Virtual Study Halls, Absurd $ For Speeches, And Pushing the Boulder Uphill
I'm a 25-year-old. I used to work in banking and M&A. I made like low six figures and it was a cool job, but I recently quit after listening to you guys. And now I own a bunch of vending machines and it's allowed me to make $10,000 a month and, uh, do a bunch of running. And he said, quote, do memorable things, which is what you guys talked about at the end of the pod. This is pretty amazing. All right, I think we're good. We're good, dude. Sean, thanks for dressing up. You look nice.
All right, so for those who can't see the YouTube video right now, Sam is like in some kind of like, uh, I don't even know where he's at. He's in some kind of like LA, some kind of Playboy Mansion podcast studio. I don't even know what's going on. Not a single wall is normal. One of them's like a 3D texture. One of them's got like a plant from You know, the Amazon jungle and he's got like 5 people there. He's got like a movie crew. Somebody just came and powdered his nose. I don't know what's going on. I'm still in my bedroom and I recently woke up. So, you know, we got a little yin and yang going.
Thunder and lightning. Explain what you're wearing, Sean. I'll say a sleeveless hoodie.
No, what Sam calls shirtless. If Sam sees a shoulder, he has like a minor panic attack.
It just, uh, you know, I've, it's something we can't all dress like Arthur. So I was hoping that if I came here, so I came here the other day to record a podcast with this guy named Danny. And I came here, I go, I called Ben, like right when I was there, I FaceTime, I go, Ben, book this for like in 3 days. This is where we're going to record from now on. And I was like, if, if we do this here, Maybe it would inspire Sean to like record with more than just one AirPod in his iPhone and a plant in the background. And maybe we can make something happen. So hopefully I'm going to wear off on you and you'll do it right on your end, because I think we'll get more views on YouTube finally.
Yeah. The last time I felt this much peer pressure, I ended up, you know, on shrooms. And so hopefully this just ends better, but I do feel the pressure now. I will find, you know, I don't even know, what is this place that you're at? You give them a shout out. What is the name of a place?
It's called— WTF Media. WTF Media. I can't— that guy, you know, that guy Danny, you were on his thing too.
He's been emailing me for work for me.
Oh really? Okay, cool. Well, I came on his thing and I came here and it was awesome. I think we paid a couple hundred bucks. I don't remember to be here. And I think this is actually the same studio that Andrew Schultz and Charlamagne, I think, record their thing, right?
Yeah.
And it's like pretty easy. So I just, took, you know, rode my scooter here and did it just like Charlemagne Tha God. Yeah.
All right. Let's, let's, uh, let's jump into some stuff. You have some topics. I got some topics. Where do you want to start? We got a bunch of different ways we can go.
Wait, we got to do this. Uh, did you see this email that I got from this listener?
No.
Where? Okay. So I forwarded it to you. So basically, uh, we were talking about like adventurous shit last time. And this guy emailed me and let me pull it up. So basically he said, he goes, all right. Uh, you, you wrote, you guys talked about like living an adventurous life. I wanted to write you and fill you in on what's going on. I used to be 230 pounds and like pretty overweight, but then I started running and I started listening to you guys the whole entire time while I'd run. In fact, I did a 50-mile race and I only listened to MFM the entire time and I've lost a ton of weight. And now next week I'm doing a 100-mile race and I intend to listen to you guys the whole time as well. And I'm a 25-year-old. I used to work in banking and M&A. I made like low six figures and it was a cool job, but I recently quit after listening to you guys. And now I own a bunch of vending machines and it's allowed me to make 10 grand a month and, uh, do a bunch of running. And he said, quote, do memorable things, which is what you guys talked about at the end of the pod. This is pretty amazing. I forwarded it to you. It's, that's, that's a good story, right?
Yeah, dude. That's my, my version of torture though. Like having to run 50 miles while listening to my voice in my head, that would be like, that would be like, you know, Worse than waterboarding for me personally, but dude, props to this guy. This is amazing. Uh, you know, fitness got influenced by you listening to the pod, got influenced by both of us, you know, did the vending machine side hustle that we had talked about, got to the $10K a month, and now he has the freedom. He's thinking about doing short-term rentals. I think this might be your best friend. I think you might have just found an adult best friend.
Yeah, this is my little brother, man. I like this guy. His name's Jack. So I saw that email and I was like, we gotta bring that up. That's a good one.
But, um, this is, he ended it with hashtag do things. And I like that. I like do things. That's the serious version of no small boy stuff, which is the official motto of My First Million.
Uh, very cool.
I like that.
All right. Where do you want to go? Which one? Jack?
Jack?
Yeah.
Good job, Jack. Jack Nermur. Good job. Um, I want to tell you about an idea that I saw recently. I'm thinking I'm going to invest in this. Uh, but it's kind of just like one of these really low-key, doesn't even seem like a business things, but I think it's going to be kind of big. So have you ever been on YouTube and seen this thumbnail of like this kind of anime character wearing headphones and it says lo-fi chill beats study music?
Have you ever seen that? They have, they run it on live, like YouTube live, and there'll be hundreds of thousands of people on it. And I think like the other day it like was paused for like a few minutes or something like that. And it was in the news, right?
It got banned and then it got unbanned after 133,000 people like signed a petition to be like, unban this right now.
That's crazy. But okay.
And what about it? So let me tell you about it. So Lo-Fi, basically the channel has 10 million subscribers. It's one of the most like sort of longest watch time things on YouTube because people would just sit there for hours studying and just having this as background music. They have a Discord of 700,000 people.
They have their own—
What's it talk about? Well, it's just people that are chilling. It's people that want to— people that are trying to study, they're trying to focus, that they just want to be in a group of other people doing the same thing. It's like a virtual study hall. So this is kind of like an emergent behavior. It's just a thing that started happening. It's not what YouTube was trying to do. It wasn't, you know, some company that started right away. It's just kind of like this thing that people wanted. Like, oh, you know, like I had this when I was in college. My buddy would It's like, oh, hand him the aux plug cuz his music is good for us to just chill, do nothing to, it's not gonna be distracting, that sort of thing. And he would kind of be the DJ. So this is like a thing now. And I found, uh, but, but it's still like kind of informal. It's on YouTube. It's not really like easy to use in that sense. Like you don't, you know, you don't know who these other people are. You can't do a private room, that sort of stuff. So there's a startup called Studyverse that is trying to do this. And what they did was they basically turned this into like its own experience. So me and, me and Ben use this now when we work, we basically go into Studyverse and you go in and there's like a jukebox basically. So you could just put on, yeah, like chill hip hop style music or chill electronic style music or whatever. And both people are hearing the same thing at the same time. You could turn your camera on or off if you want to just be there, microphone on or off. And, uh, you could like put your to-do list there and other people can see it. And as you knock 'em out, it makes a little sound so you can see other people knocking off their to-do list. Uh, there's a little chat and so, and you could just set the background so you could be like, let's just give the, yeah, well, yeah, we're working remote. We're, uh, you know, like I'm in this little home office here, nothing too grand, but you could just set the scene like, now what if we were by the beach or what if we were, you know, in space or wherever you want. So it's just a cool little product. Um, and they're going after this use case of virtual study hall, people getting together to study, hang out, or work. Uh, but it's really around studying, I believe, and This is like a big deal. There are millions of students every day who do this and they do it with strangers. They're not, they're not necessarily hanging out with their friends. They, some do, but a lot of people just want to feel like they don't want to feel kind of alone and bored when they study. And so just having any other people chatting or they see their screen names, they see their profile pictures, it just makes 'em feel less alone when they're doing it.
