3 Killer Businesses Hidden in Plain Sight

AI transcript
0:00:01 All right, so check this out.
0:00:02 I’m gonna tell you about three products
0:00:04 that are hidden in plain sight.
0:00:06 And the genius of these is that they take something
0:00:08 that’s free and they sell it.
0:00:11 They take a free thing and they sell it.
0:00:12 And I’m gonna tell you about one example
0:00:14 that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars.
0:00:16 Another one that makes millions of dollars.
0:00:18 And then another one that’s made
0:00:19 hundreds of millions of dollars.
0:00:21 ♪ I feel like I can rule the world ♪
0:00:24 ♪ I know I could be what I want to ♪
0:00:26 ♪ I put my all in it like days off ♪
0:00:28 ♪ On a road less traveled ♪
0:00:30 ♪ I want to tell you about a couple of business ideas ♪
0:00:33 I’m gonna start with one that makes thousands of dollars.
0:00:35 Hundreds of thousands, let’s say.
0:00:36 One that makes millions of dollars
0:00:38 and one that makes hundreds of millions of dollars.
0:00:42 And they’re all products that are hidden in plain sight.
0:00:43 So we’ve all seen them,
0:00:45 but you probably never even realized their businesses.
0:00:49 And secondly, the magic thing about all of them,
0:00:51 they sell a product that’s actually free.
0:00:52 – What inspired this?
0:00:54 Did you just see something?
0:00:57 – Found one, found a second, found a third, drew a line.
0:00:58 Three dots make a line.
0:00:59 So that’s kind of what happened here.
0:01:04 So first is I’m on Twitter and I see Joe Gebia,
0:01:07 who’s the founder of Airbnb, friend of the podcast.
0:01:11 I see Joe tweet out something about a screenshot of an app
0:01:15 that was checking water quality.
0:01:17 So the cleanliness of water.
0:01:19 It was this app called Oasis.
0:01:20 I thought that sounds familiar.
0:01:23 Sam mentioned that like, I don’t know, six months ago.
0:01:24 Sam mentioned that in passing,
0:01:26 but I never really paid much attention to it.
0:01:28 What is the story of this thing?
0:01:31 Oasis, so here’s one that’s making hundreds
0:01:32 of thousands of dollars a year,
0:01:34 selling a product that is free
0:01:35 and it’s hidden in plain sight
0:01:37 and it’s just water quality testing.
0:01:41 So there’s a kid who is behind this
0:01:43 and we chatted with him.
0:01:46 So Oasis is a app.
0:01:48 It’s an app that checks the water quality.
0:01:50 It’ll tell you if your city’s water is clean,
0:01:51 if your county’s water is clean,
0:01:54 it’ll tell you you could hold up a bottle
0:01:57 of this aquapana right here and it will tell you,
0:01:59 is this aquapana actually clean
0:02:03 or does it contain PFAS, forever chemicals,
0:02:04 that whole deal, right?
0:02:05 What’s in the water?
0:02:06 – It’s an app and a website, right?
0:02:07 – An app and a website.
0:02:09 And it started by this guy named Cormac
0:02:11 and Cormac is from Minnesota,
0:02:13 which is known for having really fresh water.
0:02:15 He said, “Growing up,” he would just drink tap water,
0:02:18 no problem, he’d drink hose water like you, Sam.
0:02:20 And that was what he did.
0:02:21 And then he moves to LA
0:02:22 and he just starts doing the same thing.
0:02:24 He starts drinking tap water and he noticed,
0:02:25 tastes a little bit different
0:02:27 and he gets an upset stomach,
0:02:29 he gets a little bit sick, nothing life-threatening,
0:02:31 but he’s like, “Dude, that’s weird.
0:02:33 I’m like, I just drank the water,
0:02:34 like why is the water so much different here?”
0:02:36 So he tries to look it up.
0:02:37 He says, “How do I find out
0:02:40 if my water is actually safe to drink out of the tap?”
0:02:43 And it turns out that you can go to any city
0:02:45 and you can request a report.
0:02:47 You can request a report about the water quality
0:02:48 in your area.
