3 Startup Ideas: Mouse Jigglers, Employee Monitoring Softwares and Photoshop Copycats

0:00:04 All right, so here’s the deal. I have an update on a story that we talked about about two years ago.
0:00:07 Partially, I want to like tell you something cool. Partially,
0:00:10 I just want to nerd out with you on this topic because I’m shocked by it.
0:00:26 So the pandemic hits in what, 2021? We all go remote. And you and I start talking about something
0:00:33 that was fascinating. So basically, there’s this weird Venn diagram of MFM listeners. There’s this
0:00:39 shithead, and then there’s this ambitious person. And they overlap to create these ambitious shitheads.
0:00:43 And what do ambitious shitheads do during the pandemic when we all go remote?
0:00:48 They do this thing called over-employed. Have you heard of over-employment?
0:00:53 I think it’s over-employed when you basically, one guy has three jobs, but the three jobs don’t
0:00:58 know each other. Yeah. It’s like a culture. It’s like this tactic. It’s a strategy. I don’t know
0:01:04 what you call it, but it’s very weird and it explodes. And basically, a small group of people,
0:01:09 they go and get multiple jobs because they’re like, “Dude, I’m working at Airbnb. I’m only
0:01:14 working 20 hours a week. I get paid $150,000. I definitely can also try and get a job at Facebook.”
0:01:19 Right. Working remote was the key unlock, right? It was the key unlock where they could kind of hide.
0:01:22 And this story we talked about, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times has talked about,
0:01:27 it’s kind of been popular, but I have an update on this story. And it’s very fascinating to me.
0:01:32 So last week, Wells Fargo made an announcement where a couple dozen of their employees,
0:01:37 specifically ones who worked in the wealth management unit, they laid them all off.
0:01:43 And they laid them off because they found that they were using these devices that you put your
0:01:49 mouse on top of, and it’s almost like a treadmill. And it makes it seem like the mouse is constantly
0:01:54 moving on their computer. And they also did it with keypads where they had this device above
0:02:00 their keyboard where it was typing stuff. And the reason they did that is because what has happened
0:02:05 recently since the pandemic is there’s been software that has absolutely exploded where it
0:02:10 monitors employees’ work. Now, this has already existed in remote-first companies, but now many
0:02:15 people are remote, and this type of software has exploded to the point where something like 50%
0:02:21 of all employers who have remote workers use some type of spy software. That’s not the right word,
0:02:24 but you know what I mean? Like some type of like productivity detection monitoring.
0:02:29 Yeah, spy software is more realistic, but that’s like interesting.
0:02:34 But all right. And so back to that Venn diagram of shitheads and ambitious people,
0:02:38 here’s what they’re doing. They’re using these things. I’m going to tell you all about them,
0:02:43 where they’re exactly what the Wells Fargo folks were using, where they’re like a treadmill for
0:02:50 your mouse. So they’re called mouse jigglers, and it’s crazy. Now, there’s a company called Hubstaff
0:02:56 and Terramind. I think it’s called, there’s two of them. They have something like 5,000 companies
0:03:02 amongst them, and they are employee tracking software. And they did this survey where they
0:03:08 looked at a million of their customers or a million users using their spying tracking software,
0:03:15 and they found that roughly 7% of the million people who are using this software were using
0:03:20 these mouse jigglers or something like it. And then one of the CEOs of the companies, they go,
0:03:26 the true number is actually probably almost certainly higher, because they found out that
0:03:32 they were kind of being really conservative about this. And I was shocked. This market is so much
0:03:36 bigger than I ever thought. And I want to tell you about a few people who are winning in this
0:03:43 market. The first one on Amazon, go to Tech 8, so the word tech, and then the number 8 USA.
0:03:48 So Tech 8 USA, this is another mouse jiggler. By the way, mouse jiggler is my new go-to-dis
0:03:52 for somebody who works at a computer all day. Oh, he’s just a mouse jiggler.
0:03:57 It’s the best. So there’s this company called Tech 8 USA. They’re based in Austin, Texas.
0:04:01 And what they do is you can buy these things for like $30 or $40,
0:04:08 and you can add a cool design to it. What they’re doing is they’re selling these
0:04:14 kind of fraud, helping you to commit fraud or do something a little bit strange,
0:04:19 and you could add a cool USA flag to it. By the way, best sales pitch ever.
0:04:24 Look at this thing in the product description. The last one, a thoughtful gift for loved ones.
0:04:27 Our undetectable mouse mover makes excellent gifts for anybody who spends a long time at their
0:04:32 computer, whether it’s a hardworking professional or a dedicated student who values convenience
0:04:37 and efficiency. This mouse juggler is a practical and thoughtful present. Show your appreciation.
0:04:43 Help them stay productive and stress-free. It’s sort of like when the vape makers,
0:04:47 like when I was in high school, we would buy vape machines when weed was still illegal.
0:04:53 And they’re like, yeah, it’s for tobacco, but they somehow use the equivalent of a wink in all
0:04:58 of their description. Look at this picture. It’s like, balance your work life. And it just shows
0:05:01 someone’s computer and the mouse jiggler’s just rent. The person’s not sitting there.
0:05:07 The mouse jiggler’s just moving the thing. And it shows, walk the dog. Relax. Water the flowers.
0:05:11 Have a party with friends while your mouse does the work for you.
0:05:18 It’s insane. And so look at this one. They have a really proud made in Austin type of vibe.
0:05:22 By the way, was there any doubt that the laziness device would be made in America?
0:05:25 Like, of course it’s made here. We didn’t think it was going to be made in China.
0:05:27 This thing’s going to be made here.
0:05:30 Well, and I looked up, I was trying to figure out who’s the founder.
0:05:34 And like, it’s like a weird business where they don’t talk about it. And I also think
0:05:37 it’s maybe weird to be making these devices, particularly if your company is remote.
0:05:40 Like the CEO of this company is like, yeah, not a chance. We’re not going to go remote.
0:05:46 But it’s really fascinating that this business is, I think, thriving. So Tech 8 USA,
0:05:47 one of the winners in this category.
0:05:54 Dude, they stole your dating profile. Smart, beautiful, undetectable. That’s yours. How dare they?
0:05:59 It’s pretty funny that that’s a thing. The second thing that’s thriving, and this is,
0:06:02 the third thing is the most interesting, but I’m going to tell you a quick one about Hubstaff.
0:06:08 So Hubstaff is a software company that does the tracking to see if you’re using these devices.
0:06:13 The guy started it in like 2019 as like a side project. And if you Google Hubstaff Revenue…
0:06:16 By the way, not to be confused with today’s sponsor. Cue the ad.
0:06:22 All right, let’s take a quick break to talk about our sponsor today, Hubspot.
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0:06:56 So Hubstaff, the guy, if you Google Hubstaff Revenue, you’ll see that he started, I think,
0:07:01 in 19 or 20, pre-pandemic. And it was like a side project for him.
0:07:04 Oh, no way. 22 million in ARR.
0:07:11 Yeah. And when he started it, he’s like, I just hit 10,000 in MRR. I just hit 50,000 in MRR.
0:07:16 And then on Indie Hackers, he’s like, I just hit 200,000 in MRR. Pandemic hits, explodes to where
0:07:21 now it’s doing 22 million in recurring revenue. Who knows what that’s worth, but for sure,
0:07:25 nine figures. And it started as a side project and he’s completely exploded his business.
0:07:29 Totally bootstrapped. You know, it’s exploding because he used to be building in public,
0:07:33 like he had a bare metrics page. And if you go to their public dashboard now, it’s gone.
0:07:39 It got too big, too big to be, to need to grow in public here. But this is super impressive.
