the same way. And speaking of great ideas, we— I want to talk to me about— let's go to these 3 news stories that you want to go over, because I actually— I think you selected all 3, and they're awesome. They're awesome. All 3 are pretty good.

So, um, all right, so I have 3, you have 1. Let's start with yours. You have one that's about Elon tweeting about the, uh— Elon tweeted something about giving away $6 billion to world hunger. What I heard was, you tell me if this is correct, my wife told me this story. She goes, do you hear, you know, somebody tweeted out, or there's a news story that said, you know, these billionaires, the Elon's the richest man in the world now. If he, you know, with $6 billion, he could end world hunger. And then he replied to it. He was like, if you could show me that $6 billion would end world hunger, I'll write the check now. Like, I'll, I will happily do it. Just show me that that's the case. And, um, So that's all I know about this.

What did you— Oh, you don't know what happened after that?

Okay.

So someone, I forget who, maybe CNN said if the billionaires would donate $6 billion, we'd cure or end world hunger. Elon, like you said, replied and goes— and his language was great. He goes, show me how that will happen and I will sell Tesla stock right now to pay for $6 billion of this stuff. And I forget the exact title, but something like the head of United— was it World Hunger or United Nations? Some like official international body, the head said, you know, better yet, you know, Elon, just come and we'll show you our processes and how we work. And Elon said, no, sunshine is great. Tell me in tweet form how this is going to help and where the money will go, and I will send you the money right now. And he goes, you know, this is just too complicated to say over Twitter. And I think— and I'm not like the biggest Elon nut hugger— I think that this totally made Elon look great. These types of things should be done in a very simple way where you can explain what's happening. You don't have to say like, you know, exactly, but you could say like, you know, 30% of the budget is going to go to hire around 10,000 people who we think can give out this much, you know, whatever. That is a good enough answer. And the guy didn't do it. Total miss. And when we were talking to BitCloud guy Nader a few days ago, he was explaining what he does. And then you go, no, no, no, no, no, this is what you do. And you explained it so much better. And he goes, oh, that's how I should always explain it. Everyone should have that skill that you have, and you could actually develop that skill. It is a skill, it's not just a talent. And anyway, this guy blew it, and I thought it was an awesome tweet thread, you know.

Like we asked Abreu, you wanna have people like that. Abreu, who used to work for us and we love, he was explaining to Sean and I what his new business does and he wrote this long paragraph and I think Sean goes, I don't know what any of those words you just said mean. And then he was like, I buy con— I buy land, but before paying for it, I hurry up and resell it to someone else and make a profit. It's like, okay, great. Yeah, now I understand what that means, right?

Yeah. And then, well, actually, the first thing he said was, bro, I just wrote you two paragraphs. And I didn't even have to address it because he knows if you wrote two paragraphs and I don't know what you're—

what—

I don't know what you do still. That's on you. That's not on me. And so, uh, you know, the, the boat, the burden's on the owner. So do— one thing is having people like that around you. The other thing is hanging out with somebody who's good at it. And maybe, you know, hopefully for some people listening to this podcast helps them because I think we both do a good job of explaining stuff without too much jargon. We try at least. And so the more you hang out with people like that, you'll just naturally through osmosis, like, you know, this, it'll just pick up, you'll be like a sponge. It'll just come right into you. You'll just start getting better at it cuz you've heard our voices in your head all the time.. And so hang out with people who do it. Like I have a buddy, uh, Sully, who's great at this. You're really great at this. Ramon's really great at this. So like our best friends all are really good at just saying things for what they are in a way that's simple and easy and fun to understand. And like, so then you by nature, you know, you'll naturally get good at it.

Speaking of friends, what, uh, what did, so I was out to dinner with Moise the other day and he made this comment about Casper. He ends up tweeting it. Pretty brilliant. You want to talk about that?

I do. Wait, can I say one thing about the Elon?

Yeah.

So, so the guy from World Hunger who's like, oh, it's not that simple, I can't really break it down. All right, so that's obviously a loss on their end, but there is a great example of a charity who does this well. So, um, have you seen what Charity: Water does for their like accountability? Because, uh, what Elon said was the whole thing, I'll donate the money, my only thing is it has to be kind of like open source and transparently accountable where the money is going and what's the effect of it. Jack Dorsey did that as well.