0:02:49 So he does that and he finds,
0:02:52 “Oh man, there’s tons of contaminants in my water.”
0:02:54 And so he stops drinking tap water.
0:02:54 He goes to Whole Foods.
0:02:56 He buys water from Whole Foods.
0:02:58 He says, “Well, let me see
0:02:59 if this one is actually contaminated too.”
0:03:03 It turns out you can contact any bottled water company
0:03:05 and they have to provide you a report
0:03:06 about the testing of their water.
0:03:07 And he finds that the water
0:03:09 that’s being sold in Whole Foods
0:03:11 also has lots of contaminants in it.
0:03:13 And then he’s like, “What’s going on here?”
0:03:16 And so he creates a app really for himself,
0:03:17 but for others too,
0:03:21 to be able to check the quality of water,
0:03:22 whether it’s your city, your town,
0:03:24 or bottled water that you’re drinking.
0:03:27 And he’s basically just aggregating free data
0:03:30 that already exists that anybody could go request.
0:03:31 So when we first mentioned it,
0:03:34 it was on the Jeremy Giffin episode a few months back.
0:03:37 It was at $10,000 a month in revenue.
0:03:38 – And the way that you make revenue
0:03:40 is I think he has an affiliate scheme
0:03:42 where like if you buy something that he recommends,
0:03:45 he gets a cut and also you pay $50, right?
0:03:46 – There’s a paywall, yeah.
0:03:48 So you basically, you request a report,
0:03:49 you can get some information free
0:03:51 if you want like the full report or whatever you pay,
0:03:53 45 bucks, 49 bucks or something like that
0:03:56 for an annual membership to this app.
0:03:57 So you can continue.
0:03:58 – And by the way, when I shared this,
0:04:00 I knew it was a paywall
0:04:02 and people were like, “Who the hell would pay for this?”
0:04:04 And I was like in that camp at first.
0:04:05 I thought I start clicking around the website
0:04:08 and I’m like, “Oh my God, my town’s here.”
0:04:10 And it says it might be dirty,
0:04:13 but I can’t see the results unless I give them $50.
0:04:17 And so I understand why it’s actually incredibly valuable.
0:04:20 (upbeat music)
0:04:23 Marketing used to be fun.
0:04:24 Content was simpler to create.
0:04:26 The leads were easier to capture.
0:04:28 And now with HubSpot’s new marketing and content hub,
0:04:30 you can generate more content, more leads
0:04:31 and next level results.
0:04:32 So marketing can be fun again
0:04:35 with content tools like Content Remix,
0:04:36 which will turn your existing content
0:04:37 into all new assets.
0:04:39 Lead scoring, which shines a light
0:04:41 on which leads are most likely to purchase.
0:04:42 In the analytics suite,
0:04:43 which will give you out of the box reports
0:04:45 and a goldmine of AI-powered insights.
0:04:47 It’s quick to get your results.
0:04:49 It’s easy to use and it connects all your data.
0:04:52 So put the fun back in your marketing funnel with HubSpot.
0:04:54 Visit hubspot.com to get started for free.
0:04:58 I mean, look at the numbers.
0:05:03 So it’s doing, let’s say 40,000 a month now in revenue.
0:05:07 So 40,000 a month, so basically a half a million bucks a year.
0:05:09 And, but if you do the math, 45 bucks,
0:05:10 if it’s a $45 subscription,
0:05:12 you know, he’s only got a few thousand subscribers
0:05:13 to this thing.
0:05:14 So it’s not like it’s,
0:05:15 it’s not like everybody’s paying for this,
0:05:17 but a small number of people really care
0:05:18 about the quality of water
0:05:21 and are willing to pay to get the information.
0:05:22 And he structured it.
0:05:23 And so what he did was he started off
0:05:25 with all the free reports.
0:05:26 And then when he, you know,
0:05:27 couldn’t get the free reports
0:05:28 or wanted to test more things,
0:05:31 he’s, or wanted to verify their reports.
0:05:33 He’ll do his own independent testing,
0:05:34 but it’s very expensive.
0:05:35 It’s like, you know,
0:05:37 a couple grand to do independent testing of a product
0:05:39 to find out, does it actually line up?