How does this make money?
I think this is gonna be big. So the lo-fi, uh, the lo-fi thing on YouTube, I don't know if they just run ads, just monetize that way. I'm not 100% sure. I know they also have like the music is their own music. They have Lo-Fi Records. So it's all copyright free, which is kind of cool. Um, cause that would be the other problem if you try to do this commercially. And, um, but for these guys, I think they'll probably have some premium version or some upsell or so. I don't know what they'll do to make money. Like the main thing right now is can they get to like, a million students a day who are studying with this thing, which is like, at that point is pretty valuable to be the hub where a million students a day are spending like multiple hours.
They raise money now. Yeah. So, so I'm investing in this thing. Um, you're doing it a lot of time. Yeah. I'm going to do it. This gives me heavy, like Twitch vibes in a, in a way where I'm like, it's kind of a behavior that doesn't really make sense until you start to think about the use case and like, yeah, that would be fun actually.
But there's thousands of them. I just Googled it. There's so many of them.
What, like virtual study halls? Yeah. Yeah, there, there are, I don't think there's thousands of them. There's one serious competitor that's like been around for a little while.
Uh, I forgot what it's called, but they have like—
Study Together? They're close to that point. Yeah, I think it's Study Together. I think that's the one. Um, they have a million people in their community and, uh, and so, you know, these guys are trying to build like a better user experience than that.
Uh, so this, this, I think that this could be a case study together. It says that there's, uh, 30, 34,000 people concurrently online. So at The Hustle, we are getting, let's say that we are getting 2 or 3 million monthly uniques. Basically that means that, which is like 2 to 3 million a month is pretty good. If it's the right niche, you can make like, you know, a million a month off 2 to 3 million people a month if it's the right one. And at any given point we would have 2,000 people online. Like it really would never get— maybe occasionally you would get to 3,000 and 4,000, but virtually never. And the fact that this has 33,000, that's pretty insane.
Yeah, that's right now. I mean, I don't even know if school— I think it's like still summer for, for people that they're not even like in school right now. And if you are in high school or anything else, like you're, you're, you know, it's the middle of the day. You can't be doing this while you're at school. So there's only going to be like college or summer school right now. I bet this number could be 3 times as high for them during like kind of peak seasons. Um, you know, definitely. So, so I think that's kind of amazing. And, you know, like, you know, whether they sell, you know, like little emotes like Discord did, like Discord makes millions and millions of dollars off of just their, like their super emoji that you can have, or, uh, you know, yeah, that's Discord's business model is you pay $6 a month or something like that for Discord Nitro. And all it gives you is like your, your little, your group can have its own emoji. Like you can upload your own emoji and you could use the premium emoji that they have. And, uh, same thing with Twitch. Like people subscribe for $5 or $6 a month to a, um, a Twitch channel. And like, it's not like they couldn't just watch it for free. They can watch it for free too. They do it to get a little badge that says, I'm, I'm a paid like patron of this person's channel. And secondly, they get to use the custom emoji of that channel. That's really the only perks. Like, Sometimes it's subscriber-only chat, but, but that's not usually the case. And so, um, so yeah, you, I think you could get pretty big with something like this. Uh, but I think it's one of those like, uh, under the radar niches. Most people don't even really recognize that this is a niche. So I think this is a cool idea.
I'm excited to see how it does. That's cool. We talked about it before. Um, all right, let me run something by you because you, you just actually have been talking about this. So check this out. So you know who Scott Galloway is?
Of course, the, uh, so Professor G.
Yeah, for those who don't know, there's a dude named Scott Galloway, popular on Twitter for making all these like tech takes, and he gets made fun of for being wrong a lot, but he takes a lot of swings, so he's going to be wrong a lot. But basically he started this company called L2, which I think he sold for like $200 million, so he's like really successful already, whatever. And he's got this new thing called Section 4, which I think is just like courses. But dude, check this out. So New York Times, it said Mr. Galloway, who was already wealthy from selling two companies and taking a third public, also makes more than $5 million a year from speaking gigs, he said, largely from corporations and industry groups that pay him $50,000 a year, or $50,000 for a virtual event and $250,000 for an international event. I should be broken up, he joked, which is pretty funny. But that's, that's a ridiculous amount of money for speaking. That is huge. How, how, how does that work? Because I know that you were talking about like it has to all be, it has to all work from, uh, book sales, right? Or for, you know, just like being a New York Times bestseller.
Yeah, I think it's like a combination. It's like you just, you're in people's face enough with like, you know, you, you sound polished because, you know, they have a podcast, they have, uh, he's got his blog, which is pretty famous. He's got, he's been, he's been doing this for like, he's been doing this forever, dude. I feel like this guy's been publishing content for like 10, 15 years at least, something like that, dude. Isn't that right? He's not like some, some new guy.
He's not just a guy. I mean, he's, he's, he's, he's great. You know, he's good and he's hilarious. I listened, I was at, uh, when I was in Germany, he spoke, he was very good. And like, I've hung out with him. He's a really nice guy and his shtick online, I don't always agree with a lot of his takes. And I think that sometimes he's unnecessarily a hater, but without a doubt, incredibly entertaining when he, when he does talks, like he's got a little bit of like a comedy shtick on there. He's kind of like a little F you. And he like says like hilarious jokes about him being like old and like bald and stuff. He's hilarious. He's good. And this is that. But that's so much. $5 million a year from speaking is like the equivalent of having like $50 million. $5 million a year of income is astronomical. You know what I mean?
What is funny about that? It really is. Well, just it's true. It's like it's funny that it's, it's like it's funny that you're absolutely right. That is an absurd number to be making in speaking fees.
You're like a pretty good NBA player. At that point.
Yeah, exactly.
But you're just like giving a presentation on— you're using PowerPoint.
And also, by the way, it's the same presentation.
It's the same one. You can do it for 15 years. You know what I mean? It's like in your free time a little bit. Uh, this is crazy. It— I just, I heard that number and I was like, I couldn't believe it at first because it is, it's an astronomical number.
How much does like David Blaine make? Because Prof G is basically like inviting a magician to your conference.
It's like, oh yeah, here's the entertainment.
Uh, we all know and love this guy, Scott Galloway. He comes on, he kind of does his little routine and he entertains you. And like, that's the, that's what he's getting paid for is to be kind of like a name people recognize, adds legitimacy to the event. And, um, and, you know, provide some entertainment that's not like completely off-the-wall circus stuff. It's like, well, this will be entertaining, but it's still relevant. Here's the thing.
