Codie Sanchez

The tradwife backlash is a content + commerce opportunity

Codie Sanchez argues the 'tradwife' movement is a fast-rising counterculture to the Call Her Daddy / girlboss wave, with 187M TikTok views, that founders can build content and products around.

“So I looked up the TikTok, uh, views for this search of tradwife, 187 million, which was wild. And we could like play with a bunch of different ideas. But then I was like, maybe this is the counterculture movement to the Call Her Daddy move.”

Steal thisBuild content or products for the tradwife/cottagecore audience before the bro-heavy market catches on.

A Halloween pop-up store goes up in 2 weeks vs months for normal retail

Codie explains the Spirit/Halloween Express model: standardized 10,000 sq ft pop-ups inside big-box stores that cost $10K-$50K and go up in days-to-weeks, versus millions and months for a normal retail buildout.

“And Spirit or Halloween Express costs maybe $10,000 to $50,000 to throw up and is up in days or weeks. So just like speed to execution has to make this a much more interesting business model.”

A 3-location Halloween pop-up business does ~$1M revenue in 2 months

Codie says the Halloween Express deal she looked at (3 locations, open 2 months a year) brought in roughly $950K-$1M in revenue.

“Well, yeah, I think they said that it was somewhere around $1 million. So 3 locations inside of— they're open for 2 months a year, they would bring in $1 million. I think it was like $950,000 or something like that.”

The 99-cent Amazon bestseller + series funnel for ebooks

Codie relays the playbook from a romance-novel publisher: price a book at $0.99 or free to climb the top-free chart, then publish many sequels in the same series because readers who start a series buy the whole thing.

“The reason that I thought, and this lady was telling me, is you put one up for $0.99 or free, you get it on the top free list and then you hammer these things out. So you have 472 versions of Fabio the Fantastic Werewolf. And the likelihood that people are going to buy all of those in the series is apparently incredibly high.”

Steal thisLoss-lead one title at $0.99 to climb the free chart, then monetize the series readers feel compelled to finish.

A billion-dollar fertility brand hiding behind clunky existing apps

Codie pitches fertility/getting-pregnant as a huge underserved opportunity: products like Mira charge $150-$200 for a plastic tester plus $50 sticks yet have no gamification or notifications and grow purely on word of mouth.

“And they charge you, it's like $50 for the sticks that they send you. And then it's like, somebody should check my math on this. I'm definitely wrong on the number, but it's like $150 to $200 for this tiny little plastic egg that has to be created in China. And that's it. And I never saw an ad for this. It's all like word of mouth referral. So I don't know what crazy ideas you have, but I feel like the people from MFM should solve this.”

Steal thisBuild a beautifully designed fertility-tracking product for a market that's price-insensitive and poorly served.

The average laundromat nets $100K-$500K at 10-15% margins

Codie's numbers on laundromats: the typical one does $100K-$500K a year at 10-15% margins, and the real money is in wash-and-fold (pickup/delivery), not walk-in.

“The average laundromat makes somewhere around $100,000 to $500,000 a year. Like, that's what a laundromat makes at 15 to 10 to 15% margins.”

The #1 risk in buying small businesses is running out of cash

Codie's hard-won lesson: small-business sellers often lie or lie by omission about finances, so the biggest danger isn't the model — it's discovering the business doesn't have the money you thought and running out of cash.

“And the biggest issue with buying small businesses is that you run out of cash because they either lied to you about the business that you bought and how much money it has in it, or they lied by omission.”

Steal thisStress-test seller financials and keep a cash buffer; assume the books overstate the real numbers.

To build a content machine, hire from the top down and steal proven operators

Codie's content-team playbook: don't DIY — recruit people who've already built the thing, hiring at the top first (head of ops, content, finance) then a sliding scale down to platform-specific specialists for TikTok, Twitter, etc.

“And then the first thing I did that I would tell anybody to do if you want to go and build a content machine is you should steal people who have already built the thing. It seems so obvious, but nobody does it. Everybody tries to do things by themselves.”

Steal thisHire experienced operators top-down (ops, content, finance) instead of building your content team solo.

Audience is the only permissionless form of leverage

Codie builds on Naval's leverage ladder (people, capital, code) to argue audience is the newest and only permissionless layer — no bank, employee, or coding skill required — and demonstrates it converting a YouTube lead magnet into 2,500 newsletter signups worth ~$5K.