0:05:41 So he’s slowly doing them one by one
0:05:42 as he gets more money.
0:05:44 And he said, you know, we live in a world
0:05:46 where we think we live in abundance.
0:05:47 You could walk to Target, Trader Joe’s,
0:05:48 you’ll find 20 different protein bars,
0:05:50 30 different waters.
0:05:52 But the problem is most of it’s filled with toxins.
0:05:54 None of it is actually healthy.
0:05:55 So my mission is to build a hundred percent
0:05:57 independent platform to test products
0:05:59 and provide healthy alternatives.
0:06:01 And I think this is kind of awesome, right?
0:06:03 Like, I think this is kind of amazing.
0:06:04 And the way that he’s growing this thing,
0:06:05 cause you might wonder,
0:06:06 how does he get customers for this?
0:06:08 Is he just does TikToks that go viral?
0:06:10 So check out this video.
0:06:12 So it’s a video about like liquid death right here, right?
0:06:15 And so he’ll post this video, TikTok,
0:06:17 just very simple, green screen over a product.
0:06:20 And he’s talking about how, you know,
0:06:21 I used to think this is really healthy,
0:06:24 but actually it’s full of chemicals and blah, blah, blah.
0:06:25 If you want more,
0:06:26 if you want to figure out which products
0:06:28 are actually clean, use my app.
0:06:31 And this video will get, you know, a million plus views
0:06:34 and it’ll drive a bunch of attention.
0:06:35 And it actually go,
0:06:36 and then drives people download the app
0:06:39 and go ahead and sign up.
0:06:41 So very simple way to test this,
0:06:42 to drive traffic to this product.
0:06:45 And it’s something you can do over and over and over again.
0:06:48 Apps like TikTok and Instagram Reels
0:06:49 to a slightly lesser extent,
0:06:51 YouTube shorts to a lesser extent.
0:06:53 You can just, once you find a format that works,
0:06:55 you can literally repost the same thing.
0:06:58 And the algorithm is just gonna say, yep, humans like this.
0:07:00 And it’s just gonna keep serving it up to a lot of people,
0:07:02 even if they don’t follow you.
0:07:04 And so when people have figured out
0:07:06 these like simple formats that work,
0:07:09 they just copy paste and post the same,
0:07:11 90% of the same video
0:07:12 over and over and over again.
0:07:13 And I know several people
0:07:16 that are building multimillion dollar businesses doing this.
0:07:18 – I’m so turned on right now.
0:07:22 This is the greatest thing, dude, this guy.
0:07:25 So he shows his revenue on Twitter,
0:07:26 which is pretty cool.
0:07:28 So Oasis metrics over the last 28 days,
0:07:32 monthly gross revenue, he shows us 25,000.
0:07:34 And then he shows his churn, he shows everything.
0:07:35 I actually predict this gonna be
0:07:38 a significantly larger product than,
0:07:40 I think it could be worth – I think it can be.
0:07:43 Many tens of millions of dollars or even more.
0:07:46 The reason being is the way that these review websites work
0:07:49 is you typically have to hire a lot of freelancers
0:07:52 in order to go out and write all of the articles.
0:07:56 But if you’re just using data to organize as a table,
0:07:58 it’s way more profitable.
0:08:02 Also, he’s getting in early on a trend.
0:08:05 I think this water thing is still tiny, tiny, tiny,
0:08:07 compared to what it’s going to be like
0:08:09 in the next 10 and 20 years.
0:08:11 I think he’s onto something life-changing for himself.
0:08:13 – Yeah, absolutely.
0:08:16 Okay, so I promised you, I would tell you about a company
0:08:18 that’s hidden in plain sight,
0:08:20 that is selling free information
0:08:23 and making hundreds of thousands, check.
0:08:26 Now I wanna tell you about one that’s making millions,
0:08:28 and then we’ll go to the hundreds of millions.
0:08:29 Okay, so the millions won.
0:08:31 And we’ve mentioned this once before,
0:08:33 but it was years ago, so I wanna bring it up again.