Here's the rub. His pod, it gets, it's 2 times the size of ours. So we get like between— we get like in the 100,000, sometimes more, sometimes a little less, uh, range per episode, downloads per episode. He's at 250,000. So in my head— him or who is it? Yeah, yeah, that— I, I don't know what it's called, but it's like him and Kara Swisher. It's on— I don't even fucking know what it is. Recode.
It was like Recode or whatever.
Now something else. And in my head I'm thinking I'll take half that, right? I mean, we got to be doing this.
I'll do you one better. I'll take a third of that. I'll undercut Sam.
It's good.
I will, I will do whatever the hell you want.
How often do you get asked to do it?
Uh, I don't get asked that often. I don't get asked that often. The number is always good whenever I do get asked, but I don't get asked that often. Um, and also I'm not really that interested in doing this because like, you know, for this you got to travel a bunch, uh, to do it. I think to do it well, you got to travel a bunch. I don't think people are going to do that.
You wouldn't take your kids with you on like a trip somewhere?
Not right now.
You don't want to see Kansas City, bro?
Yeah, exactly. Like, uh, no, I do not want to. I do not want to take the phrase take my kids somewhere is like already, you know, the price just went up. Uh, it, it, so, so no, I wouldn't wanna do that now, but yeah, later in life. Yeah, that'd be great. So by the way, funny you mentioned Scott Galloway. There's a couple things people should know. Number one, he's very entertaining, great at content. Number two, his business takes are pretty awful for the most part. He's been wrong, famously wrong many, many times. In fact, somebody created the, the anti-Professor Galloway Index or something. What's that website called? Where it's literally just says, Anytime he says to buy or sell something, if you just did the exact opposite, here's how you'd be doing. It's like he's down X percent, you know, S&P 500 is up Y percent and this is up like double the S&P 500.
Yeah.
Outperformed the market.
It's the website's Bet Against the Professor introducing the Anti-Galloway Index.
And what is the stats? What does it say? How has he done or how has the thing done against him?
So his worst prediction was that he said that may I think he said that like Macy's was going to like outperform Amazon. So like not that good. And then he also said that, uh, he also said that, um, Tesla was a bad bet. So like, I don't know, even know how to use it. So let's see. Um, since October 2019, tech companies that have, that the professor has predicted would fail have outperformed the S&P and seen a whopping 61% return. So you would have made 61%.
Exactly. So that's really funny. Whoever did that, uh, I do appreciate that. Uh, last thing is, so, so I just talked to a guy yesterday about this course business. So, so he's got this thing Section 4, and I was like, dude, how much money does that make? He goes, actually, I kind of like, I've been, you know, I'm in that same niche, so I've been doing research on it. Here's what I think. So here's what he thinks. He goes, he's got, I think Section 4 does like $14 million a year in revenue. They've raised like $37 million. Uh, they just did some layoffs because, you know, Yeah. Um, and he's basically like, you know, that's an average of $1,000 a year per learner. Um, you know, 30% discount, let's say it's $700 and he has 21,000 people, uh, you know, paying, paying to learn. Um, or something like that. Maybe 2.1 is what that was supposed to be. I'm not sure. But, uh, but yeah, that's kind of like, kind of crazy. Then he was like, you know, also Reforge, you, you know, Reforge, it was like the, uh, if I had a guess, Section 4 is basically like some marketing school.
Dude, I would guess that Reforge is in like the $18 to $20 range for revenue. Yeah.
Do you know how much money Reforge has raised?
How much? I have no idea.
If this guy is right, Reforge has raised a total of $81 million.
How much do you think?
Just kind of absurd for for what they're doing, but they did acquire some other marketing training company. So maybe they raised a bunch of money just to buy something that had like established revenue and EBITDA. Um, so anyways, these little like marketing schools that people have created, like these can be kind of big. Like we should have, if we wanted to monetize MFM, this would have been the way to do it is to just me and you create like our own marketing school. I'm pretty sure with our audience and like what we actually, like we've actually done this, like we've actually done marketing to grow our businesses successfully. Owned and exited multiple businesses now, uh, brought multiple businesses to this, to this, like, you know, 7, 8-figure in revenue, uh, point. Like, if anybody should be doing this, uh, this should be us, not, not these guys. Uh, but you know, who wants to go do that? I don't know.
So let me talk, tell you about something that I question if I actually wanna go do that, but I hear the numbers and they're amazing. So, uh, B2B media, so media companies that make content for other businesses. I was talking to this guy the other day and check this out. He's got this company called Aging Media. Okay. They make newsletters for nursing homes. So I guess people who own nursing homes and people who own hospice, hospice care businesses. And it's like, I think only 3 years old, it's, or 4 years old. It's not a very old company, but he was telling me that this year they'll do around $10 million in revenue and like $3 or $4 million in EBITDA. And completely bootstrapped, and they have got 40 employees. And if you go, go to— it's called Aging Media. Go to the website and look at their shit. It is so simple. It's such a straightforward business. And I see this stuff and I'm like, oh man, I could totally do this for X, Y, and Z. And that's a small example. There's a bigger example. There's this company called Industry Dive. Industry Dive was just acquired like, uh, a week ago, I think, or 2 weeks ago. They were acquired for $500 million. They do, um, a hundred and let's see, they were doing, where is it? They were doing $110 million in revenue. They're doing $110 million in revenue with 30% profit, 380 employees, 53 newsletters across those 53 newsletters, 2.5 million subs. And pretty straightforward, like not, not complicated, not necessarily easy, but not complicated and straightforward. Their content, I think. It's okay. It's just like, it's basically just bullet points. It's an email with bullet points of what's happening in like the restaurant industry or whatever. But these companies, the bar I think to be good is so low for B2B media because it's just like, you know, like it just mostly all sucks. They like think that like you have to write a certain way, but in the way they monetize and make money is so much better than a consumer media company. Because if you are a person who's selling software or whatever to a hospice care owner, like you only have a couple of places to go to and one sale gets you, you know, hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions in revenue, like a pretty huge number. And so like these guys, basically what they do, they have ads on their site, but they do webinars with a sponsor and like 15 people sign up for the webinar or the talk. It's basically like a podcast just like this, but you got to enter your email to get in. They give that email to the sponsor and that sponsor hopes to go and email the 10 people that signed up. And, uh, like hopefully they buy their shit and it's like $20,000 or $30,000 or $40,000 to charge for like getting those 10, 30, 50 leads. It's crazy. The bar's so low.
Yeah, this, this thing is crazy. They have, um, their big like verticals are like they have Waste Dive. Waste Dive is for the waste management industry. Then they'll have like, like pharmaceuticals and then they'll have finance and then they'll have like, you know, these different, uh, things. I think their biggest one, so Marketing Dive is 510 subscribers, 510,000 subscribers. Uh, BioPharma Dive, 275,000 subscribers. Construction Dive, 300,000 subscribers. HR Dive, 455, uh, 450,000 subscribers. And then they have just a bunch of others, you know, right? Utility Dive, Restaurant Dive, Retail Dive is their app, their, their biggest one, 700,000 subscribers. It's pretty crazy. This is not a media company really. Like, you know, yes, they're a media company, but like the game isn't, are you good at making content? The game is, are you really good at acquiring users and like acquiring subscribers in this industry.