0:07:43 So this is 20 million plus ARR. He started this during the pandemic. That is so smart.
0:07:48 It’s awesome, right? And it looks like it’s got, you know, 15,000 plus paying customers.
0:07:53 Wow. That’s impressive. By the way, would you use something like this, like for Hampton, would you
0:07:59 install something like this? Because I’m not going to lie. I’m more afraid of this than I am,
0:08:03 like my wife cheating on me. You know what I mean? Like it would break my little heart
0:08:09 to find out that somebody on my, one of my teams is just running three jobs. They got a mouse jiggler
0:08:14 all day. And that would really make me sad. And it kind of makes me want to use something like
0:08:18 this to find out if someone’s cheating on me. Yeah, I think I’m open to it. I like to think
0:08:23 that I’m, our company is small enough that, and we like, I would, you would know, but yeah,
0:08:28 like it’s, it’s a very questionable, like I, I have to ask myself, would I be open to this?
0:08:34 And the answer is definitely maybe like, I’m not like against it. The answer is yes, soon.
0:08:39 Yeah. So it’s interesting. Now, let me tell you the third winner of this whole thing. So there
0:08:44 was a subreddit called over employed and over employed at the time when we talked about it,
0:08:50 I think they’re at 20 or 30,000 members on subreddit, on that subreddit. And it was basically,
0:08:54 they had this whole vernacular of like my J1, my J2, my J3, I mean their job one job,
0:09:00 and they have all these like phrases and things like that. Well, the moderator of that subreddit
0:09:06 launched a website called over employed.com. And if you go to that website, he talks about
0:09:11 his background and why he started it. He also refers you to like personal finance tools,
0:09:16 which is like an affiliate play for him. And he talks about like, he reviews different mouse
0:09:21 jigglers and things like that, which is like a clear affiliate play. However, he has a community.
0:09:26 The community is partially free, partially paid. It costs $300 a year. I’m not sure how,
0:09:33 what percentage of people paid $300, but it’s a discord community. He has 60,000 members
0:09:39 on his discord of people who are following the over employed, like lifestyle. And I went and
0:09:43 tried to track this guy down. His name is Isaac. And he, you don’t know his last name,
0:09:50 but his LinkedIn, he calls himself a career polygamist. And he has a whole blog all about
0:09:54 over employed.com. And it gets. Who’s the guy? Isaac, what? What’s his name? He doesn’t say.
0:09:59 So you just, it’s just Isaac, because he tells the story about how he had three different jobs
0:10:04 and how he got pissed off and this, and it’s like an us versus them, like founders story.
0:10:08 But it’s kind of weird, right? Because you’re not breaking the law probably,
0:10:11 but you’re definitely doing something that you’re probably slightly ashamed of,
0:10:16 or at least as an employer, I would be unhappy with. And so it’s this whole community,
0:10:21 this subculture of people that’s significantly larger than I ever imagined. And they’re talking
0:10:25 about these things openly. And it’s very fascinating. I went to the website. Welcome
0:10:30 to the secret door to financial freedom. Insane. I’ve always wanted the secret door,
0:10:35 and he’s tapped into my needs. This is crazy. Work to remote jobs, reach financial freedom.
0:10:40 That’s the, the slogan for this website. This is crazy, dude. It’s not crazy that this,
0:10:44 like, I knew this was happening, but the Sampar special here was to go back and check back in
0:10:49 on this thing that we talked about two years ago and go find this guy’s blog and community and
0:10:54 hub staff and the 22 million in ARR. It’s crazy that there’s a whole ecosystem.
0:10:58 It’s an ecosystem. Come up, come up around this one lifestyle, right? Like you had the
0:11:03 four hour work week, which is about delegation automation and basically like 80, 20 prioritization.
0:11:08 And now you have over employed, which is like the messed up cousin to the four hour work week,
0:11:11 where he’s like, look, just lie to your, lie to your company. You’re going to work the same
0:11:17 eight hours, but for three different companies that I’m so, I’m surprised. I’m surprised I’m not
0:11:20 surprised at the same time at how popular this is. And let me give you one more. And what I’m
0:11:26 about to show you, it’s kind of like the equivalent of teaching your children about safe sex, but
0:11:31 really hoping that they don’t do it. Like they don’t have sex until whatever. And they’re like,
0:11:36 sex sounds awesome. I’m going to go do it because there’s this guy called the, and I linked to it
0:11:41 at the very bottom of this section. It’s called the over employed guy.com. And he, I clicked the
0:11:47 about page and he has this long history of like how he got J1, J2, J3. And part of the story,
0:11:51 he’s got this quote. He’s like, I had a bad job and I was upset, frustrated. I wanted more money.
0:11:56 And then it wasn’t until I heard the host of my first million mentioned this new trend of people
0:12:01 in tech working multiple jobs simultaneously that I was woken up to this badass community.
0:12:06 And this is like the second largest site amongst the over employed.
0:12:09 Look at this guy’s logo, by the way. It’s the dude with three laptops open.
0:12:15 I think that’s one of the, the cardinal rules of this is like, you must use one machine per
0:12:18 thing because they’re going to be tracking you. So you have to have different laptops.
0:12:24 And he’s wearing a hoodie and a mask in where it’s like, clearly we all kind of agree that this is
0:12:28 a little bit strange that you’re doing this. And so I wanted to bring this story up because
0:12:34 I’m not shocked, but I’m still shocked. Also, can I get your take on this? Because
0:12:40 if somebody’s listening to this, this is back to the safe sex thing. Somebody’s listened to this.
0:12:44 We, you know, we find it fascinating that this is going on, but me and you have zero desire
0:12:49 to do this. Zero. And maybe that’s because, all right, we kind of already made it in a way. We
0:12:53 sold our companies. We don’t, we don’t have any jobs. We don’t need it. We don’t need a job, period.
0:12:59 But if you were young again, would you do this? Like if you were just working at one job and you
0:13:03 saw this, would you be tempted to go down this path? No, I mean, I would be tempted like I’m
0:13:08 tempted to do anything bad, like drugs. But like at the, like in the back of my head, I’m like,
0:13:12 this is wrong. No, I think it’s wrong. I think that I would not be career Molly. Yeah. Like,
0:13:18 like maybe occasionally it’s all right, but you oftentimes regret it. No, this goes against
0:13:23 my ethical code. I am not, I’m not in favor of this. Are you, are you? No, not at all. Not,
0:13:29 not just the ethical side, because the ethical side, I think it sounds okay, but I have like a
0:13:33 relationship with the people I work with, you know what I mean? Like it’s not a, it’s not
0:13:38 things that is nameless, faceless, giant, big corp that doesn’t care about me. Like I’ve always
0:13:42 worked in, you know, usually smaller environments where, you know, we’re a team on a mission
0:13:46 together. And if I was doing some other mission while we’re on our mission, that would feel
0:13:51 like a, like a pretty deep betrayal, but that’s just, I always worked in that type of environment.
0:13:54 The second thing though is I just don’t think it’s a good strategy. I think it’s a bad strategy.