And he just— Jack Dorsey did it with a fucking Google spreadsheet, right? Yeah.

Yeah. He said, here's the, here's all the money. Here's where it's going. Here's the schedule. And here's, it's a Google Doc. It's a Google Doc that anybody can go view. Uh, you can't edit it, but you can go view it at any given time and see how the money things are. Amazing. So, so the founder of Cherrywater, he, uh, his story's amazing, but like, I'll give you kind of the, the fast-forwarded version of it. So fast-forwarded version of his story is a guy named Scott Harrison. He, um, he grows up and when he's a kid, his mom got this like, um, terrible illness. She basically, she was a stay-at-home mom. So the dad goes to work, kids go to school, she stayed home and the new house they had moved into, it had like a gas leak or something like that. And so it like silently killed her autoimmune system. So she got so, uh, her immune system was so compromised that she could not like go outside. She could not like touch objects that had not been sanitized. She couldn't do the laundry cuz like the the cleaner, the bleach, had chemicals in it and it would just like kill her if, you know, they had to like do everything by hand using baking soda 6 times. Or like if she wanted to read a book, Scott would go put it in the oven first and they would have to sort of like kill all the bacteria like by sanitizing it with heat and then hand it to her and she'd wear gloves and they would like slowly turn pages and stuff like that. Like it was insane. And so he, um, and then, but even that whole time they didn't sue the company. That had— that was responsible for the leak because they were like a very religious family and they were like, you know, this is God's plan. And so Scott, who like grows up with this really unusual childhood, he's having to like in many ways be the caretaker of the household because his mom wasn't able to do it. He sees his mom suffering. He's like, dude, you know, eff this religion shit. I'm, uh, I'm gonna go live now. So he gets— he turns 18 and he like goes to college, but I think, I think he might have dropped out. Not 100% sure, but he, he starts partying like crazy. He moves to New York and he becomes like a guy in the party scene. And Scott, if you've ever seen him, he's a good-looking guy. He's sort of like a George Clooney-looking motherfucker. Like, he's like very— like, it's like the guy gets gray hair and he looks even more handsome than he did before. And so, um, real Rico Suave type of guy, very suave, super great storyteller, really funny. Just, he's a great hang. Like, uh, I've hung out with him and you're just like charmed, you know, the whole time. And so anyways, he hits the party scene and he eventually— he's like, all right, I gotta make some money. So it becomes a party like promoter. So his job was— and he says this like My job was to convince rich guys that they needed to pay me like $5,000, $6,000 to get to go buy this $100 bottle of alcohol. And he is like, they knew what they were doing and I knew what I was doing and it worked anyways. And so he starts making a killing as a party promoter and he's got the fancy watch, he's got the model girlfriends, he's got the nice penthouse in New York and he's getting paid, you know, whatever. Some vodka company will pay him $2,500 a night just to be drinking their liquor instead of somebody else's liquor. And somebody will pay him to wear this watch instead of somebody else's watch. And so he's kind of the man in this scene, but a few years go by and he starts to feel— you know, as you do when you get into this party lifestyle, it starts to feel a little empty inside. Like the highs no longer doing it for you anymore. And I think he was— the story is he was on this guy's boat. This guy, um, his name is— what is the name? Guy, the guy who created Cirque du Soleil, like Guy Laliberté or something.

Yeah.

Some name like that. I can't remember off top my head.

Billionaire Canadian.

And that's what he does now.

That's what he does now. So he goes back to New York, he throws a party cuz he is like, uh, that's kinda the only thing I know how to do. He's like, I'm gonna throw a party. It's my birth— 30th, 30th birthday or something like that. He's like, throw a birthday party, but instead of giving me a gift at the door charge, um, I just want you to give $30 to the cause. I'm 30 years old. Give 30 bucks to the cause.. And so people come, they have this party cuz he's got a great social network in New York. And, uh, you know, they forget about it. 3 months later, he sent them all photos of the project that they contributed to. He's like, hey, that, that all added up. We drilled these 2 water wells. They used to have to walk this far. Now here's how far they walk. Look at the map. And, um, you know, we turned a 4-hour walk into a, you know, into a 10-minute walk. And then he's like, um, here's what the women have to say. There's videos of them thanking you. And here's like the kids, you know, here's the water, like fresh, clean. This is the water they used to drink. It's dirty. Here's the clean, clear water. That's what you did. And people were blown away. And that became—

and they've raised, they've raised a ton of money, like $400, $500 million.