I don't think you have to be that good. If you're, if you're like a D2C dork like you, like you don't have to be that good at this. Like, because you're already pretty good at like trying to acquire a user for $2 so you can make $8. Like you're probably better, more skilled. You're just choosing like a less lucrative game. And here's why this is interesting. The guy who started Industry Dive, his name's Sean. He previously was the president of another company called Fierce Markets, and they did this exact same thing, but they did it starting in 2005 or like 2002, and it was literally the same thing, but they just did a different, like, slightly different industries. It had 1.2 million subs and it sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. The reason why this is industry— industry— interesting is it's the same shit over and over and over again. They just like kind of like have like a dartboard of like boring shit and they just like throw a couple of darts and like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do that one. Yeah. Like that's, I mean, obviously I'm oversimplifying this, but it's incredibly fascinating to me because the bar is so low to be, uh, successful.
Yeah. One thing I have noticed though, like, so I agree with you, this is, uh, one of those blueprints that's like a good blue, really good blueprints. It doesn't take like genius, doesn't take, um, a ton of luck. And so, you know, in that sense, it's a good, good blueprint to go after. The downside is now that this is like, this game I think was really awesome, like over the last 10 years. I think over the next 10 years that window is closing. The same thing happened at D2C. Um, the same thing happened at dropshipping, the same thing. Anytime the blueprint is, anytime the blueprint is easy, I think that when this company sells for $500 million doing something, there's a bunch of sharks like you and I who hear about this, go study their, their blueprint. And you get 15 new, like aggressive people who now know how big the prize is for something like this and now have a blueprint to follow, all doing the same thing. I still think you could win and some, somebody will win, but it is, I would say, 10 times harder than it was over the last 10 years in my opinion, because you're gonna have that set of people. This is exactly what's going on in, in D2C, which is that cost of acquiring customers are going up. Why? Because people realized, oh, you could just do this with like, You know, pick a product, run this, run this Facebook ad blueprint, use Shopify, use Klaviyo. It's like this stack of like, I just need to do these 6 things.
But there's so many more people doing that than this. There's so many more people starting deodorant and like jewelry brands than there are this boring shit.
Yeah. But, but for those, there's, there, you can have way more, right? You can have, how many jewelry brands can the market hold? It can hold a ton because people are gonna have a bunch. Now, if let's say that, The industry newsletter, a way to find out what's going on in your industry. Um, how many is somebody— if I'm in the waste management industry, how many of those am I going to read every week? I don't know, 2, 1 or 2, right? Probably 1 or 2. Okay, Industry Dive is 1. Now everybody else is going to fight for 2. And then if you're not going to go for waste management, you're going to go for the next best niche and the next best. Now Industry Dive's already done 20 of these niches, 30 of these niches themselves. Other people are gonna keep going for more and more of these niches. So you're gonna get to the less valuable niches or the ones that are harder to acquire subscribers for, cuz you're all fighting for that same one or two slots. And so, I think that still somebody will win, but it is way harder than it was when this, when the word wasn't leaked that, oh, this, all these industry newsletters can be that big. That's crazy, right?
I think you're, I think you're, you, you, You're giving people too much credit. I think that, uh, not that many people are going to get involved in this. It's just so much cooler when you're 22 to like, you know, like what's that one kid who sells like sex chocolate? Like that's just so much more fascinating. What's that called? Tabs. Tabs. Chocolate that makes you horny. That's so much cooler to like everyone in LA than any of this.
Yeah. Do you get some of that included when you rent the podcast studio space you're in? Cause it seems like it should just be on the desk in front of you. All right, let's do another thing. Um, okay. So I have one. So here's another kind of like what I'll call boring idea hidden in plain sight. Aunt Flow. Have you ever heard of this company Aunt Flow?
Wait, is it aunt or aunt? Wait, you say aunt?
I say aunt, but it's also aunt.
Okay. Whatever. All right.
But I understand. Not the insect. Yeah.
Yeah. Your mom's sister.
Like, yeah, mom's. Yeah, exactly. That time of the month is, is the slang for that time of the month. So what these guys are doing, Or these gals are doing, I don't know who's behind it. What they do is they go to a school or a company and they say, hey, uh, you know, your restrooms need to be a little bit more female friendly here. So why don't we install this little like case that's gonna dispense tampons, um, and you know, other kind of like female menstrual cycle products. Any, anything that you could think of that goes in that, that, that category. We're gonna install this dispenser and now you're just, your place is gonna be more welcoming for, um, you know, for, for, for females that, that are attending your space. So maybe girls at school or university or in your company, whatever it is. And, uh, they just made it sexy. So they, this, these kind of hygiene products already exist in bathrooms, but they're all like, we all know what they look like. They're that boring, you know, silver box that looks like, you know, if I open this up, am I gonna get tools or a circuit breaker or like, you know, an, uh, what am I gonna get outta this thing? It's hard to, hard to really say. They just made it look good and feel good and like really nice packaging and design. And it's like, it's like the Tesla of these things that are in the bathroom wall and they're doing great. So, uh, let me pull up their numbers. So they have, I think, 900, uh, I don't know if I have all these numbers correct, but they have 900, um, orgs that are, that are working with them. And basically you pay $300 to install the thing and then you pay like a $1,300 a year for tampon refills or pad refills. And so that's basically like $9,000 for a school with 20 bathrooms. Um, and, and think about that. There's just a lot of high schools. Like there, there are like, you know, I dunno, 15,000 high schools in the country. That's just high schools in the US. Then you have colleges, then you have companies. And, uh, they just made it like a sexy D2C product. Like the, the logo looks cool, the box looks cool. And now states are requiring some schools, like in California, Colorado, Michigan, that you have to offer products for this. And they do this like, you know, for every 10 that we sell, we donate 1 to a menstruator in need. Like they have like a whole thing around it. It's like kind of crazy.
Our software is the worst.
See, most CRMs are a cobbled-together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous.
I think I love our new CRM.
Our software is the best.
Grow better. I, uh, last year I was pitched like 3 different of these. Whenever we did that vending machine pod, I had so many people reach out like, I'm doing like smart vending machine things or something like that. And a lot of them were like either tampons or like hygiene things, or then they were like healthy food. And I looked at all the numbers and most all of them were horrible. And the ones that were the best, they just sold Coke and M&M's, like just like normal. Like everyone wanted to do this like one particular thing, but it's like, man, America just wants Coke and M&M's and that like crushed it. What are the numbers on this one?
On track for $10 million in 2022. Uh, when it started, um, so tripled from last year. I don't know when they started, uh, but they, you know, now they're doing Princeton University, every Apple retail store, offices like Google, Netflix, Disney, Twitter, Quicken Loans. A 4-year contract for all K-12 girls' bathrooms in Utah. Like, why am I not investing in this? This is such a defensible business. Like, once you get the contract, they're not going to have— again, they're not going to have 2 of these at the bathroom. And so like, if you're the brand that like looks good and you can like sprint into market, something like this will get, I think, to like $30, $40, $50 million in revenue. Sure. Quickly.
They raise money.