0:13:59 If you are willing to be clever and, and hardworking enough to figure this out,
0:14:05 like dog, just, just either start your own business or crush it at one job and you’ll make more money
0:14:10 and work less than you will having to do this like thing and have to juggle this in your subconscious
0:14:14 at all times about these lies that you’re living, right? Like living a lie is very taxing emotionally,
0:14:22 but also you don’t need to do this. Like one great job or one big effort if it’s your own company
0:14:27 will pay off. Like go, just go up the ladder in your own company or start your own company if
0:14:31 you’re willing to do all this shit. I just think it’s bad strategy. It goes back to the,
0:14:35 the thing I said the other day, like the dumbest person in the world is a professional blackjack
0:14:40 player. If you’re smart enough to be a professional blackjack player, but you’re dumb enough to use
0:14:45 it on a game that’s rigged against you, like that’s on you. You are the, the, the wrong middle of the
0:14:51 Venn diagram of super smart and hardworking and picks terrible games. And I think this is an example
0:14:55 of that. You are super smart and hardworking to, to figure this out, to set this up, but you’re
0:15:00 playing a dumb game. And what’s the thing, play stupid games, win stupid prizes? That’s to me,
0:15:05 that’s what this is to me. I don’t want a J1, J2, J3. That’s, that’s a bad idea.
0:15:11 I remember in high school, I had this buddy who basically took a water bottle, like an
0:15:16 Evian or whatever water bottle, and they undid the logo, like they took the plastic off of the
0:15:22 bottle. And then on the inside, they wrote all the equations for the math tests that they needed
0:15:28 to memorize. And it was beautifully done. It was the handwriting was perfect. The equations were
0:15:32 even at sometimes in code in case they got caught that you couldn’t decipher it. And I was like,
0:15:35 how long did that take you? It took hours. But like, I made this perfect thing. And I remember
0:15:39 thinking, like, you could have just studied. Like, if you just studied, like, you would have got,
0:15:44 you probably, the outcome would be the same. And it’s way less risk. That’s sort of like what’s
0:15:50 going on here. Exactly. Perfect analogy. Perfect story. So that’s my story on over employed.
0:15:57 I thought it was fascinating. Do we have a guy, by the way, today’s sponsor, who was over employed
0:16:00 a little bit, where he had a side hobby. Was that a good transition? That’s a pretty good
0:16:05 transition. All right. So speaking of over employed, speaking of doing multiple things,
0:16:11 when I first heard about what the CEO was doing, I kind of groaned because I invested in this company.
0:16:17 And the company was doing well. And then the CEO launches a newsletter. And I’m like, bro,
0:16:21 why do you need a newsletter? Do you really need a newsletter? And it’s excusable because today’s
0:16:26 sponsor is Beehive. They make the easiest platform to create newsletter. So on one hand,
0:16:30 it made sense. He was using his own product. And that seemed cute. But I didn’t really
0:16:35 fully get it until I talked to him and I tried to understand why is he doing this. And so
0:16:42 this is the story of Tyler Dank starting Big Desk Energy. So basically, we’ve talked about
0:16:47 this before. There’s a great playlist on Spotify, if you need work music, called Big Desk Energy.
0:16:51 And this guy, Tyler Dank, founder of Beehive, he just made a playlist of songs he listened to
0:16:57 while he works. And I like music, but I have poor taste. So I used to use this thing all the time
0:17:02 because I was like, great, I don’t know how to find cool music. Tyler’s kind of a cool guy.
0:17:06 He’s a cool looking guy. He’s a young guy. He’s like a New York Manhattan hip kid.
0:17:12 Yeah, but he lives on the beach somewhere. He’s a cool dude. So I got to borrow his music. I was
0:17:19 using his playlist. But then his playlist became a newsletter. Okay, interesting. Why? And now it
0:17:23 has, he was like, I want to do this because I want to dog food my own product. I want to build in
0:17:27 public. And I want to just live and breathe them all the pain points of my customers so that I can
0:17:32 be better at building product. When he said that, I realized, oh, this makes a lot of sense because
0:17:38 too many times do the product builders get so busy, they get disconnected from the actual product
0:17:44 usage. The analogy I’ll give is every night, my kids, I don’t put them to bed. My wife puts our
0:17:48 kids to bed now. We have like a new bedtime routine where she’s able to do all three kids at once.
0:17:53 And so the two older kids, they want to eat fruit in bed every night. No matter what we
0:17:57 fed them for dinner, they’re like, can we have fruit? Okay, I have to do this like 20 minute
0:18:01 fruit cutting exercise. I’m cutting apples and grapes and strawberries. I put in a bowl. I make
0:18:06 it look nice. I go deliver it to the bed. They’re so excited. They’re watching their little bedtime
0:18:10 stories or whatever. And they eat the fruit. And I’ve been doing this for like three weeks now.
0:18:14 And then finally yesterday, my daughter was just like, okay, can mama cut the fruit? And I was like,
0:18:19 what? Why? Dad always cuts the fruit. What do you mean? And she’s like, well, you do it bad.
0:18:22 Like, what do you mean? She goes, well, you do it like the way you cut the strawberries. Like,
0:18:26 I can’t eat it like that. They’re too big. And I was like, what do you mean? Why didn’t you say
0:18:30 anything? She’s like, well, you’re not there. You’re downstairs cutting the fruit and then you hand
0:18:35 it to me. And like, by the time I try to eat it, you’re not there for me to tell you. And so for
0:18:40 three weeks, I had this no feedback loop. I didn’t know how she likes her strawberries cut. And for
0:18:43 too many CEOs, that’s, that’s them with their product. They don’t know how the customers
0:18:47 like the strawberries cut. And one thing that Tyler did that was very, very smart for Beehive
0:18:52 was launch his own newsletter, figure out how to grow it to 30,000, figure out how to monetize it,
0:18:56 do all of the things that a user of his product would want to do. He did it as the CEO. And he
0:19:00 told me that has been huge for them on their product development. Because now he could just
0:19:04 look at the roadmap and be like, that shit doesn’t matter. These things do because he’s
0:19:08 actually lived it breathing. He knows how the users want their strawberries cut.
0:19:12 Well, and he built a lot of this at Morning Brew, which is they like took a lot of like
0:19:16 what they learned there. But even then, he was just the growth guy. He wasn’t the guy actually
0:19:20 writing the thing, sending the thing, getting the feedback from customers. It’s very different
0:19:25 when you fully play it out. So the guy’s cool. They’ve got taste. This is awesome. Oh, yeah,
0:19:29 this is all built in Beehive. All right, this is pretty badass. All right, I’m on board. I just
0:19:32 signed up. So if you want to create a newsletter or you want to grow your newsletter, go to
0:19:39 beehive.com. By the way, Derek Sivers, do you know him? He said something once that I really
0:19:44 loved. He goes, I made this tool that was for hosting your own website. And they were like,
0:19:48 why? Was that the biggest business opportunity? He goes, no, it was a magnet. Because I realized
0:19:52 that anybody who has a cool personal website, anybody who cares enough to make a personal
0:19:56 website, you’re my people. He’s like, so I just made a tool that was useful for them. It’s not
0:20:00 even that expensive. It’s pretty cheap. I undercut the market price. It’s not the best business in
0:20:04 the world. But it was amazing because it brought all these people who I realized that’s the highest
0:20:09 like signal thing. If you have your own personal website, I probably fuck with you. Like, I like
0:20:16 you. My signal if I like you is if you have an income north of $2 million and also you listen
0:20:22 to Kid Rock. If you do those two things, if you do those two things, you’re me, you’re probably
0:20:27 interesting. All right, what do you got? I wanted to read you something. So I think here’s another
0:20:35 little life hack for you. One of the great things about the internet is it is such a wide buffet
0:20:40 of content. I think a mistake most people make is that they go to the fast food chains of the
0:20:46 internet. You go to your Facebooks, your Instagrams, your TikToks, and that’s you just make a diet,
0:20:51 a content diet of only getting information from big fast food chain social networks.
0:20:55 I’m a believer that your info diet matters. Do you agree with that? Is that something you think
0:21:01 about or care about? Yeah. My fear is getting influenced by the wrong people and I know that
0:21:05 you’ve talked about this info diet for a long time and it kind of influenced me.