“I mean, Naval talked about it with his, I think he talked about 3 levels of leverage, which was, you know, capital, or I'm sorry, people, capital, and then code. And then I think the current one is audience. And audience is the only permissionless version. All those other ones, you have to have banks, you had to have employees say yes, you had to actually understand code. But audience is so, your favorite word, democratized.”

Content-to-acquisition flywheel for buying and selling businesses

Codie's flywheel: publicly teach how you buy businesses to earn trust → sellers come to you at better prices → grow the business through your audience → exit to a community of buyers you've built → repeat.

“And so I'm almost indexing on trust. I'm going to tell them exactly how I value it. I'm going to tell them exactly how I buy. And then they're gonna sell me their business. And then once they sell me their business, I'm going to build that business through my audience. So I'm gonna funnel more of the audience into said business. And then finally, when I go to exit the business, I'm gonna have a community of buyers that wanna buy this business.”

Steal thisDocument your acquisition process publicly so sellers bring you cheaper deals and you build a buyer pool for exits.

Entourage Effect Capital: $200M cannabis fund, 67 companies, 6 unicorns

Codie Sanchez co-runs a $200 million cannabis private equity fund (5 partners) called Entourage Effect Capital that invests in companies doing $10–50M in revenue, with 67 portfolio companies and 6 unicorns including Green Thumb, Acreage, Canopy Growth and Curaleaf.

“There's 5 partners, but yeah, we have a $200 million cannabis private equity fund. We invest in companies that do like $10 to $50 million in revenue. Largely it's called Entourage Effect Capital. And, uh, we've invested in 67 companies thus far. Some cool ones, um, you know, that you all would know. I think there's been 6 unicorns in there thus far.”

The uncle who wound down a $2-3M-profit plumbing business he could have sold

Codie's Uncle Eb, a former sharecropper, had a $5M plumbing business throwing off $2-3M in profit but didn't know M&A existed, so at retirement he just let everyone go and wound it down instead of selling. That waste sparked Codie's micro-PE thesis: apply private equity to sub-$3M businesses.

“We Started it because my Uncle Eb, he had a $5 million business. Let me make sure I get the numbers right. That was doing about $2 to $3 million in profit. And he was old, you know, '70s-ish. And he was a sharecropper. He grew up in a sharecropping family, didn't know anything about the business world. And when he came to retire, he didn't know anything about M&A. So instead of selling the company, he basically just wound it down.”

Pack-and-ship centers: skip the franchise fee, the money is in the mailboxes

Codie pitches building an independent pack-and-ship center (think FedEx/UPS without the 25% franchise fee). The real profit isn't taping boxes — it's renting the little PO box mailboxes out front.

“So this is pack and ship centers. So basically think FedEx, UPS, except get rid of the franchise fees because that's 25% of your, your profit off the top. And instead you just put, you know, Sam and Sean's Shipping Center on the front of it.”

Steal thisOpen an unbranded pack-and-ship store to dodge the 25% franchise fee, and make your margin on rented mailboxes, not box-taping.

Don't build from scratch — buy an existing store with customers and upsell

Codie's friend Lisa took 18 months to make her first PO-box store profitable from scratch via ads and mailings. The smarter play: buy an existing store with customers (for 1.5-3x profit, often from a retiring owner) and upsell them, doubling revenue.

“And so what she did is went out and bought an already an existing store that had customers and then just upsold them. And that's a much easier way to do it. And so you buy the store for about 2 to 3x profit. Her second store she got for about 1.5x, retiring, uh, owner. And then she was able to take that business and sort of double the revenue for that one.”

Steal thisSkip the painful build phase — buy an existing store with a customer base at 1.5-3x profit and upsell them.

Most people shouldn't build the next Facebook — buy a portfolio of small bets

Codie Sanchez argues most people don't need a world-changing startup; they want Maslow's basics covered. She prefers buying a diversified portfolio of small, operator-run businesses, treating it like buying stocks.

“Most people should not be out there trying to build the next Facebook. And I think it's kind of fucked up that a lot of people try to tell people that's what they should do. Most people want Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? You want your family taken care of, you want food on the table, you want to be able to do the shit you want to do on the weekends, and that's it. And so I like the portfolio actually better of a portfolio of small bets. I think of buying businesses a lot like I think about buying stocks.”

Steal thisBuild a diversified portfolio of small operator-run businesses instead of swinging for one venture-scale startup.

Buy distressed assets for $0: acquire dying businesses' client lists on rev-share

Codie's playbook for buying distressed assets without spending a dime: find businesses closing on Yelp, offer the owner a rev-share to transition their client roster to your business. They get revenue while closing, you get customers — no liabilities. 60% of temporarily-closed Yelp businesses close permanently.