Yeah. Well, the story gets a little crazier. So he, he's like, I'm gonna stick to this 100% model. 100% of money goes to the cause. And people were like, well, bro, there's a reason people don't do that. Like, how are you gonna pay for your own salary or the salary of anybody working on the charity? He's like, we'll do a separate bank account, literally two bank accounts. One that's public donations that go to the cause, and one that'll be private donations for people that wanna fund our charity to do this.. And he's like, and of course people were pretty interested in doing the 100% thing. Less people were interested in the private thing. And that's where like kind of full circle, uh, uh, I guess like, I don't know how, how long I wanna go on this, but I'll give you the kind of the cool, the cool last bit. So he's basically running outta money, um, for the private side, for the actual, for himself. And he's just sleeping on couches and he's like, you know, I got a backpack to my name and like, I'm the only employee, so it's fine.. And, but even still, he starts running outta money. His friends are kind of kicking him off couches. He's running outta friends' houses to go sleep in. And he's like, all right. Um, he's like, let me just do what, like, this whole thing may end, but I wanna do as much good as I can in the meantime. So he's like, you know, this birthday idea of giving up your birthday, like, we're all pretty privileged. We don't need birthday gifts. I gave up my birthday. That's how I started this charity. Like, instead of giving to me, give to them. Um, he's like, dude, there's these social networks now, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, that they all have like millions of people and they all have this birthday feature and people go write on each other's wall. He's like, so he wrote a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, to like Tom from MySpace, and to Michael Birch from Bebo. And he wrote a letter to all of them. He said, hey, you have millions and millions of members on your platforms. They all have birthdays logged, registered in the platform, and people looking for a way to wish each other. Um, it would be amazing if you added a charity button, a way for you to give up your birthday and let people donate for your birthday to the cause. Um, he gets no reply from Facebook. He gets no reply from MySpace and he gets no reply from Bebo. So he is like, ah, whatever, didn't work. Now a month later, Michael Birch from Bebo says, hey Scott, sorry I missed this. Uh, we actually just sold the company. So he had just sold the company for $850 million. And he said, uh, you know, so I can't really implement this here, but you know what, I'm in New York. Uh, let's just meet up for an hour. And so he goes and he meets with him. Scott gives him the full pitch. Michael's like a British guy. He is pretty reserved, you know, in person. He's, he's, you know, British people have like a dry sense of humor too, so they're not the most like emotive when you're talking to them. And so Scott basically said, feels like, oh, I told this guy what we're doing, he basically didn't flinch and he moved on, like whatever. And, um, he had 6 weeks of runway left in the bank. He's like, ah, that was my last— that was my Hail Mary. I have 6 months, 6 weeks of runway left and then this whole thing ends. But you know what, we did some good work. And then Michael wrote him an email right after the meeting, like the next day, and he just said, hey Scott, loved our chat. Um, send me your wire instructions. I'll send you $1 million. Use it however you wish. Keep rocking. And, uh, the million dollars kept them going for one more year. And then since then, they've now raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the charity. They're like one of the biggest privately backed charities because they have this 100% model. And Michael got them in with other kind of wealthy tech people, and they all liked this idea of like accountability, transparency, and closing the loop on, on giving and feeling the impact. Like that just feels right to the kind of the new, new wave of rich people. And so it's like taken off since then. That's the crazy story of Charity: Water.

That you just gave them a 30-minute infomercial.

Yeah. Uh, I don't feel bad. I've been with them to Africa and literally it's like, uh, it, it's not only like changing lives, but when, when he goes there, people literally, and he's the most humble dude, but I went to the village and people literally feel like he's Jesus. A, cuz it's like a white man who comes to this village. He's like the only white person ever, like in the village. And B, because he like, like, whatever he's doing when he leaves here somehow results in fresh water being given to our village. And they're like, thank you. Whatever you're doing out there is, is, you know, God's work.

That's badass. I should, I should give to him. I have not, but after that pitch, I will. Um, can I, let me tell you about someone interesting. Have you heard of a guy named AJ Patel? I bet you haven't.

Never heard of him.