0:21:10 Yeah. I had this thing. I said, I’m going on the intentional internet, which is basically,
0:21:14 I’m not going to just eat whatever the algo feeds me. When I log in or open up a tab,
0:21:18 I’m going to think about like, what am I trying to get out of this session right now?
0:21:21 And then I start opening up Kindle or I start opening up different things. It’s the intentional
0:21:26 internet. I have this idea. I’m going to create this food pyramid of the info diet. The way the
0:21:30 food pyramid was like, you have your carbohydrates, your proteins, your dairies, whatever. I think
0:21:34 there’s the same thing for the info diet, which is there’s probably some plans you should have,
0:21:39 some proportions you should have of different types of information if you want to really feed
0:21:44 your brain in a way that’s going to make your brain healthier. One of the cool super foods,
0:21:50 I’ll call it, like kale, these nutrient dense super foods is find a baller and then go find
0:21:54 their early blog before they made it. I love doing that. And so I was doing this over the weekend,
0:21:58 and me and Ben, we were looking up and we looked up, do you know who Brian Koppelman is?
0:22:04 Is he a famous VC? No, there’s a Josh Koppelman, I think. Brian Koppelman is the guy who created
0:22:10 billions. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He’s like a showrunner in Hollywood. Yeah. And so we were
0:22:14 talking about Brian Koppelman for this other thing. And then we went, we looked up like,
0:22:17 does he publish anywhere? Does he post his thoughts anywhere? And we went, we looked up and
0:22:23 you basically want to find things that are like, you know, five plus years old. And it’s his blog,
0:22:28 it’s his old interview. It’s that course he taught at NYU. You try to find something like that. So
0:22:33 you have to give a shout out to his blog, BrianKoppelman.com. It’s just a plain white and black
0:22:37 blog. This is an awesome find. And they’re very simple posts. They’re not like either the most
0:22:41 mind blowing things either, which is in itself kind of an interesting thing. It’s like, wow,
0:22:46 this guy who achieved so much, it’s not like he’s writing the Shakespearean genius stuff that I
0:22:51 couldn’t have thought of. It’s like, wow, this guy kind of like me that made it in a really
0:22:55 unique way. So anyways, I’m going to read you the one post, write what fascinates you. That’s
0:22:59 the title. So I’m going to read it to you. He goes, this seems simple, right? Of course,
0:23:03 we should write about what fascinates us and what we obsess over. But so many people approach writing
0:23:08 and especially screenwriting as if it can be gamed, figured out or strategized. And if you’re
0:23:12 somebody who could do that, congratulations, rock on. Although I wouldn’t waste that kind of strategic
0:23:15 brainpower on show business. There’s problems to be solved out there in the real world. If you’re
0:23:19 that type of person, go figure out how to arbitrage energy resources in a way that motivates buyers
0:23:23 and sellers to get a more equitable market or something. I don’t know, because I don’t think
0:23:27 of it that way. But obviously you do. For the rest of us, we need to calculate less. We need to look
0:23:33 inside to find our subject matter or outside of the world we see, but through a prism of enthusiasm.
0:23:37 Prism of enthusiasm. He says, meaning we must find subjects that are personally animating,
0:23:42 inspiring and engaging to us. Because once we do, we have a shot at making them inspiring and
0:23:46 engaging for others as well. Because when the story is important to you, when it fascinates you,
0:23:50 when the passion is tangible, the reader senses it. And without even knowing why, it gives you
0:23:54 the benefit of the doubt. You have a story to tell, of course. And it still takes an enormous
0:23:58 amount of effort and concentration. But the huge collateral benefit of telling stories that
0:24:02 genuinely fascinates you is this. Forcing yourself to sit down and actually do the work is much
0:24:05 easier than when you’re writing something because you think it’s marketable, because you think it
0:24:11 could sell or it’s in a genre that’s currently in demand. So calculate less, write your obsessions
0:24:15 and have a better chance of A, getting something really written, and B, turning your screenplay
0:24:19 into something that excites and engages the reader. This is awesome. And he did this in 2013,
0:24:24 over 10 years ago. Yes. And I think this same advice, by the way, works for businesses as well.
0:24:31 There’s one way of doing business, which is the calculated strategic approach. You look at markets,
0:24:34 you create a market map, you try to identify a gap, and then you’re going to reverse engineer
0:24:38 something, and then you’re going to try to do demand testing and A/B testing, and you’re trying
0:24:43 to validate your idea and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the other is, you work on things that
0:24:48 fascinate you. Either it’s a new technology that you think is really cool, or it’s a new lifestyle
0:24:52 that’s being promoted that you’re curious about, you’re fascinated by, and maybe there’s not enough
0:24:56 products for people who want that lifestyle. Or maybe it’s a problem that you have that you
0:24:59 kind of get obsessed over. You’re like, wait a minute, am I crazy? Why am I the only one who’s
0:25:05 not okay with the status quo here? That’s where the greatest companies get built and the greatest
0:25:09 successes. And it’s actually easier. It’s easier because you’re excited about it. And it’s easier
0:25:12 because you actually care about the problem. You’re going to actually figure out the solution.
0:25:16 And so I just thought that this was awesome advice for content. Look at today’s podcast,
0:25:22 like, I’m telling you about a 11-year-old blog post, and you’re telling me about a subreddit
0:25:27 that’s popping off. And these bloggers that are over-employed, like, the reason this podcast
0:25:31 works is because we talk about what fascinates us. And because of that, it’s not something anybody
0:25:35 could compete with because nobody else has the same weird taste palette that we have. But if they
0:25:41 did their weird taste palette, they would find their audience. And it’s really hard to stay unique
0:25:46 as you get bigger, whether whatever you’re doing as it gets more successful, everyone wants you to
0:25:52 tone it down. And it’s incredibly challenging to not give into that. We have this right now. You’ve
0:25:56 seen it me and Slack. I’m on a rampage because I’m like, dude, our titles and thumbnails that are on
0:26:02 YouTube are too YouTube optimized. They’re calculated. This is going to get somebody to click
0:26:06 instead of, this is how we want it to feel, or this is what would make me interested. It’s like,
0:26:10 no, no, what would make the mass populace interested? Well, it’s like, maybe we don’t
0:26:13 necessarily need the mass populace. Maybe we need the type of people that we want to attract
0:26:15 because they’re the ones that are going to actually like the podcast because they’re the
0:26:20 ones that actually will resonate with it and stick with it. And I think that we have made a mistake
0:26:25 in part of our world, which is, I don’t think, I think we kept the content pretty
0:26:29 pure and sacred to what we want. But I think the packaging, we’ve sort of tried to sell out
0:26:34 and calculate and try to like maximize clicks and views and trying to roll that back.
0:26:38 Yeah, I agree with that, by the way. And that’s also why I like a lot of YouTubers because there’s
0:26:41 not a committee. Usually it’s just one person where he’s like, this is my show. I’m going to do
0:26:45 whatever the hell I want to do. Right. Like there’s this guy I followed named Whistle and Diesel.
0:26:50 He’s this guy, he’s not a kid anymore, but he’s this guy in Indiana. And he does the stupidest,
0:26:54 craziest stuff and he’s hilarious, but he’s a representation of like the most interesting
0:26:59 YouTubers who don’t really even, they don’t really sell out and they keep it real and
0:27:03 it makes them way more successful. Yeah, I love it. Let me give you an example of a person who
0:27:10 fits this mold wonderfully. So you and I are a fan of Peter Lovells. He fits this mold perfectly.