“Like, I— if I owned any business, I would be out there right now for every business closing on Yelp. 60% of the businesses on Yelp that close temporarily close permanently. So I would be out there right now going after every one of their client lists, even if they were unrelated, and doing discounts and coupon codes, giving a rev share to the owner who probably could use it, and taking their client base. And that's how I would buy distressed assets. I wouldn't spend a dime.”

Steal thisFind businesses closing on Yelp and offer the owner a rev-share to migrate their client list to you — acquire the asset, none of the liabilities.

Bought a modular home in Park City for $900K when the median is $2.5M

Codie scoured the country for at-scale modular home developments and bought one in Park City: $900K for a 3,000 sq ft home on an acre, versus a Park City median of ~$2.5M. The cost savings come from building at scale, and the developer didn't even pass the full savings to buyers.

“We bought our house for $900,000 in Park City and, um, on an acre, 3,000 square feet. The average price— average or median— is like, uh, $2.5 million in Park City. So the cost that they were able to save was so amazing, and they didn't pass it on to the user fully.”

Don't angel invest until you've made a few million — it's gambling that feels like fun

Codie warns angel investing is too fun, like gambling: charismatic founders sell you, and you need 20-40 deals for every 1-4 winners. She advises waiting until you've made at least half a million to a million dollars before angel investing, and to document and timestamp your picks first to test your skill.

“One of the biggest things I have a problem with with angel investing is it's, it's too fun. It's like gambling, right? Like you get excited about the founders, and guess what? Founders are charismatic. That's how they raise millions of dollars. And so you end up getting sold and it's not their fault.”

Steal thisWait until you've banked $500K-$1M before angel investing, and paper-trade your picks (timestamped) first to measure your real edge.

Buffett never bought Goldman on the open market — the big boys don't speculate

Codie argues public-market speculation is dumb: no one on the Forbes 100 made their money just buying stocks. Even Buffett's 2009 Goldman deal was a backroom deal with warrants and options for asymmetric upside, not buying shares on the street. Without an unfair advantage, don't speculate.

“Morden didn't go out to the street and buy a bunch of stock. He had a ton of warrants and options on top of it. It was a total backroom deal. And that's the only reason that he did it because he basically had this huge asymmetric risk where he had a bunch more upside than he had downside. And that's the same thing with Icahn, who tries to affect the outcome. So my point with people, especially these days with like GameStop and all the madness and stock investing is like, If you don't have an unfair advantage, if you can't write down why specifically you're going to win instead of somebody else, you should be really careful speculating on stocks because the big boys don't really do it.”

Buy real estate before Zillow sees it using Roddy's List and door-knocking

Codie explains buying foreclosed real estate at courthouse-steps auctions before it hits Zillow/Redfin. You can front-run even further with Roddy's List (a ~$200 Texas list of properties about to foreclose), then door-knock owners with an offer that clears their bank debt and leaves them cash.

“And the list in Texas, you can look it up right now, it's called Roddy's List, R-O-D-D-Y-S. And on Roddy's List, you buy this list, it's cheap, like a couple hundred bucks, and you can get the list of all the properties that are about to go foreclosed. And then you can door knock, you can go knock on the door, because even though it sounds predatory, it's actually not. Because if you go knock on the door and tell this person, hey, I'll give $200,000 for the house that you are in foreclosure because you owe $50,000, that actually gets them out of bank foreclosure and gives them the extra money that the bank was going to write off for them.”

Steal thisBuy a county pre-foreclosure list (like Texas's Roddy's List), door-knock owners, and offer above their debt to win houses before they hit Zillow.

How Codie collects cool people: a ludicrous box of Butterfingers to Sam

Before having a network, Codie 'collected' interesting people by finding their quirks and sending memorable gifts: she shipped Sam a ludicrously large box of Butterfingers (his favorite candy) so he almost had to call her back, and sent Noah Kagan a taco-themed shirt. Her point: lack of a network is an excuse.

“And so, I found out what his favorite candy was, which is Butterfingers. I don't know if it still is now. And so, I shipped him this ludicrous-sized box of Butterfingers. Butterfingers, right? Just like a shit ton of Butterfingers, to the point where like he didn't have a lot of choices except to like call me back and say like, you know, what, thanks.”

Steal thisTo break through to someone you admire, find a specific quirk (favorite candy) and send a memorable, oversized gift instead of a cold DM.