What is it? All right. You have not heard of him and you're going to be surprised that you've not heard of him. So this guy's way low key. And I got interested in the space because I've been really interested in low sugar products. Whenever, like, whenever I'm in New York or particularly New York, because I go to like corner stores all the time, you see like moms with their kids and they buy like Hawaiian Punch or like fucking Gatorade.

Like, you know, Sugar Factory, a corner store and a grocery store are sugar factories.

It's sad and I feel horrible.

Dispensaries, maybe.

Yeah. Like an MVP, right? The minimum viable product kind of looks shitty and crappy at the beginning.

I'm on his, uh, his LinkedIn right now. So he's listed as the co-CEO and, uh, he looks like he's in Florida. How did you hear about this guy?

Person? I— two different ways. I was researching low-carb cookies because I'm fascinated by that. I'm right now— some current obsessions are low-sugar cookies and low-sugar ketchup and other sauces. Right. And I was researching and I saw HiKey and I remember a friend, our mutual friend, told me about this guy who had this thing called Zesty Paws and his whole strategy was to dominate Amazon and then go to retail.

Wow. Very impressive. Uh, very few people have done what this person has done.

So I think he's 32 years old or 31.

Yeah, that's pretty impressive. Um, have you tried Fat Snacks?

It's like keto. Um, so I'm, I have a list of lists here of companies that are interesting and I did try Fat Snacks and I thought that they were fine. I thought they were okay. But the problem that I have, so I eat Quest all the time. Are you familiar with Quest bars?

Yeah, I, I like the Quest chips because I'm a chip guy. I don't have a sweet tooth, but the Quest, they basically have like a version of Doritos. And honestly, they're like the only keto snack that I actually like. I'm like, it like actually replaces the craving, you know?

Sucralose? Yeah, that's right.

Well, I like the idea of the low-sugar sauces. I think low-sugar ketchup is a great one to go after. Who's doing that? Is that a— is that a business that's like saturated?

Or no, it's not.

So that's a great idea.

I think it's fantastic. And the reason why it's fantastic is when you're trying to eat lower carb and eat healthy, mustard has no calories and no sugar in it. Barbecue sauce is shit. Uh, ketchup, very high sugar. You know, if Heinz— uh, Heinz has a $45 billion market cap. They make something like $7 billion a year just in sauces and condiments. Most of it's like, is basically ketchup and ketchup is crazy high sugar. Their ketchup, the reason why it's that bright red is there's a ton of, a ton of sugar in it. And there was a company called Primal Kitchen, which sold for $300 million in 2018. It was started by this guy who kind of looks like an old version of me. His name's Mark. What's his name? Mark Sisson, I think his name. You'll have to look up Mark Sisson, S-I-S-S-O-N. I believe that's his name. Um, and he had a whole line.

Dude, he just does look like an older version of you. That's hilarious.

Yeah.

He looks like, I mean, he is ripped. This guy, I don't know how old he is. He looks like he's fucking— I think he's like 70s, 60s. Yeah. And he is like absolutely shredded, which is impressive.

Well, I meant his face. We kind of have like similar faces, but older.

Dude, this guy is, this is you, man. This is gonna be amazing. Wow. You're gonna look like this.

So he's 68 years old. Wow. Crazy. And so he had this, this business where he had a blog. He's been a blogger forever, a health blogger. And he created Primal Kitchen, which is a— they make dressings. Dude, the dressings and ketchup are the worst. Dressings have so much— like an Italian dressing, so much fucking sugar.

Oh, I'm eating a salad. It's like, how's the salad like 1,200 calories? Because the dressing.

So I've been like super curious about this and tell me what you think about this. The problem with a lot of D2C companies is that the cost to acquire a customer is stupidly high. High right now. It's— I think it's the highest it's ever been, uh, ever.

At least the highest it's ever been.

Yeah, correct. But particularly with the Facebook change and competition, it's just getting high. So our friend Andrew created this thing where basically he— he— this was illegal what he did, but like, whatever, it happened. He, he created a menu and put it on Uber Eats and was just like making low glycemic muffins. So I guess like almond flour muffins at home and putting it on Uber Eats and he just like made the branding really cute.

Yeah.

Could you just create like one of these high key or these low carb cookies or something like that and just put it on the local Uber Eats, start getting customers, put like a coupon code in there? I mean, I feel like that's an interesting way to kind of hack customer acquisition for a lot of these D2C things.