0:27:16 I saw that he shared something recently and I went down this rabbit hole. So there’s this guy,
0:27:22 I’m going to struggle to say his name big time. I believe he’s French. I don’t know exactly. Clement
0:27:27 Piccolo. I can’t say his name, dude. Look at his name. Do you see it?
0:27:32 Honestly, I was going to make funny, but that is not any Piccolo. Piccolo Peter.
0:27:37 Piccolo Peter, I think his name is Piccolo Peter. So listen to what this guy did.
0:27:42 So I looked at his website. His website is kind of hard to figure out. So he was a,
0:27:49 or he is a DJ, like a DJ in clubs. But I guess while he was DJing and trying to pay the bills,
0:27:54 he was also a software developer where he would like make random software. He just released
0:27:59 something two or three days ago. That’s amazing. This is sick. Yes. So let me tell the story a
0:28:07 little bit. So we talked about PhotoP. So PhotoP is a free, basically, I’ll call it a clone of
0:28:11 Photoshop, but I don’t know if it’s exactly a clone, but it definitely started that way. So
0:28:15 PhotoP is a free version of Photoshop created by this guy named Ivan. And Ivan was, he’s one
0:28:20 of these indie hacker guys where he was really open about it. So he built this Photoshop clone,
0:28:25 which is obviously Photoshop is huge. And it took off right away. And I think in 2021,
0:28:30 he posted that he made a million dollars in revenue, 90% of that being ads. And then 2023,
0:28:35 he said that he was now making close to $300,000 a month from this PhotoP website. And it’s huge.
0:28:40 It blew up. It has 15 million visitors a month. Yeah, massive, massive, massive. And for all I
0:28:44 know, it’s just one person. Well, this other guy, we’re going to call him Colman, because I can’t
0:28:50 say his last name. What PhotoP did to Photoshop, he did with Adobe After Effects. And he calls it
0:28:54 PeakyMove or PeakyMove. How do you think you pronounce that?
0:29:01 I have no idea. PeakyMove, I don’t know. PeakyMove. So you’ll have, it’s P-I-K-I-M-O-V. And you have
0:29:06 to go to this website. So basically, this guy, he posted it on Hacker News, and then he posted
0:29:11 it on Reddit and Twitter. And it blew up on all three of those places. And he said, basically,
0:29:16 he was like, I’m on this Linux machine, and I’ve been trying to use the PhotoAfterEffect,
0:29:20 and it wasn’t really working, and it wasn’t doing what I needed it to do. So for the last year,
0:29:25 I basically just built this version of it for myself, and it’s free. And now I’m letting the
0:29:30 world use it. And he was very underwhelming with his announcement. He was like, so here’s this
0:29:34 thing, you guys can use this. On Twitter, it gets something like 2 million views. Hacker News,
0:29:40 it’s the number one post, Reddit, it’s massive. It’s completely blown up. And it is so awesome.
0:29:44 That one person built this thing. So you went to the website. What did you see?
0:29:48 I mean, it looks like After Effects, and it just says, free alternative to editors such as
0:29:52 Adobe After Effects. Web-based, nothing to install. Works on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
0:29:56 You can do everything you can do on After Effects. And your files stay on your computer,
0:29:59 they’re not uploaded to a server. When we talked about Photopea, I think we’ve talked
0:30:03 about Photopea a few times. It was one of the earliest episodes of this podcast. You had showed
0:30:08 me Photopea or I showed you Photopea. I don’t remember what it was, but that was a kind of like
0:30:13 a miracle looking product. These are like the radioactive indie hackers, like the indie hackers
0:30:20 that got bit by the bug and now have superpowers, where one man can recreate all of Photoshop,
0:30:24 like every feature of Photoshop in a browser. And it actually works. And he’s willing to give it
0:30:28 away for free and just maintain it himself for the rest of his life. And now somebody’s doing it
0:30:34 with After Effects, this is super impressive. It’s incredibly impressive. And he tells the story
0:30:38 where on Twitter, people are like, “This is amazing. How on earth did you do this?” And he’s like,
0:30:43 “I just did it on nights and weekends by myself and I figured it out.” Dude, this is sick, by the way.
0:30:48 Look at this. Somebody in Hacker News, the comics, they go, “As a motion designer,
0:30:53 I’m curious what features does this have that After Effects doesn’t?” And then somebody came
0:30:57 in and says, “I’d say the main feature it lacks is a subscription payment requirement.”
0:31:06 So good. It’s awesome. And it was a total underwhelming launch in that he didn’t
0:31:10 like overhype it. He just said he put it out in the world, but it was one of those products
0:31:15 that you go to it and you’re like, it’s sort of like seeing like a huge LEGO setup where you’re
0:31:21 like, “Yes. Yeah. What a great analogy.” The fact that you spent a year putting this together,
0:31:26 I’m impressed. I don’t have to know anything about this, but this is just epic just for
0:31:30 being epic. Right. Do you know what I mean? Instant internet respect for this. This is so
0:31:34 impressive. I’m never going to use this because I don’t use After Effects anymore. Thank God.
0:31:39 But this is awesome. This guy has my eternal respect and I’m glad we’re sharing it here.
0:31:43 I’m going to tweet this out also. This is so sick. It’s really awesome. And if you Google his name,
0:31:49 you can’t find photos of him. So most all of his photos, they’re not even like avatars. They’re
0:31:56 just like silly. I think it’s a shark or a whale or something. It’s his avatar. You really can’t
0:32:02 find a lot of pictures about this guy. And if you go to his website, there’s nothing there. He
0:32:08 barely explains who he is. And so this is like a true one-of-one, these rare individuals that I
0:32:14 particularly love. And I know you love too, where it’s almost like a hacker, but they’re not doing
0:32:18 anything wrong. Do you know what I mean? Right. It’s like a weird subculture of people that I’m
0:32:24 obsessed with, where they’re artists who know how to program is basically what they are. And you
0:32:28 can’t find anything about this guy. It’s like he’s doing it almost for art’s sake. How long
0:32:34 did it take him to make this? Do you know it? He said early 2023. So that would be a year and a
0:32:39 half. A year. Very talented. That’s cool. It looks great. I don’t know anything about After Effects
0:32:42 because I don’t use it either. But I go to the website and I’m like, this is special. Do you know
0:32:47 what I mean? Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. I’m impressed. This is great. All right. If you’re
0:32:53 listening to this pod, I already know something about you. You, my friend, are nosy. You want to
0:32:57 know the numbers behind all of these things that we’re talking about. How much money people make,
0:33:01 how much money people spend, how much money businesses make. You want to know all of this,
0:33:06 people’s net worth, all of it. Well, I’ve got good news for you. So my company, Hampton,
0:33:10 we’re a private community for CEOs. We do this thing where we survey our members and we ask them
0:33:14 all types of information, like how much money they’re paying themselves, how much money they’re
0:33:18 paying a lot of their employees, what their team-wide bonuses are, what their net worth is,
0:33:23 what their portfolio looks like. We ask all these questions, but we do it anonymously. And so people
0:33:26 are willing to reveal all types of amazing information. So if you really cannot Google,
0:33:32 you can’t find anywhere else. And you could check it out at joinhampton.com, click the reports section
0:33:36 on the menu, click the salary and compensation report. It’s going to blow your mind. You’re
0:33:42 going to love this stuff. Check it out. Now, back to the pod. Okay. What do you want me to do? I have
0:33:47 two topics. You pick the Ryan Serhant show or my self-driving car experience. Self-driving car,
0:33:53 for sure. Okay. So self-driving car. So I went into San Francisco last week for a couple of meetings,
0:33:59 and the new Waymo app is now open for everybody. So I don’t know, are you like fully in the loop
0:34:03 of what’s going on? Basically, there’s actual self-driving cars that just drive around San
0:34:08 Francisco like taxis. And it’s happening and it’s not like limited or fake in some way. It’s on a
0:34:14 demo. You push a button. It shows up. It’s got your name written on the top of it. You push unlock.