0:08:36 If you’ve ever been to a company’s office
0:08:38 and you walk into their break room,
0:08:40 or maybe their kitchen, or they have snacks,
0:08:43 you’ll always notice on the wall that there’s this poster.
0:08:45 And our eyes just glaze over it.
0:08:46 We don’t ever look at it.
0:08:49 Looks just like a, it looks like when you’re on an airplane
0:08:50 and you see the safety thing
0:08:52 and the seat back in front of you,
0:08:53 it looks like that, but it’s on the wall.
0:08:55 And this is a labor law poster.
0:08:58 And the reason that your office had it
0:08:59 is the reason that all offices have it.
0:09:02 It’s required by law that you have to post this
0:09:05 in your company or employee break room or open area.
0:09:09 And these labor law posters, they update every year.
0:09:11 So you have to get a new one every year
0:09:12 and they’re required by law.
0:09:14 Okay, so that’s the good news.
0:09:17 The bad news is you have to buy them or do you?
0:09:19 And so here’s the interesting thing about this business.
0:09:20 There’s a couple of companies that do this.
0:09:23 I don’t have all their names and information here,
0:09:26 but I remember finding one that was like based in Minnesota.
0:09:28 And what the guy was doing was he’s just print,
0:09:29 all he does is print labor law posters.
0:09:32 So what they’ll do is they’ll mail you a letter
0:09:34 to your business and the letter looks a little bit scary.
0:09:37 And it says, hey, if you don’t have this poster up,
0:09:41 you are in violation of California labor laws right now.
0:09:42 And you must have this up.
0:09:45 It is a requirement by law.
0:09:47 It costs $45.
0:09:49 Take this box, send this back to us.
0:09:50 We will send you your poster.
0:09:53 And you do that and they send you the poster,
0:09:53 you put it up on your wall,
0:09:55 you forget about it, you move on.
0:09:57 – And this is a private company that sends that letter?
0:09:58 – Correct.
0:10:01 Now the thing is these labor law posters are actually free.
0:10:03 You could just go to your state labor law website.
0:10:05 You can get the labor law posters,
0:10:09 but companies have realized that using this sort of like
0:10:12 awareness tactic, making it easy,
0:10:14 sort of scaring the hell out of you,
0:10:18 is a way to make a couple million dollars a year
0:10:19 on super high margins,
0:10:21 ’cause all you do is printing the same poster,
0:10:24 single skew, single product, one product a year,
0:10:26 and you just send it out to businesses.
0:10:27 And then they’re not–
0:10:30 – In all fair description, I’m on the government’s website
0:10:33 and figuring out how to order the poster for free
0:10:33 is actually hard.
0:10:34 – Of course, of course.
0:10:36 Just like filing your taxes is a little bit confusing
0:10:40 and TurboTax and others have made a,
0:10:42 they turned the button into bright shiny green buttons
0:10:44 instead of small gray buttons
0:10:45 that you don’t know which one to click, right?
0:10:48 So there is a tremendous amount of value
0:10:51 in simply either aggregating and structuring data
0:10:52 and making it available for people
0:10:55 or helping you just comply
0:10:58 without having to figure out how to comply.
0:11:01 And maybe the $50 tax is worth it every year
0:11:03 as your subscription, but that’s what these companies do.
0:11:07 So labor law posters, a way to make millions of dollars
0:11:09 selling a product that’s free
0:11:11 and a business, again, that’s hidden in plain sight.
0:11:13 I bring this up because one of the great things
0:11:15 about this podcast that I hope we do for people
0:11:18 is that you will go from a mindset
0:11:22 where success seems rare and hard to grasp
0:11:24 and you’re sort of thinking, what is it?
0:11:26 I need a great idea and great ideas are rare.
0:11:27 They’re hard to find.
0:11:30 To a mindset of everything I see in my life,
0:11:34 every object in my view, it’s not there by accident.
0:11:37 That sign is there for a reason.
0:11:39 That cable is there for a reason.
0:11:41 Somebody realized you needed that and they created that.
0:11:43 Once you realize that, you realize,
0:11:44 oh my God, business is everywhere.
0:11:46 This is a business, this is a business, this is a business.