Yeah, I think that is kind of interesting, although I don't know how many people are going to like order just like even a bakery, it's like, okay, yeah, you're getting like, you know, a dozen muffins or cookies or whatever. Like, I don't know if people would just go order, um, like a sauce or something, right?

Like, that's not gonna work. Yeah, I don't think they would do cookies. But have you heard of Insomnia Cookies?

By the way, it's only illegal because he just didn't have a commercial cook— a commercial kitchen and a license, right? But like, you could easily do that, right? You could do the same exact thing if you're just— if you're not doing it out of, you know, like a home kitchen or whatever. You just need a permit, right?

That's the only problem with Yes, correct. Have you heard of Insomnia Cookies?

Yeah, they're insane.

Yeah, they're insane. They're amazing. I'm just thinking like, I think you could do that from a cloud kitchen and then start selling 'em online.

I totally think you could do that. Crumble is also like growing like crazy right now. I think it's one of the fastest growing franchises is Crumble Cookies. Um, but I, let's get back to this ketchup idea. How do I convince you to start this company? Cuz you would crush it. Uh, it's in your area of expertise.

Yeah, it's interesting.

Uh, I think it's amazing. Why are you not doing this? Interesting to me. I, I should. The other day I went to the store and I bought ketchup. The other day I went to the store and I bought ketchup and it was, they, it was like a how— I didn't realize it was near Halloween and they called it blood tomato and I thought that meant like, oh, like it's like it's a weird category where it's only the tomatoes and no sugar. And I bought it and it was just normal Heinz and I've been eating this shit all week because I don't want to throw it away and it's horrible. The sugar in Heinz is, is, it makes it taste good but it's dog shit.

So Sam's Sauce, what are we calling, uh, what are we calling the, the the brand here.

Ah, fuck. Southern Sam's Sticky Icky.

Yes, yeah, there we go, dude. Yes, there we go. Oh my God, dude, Southern Sam is such a good— I'm not joking. Like, okay, I'm just gonna use you as the face of this. I'll build the brand, I'll do all the work, maybe, and actually we'll launch this thing, dude. This is an incredible idea.

Southern Sam's Sticky Icky.

Yeah, if you want to, if you want to pre-buy Southern Stamps Sticky Icky, you need to just, uh, I don't know, DM me on Twitter. My Twitter is SeanVP. DM me and say, I'm in on Southern Stamps Sticky Icky, which is his first sauce that's coming out. And it's going to be a— I mean, you're a fitness influencer, so you gotta have that balance. You're gonna have the health aspect, we know that. We've seen the body, we've seen the videos. What we need now is that flavor. But Southern Sam, he's been— this is what you needed back when you had your hot dog stand. You just needed the condiments. You just need— it's a full circle. Oh my God, I love it.

Have you heard of Sir Kensington Ketchup?

Yes, my buddy, our buddy invested in it. Who?

Uh, oh, okay, great. It sold for $140 million.

Yeah.

And, uh, and I think it undersold.

Dude, maybe I'll go to the store like right after this, just go buy a bunch of organic and low sugar ketchups and see what's out there. The, like, I'll be the first to admit the sugar in there makes it taste so good. I mean, I'll just eat ketchup with a spoon. That shit's so good.

This is the idea. Okay. Okay. Okay. I got full circle. Last episode it was like, ah, what can we do with this marketing budget that will, uh, like make for a good story beyond just, you know, direct response ads. This is what we should do with the marketing budget. We should be launch— showing it would do case studies, basically do a fully open business. Basically, we should show how we would build this business from scratch. And Southern Sam's, Southern Sam's Secret Sauce is gonna be the first place that we start. We just, we take, we take $10 grand, we take $10, $15 grand, and we put that— instead of going and saying, hey, listen to our podcast, we actually just tell the story of how we're building this on the podcast. And that will make people wanna tune in. They'll see the growth and they'll see the success story, which is ultimately what this podcast is about. Brainstorming great ideas and then talking about how you bring— how you would bring them to life.

It's definitely interesting. I think it'd be fun. I gotta go to the store though and buy a bunch of them and, uh, see what they're about and see if they taste good. But, uh, this Primal Kitchen one seems incredibly interesting. I, and I would imagine that these— I bet the multiples for selling these, I would imagine they'd be all right, right? They'd be pretty good because the repeat purchase rate on ketchup is crazy high. I'd have to imagine.