0:34:18 It opens up. There’s no driver in there. You get it and it takes you to your destination. It is magic.
0:34:22 I think it’s awesome. It works super well. I would have been pretty nervous to get inside this,
0:34:27 but I had so many friends who’ve been using it because they were in the private beta that were
0:34:33 like, dude, this thing is so good. It’s so good. It’s better than Tesla’s autopilot by far. This
0:34:37 is really, really good. So I got in. I feel like here’s a couple of thoughts on this. I don’t know
0:34:41 exactly what I want to say, but I just wanted to come to you with a few random thoughts. You tell
0:34:46 me, you help me make sense of this. The first thought is just, I can’t believe this is happening.
0:34:49 Like I can’t believe in my lifetime this is just going to happen where we’re just going to shift
0:34:54 from like nobody drives cars. And it’s so obvious the first time you get in one, like I had to take
0:34:59 an Uber back and literally it was comical. It was like the worst Uber experience you could have.
0:35:03 It was like 100 degrees in the car. He wouldn’t open the windows and he wouldn’t turn on the AC.
0:35:07 And every time I asked him a question, he was like super grumpy. And I was like, I just never
0:35:13 want to have a driver in the car again. I just, I went from the Waymo seamless, private, you know,
0:35:19 fully in your control autonomous experience to like back to what felt like a rickshaw in India.
0:35:25 Like it felt terrible. And so I can’t believe this is happening. I feel like this should be a much
0:35:29 bigger deal and nobody’s really talking about it. It’s not that it’s a secret, but I feel like nobody
0:35:36 cares. That’s very strange to me because the coolest AI thing that’s going to happen is that
0:35:40 the cars are going to drive themselves and then we’re just going to sleep, eat, play video games
0:35:45 and chill inside cars from now on. And nobody’s going to get in car accidents. That’s going to
0:35:50 be amazing. And I feel like nobody’s really excited that we’re now like right here on the cusp.
0:35:54 Because if this can do this all throughout San Francisco, San Francisco is kind of a complicated
0:35:57 place. Like it’s a city street. There’s people walking it, jaywalking everywhere. There’s
0:36:03 construction. That’s, that means it’s going to work in a lot of places. So I can’t believe this
0:36:08 is happening. I was surprised that it cost as much or more than an Uber. And I was totally
0:36:12 fine with it. I thought that the whole point of this self-driving car was going to be that it’s
0:36:15 going to be cheaper. And I think eventually it will, but right now these cars are very expensive.
0:36:20 But I was more than happy to pay a premium to go in the driverless experience, which was very
0:36:25 surprising to me because I thought the reason I would want it was because it’s less expensive.
0:36:30 It’s just better. I don’t mind paying more. How much more expensive was it?
0:36:37 Like 20, 30% more expensive? Oh, that’s nothing. Yeah, not bad. Obviously there’s a little bit,
0:36:42 you know, there’s some small hiccups, meaning it’s like more polite. So for example, if you’re
0:36:46 standing right there, it won’t just stop in the middle of the road, block everybody’s traffic
0:36:50 just to let you in. It’ll like try to, it’ll go up 30 feet and pull over as you got to walk 30 feet.
0:36:55 You’re like, I can’t believe I couldn’t just stop all of the street traffic to get into my car.
0:36:59 So there’s like little things like that that are kind of annoying, but actually understandable.
0:37:02 But man, I was impressed. Have you been in one of these?
0:37:09 No, but I’m looking forward to it because I have a Tesla and I hate my Tesla. I think a Tesla
0:37:12 is a horrible car. I hate it. Which one do you have?
0:37:18 The X. And I think it’s horrible, but there’s one feature about it that makes it absolutely
0:37:22 worth it, which is the self-driving stuff, which you keep your hands on there.
0:37:28 But I drive that car all the time and I only use the self-driving. I am significantly more
0:37:34 comfortable with that than my wife or me driving the car. I think it is way safer.
0:37:38 So from now on, all of the cars that I’m buying in the future are going to have
0:37:41 some type of driver assist and it’s so much better.
0:37:44 Let me correct you. In the future, you’re just not going to buy cars. You’re just going to push a
0:37:47 button and the car is going to take you where you want. You’re never going to need to own a car.
0:37:52 Yeah, I can see that. So there’s something like 40,000 deaths in America from car accidents.
0:37:57 And people will still die because of this, but it’s going to be drastically reduced.
0:38:02 Additionally, if you’ve ever been in traffic, have you ever studied what causes traffic?
0:38:03 Sure haven’t.
0:38:11 If you ever see those weird gifs on how stuff works, you’d be like, here’s how a traffic jam
0:38:16 starts. And you see one person abruptly stop, which causes another person to abruptly stop.
0:38:22 And then it’s like a train reaction. And it’s a really weird, it’s more of a psychological
0:38:25 problem almost than anything. Where you’re like, wait, why is this person stopping,
0:38:30 which causes this? And it’s really fascinating. But when you think about traffic, that can
0:38:38 basically be not solved for, but incredibly improved upon because your margin of error,
0:38:42 it’s not a human making that mistake. You’re like, no, I know I can drive within 10 feet of the driver
0:38:46 in front of me because I know that I’m like, I’m not just going to hit the brake too late, whatever.
0:38:51 That’s going to be solved. We’re going to save hours and hours and hours every month
0:38:56 because of this type of stuff, and let alone the lack of death. So I’m like incredibly excited about
0:39:02 it. Yeah. And parking, you know, I think cars have only like a sub 10% utilization rate,
0:39:07 meaning 90% of the time a car is just sitting idle doing nothing. And that’s going to change because
0:39:12 if a car can drive itself, it’s going to go and instead of sitting idle, it’s going to go
0:39:16 and earn money for you. It’s going to go drop people off and earn cash. And it’s not going to be
0:39:22 stay parked. So when utilization rate goes up, you don’t need as many cars total because now
0:39:27 each car is being used more. So now you have way less cars being used way more, which means way
0:39:33 less parking, which means way less buying cars. It’s a big change that’s coming, right? In addition
0:39:37 to the lifestyle change of we got in a self driving car, and you’re talking about like, you know,
0:39:40 you have to keep your hands on the wheel for the waymo thing, you’re just sitting in the back,
0:39:44 you’re just chilling. The wheel is just turning itself. You don’t even, you don’t even look outside.
0:39:47 We had a full meeting and we could talk about numbers and everything because there’s no driver
0:39:52 sitting there. And we just, it was a productive 20 minutes. It was great. And if I wanted to sleep,
0:39:55 I could have just fully slept. I could have done anything. And that’s, that’s amazing because I
0:40:00 don’t know how much time the average person spends in a car, but like an average, probably not any
0:40:03 right. It’s probably like of the people who really have a commute, they’re probably spending like
0:40:09 two, three hours a day in a car versus, you know, what will become, you know, either an incredibly
0:40:13 productive or relaxing time to be going from one place to another.
0:40:18 I remember I would explain this to my parents or in-laws and they’re like, well, aren’t you afraid
0:40:22 that you’re in this machine and it’s controlling thing? And I always say, well, no, because
0:40:27 at least I’m sitting at the wheel so I could take over. So there’s like, I’m part of the loop.
0:40:30 But number two, it’s like, well, are you afraid when you get into an elevator?