0:11:48 And then you realize, wow, all I gotta do
0:11:50 is figure out one of these.
0:11:51 That seems easy, right?
0:11:53 It’s like in a jar full of Skittles picking one,
0:11:55 it doesn’t seem that hard.
0:11:57 And that’s what I think, I hope to sort of achieve
0:11:58 by bringing up these businesses
0:12:00 ’cause not only are they clever little business models,
0:12:03 but it just points out that your eyes
0:12:06 are just glazing over million dollar opportunities
0:12:09 everywhere you walk because they are literally everywhere.
0:12:11 You will go into a parking lot, look at the ground.
0:12:13 Somebody painted those stripes.
0:12:14 And when you go look at it,
0:12:16 you can go ask the owner of the real estate.
0:12:17 You say, who paints the stripes for your parking lot?
0:12:19 They’ll say, oh, we use these guys.
0:12:20 You go talk to them, you say, wow,
0:12:23 you just paint straight lines in parking lots?
0:12:24 That’s what you do?
0:12:25 Yep.
0:12:26 How much money do you make?
0:12:28 Is this a small business?
0:12:30 Oh, you did seven million last year for everything?
0:12:31 No profit?
0:12:32 Oh my God, right?
0:12:33 And then you realize, oh my God,
0:12:35 there’s somebody who makes seven million dollars
0:12:38 to your profit painting white lines on the road.
0:12:40 Dude, when I first moved to San Francisco,
0:12:42 I lived with this guy, he was one of my roommates,
0:12:44 and he was a piece of crap.
0:12:45 But he was telling me how he was making
0:12:46 hundreds of dollars a month
0:12:50 because apparently the church of Latter-day Saints Mormons,
0:12:52 they, you could order a Bible for free
0:12:53 on their website, I guess.
0:12:55 But they like, it’s like Legion,
0:12:57 and they’ll like come and hand deliver it,
0:12:59 but they’ll like try to like convert you
0:13:01 to their faith or whatever.
0:13:05 And he created an online store selling Bibles for 20 bucks,
0:13:07 and somehow raked on Google,
0:13:09 and he just went and took the person’s information
0:13:11 and put it into the Mormons website,
0:13:13 and on his website, they were like,
0:13:15 we hand deliver Bibles, or something like that.
0:13:16 And it was like–
0:13:18 Oh, that’s hilarious.
0:13:19 And I remember this guy, and I was like,
0:13:23 this is a horrible scam, that’s amazing.
0:13:24 But it was very funny.
0:13:26 He was making like $500 a month doing this.
0:13:28 That is so funny.
0:13:28 Oh my God.
0:13:31 Who is that guy?
0:13:32 What happened to that guy?
0:13:34 He’s one of those guys.
0:13:35 You know how like you have these friends?
0:13:38 And frankly, you and I are those people, maybe,
0:13:40 where they’re like, do hacky shit.
0:13:41 You have those friends, it’s like,
0:13:42 dude, do you remember how we met?
0:13:44 Yeah, where it was like, you do this hacky shit,
0:13:47 and you’re like, this is gonna go one of two ways.
0:13:48 Like it’s gonna go the right way or the wrong way.
0:13:50 Miles was the wrong way.
0:13:52 So like, he like kind of disappeared.
0:13:55 He probably got in trouble for a crypto scam.
0:13:58 What’s the, yeah, it was like, it was crazy.
0:14:00 But like, and on his about page, he was like,
0:14:03 why did my, why did the person who delivered my Bible
0:14:03 want to talk to me?
0:14:06 And his thing said, yeah, they tend to do that.
0:14:06 Mormons loved it.
0:14:07 So like, it said like–
0:14:08 Right.
0:14:09 And like, you’re gonna get hand delivered
0:14:11 by these Mormon guys.
0:14:12 What’s the third one?
0:14:15 Okay, third one, here’s a product that is used,
0:14:18 I believe, six billion times a day.
0:14:22 It is a product that Time Magazine said is in the 50 things
0:14:24 that made the world economy work.
0:14:27 Do you want to take a guess what this is?
0:14:28 It’s a hard one.
0:14:28 I know.