Yeah, I got, I'll go do some research. I'm gonna figure out, I'm gonna, I'm going after the big ketchup.

Yeah, exactly. We're going after Big Red and, uh, we're going after, we're going after big sugar. Uh, I also think, uh, maybe, maybe a gum line. How about gum? You like gum?

Sugar-free gum? Most gum is sugar-free. You know what's like the best sugar-free gum is?

Better than sugar-free. We have to go to the next level. We have to be like xylitol-free or—

Trident. You remember Trident? Remember how Trident is like dentist recommended? That's been sugar-free.

Yeah, well, we are all recommended. We're Southern recommended.

Choose gum. If anything, you're gonna do gum with caffeine in it. There's this guy named— there's this guy named Nick Simmons. He's got this business called Run Gum, and it's gum with caffeine in it.

How's that company Lucy doing? Isn't that what that is?

Yeah, so I invested in a nicotine, uh, gum company. I think it's only doing okay. Gotcha. I love nicotine though. I, I, I— here, let me show you what I have in my pocket right now. Can you see this?

I see it's a little fuzzy, but I see like a vial of some kind. What is that?

It's nicotine lozenges. And it's like a cough drop. You just put it in your lip and you just kind of suck on it. I love nicotine, man.

Is that the same thing as a pouch? There's a lot of—

well, no, there's no tobacco. There's no tobacco. It's just, it's literally just like a mint. It's like a mint that has nicotine.

That does what? Why do you do that? To stop, to quit smoking or to give you a buzz?

Yeah, so like I like cigars, and so if I could, I would smoke cigars all day and And so now I can go like 2, 3 weeks without a cigar and I just like sucking on these things. I feel like nicotine does have a lot of interesting advantages and I don't, I don't know if nicotine is inherently bad for you in itself. I know that the tobacco is.

So I bumped into this guy on Twitter and go to, um, go to its Oklahoma or just, just Google Oklahoma Smokes. Have you heard of this brand?

No, but I love it.

So Oklahoma Smokes, almost like a sister brand to Southern Sam's Sticky Icky, but, uh, Oklahoma Smokes. So this guy was like, oh yeah, I have this, uh, like agency and we were doing kind of like branding for other products and then we launched our own product, uh, Oklahoma Smokes. And it's basically, it's an alternative, uh, thing you could smoke. It's like an alternative cigarette and it's got no nicotine and no tobacco, but it's got the form factor of a cigarette. So you light it up, you smoke it, you puff it out, whatever. And, um,. And it's doing really well. So he's got like a good amount of traction. And I was like, wow, uh, that's great. Like, you know, what's, uh, and so I looked him up in the kind of like ad library and I was like, dude, I don't see any ads. He goes, oh yeah, you can't advertise for this on, uh, Facebook or like pretty much any ad network cuz they don't want you advertising cigarettes even though this is like a, it's nicotine-free, tobacco-free. And, um, he's like, so it's all just organic, like TikTok, basically people just post about it on TikTok and it goes like kind of viral on TikTok. And that's where all the growth comes from. It's just, people organically talking about it on TikTok.

And I'll tell you, do they have a slick website?

The website is very nice. The branding is great. Um, the whole thing is really well done. Um, and I, I like it a lot. So, you know, maybe Oklahoma smokes, maybe we're, we work with their agency for our, uh, for our brand. All right.

We got who they use.

It's all coming together. They are the agency. That's what they were doing before this.

Are they based in Oklahoma?

No, I think it's just a brand. Like, the dude was like, just like some Indian dude. Uh, although I'm an Indian dude, I was born in Oklahoma, so I guess, I guess maybe they do have some Oklahoma roots. I'm not sure, but I think it's a lot more like—

where do they live?

Isn't this just like— isn't that an amazing brand name?

Oklahoma's amazing. Oklahoma Smokes sounds like a band. I want to wear Oklahoma.

Like, everything I want to be a part of.

Yes, Oklahoma Smokes. Oh, that's phenomenal. That's a brilliant name.

Right. Like if that was my nickname, you know, I'd be a happy man.

So. And they're doing— here's the— look at this company. They're doing No Nic November. So no nicotine November. And they're giving you discounts.

No Sauce September, baby.

No sauce. This is good. I like these guys. Where do they live? Do you know?