0:40:34 Right. Like I’m not, I’m not afraid when I get in an elevator. I trusted that button,
0:40:36 it’s going to do the right thing. And it’s going to bring me where I want to go. And it’s not just
0:40:40 going to drop me. I’m also not afraid when I fly in an airplane, you know, the pilot is sitting there
0:40:45 at the seat, but it’s like an autopilot plane. So no, I’m not afraid. Now, I am a little bit
0:40:49 nervous because the technology is new. But like in 10 years, when a lot of times people are like,
0:40:51 this is never going to be a thing. It’s like, no, it’s definitely going to be a thing in 10 years.
0:40:55 It’s going to be significantly better than it is now. And it’s pretty good now.
0:41:00 So yeah, I’m not afraid of it at all. And I’m incredibly bullish from now on. The cars that I
0:41:06 buy on a daily basis are all going to be the have some type of driver assist. Like you use it on
0:41:10 your Tesla and you’re like, this is the way the world should be. At least that’s what I think.
0:41:12 What about this? Which one do you want to do? We’ll do one more.
0:41:19 Let’s do the Ryan Sernich show. So I binge watched the new, it’s called Owning Manhattan.
0:41:23 It’s just like a random Netflix show. It’s nothing like super special. Most people wouldn’t care
0:41:27 about it. I liked it. It wasn’t like the best show ever. But I happened to binge watch it. I
0:41:31 stayed up to like four in the morning watching. So who’s this guy? I just know he’s a silver hair
0:41:35 guy that sells real estate. Yeah, he’s a real estate broker. And he was one of the kind of
0:41:40 high end brokers in New York. He got famous because he was on a show called Million Dollar
0:41:45 Listing since I think he was like 25 years old. So he spent basically a decade on TV,
0:41:50 but it was like Bravo TV. And it was him and a bunch of other brokers. And what happened is
0:41:54 he leaves the show in like the 10th season. And he takes a little break and then he comes
0:41:59 back with his own Netflix show. And obviously it was kind of like selling sunset was this huge
0:42:05 hit reality show and the genre of like real estate reality became like a thing. They’re selling
0:42:09 OC, they’re selling Miami, they’re selling sunset. There’s like a whole bunch of these like real
0:42:13 estate shows. So he comes back and he’s got one called Owning Manhattan. And it’s basically the
0:42:20 story is Ryan Serhant who’s like the Ryan Seacrest of the real estate world. He’s like this super
0:42:26 good, you know, super good looking guy who loves to be on TV. He’s just made for TV who’s got great
0:42:33 skin and sells real estate. That’s the guy. And so he takes the show and he’s the quest is basically
0:42:38 he leaves, he left his brokerage, he starts his own brokerage firm. So, you know, you have Sotheby’s
0:42:44 and you have Compass and he’s trying to create Serhant like his own brokerage. And he hires up
0:42:50 like 200 or 300 agents now. And the show is following him trying to go trying to become the
0:42:53 number one brokerage firm in New York. And I think they only serve like the New York area.
0:42:56 They’re not even they’re not nationwide, but he’s trying to become number one in New York,
0:43:01 which is the number one real estate market in the world. And I got to say, the show is pretty
0:43:06 interesting. And it’s interesting for a couple reasons. Number one, you know, he’s he’s good at
0:43:12 TV, meaning he’s kind of obnoxious, but it grows on you. He’s like obnoxious, but it starts to get
0:43:16 better. But also all the agents, you know, it’s a perfect cocktail. It’s like you have
0:43:22 house porn, luxury, like luxury real estate, you have big dollars flying around, deals that are
0:43:27 closing or not closing. Then you have the agents who are like, you know, peacocking, they each have
0:43:31 to try to have their own brand and personality and try to be the best in their own way. And then
0:43:36 you have like the drama of like a soap opera or like a, you know, reality TV show. Why is he obnoxious?
0:43:41 Like it’s almost like his style, like his style is, he tries to do cocky funny, basically. I don’t
0:43:46 like to do a bad impression of it, but he’ll be like, real estate is hard. Not for me. I mean,
0:43:50 I make it look easy. But for other people, it’s hard. And he like every interview he’s doing that.
0:43:55 And so at first you’re just like, all right, whatever. But over time, you know, you do get to,
0:43:59 you get to see the guy sweat. Because the guys, you know, the way the show makes it feel is that
0:44:04 he’s hanging on by a thread. Each of these deals has to go through otherwise bad things happen,
0:44:09 which is, you know, just normal TV drama. He gives off the vibe that he’s like super alpha,
0:44:15 where it’s almost like you have a stereotype in your head of like a high roller hedge fund guy,
0:44:21 but for real estate. Yeah. And also kind of metro also. So he’s not like just macho. He’s like,
0:44:25 he’s like kind of got like both sides of it, where he’s like, kind of like got the style
0:44:30 and the fashion and the like, the light touch. But then he’s also like a cutthroat killer trying
0:44:36 to win. He’s like a wake up at 5am, workout, eat healthy at the office by seven. You know what I
0:44:42 mean? He’s like that type of guy, where it’s just like, he’s intense. Exactly. And so I wanted to
0:44:45 read you. So why did I want to share this? Really, there’s two things I wanted to share. First is,
0:44:49 hey, it’s a TV show I liked. If you’re looking for a TV show, you might like this one. That’s
0:44:54 the little thing. But the bigger thing would be there’s a moment in the episode. So are in the
0:45:00 show. So he I’ll just give away a little bit of the show. So there’s one young agent who’s basically
0:45:05 the kind of like controversial guy on the scene. He’s talented, but he’s an asshole, right? Okay,
0:45:09 that’s a great character. So this guy who’s like fully tatted up, he used to be like a model in
0:45:14 Norway or something like that. And so super good looking, super tatted up guy who’s super cocky
0:45:19 and arrogant. He’s only 25 years old, but he’s, he’s like, well, why would he’s like, if you’re
0:45:24 young, if you made it on YouTube or you’re a rapper or whatever, he’s like, you don’t want to buy from
0:45:29 this like, and he’s like talking about his coworker, he’s like, some like baldheaded used car salesman
0:45:33 looking guy in a cheap suit, you want to buy from me. He’s like, I’m just the next generation. Like
0:45:37 people want to, the next generation of rich people want to buy with me. And so he’s, he’s like
0:45:41 very cocky and whatever. And Ryan believes in this guy because he’s clearly talented, but he’s
0:45:45 also like, dude, why are you such like a jerk around the office? You’re making my life hard by
0:45:50 being a jerk. His name is Jonathan. I’m looking at Jonathan. He rides a motorcycle everywhere. And
0:45:53 he’s, by the way, guy’s fantastically dressed at all times. Like I tried to find this guy. He’s
0:45:57 like stylist, like who is this guy stylist? Cause this guy’s got great style. Dude, he’s has neck
0:46:02 tattoos. I’m not buying real estate from a neck tattoo guy, but you kind of want to like, it’s
0:46:08 kind of like when the bad boy likes you, all of us were like me. Yeah. He’s giving me attention.
0:46:11 There’s a certain part of you that wants that. Dude, if you have a tattoo that goes over your
0:46:16 Adam’s apple, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s the line. Yeah. Like I’d want to
0:46:20 hang out with you, maybe, but I don’t know if I want to do business with you. I mean, you clearly
0:46:24 have visible in a turtle neck where you got problems. All right. And what about this guy?