0:14:29 This is pretty fun.
0:14:31 Do you have one or two more hints?
0:14:33 Like many great inventions, it was invented
0:14:37 maybe 20 years before it actually got used.
0:14:40 So somebody invented this thing, like, this is cool,
0:14:41 but how do we, what do we use it for?
0:14:43 It couldn’t find a use case.
0:14:44 And finally they found a use case.
0:14:46 Oh, I’ll give you another example.
0:14:51 Every time you buy a product, you use this product.
0:14:52 I feel like I’m doing those annoying riddles
0:14:54 where it’s like, I’m awake at night,
0:14:56 but not during the day, what am I?
0:14:58 You could sit on me, but not take me with you.
0:14:59 Yeah, exactly.
0:15:01 All right, I’ll end the suspense.
0:15:03 The answer, by the way, is a chair.
0:15:04 What is that?
0:15:05 It’s a barcode.
0:15:06 Oh, that’s cool.
0:15:08 Do you know the story behind the barcode?
0:15:09 No.
0:15:11 All right, so let me give you a little history lesson.
0:15:12 I know you like history.
0:15:17 So barcode is invented by these two guys,
0:15:19 Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver.
0:15:22 And these guys are inspired by Morse code.
0:15:25 They realized like, wow, Morse code is so simple.
0:15:28 It’s just, basically it’s dots and dashes.
0:15:30 The dash, I think, is like a rest, basically.
0:15:32 And the dot is like, you know, the sound.
0:15:34 And they’re like, can we create another system
0:15:35 that’s like that, maybe a visual system?
0:15:37 So they create a system,
0:15:39 actually look like a circle at the time.
0:15:40 So it was like a circle.
0:15:43 And they’re like, oh, look, with thin lines and thick lines,
0:15:45 we can create like an, basically an infinite number
0:15:48 of unique tags for something.
0:15:49 And they’re like, oh, this is great.
0:15:52 They patent it, but it’s not really a good use case for it.
0:15:54 And then people try to use it for a couple things.
0:15:56 You know, they realize, oh, you know what we could do?
0:15:58 We could track train containers.
0:15:59 Well, you know, we’re always wondering
0:16:00 where those containers are,
0:16:02 where in the route that they are,
0:16:03 and if they ever get unloaded.
0:16:07 So they put a barcode on the side of a train container
0:16:08 and it works great.
0:16:09 Everyone’s really excited.
0:16:11 That’s working great for a second.
0:16:13 And then the problem is trains are outside.
0:16:14 They get dirty.
0:16:15 And as soon as any dirt gets on the thing,
0:16:17 it ruins the barcode.
0:16:18 So they’re like, oh, this is bad idea.
0:16:19 Take it off, scrap it.
0:16:21 And then they try it on some second thing.
0:16:22 It doesn’t really work either.
0:16:24 And basically for like, I don’t know,
0:16:25 a couple of decades or something,
0:16:27 nobody’s using barcodes.
0:16:30 At the same time, in another part of the world,
0:16:33 you get the invention of the laser.
0:16:34 And the laser gets invented.
0:16:37 The laser is a really great way to scan something.
0:16:38 That becomes interesting,
0:16:39 but they don’t really know what they’re scanning.
0:16:41 Why would we be scanning this for?
0:16:44 Lasers have multiple uses, but that gets invented.
0:16:45 And then in the third part of the world,
0:16:46 three things come together.
0:16:48 The third part of the world is grocery stores
0:16:49 are having a really tough time
0:16:51 because they are trying to stock inventory.
0:16:52 And they’re sort of by hand,
0:16:54 keeping track of all the inventory they have.
0:16:55 Think about this.
0:16:57 A store, there’s so many units,
0:16:58 it’s taking so many hours of labor.
0:17:01 And then if any customer checks out, it’s so slow.
0:17:03 ‘Cause okay, every item you have,
0:17:04 I got to punch it into the register.
0:17:05 Exactly what this is.
0:17:07 I got to either remember the prices
0:17:08 or I got to write this in.
0:17:11 And then I have to keep stock of the inventory levels.
0:17:11 It’s a pain in the ass.