I have no idea. I don't even know if he wanted me to shout it out. I mean, he probably is happy with it, but I've never tried it. I don't smoke, so it's like like not a product I would use. I just thought the branding was extremely well done. And so I kind of added it to my swipe file of like, oh, this is, this is a great name and a great brand here. And, uh, really cool product idea and challenging, you know, it's, it's doing well, but it's not huge because very hard to grow, very hard to market something like this, um, through traditional channels. So I don't know what they're gonna do. Uh, you know, hopefully this gives them a little spike or whatever, but, uh, you know, I, I think that's the hard part about a business like that.

Do you want to do one more?

Um, yeah, let's do one more. Do you have one or you want me to, to pick one here?

You—

we didn't do our news thing. I kind of hijacked the long-ass Chris Harrison story.

Pick one of the two.

They're getting out of it because they also are getting criticized constantly because Zillow is what everyone uses to get comps for homes, and if the person also buys them, you could easily manipulate the price of things. So if you— they can buy a home in one neighborhood knowing that it's going to increase the, the, uh, a lot of different things.

So, and it's competitive with their core business. So they're— which I give them credit for because most companies, they wouldn't do it for all these reasons we're mentioning right now. They would just stay out and they would get disrupted. Zillow tried to not get disrupted, to try to add this feature, but like their core business is basically selling to agents, right? For consumers, they give you price information and you're supposed to be a trusted source. So that's one challenge. The other conflict was the main business is agents buying leads from, from Zillow. And if Zillow's the buyer, then they don't need the agents. They are their own agent. And so, uh, they were comp competing with themselves in many ways. So anyways, they're getting outta this business, uh, you know, big kind of, uh, uh, what do you call it? Like a scar from like, you know, a, a bruise from, from going after this. Their stock price is just in the shitter, which is ironic because we're in this group chat where for months, like the last year basically, these guys have been— our friends have been like pimping out, oh dude, Zillow, Zillow's a great buy.

Yeah. And I went and bought $25,000 worth.

Exactly same. I bought it, I don't know, like $50,000 or $100,000 worth of it, and I'm down big. Everybody, everybody in the group is down big or something. Yeah, we're all down like somewhere between 30% and 40% or something on this.

And I agreed with it. I thought— I think Zillow is the greatest thing ever because— to me, what do you do when you're in a fancy neighborhood? Even if you're not buying a home, you just go on Zillow. It's a category owner. They own it.

Right. Yeah. Zillow, the stock is down big right now. The funny thing is, Opendoor stock also took a beating. They're down like 12% just on the news that Zillow failed at this. People are like, "Maybe Opendoor is also going to fail at this." And then, they came out with this god-awful— did you see this tweet that they did, that Opendoor did?

It's the worst. It's the absolute tone-deaf idiot. Just, you know what the best thing to do is?

To make fun of them.

So listen, you know what? Do you remember what Biden did when he was running for president?

Which part? Forgetting.

Yeah. Or they should have come out cocky. They should have come out and posted a chart of how much ass they were kicking and just be like, uh, you know, this is, you know, this does, this is a hard business or it's not for everybody. And then just post their chart of themselves kicking ass at the same time Zillow is dying on the same business. This. But instead, I'm gonna read this word for word. You tell me if you understand 1% of this. Opendoor just randomly tweets yesterday, we are in the midst— first of all, don't say midst— we're in the midst of a generational shift towards a fully digital experience, comma, with large, comma, unmet need for seamless experience in real estate, period.

What a circle jerk.

Nothing. Then they reply to their own tweet, with our track record of executional excellence and many years of investment in consumer experience, technology, pricing, They're just saying words, comma, technology, comma, pricing, comma, and operations, comma. We are well-positioned to meet consumer demand with a best-in-class product and service. Opendoor is open for business. We have demonstrated strong growth, unit economics. We are energized to help homeowners nationwide with simplicity, certainty, and speed. I saw this and I was like, what the fuck? The funny part, the ironic part is this is done by somebody who's like, their comms, their job is comms, corporate comms. They're a communication professional. This is their their actual job.

Yeah, exactly. They violated all the rules. So what's another rule?

Um, don't use words like that.

Yeah, exactly.

Talk like you speak, talk like you speak.