I need to chase this down. Uh, yeah, they're, they're raising money or they're, They already raised some money.
Can't say I had.
Yeah, surely you have. Like, it's like a goat, it's like toad.
I forget what it's called. I don't go into 7-Eleven. I don't leave the house. I definitely don't walk into 7-Eleven.
Well, they're in the vending machines. They like, it's like Viagra or something like that. It's like some type of like, I actually have no idea what it is, but it's like a, it's like an herbal supplement and it's like your wife was telling me about these.
Got it.
Keep going. You can have that one. And, uh, and, uh, you ever think who makes those and what are their business meetings like? You know what I mean? Is it just like a bunch of dudes like serving Monster energy drink, like sitting around, like, you know what I mean? Have you seen that?
Uh, have you seen that meeting is just done over Xbox Live?
Just like, yeah, just like we'll be serving Mountain Dew and Monster in order to like get this meeting started. I've always wondered what those things are like and how you could be proud making that crap. This is way better than that. It's not the same thing, but I've been thinking a lot about that.
Define a lot. How much have you been thinking about this?
Well, like, like, you know, these, um, Uh, so we talked about, uh, Nelk Boys and like the send it thing, or what is it called? Full send. Full send. And so many people reached out to me after that and they go, they make money because they're sponsored by this crypto poker thing called Ro— what's it called? Roblitt? You know what I'm talking about?
Yeah. And I saw this video where they were talking about it and it does like tens of millions a month in sales. Like it's just like astronomical, just huge. And I was thinking, I was like, That's pretty cool. But I think that gambling, like, I'm okay that it exists, but it's just not for me, you know? It's like, what do I always say? Like, uh, cornrows and sleeve tattoos. It's cool that other people have it, not for me.
And by the way, that's catching on. I did a meeting with somebody and they, I was like, oh, nice tat. They go, yeah, you know what Sam says? Cornrows and sleeve tattoos. It's not for him, but he's glad.
Yeah.
It's like, wow.
I, I respect its right to exist. But you know, it ain't for me. But these, like these, these businesses that do like, let's say gambling, I'm like, that's kind of like, it's most likely a little bit shady. It's definitely not legal in America, but there's definitely, it's related to shadiness. Like it's in the same family. And I just wouldn't be proud doing that on a day. I wouldn't be proud doing that on a daily basis. You know what I mean? Right. And that's why I was thinking about this.
As somebody who spends a lot of time gambling, uh, and has You know, I ever tell you in college how we used to drive from North Carolina where I went to school down to South Carolina, a 3-hour drive, that we would board a riverboat casino that would, that would sail into international waters, turn off the engines, and then let us gamble for 4 hours and then it would drive back. And that's what I was doing as like a 20-year-old. And I was like, you know, I was playing poker once and the guy next to me either fell asleep or died. And I was like, oh my God, like, what am I doing here? Why am I hanging out with these lowlifes who are— this guy's like, this guy, you know, like those people whose nails go so long they start to like corkscrew. Like this guy looked like that. And I was like, this guy hasn't moved off this boat in like a century and I shouldn't be here, but I couldn't resist.
Sleep or death.
I don't know. I just left the table. I was like, I don't, I'm not going to tap this guy and find out. It's like Schrödinger's box. Is the cat dead or not? I didn't want to know. So, so I just left. But, uh, yeah, lost a bunch of money doing that. So I don't know. I like gambling. I think it's cool. But also for sure, like, it's not a business I would start because I feel like I don't wanna start things where the end is me in a Netflix documentary. It's like, what is the percent chance I have to like be on the run at, at some point in this business venture? I don't really wanna flee the country. Uh, I'm not looking to like, you know, find out that like, you know, we have a huge amount of like, you know, child pornography or, you know, you know, money laundering in my, my app. It's like, dude, I'm not here for the stress. Like, I'm not, I'm not trying to do all that. And I don't need to make like a trillion dollars in a year doing this. Like the Stake guys, I, I told the story about them on the pod that they do like $40 million a week in revenue.
No way.
They issued, I, I think a— but how much of that is that?
What's that like net revenue versus gross?
This is their take. Um, They did it. I heard they did an $800 million dividend to their— why? They can't sell the business. So I heard that they distributed like $800 million. This could be, this could be wrong, but I don't think it's wrong by like more than 30%. So, so that's pretty crazy. These, these things, this guy, these guys are printing cash. These are the guys who bought that, like they didn't know who was behind it until some guy, $40 million, like a $36 million home. Yeah. And they were like, How did this 26-year-old afford this? And they're like, oh, where's the source of your wealth? He's like, I own stake.com.
Did people just based in— correct. Did people just message you about what? And they told you that number? Whenever we talk about any of this crap, I get so many messages.
My same friend who told me, yeah, my same friend who told me about them in the first place when I featured them on here, he was telling me about like, you know, their dividend and stuff like that. Rubet is also big. Yeah. These things are really big. Basically, it's an online casino. And so, like, you take one of the best business models in the world, a casino, and you strip away the biggest costs of it, which are like, you know, the building, the giant building, and having all this labor, uh, because all the games are digital and there's the casino is digital. And now all you have left is the marketing cost to acquire customers. And you can acquire customers from around the globe in their bedroom, and they don't have to, like, fly to Vegas to do it, right? It's a kind of an amazing model. And like it's pretty obvious why it's, why it's huge. But yeah, you, it, it's not for everybody. Um, all right.
What do you got? Okay.
I got, I got another one. Um, I got a framework and then I have, actually I got two frameworks. I got one framework for, I got a quick one and a long one. I'll do the quick one first. I realized this the other day. I was like, um, so yeah, Brian, Brian Armstrong, the founder of Coinbase, went on, uh, Lex Friedman's podcast. Yeah. Lex Friedman was like, so like, what is, What is your startup advice? What is your advice for starting a startup? It's like, it's one of those questions that as, you know, as an entrepreneur you kind of hate cuz you're like, well, it's like saying, you know, like what is a good life? Um, so, but he gave an answer. He's, he kind of broke it down. He's like, well, there's like, there's like two separate eras, pre-product market fit and post. And I was like, that's, I agree with that 100%. Like the things, the way life is pre and post is like important, but like then, okay, so for Lex, you gotta define like, what is product market fit? And like, it's kind of hard to define product market fit. I don't know how you felt it for The Hustle, cuz you kind of went from events to like, I feel like we never had it, big flashy blog posts to the newsletter. You don't think the newsletter had it?
I mean, we got to, we have 2.5 million people a day reading. So like, I guess that there, there's definitely something there, but like people, when my friends talk about it, they're like, oh man, it just started working. Like it never felt like— it felt like a slog the whole time. It never felt like things were just working. I mean, do you feel that way with the Milk Road? It just seems like, like it— I guess maybe technically there's exponential growth because it's growing like 200% or 300% a year, but it wasn't like I can't keep up, you know what I mean?