0:46:28 So there’s a scene at the end. I just thought there was a great quote. So Ryan is kind of
0:46:33 confronting this guy because he’s been, you know, causing a bunch of drama. And he says something I
0:46:38 thought was just really great. He goes, you spend so much of your time trying to get noticed
0:46:44 instead of spending your time trying to be great. If you spent half the time just trying to be great,
0:46:48 you’d be so great that everybody would have to notice you. And I just thought that was just a
0:46:55 wonderful line, a wonderful quote that I feel like I could have, you know, forwarded that in an
0:46:59 insulting way to like 10 people I know in life, people who are very active on social media. And
0:47:05 it’s like, instead of trying so hard to get noticed, just try to be great. If you spent half the time
0:47:10 just trying to be great, you would be so great that everybody would have to notice you. Like that
0:47:14 guy who did the After Effects thing. He could have tried to be, you know, promoting himself and
0:47:19 blogging and doing all this stuff. And instead, he just did one great thing. And we all have to
0:47:24 notice him. We all have to follow him. We want to be a part of this guy’s world versus him trying
0:47:28 to push his agenda out there. And I just thought that was a great quote that a lot of people need
0:47:33 to hear. I am going to read between the lines here. Are you becoming introspective lately?
0:47:39 Is this like a thing? Are you trying to work through like what type of man you want to be?
0:47:46 Because I kind of like it, to be honest. I’m doing the work, as they say. You know,
0:47:50 someone made a comment to me where they said like, you know, Sam, I could tell what phase of life
0:47:53 you are in because I listen to the podcast and to hear what you’re talking about and who you’re
0:47:57 getting influenced by. They were like, before you’re having children, before you even said that
0:48:00 you’re going to have a kid, like I kind of guessed it based on what you’re talking about.
0:48:05 I’m kind of doing the same with you, where it’s actually exciting to see like the quotes or in
0:48:10 this case, the quote that you’re interested in, you’re like thinking like, that’s how I should
0:48:14 live my life a little bit more. Do you know what I mean? Of course. And I think that that’s cool.
0:48:20 If you spot it, you got it is the rule, right? And it’s like, I think this is insightful because
0:48:25 I have the problem that this insight cures, right? It resonates with me because it’s a part of this
0:48:30 that is true for me and true for people I know that I care about, you know, that I want to, you
0:48:35 know, I wish I could shake them to hear it too. And so, yeah, I’m very into this.
0:48:40 You also, if you read the comments of our YouTube, you also have a large fan base of young men who
0:48:47 look up to you and think that you’re cool, which you are cool. They would be shocked at how basic
0:48:55 bitch your TV choices are because you are, you are so true. Shard and my wife will like text
0:49:00 about like the challenge or like, I know you’re a bachelor guy or whatever the, I don’t even know
0:49:06 what these shows are, but you, I love that this is the one part of you where you are a mainstream
0:49:10 type of person and you’re into this stuff. I just try to keep in touch with the common folk,
0:49:16 you know? Yeah, I don’t know if this is common folk, but I love how simple some of your tastes are.
0:49:22 Look, you’re a very complex person with deep tastes in a rich personality, but this is the one
0:49:28 part where you’re just like the rest of us. Everybody’s like that, right? You like to go
0:49:32 build Legos in your free time. Like when we are, when the light, when we want to switch the light
0:49:37 off, we don’t want it just dim. We want it off. It’s like, when I want to relax, I want to go
0:49:44 mindless. I want a veg. I want to just, I want to go completely and indulge in a, in a non-intellectual
0:49:48 pursuit because I already do it. And even then you could see like, I somehow turned that into
0:49:52 like podcast content and lessons for life when I’m supposed to just be looking at people’s
0:49:57 pretty outfits and stuff. And, you know, I can’t really fully turn it off, but I try to. I try to
0:50:03 go and just do the stuff that I truly enjoy without trying to make it also be cool and intelligent.
0:50:09 This guy, Ryan, by the way, he gives off, so I’ve seen him talk before and I found him,
0:50:13 I found him very off-putting at first where I’m like, I feel like you’re like Grant Cardone or
0:50:16 something. You’re going to like sell me something or you’re trying to scam me. And then I got to
0:50:19 know him and I’m like, oh, no, you’re, I think you’re the real deal. You’re, you’re just intense
0:50:25 and you’re, you’re, you’re legit. He has a company called sell it. So sell it.com. Have you seen
0:50:32 sell it.com? No. So basically it’s like a course in one-on-one training business that you give to
0:50:37 your real estate agents. And that could go one of two ways. It could come off like scammy and,
0:50:42 and kind of bottom feeder type of stuff. When I go to the website, I do not get that vibe at all.
0:50:48 I get like, it’s like, it’s legit. So he owns, I believe his real estate brokerage firm is incredibly
0:50:52 successful. But this company, I have heard rumors that this business is doing something like 30 or
0:50:59 40 million dollars a year in revenue. And he’s building up like a legit media empire of courses.
0:51:03 Yeah. Actually, I buried the lead of why I wanted to talk about the show. The reason I want to talk
0:51:07 about the show, I was watched it and I go, oh my God, he’s doing the Kardashian model.
0:51:13 But instead of selling like $9 lip gloss, he’s selling $9 million apartments. This is genius.
0:51:20 And what I mean by that is he is using the Netflix show as the greatest marketing vehicle for his
0:51:29 own agency. So it’s like, he has hit media that creates, you know, more business and it is perfect
0:51:34 content market fit. And I just thought, wow, this is incredible. This is just like the Kardashians
0:51:40 have done where they use media to then build their beauty empire. He’s doing this to build his
0:51:46 real estate empire or his sales empire. And the funniest tweet I saw on this with somebody goes,
0:51:51 the greatest sale that ever ever did was selling Netflix and eight hour infomercial without them
0:51:56 realizing it. Because the show is an infomercial for him, for his brokerage, for his agents.
0:52:01 And it is going to be, it’s tremendous, right? It’s the way that HubSpot treats this podcast.
0:52:06 It’s negative cat. This show entertains you and it’s profitable for them. So it’s good media
0:52:11 and good business. And once I saw this, I was like, wow, applying that to one of the highest
0:52:17 ticket items in the world, a home, the luxury homes at that, that is a very, very powerful
0:52:22 combination. And you’re just going to keep seeing examples of this content market fit
0:52:28 happening where people can figure out a way to make really juicy standalone entertainment on its own
0:52:34 that is going to then inherently market you and your business. This is, you know, an incredible
0:52:39 job of that. And you and I, you’re really close to this person. He bought his apartment, I think,
0:52:44 from him, from Ryan. Yeah. Yeah. We have a couple of friends that have bought from him. Yeah. And I
0:52:48 asked my buddy or our buddies about the experience and they’re like, yeah, he showed up and he was
0:52:54 there like showing me around this $8 million apartment. And he was real. Like he was, he was
0:53:00 like actually doing the work. And so I think this guy’s a workhorse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He’s got
0:53:05 the New York, New York energy, right? The New York hardcore overdrive, overwork personality.
0:53:10 Yeah. No, I’m a big fan of this guy. He definitely was one of the types of people who I learned
0:53:13 about him. And I’m like, I’m not, I don’t like you at all. And then I start learning more and more.
0:53:17 I’m like, oh, you’re awesome. You’re legit. Yeah. You come to respect the hustle. I respect this guy
0:53:22 a lot. I think he’s the man. I think that kind of like having, I’ve said this before, but it’s
0:53:27 kind of like having an, an Adam’s apple tattoo. Not for me, but I still respect it. That’s kind
0:53:31 of like what this guy is where I’m like, I can’t imagine grinding that hard because he gets after
0:53:36 it, but I love that he exists and he does this. So yeah, I’m, I actually do like this guy a lot.
0:53:38 All right. Right on. I think that’s it. All right. That’s the pod.
0:53:44 I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to put my all in it.
0:53:48 Like no days off on a road. Let’s travel. Never looking back.
0:53:51 (upbeat music)