Uh, right. Sorry. Write like you speak. And then, um, use like, you know, 8th grade reading level. Yeah. This is like, you know, 20th grade reading level. And so none of it None of it makes sense to the average person. Uh, they also didn't say anything of interest. Like, what did this mean? This— all this meant was, please don't sell our stock, please don't sell our stock, please, please, please don't sell our stock. We're— we didn't make the mistake, they did. And there were so many better ways to do this. So that was—

Yeah, so Moise, uh, Moise Ali, he, um, he tweeted out— I love this tweet, by the way. This is just—

he's very— he's a very good writer.

A great cocky tweet. So he goes, Dear Zillow and Rich Barton, the CEO of Zillow, who by the way is badass, I'm sure today is a tough day. I'd like to purchase all the homes you have on your balance sheet in one transaction. Is that something you'd consider? I will pay cash and close in 30 days. No contingencies or financing delays. Best, M. Signing off with the initial is the power move, by the way. I will never ever write my full name again. Because the initial is so good. And, uh, this is great. Obviously he's not gonna buy $2.8 billion, uh, worth of stuff himself, but, but maybe, maybe, uh, maybe he's, maybe he's got some strategy here. Maybe he's got some money he could tap into. I'm not sure. Um, but yeah, it also just like hilarious tweet and a way to kind of be out there on Twitter and ride the, ride the wave of something happening.

Yeah. I thought this tweet was brilliant. He's a troll and I love when he trolls cuz he trolls in a very smart way.

Yeah, um, he's a cocky troll. And, you know, the, the weird thing is, how did they lose money doing this? So, like, the— from what I can tell, the, like, single-family homes, which is what they were buying, single-family home market is, like, at an all-time high. Like, people from COVID are— you know, there was the great reassessment, which is what happened during COVID Everybody reassessed their job, their, you know, can I work from home? Oh wow, I didn't need to travel for business, I could just do a Zoom meeting. Actually, it works. Do I need a gym membership? I could work out at home. I could Do I like this job? Or actually, maybe now that I have this break, I can, I can think about what I really wanna do. And I pick up this hobby and, you know, maybe when I'm at home in this marriage, this marriage sucks, you know, maybe I should reassess that. There was the great reassessment. And during that, a lot of people moved. They moved for different reasons. If your job is remote, you could leave high-priced places like California or New York. You could relocate to other places. Um, if you're at home all the time, maybe you need more space and you wanna get, buy, you know, wanna buy a bigger, bigger place with a bigger yard and bigger office space or whatever. So people were buying more than ever and they were buying single-family homes. So people were leaving the cities. And, uh, so condos were down in inside San Francisco and New York, um, like 15% and single-family homes were up 15, 20%. So I don't fully understand, and I'm sure there's a totally logical explanation, but you know, it's like, how did you, how'd you lose money doing the one thing that everybody wanted? You were buying and selling single-family homes. Like, and I think what they said was, you know, the price was too unpredictable.. So we, you know, we weren't able to do this well. And the other thing they said was there's a labor shortage. They couldn't get people to come flip the home. So like do the repairs you needed to flip the homes. So yeah, I'm sure like that's really hard, but that's crazy. They weren't able to do it in like a bull market.

Yeah. I think it's nuts. It doesn't make me like them anymore. And I, and I, I'm a shareholder. I'm bummed. I guess, I guess they should have just stuck to what they did.

You're going to hold your stock or you're going to sell?

I don't sell, so yeah, I'm gonna hold.

Okay, cool. Me too. Um, all right, anything else you wanted to do or we can wrap it up here?

We'll wrap it up here. Um, don't forget to go to— what was the URL?

Uh, ratethispodcast.com/mfm, as in My First Million. So rate this podcast, go leave us a review if you get enjoyment out of the show. That's kind of all we ask. Helps us move up the charts, helps us get more downloads.

And then we're gonna And we're, I think we're, we're gonna do one more thing. I believe what we're gonna do, I'll kind of like, I'll say briefly, um, I think we wanna do something where you get, we're gonna have a budget of like up to $20 grand a month and the people who create clips for us, Sean, and get the most views, we'll give 'em a little bit of money.

Ah, okay. I like it.

Yeah. I think Banner Jonathan came up with that.

Okay. I like it. To get paid to listen. So it's a good deal.

Well, you get paid to chop up clips and, and, and they, and to be creative. So kind of a good idea. Awesome. All right, that's the pod.