Right. Yeah. So I'll tell you the frameworks I've heard about this. So one is, uh, Emmett, who's the founder of Twitch, he said this once and I was like, oh, that sounds right. He goes, In a startup, there's a big period where it just feels like you're pushing a giant boulder up a hill and you're pushing and you're pushing and you're pushing. He's like, and then there is a point if it works where all of a sudden you're not pushing anymore. The boulder starts to roll down the other side of the hill, and now you have the opposite problem. You're running, chasing to try to catch up with it, um, because it's rolling faster than you can keep up with. And, uh, this is what other people say too. Like, you know, your customers are like demanding, you know, you can't, you basically, you, you've run out of inventory. People are, it's flying off the shelves. Like these are the phrases people use to describe this feeling. And it's where it starts to feel like the market is pulling you rather than pushing.
And so have you ever experienced that?
You ever experienced that? I've experienced it a little bit with our D2C brand where we would, but it's not like, it's not like this magical Eden where it never feels that way. It never feels hard again. Like that's kind of how it sounds in my head. It's like, oh, at some point I'll stop pushing and it'll start like rolling by itself and I'll have to run and chase it. It's like, It's kind of like starts and stops of that. It's more like, like a mountain range where the hit, you go up and then down and then you climb the next mountain. It's a little higher and then down, then the next mountain and down. Like that's how it feels like. So for example, with the, with the, with our e-commerce company, um, okay, getting the product made and getting it to market and getting people to first hear about our brand, that was pushing the boulder up. But then literally as soon as it, like, I remember it went viral in like a Facebook group. People started sharing it in like enthusiasts of that category. They started sharing it. And so we all of a sudden, I remember like the third day we did like $3,000 in sales without like spending anything on marketing. And I was like, where did that come from? That was awesome. I didn't do anything. And like people started buying it. And by our second month we ran out of inventory. Um, and we had a, we had a full, our third month our sales sucked cuz we just had no inventory. So that was like what it felt like to pull, but then to get the business to grow even more, well that's, you know, like that magic, you know, sort of slowed down and Sure, people were still telling their friends, but I wanted to hit a bigger goal, so now I had to push again. So it's been kind of starts and stops with Milk Road. I, I feel like the growth is pushing the boulder up a hill, but then I look at some numbers like the number of organic people who, like people who've joined because they got referred the thing. It's like a really healthy percentage. I'm like, okay, so that means people are liking it if they're sharing with friends. And, um, the feedback, like the replies we get are not just like, oh, that was a good one today. It's like, They like, they're using our own language and sense of humor. It's like they wanna be friends with us. They're like, yeah. They're like, oh, you know, the milk was so hot this morning, it turned into butter. And like, you know, it's like, who said, who like goes into a product, uses it that day, and then comes up with a funny review just 'cause you kind of wanna be boys with the people who are making it. Like that's, that shows that they really care in some way. And we get like hundreds of those a day. So, so that shows me it's working, but still to grow and fill the revenue slots, like that feels like a slog. Like, That doesn't feel easy. That feels like very, very difficult. And so, um, so yeah, I don't have a good answer.
I've seen it firsthand with two different people. So the first is I used to share this office, uh, called Founders Dojo. You know, you, it was, uh, Dave Grossblatt and a bunch of us when I was starting the company, uh, The Hustle. And there was these two guys that were like the most stereotypical, like Silicon Valley nerds. It was like a skinny Indian dude and then this white guy that looked like this jock. He was like really good looking jock, but he was like the dorkiest dude ever. And they were partners and it was a hilarious combination. And they created this technology that would basically, I have no idea why they wanted to create this technology. It's honestly kind of pointless, but basically it would crawl the internet and it would find the most shared and most popular HD GIFs, GIFs, whatever, on the internet that day. And They built this thing and then they would spend hours making the search. So if you just typed in one letter, it would autofill with like things that you could search, like GIFs. Like if you typed in like the word C, it would autofill cats and then like the search would just pop up. And I remember we'd be like staring at the computer with them just showing like, look how much faster it is. And it was like, you can't even tell, like, you know, how much faster it was from the previous time. But they like nerded out over this and they launched this thing and it did okay. It did okay. It did okay. And then one day we get into the office and they've stayed there all night and they slept underneath the table, their desk. I remember. And I remember like Dave had bought them pizza because like they were working the whole time and we were like, what's going on, Raj? Like, why is this, why is this happening? And their website was called The Worst Drug, which is pretty hilarious. It's called theworstdrug.tv. I think basically some porn guys got ahold of it and the, it like, they, they somehow, I don't know how it worked, but The most shared GIFs on the web are almost all porn. And so they like disabled like the not safe for work feature and it was all porn. And we get to the office and they had this fancy setup, like this, the huge monitor. And it was the highest def porn I've ever seen. And you click like space and it would autofill with like a new porn GIF. And like, at first—
I used this, by the way. I remember seeing it. It went viral like in 2014 or something. It was like Somebody shared it in our IRC. They're like, this is a crazy website. And it was like full screen HD immediate, like porn. And you're like, whoa. And you touch any key and it just reloads another one instantaneously. I was like, whoa, what's going on? It was like TikTok.
So basically there was like 8 of us, 8 guys. And like, we were gathered around this computer and at first we were like shocked. It was like hardcore porn, like shock, shocking porn that would go viral or like people like click on. And like the whole porn thing, we got past it. And then we were like, wow, that's really high def. Look at that. Like, oh, if you click space, like it really, it loads so fast. And there were just 8 of us like gathered around us and Tim Westergen, the founder—
I could see the hair on his thigh.
Yeah, it was crazy. It was disgusting. And Tim Westergen and his assistant, I forget her name, but they, I was supposed to interview them in preparation because they were speaking at HustleCon and I told them to come to the office and they walk into the office. Pandora. Yeah, the founder of Pandora. They walk into the office and there's 8 of us gathered around this screen just like staring intensely at this porn. Like, wow, good, good job, Raj. Like, when you type in C, it really autofills like really quickly. Like, you know, like, this is amazing. And they walk in and they're like, oh, hey, what's going on? You guys want to see something? Check out this technology. Like, it was— and they had like millions of people a day coming to the website. Overnight and they slept there at the office for weeks trying to like, you know, do something with the server to keep up with the traffic and like increase the speed just a little bit. And eventually something happened where like someone in Romania offered to buy it and they flew there and it turns out that it was like some gangsters and then they like all had like guns on them and they came back and it was like an ordeal. But that's the one time that I really saw product market fit work.