0:17:12 So they create–
0:17:17 – Do you think that like when Walmart was invented,
0:17:18 founded almost around this time,
0:17:21 do you think that a barcode is one of the reasons?
0:17:23 Like would that have prevented companies from scaling?
0:17:25 Is just the operational–
0:17:26 – 100%.
0:17:29 So Walmart opened their first store in 1962.
0:17:30 This was now 10 years later.
0:17:33 So this is ’74 is when this starts to happen.
0:17:34 ‘Cause they’re hitting this problem.
0:17:37 It’s too slow, too much labor, too expensive.
0:17:39 So they create the ad hoc committee
0:17:42 for the Uniform Grocery Product Identification Code.
0:17:45 And they go into the lab and they’re like,
0:17:46 “All right, we need something.”
0:17:47 They find this technology.
0:17:48 They go, “Oh, remember, what’s that guy Norman
0:17:49 “have always talking about?
0:17:51 “That goddamn barcode.
0:17:52 “What if we use that?
0:17:53 “What if we use this laser?”
0:17:56 And they come together and they create the barcode
0:17:57 and they change the shape of it.
0:17:58 Instead of the circle shape,
0:17:59 they change it to the rectangular shape
0:18:01 that we all know and love today.
0:18:04 And the first barcode ever gets scanned
0:18:07 as a pack of wrigglies gum in 1974.
0:18:08 And so, boop!
0:18:09 And they’re like, “Wow, that just took–“
0:18:11 It knew the price.
0:18:13 I took me one second
0:18:16 and it’s deducted my stock level by one.
0:18:18 Oh my God, this was magic.
0:18:20 And so, you know, this is like the blockchain
0:18:21 getting invented, right?
0:18:22 This is like, “Oh my God.”
0:18:24 – How do they convince all of the manufacturers
0:18:25 to put this on their thing?
0:18:26 They just like rally around them?
0:18:27 – Retailers demand it.
0:18:29 So the retailers are saying they’re the ones
0:18:31 with the hair on fire problem, right?
0:18:33 They are spending all this money and time on labor.
0:18:35 So they say, “Hey, if you want to be in our store,
0:18:37 “you got to start adding these things to your product.”
0:18:39 And so, for a manufacturer, you’re like,
0:18:40 “Oh, if I want shelf space,
0:18:43 “which is the most important thing for me,
0:18:45 “oh, I’ll happily stick this on here.”
0:18:47 And so they’re all working and where do you,
0:18:49 but the problem is, where do they get the code?
0:18:50 And how do I make sure that your code
0:18:52 is not the same as my code, right?
0:18:53 Like what’s going to prevent that?
0:18:56 Well, we all go to go through some central thing
0:18:59 that’s going to give us the barcodes
0:19:00 that I can use for my product
0:19:01 to make sure nobody else can use it.
0:19:04 It’s like reserving namespace or a license plate.
0:19:06 It’s like, how do I get my exact license plate
0:19:08 that nobody else is going to have?
0:19:11 And there became what’s known today as GS1.
0:19:14 GS1 is the nonprofit that issues these barcodes
0:19:17 and keeps track of who owns the barcode space.
0:19:19 And to get barcode space, you got to pay.
0:19:21 But again, remember,
0:19:23 every store has standardized on one thing.
0:19:26 So, if you want to be in a store,
0:19:29 or you want your goods in an Amazon warehouse,
0:19:32 for example, you now need to use their system,
0:19:34 which means they have infinite pricing leverage
0:19:38 and they charge a shit ton for these barcodes.
0:19:39 And so–
0:19:40 – And is that GS1 who’s charging?
0:19:42 – GS1, so GS1, let me tell a little bit about this,
0:19:44 and this nonprofit, you can go look them up
0:19:45 ’cause they’re a nonprofit.
0:19:48 So, last year, $81 million in revenue.
0:19:52 Barcode sales makes up 93% of this.
0:19:54 And again, a barcode is nothing.
0:19:57 It’s literally like just a set of lines
0:19:59 that they’re selling for $90 million a year.
0:20:03 And they now have $416 million of assets
0:20:04 that they’ve just been stockpiling.