So I've heard stories like that, like when Instagram launched, it was kind of the same thing. They like They launched it, they put it out in the wild, you know, first hour was pretty slow or whatever. The guys kind of go to sleep, they wake up and like, or like not even they go to sleep. It was like late at night and it was early in the morning in Japan and the app had started to go viral in Japan. And so they were like, dude, what are all these? Like, why are there only pictures of tea? And it's like, oh, this is in Japan. People are having tea in the morning and they're taking Instagram pictures of it. And they had like 25,000 people downloaded that first or second day. And, uh, the servers like, you know, basically melting and like pretty quickly the only problem became how do we get more server capacity? It was like, oh, you, you stop thinking about features, you stop thinking about the logo, you stop thinking about names, you stop thinking about hiring. It's like all I think about is like, how do I add more servers? And so actually I started to realize that there is this te— there's a test, the simplest test of product market fit, cuz people have tried to come up with these tests before. In fact, Um, there's a kind of famous Silicon Valley one, which is you survey your users, um, this thing, which is if our product went away, if you could no longer use our product, how would you feel? Very disappointed, somewhat disappointed, or not disappointed? And the idea was if 40% or more say very disappointed, you have product-market fit. Sounds good in theory. It's sort of like, yeah, it's like, it's like astrology. It's like giving you a way to have this answer to this like mystical question. And, uh, Marc Andreessen said this thing, he goes, product-market fit is like sex. If you, if you're asking if you have it, you're not having it. And like, you know, I think that's more real, uh, which is like, there isn't this 40% survey number. You can't survey your way to finding out. You'll know because it kind of hits you like a punch in the face. And so what I've seen is that the people who really have it, like their thing is going to go supernova. They only care about two things. Those two things are, if it's a tech product, hiring more servers, and if it's any kind of product, hiring customer, customer support people. And if anytime I meet a founder now who's like, yeah dude, I just really need, you know, any good like customer support people? Like, where do I find more support people? Or like, hey, do you know how I can get like AWS credits? I'm like running up a crazy bill. I'm like, um, let me invest first. And then also, yes, let me help you with that. Because I know when that happens, that is the almost the truest sign of product market fit. It is the survey you don't need to go do with your customers. When a founder stops thinking about features managers stops thinking about like future plans and marketing and, you know, company culture and everything else. And they're like, dude, the shit is melting. So I asked Michael Birch, who was my, my former boss and then became my investor at my, uh, Idea Lab. And, you know, Michael had basically sold Bebo for $850 million. And I wanted to know, like, and he had struggled before that for 3, 3.5 years to like make something work. And so I asked him, I was like, you know, what was it like kind of before, and when the turning point happened, were you just feeling so good once it clearly started to work? He was like, well, he kind of described the boulder pushing up the hill thing. He's like, well, before when I was like, I quit my job, we had 2 kids and a 3rd on the way, we had mortgaged our house, and I had told my wife, give me 6 months to try this. And now I was 3 years in and I still hadn't figured out anything that worked, but I felt like I was getting closer and closer. He's like, That was hard. I felt like I was pushing the boulder up the hill. Then with Bebo, we, like, I finally put together all the pieces. I knew that social networking was a good product, like a good category. Like this is before Facebook. Like I knew that social networking was gonna be big. People were gonna talk to other people on the internet. They were gonna have profiles and comment on each other's pages. I just felt like that was true. And then I knew how to grow it, which was like these viral, like kind of fill in your profile quizzes. And share it with your friends. I knew how to grow it. And like, so I, I launched the thing. He goes, in 9 days we had a million users. And he's like, back then a million users was like so huge on the internet. He's like, he's like, you know, 9 days later, none of them came back. I had a retention problem. But he's like, I knew that I had like something that could light fires. So I turned it off. I started working on the retention to like give you a reason to come back every day. He's like, I knew this is going to work. He's like, and then when it worked, he's like, I didn't feel like this immense joy, like, yay, I finally overcame it. He's like, I felt even more pressure. He's like, dude, now this is actually— you finally did it. Don't fuck this up. Like, this can actually be valuable. Don't mess this up. He's like, that became a whole new level of pressure and like burden that I felt. And he's like, I worked so hard. And I think after they sold, like, what, 4 years in or something like that, I think he had like major heart surgery like 5 months later because he had been like so working so hard and under so much stress and pressure that whole time. I'm sure that could contribute to something like that. But when he described that, I was like, okay, so I've never felt that. Like, I've never felt anything that you just described. That means I've never felt the, like, the violent version of product market fit when that, like, a billion-dollar company feels.
So what did Brian Armstrong say?
Uh, he didn't say what it feels. He didn't define it as much. He was just, he had said basically some, something along the lines of, You know, um, you know, you're making something that people want and, um, you know, the, you know, there's like, you know, whatever true demand for, he says something sort of general like that. But I, I've been thinking about how do you know? Because that's so general that you're going to be optimistic and think you have it when you don't. 'Cause God, it would feel so good to have it. And man, it really sucks to not have it. So you're always kind of like squinting and looking for these, like this evidence. And what Brian said was, he goes, act, he goes, My lucky thing was that I wasn't a big analyzer or a big thinker. I was just like, action produces information. So I would just do a thing and I'd, it'd produce some information like, oh, people want this or they don't want this, or they want it, but there's something wrong with it. Um, like the, the, the Bebo thing where it's, oh, they, it grew, but they didn't stick around. Okay. But that produced information. That first 9 days produced a lot of information. And so he's like, but okay, I built this wrong, but now I know what's wrong with it. So let me do another round and like, He's like, action produces information. So as a founder, like, just focus on the action part and like, it'll either hit for you or it won't. But like, action is really the only way you're going to get to it. And like, you know, smart action, meaning you take action, then you sort of like accurately assess what's working and what's not so that you're not taking blind action.
Have you ever thought about the logistics of that, though? So Coinbase, there was this article a couple of years ago written about them and when they were— when I think in 18 or 19 when like the first cycle was happening. And they're saying how like they've torn down walls at their office, like just because they don't have enough space. And like they, they, people needed to be in the same room to like shout at one another. And then they're like, we're also just taking meetings, uh, in the park. I, I forget where their office was, but it was where near where you and I lived in San Francisco. And they'd be like, yeah, we're taking meetings in the park because there's just physically not enough space. And if you think about the logistics of it, you basically have this idea and this small thing in 2015 or '16 or whatever. And so right now they're at, I think, 4,000 employees, which means they've probably hired 6,000 or 7,000 if you count for turnover. And if there's, you know, 360 days in a year or whatever it is, 350 days a year, that's like, you're basically adding 10 to 20 people a day in headcount every single day for 3 years. It's pretty wild. That's wild, right? In order to add 10 or 30 people a day, whatever you— and that's not even like that much compared to like a Facebook or Google, but like those, that means that you got to talk to 5 times, 10 times more. Yeah. Yeah.
It's, it's, he says that in the thing, he goes, we have, I think he said 3,000 people now. He goes, but, and I, he's like, I personally, I think was involved in the hiring of maybe the first, like, I forgot what he said, like 300 or 500. He's like, but then to hire those 300 or 500, I had to talk to maybe 3,000 or 5,000 people. So he's like, so I've done a lot of interviewing now and I have a good idea of like how I like to interview. He's like, I got totally burnt out from it.
If you just think like, all right, how are we gonna get everyone a laptop? Or, um, how do we like make sure that like— Everything breaks.
Everything breaks.
It's crazy. Have you ever experienced that firsthand?
Not that, but I, I've heard stories again. I've heard stories and that's how I know I didn't have product market fit. Even when I thought I had it. Growth is happening. I've only ever felt it one time with Blab when our servers kept melting down. And it was in during a period where we went from about 0 to 2 million users in like a 6-month period. And like, we just kept, like, our vendors' servers were going down. Then we're like, shit, what do we do? Like, dude, you, how is Talkbox going down? How is Cloudflare, you know, going down? What's, what's going on here? Like, it was like, and we were also getting DDoS attacked and shit like that. But, but, basically, yeah, it was, that's the only time I've sort of felt it, but that was like, you know, a very brief window of time. The, there's this guy, Dan Rose. I don't know if you follow him on Twitter. He was like a very, he was like number 3, number 3 guy at Amazon or something. He was very early at Amazon, maybe like first 50 or 100 people. Uh, I was like, yeah, something like that. But he was early, early days. Like he was around when the dot-com bust happened. I saw '99, 2000, 2001 time period. Then he went to Facebook and he was, he ended up being like the number 3 guy at Facebook behind Zuck and Sheryl. And, um, so anyways, he shares these war stories from the, from back then. He says these things that again, you don't feel unless you're building one of these like, you know, thunder lizard type companies that are just like these Godzillas. And he's like, yeah, at Amazon, he's like, we used to just do meetings in the stairwell because there was just no, like we ran outta desk space. We were, we started putting 2 people at every desk that didn't even work. I was just working out of a stairwell for like a 3-month period. I was like, just imagine, like, he's like, yeah, I just took my laptop and just sat there on the top stair and I was just like, somebody would be walking by. I'd be like, hey, hey, uh, for that thing we're launching tomorrow, like, hey, can we, and then I just walk with him down the stairs while we talk. And that was our meeting. And so he shares these stories about like what it was like. He, his Twitter follow, his Twitter is a, is a good follow for sure.
Did I ever tell you, uh, did I ever tell you about the Airbnb cafeteria? No. So, uh, when Sarah, my wife works there and I used to go to the office cuz my office was right next door to it. For dinner time all the time. Basically they had this beautiful office and every office or meeting room is made to look like a popular Airbnb, like, you know, thing you could rent. And it's like this beautiful office, you know, Brian and Joe, they're like designers. So every— and everything like in their office looks exactly like that. And their cafeteria can, you know, seat 3 or feed 3,000 people or whatever, however many people they have there. And their whole shtick was every single item was made there at the office. So the Red Bull, they had like Airbnb Bull, the ketchup, the mayonnaise made right there, the trail mix. Like they made, they made everything 100% except for the beer. I think that's the only thing that they didn't make. But besides that, if you consumed it, it's like they didn't have Doritos. You couldn't get a Coke in that office. It was all made right there on the spot. And I remember thinking like this company, just that in itself is like a pretty amazing feat. And that's not even close to being like their thing, you know what I mean?
Yeah, that's exactly—
that's like, that's not their thing.
This is logistics, you know, that's their version of lunch.
Yeah, it's just table stakes to get people to work there. And I remember like thinking like, how on earth do you pull that off? Because like just literally 5 years ago or maybe 3 years ago, I had interviewed there and it was 200 people and it was like an okay office. But that alone, I remember seeing that and I was like, This is just amazing. This is, this is absolutely ridiculous.
I had the same experience.
I went to, um, Zynga's office back when Zynga was like, you know, still Airbnb used to share an office with them, I believe, by the way, I went to that Zynga office as well.
And that office is crazy. First you walk in and there's like a tunnel to enter. Like, you remember that tunnel, the light, the lit up tunnel. So it's like you walk in, it's an LED tunnel. So you feel like you're entering a special, you feel like you're entering a spaceship of some kind or like, you know, You're walking out into a stadium and, uh, then there's just dogs everywhere. I was like, oh, well, do people have allergies here? How's this allowed? It's like, oh yeah, I don't know. We're just, it is like this free, free land. And I met, uh, we met the chef, this guy Matt, um, Matthew, I think is that, de Trumbull was his name. Just sounds like a chef name. And so he was like, yeah, lemme give you a tour. And so he was the one who brought us into the office. I was like, okay. Uh, he's like, yeah, I'll give you like the kitchen tour. And I was like, okay, cool. This will take like, you know, 2 minutes and then we'll go see the other thing. And like, the kitchen tour took an hour because it was the exact same thing. He goes, he goes, so this is our staff. He goes, everything that you eat here is made on premise. And I was like, okay. He's like, see that? Like, I was like, you guys have like a, he's like, you want anything to drink? I was like, yeah, I'll take like a sparkling water or whatever. He's like, cool. It's on tap here. And it was their fizzy water. I was like, you make your own fizzy water? He's like, yeah, we make our own seltzers, ciders, beers. They made everything. He's like, um, yeah, this like, you know, the salad here, like we grow all the the, like, we have a micro farm on the roof.
That's crazy.
And so like, this mushroom was grown here. This like arugula is grown here. It's all a circular system. I was like, what? And then he's like, um, I was like, but what about the, you don't have like animals for like a, you know, uh, and he's like, no, no, no, we do get animals, but we get the full animal. So he opens up the walk-in fridge and there's just cow, cows hanging upside down, full cows. And I was like, what is this? And he's like, yeah, we break down the entire carcass and we like, you know, use every bit of it for our things. I was like, you and what army, dude? He's like, oh, we have 45 people in our chef's— That's crazy. Executive. I'm the executive chef and we have 45 people on our team. I was like, you have, I don't have 45 people in my company. You have 45 people on the lunch team? And I was like, this is just absurd. It was insane. And I was like, wow, the arms race for like, you know, pampering tech, tech things and like building this like culture of you're building something special was, you know, kind of amazing to be honest. It was, it was really amazing. I, I, I was blown away by that.
I have cows on my, at my ranch, on my Airbnb property. And I've, we have like 18 of them or something like that. And I've, and you know, they butcher them. So they like every year they send away like 4 or 5. And then I see the new ones being born and I thought it'd be cool to get a freezer out there and you like paid $20 and you could get a steak and be like, yeah, this cow is, you know, like the mother of the one that you see right in front of the off, like, like the, you know, cause you could sit on the porch and like watch the cows would come up to you.
That's too sad for me.
And, uh, it was too sad for me. I couldn't do it.
I need like distance from it. I need to like— ignorance is bliss for me when it comes to eating meat.
Yeah, I didn't end up doing it because I was like, this is just TMI. I can't handle it because I like— I see these guys playing and I get to know them and they get to know me. I was like, oh fuck, right? I'm not nearly as tough as I thought.
I know. All right, should we wrap it or, uh, because they're like— are you, uh, paying by the minute now, uh, your surcharge here at your studio? Cause I'm free here in my studio.
Um, yeah, well, uh, you know, Ben's still getting used to like the logistics of this, so, uh, I'll just leave it at that. But I think, I think our time is up. What do you think? Do you, are you inspired now to look better or you still don't give a shit?
I am very inspired. The inspiration isn't the problem. The, uh, the, uh, skill to do it is the problem to like upgrade my own space.
It's going to give, it's going to like do it. Do you use that room for anything?
I use it for, for this. And my wife works out of here too. So, but, but we can use it for however we want.
It's an office though, right? It's like, well, like just like it'll look like a CNN newsroom. Just have her in the background, like working. Like it'll look fine. They just make it look a little pretty. They'll put some of this crap on there.
All right. Well, I guess that's the pod. We'll see if this actually changes anything, but it might. It might.