0:20:07 The CEO makes $3 million a year.
0:20:09 The CFO makes $1 million a year.
0:20:11 The SVP of community engagement,
0:20:13 which God knows what that guy’s doing,
0:20:14 making $800,000 a year.
0:20:16 This might be the easiest job of all time.
0:20:18 – Oh, does he hose happy hours?
0:20:19 – Yeah, exactly.
0:20:20 – Like, what do you do?
0:20:25 – And they stash $30 million in overseas places
0:20:28 like the Caribbean and Central America,
0:20:29 and all of their expenses, pretty much,
0:20:32 and half of their expenses, just for staff salaries.
0:20:35 – Lobbying against the QR code.
0:20:37 Is there like a barcode QR code,
0:20:39 like lobby, or were they just fighting each other?
0:20:42 – I think QR codes are just a type of barcode.
0:20:43 They’re just a three-dimensional–
0:20:44 – Got it, okay.
0:20:45 – Or 2D, sorry.
0:20:49 So, yeah, isn’t that crazy, though,
0:20:52 that this nonprofit now has half a billion dollars
0:20:55 in assets just selling barcodes?
0:20:57 And any retailer, anybody who’s ever had to, like,
0:20:58 get your products, you know,
0:20:59 let’s say you wanna sell on Amazon,
0:21:01 Amazon says you gotta do this.
0:21:02 It’s a racket.
0:21:04 You end up just having to pay whatever they demand
0:21:06 in order to get your products on the shelves.
0:21:10 (upbeat music)
0:21:11 – Hey, let’s take a quick break
0:21:13 to talk about another podcast that you should check out.
0:21:15 It is called The Next Wave.
0:21:17 It’s hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lanz
0:21:18 as part of the HubSpot Podcast Network,
0:21:20 which, of course, is your audio destination
0:21:22 for business professionals like you.
0:21:24 You can catch The Next Wave with Matt Wolf,
0:21:26 and he’s talking about where the puck is going
0:21:28 with AI creators, AI technology,
0:21:30 and how you can apply it to your growing business.
0:21:32 So, check it out, listen to The Next Wave,
0:21:34 wherever you get your podcasts.
0:21:38 – Do you know how, like, there’s been a lot of cool movies
0:21:39 lately, there’s been a cool movie
0:21:42 on the guy who created Blackberry.
0:21:44 I think there was one on the person who helped
0:21:46 create Tetris, and then there was another one
0:21:48 for the person who helped create the Pop-Tart.
0:21:51 He’s, like, kind of cool, like, product creation stories.
0:21:54 I wonder if, is there an interesting one here?
0:21:55 – Somebody’s just saying there,
0:21:57 it’s like, “What if podcasts were movies?”
0:21:58 (laughing)
0:22:00 And then they just turn on every episode of, like,
0:22:03 acquired, or how I built this into a documentary.
0:22:05 – Dude, well, this guy, Bernard Silver,
0:22:08 like, this is actually a way more interesting story
0:22:10 than I would have thought,
0:22:12 because this is something that changed culture,
0:22:14 it changed so many things.
0:22:17 Like, you know, we talk about inflections,
0:22:19 and how, like, you know, the iPhone was invented,
0:22:21 which had all these ramifications,
0:22:22 including a GPS being there,
0:22:25 which now means that Uber has the ability to exist.
0:22:27 And then there’s, like, a million examples of that.
0:22:29 This is one of those inflections,
0:22:31 where, like, this barcode helped to create,
0:22:32 let’s say, or made a Walmart possible,
0:22:34 or made it this other thing possible,
0:22:37 which, like, literally shaped history.
0:22:40 And this is actually really fascinating stuff.
0:22:41 – Yeah, exactly.
0:22:44 So, this is just a, it’s a space that, again,
0:22:47 you don’t think, you don’t even think this is like,
0:22:48 you don’t think, where does this come from?
0:22:50 Where does this little thing come from?
0:22:52 And again, it doesn’t come from nowhere.
0:22:54 Somebody creates it, and then that person who creates it
0:22:56 now has, you know, something they can charge for,
0:22:58 and there’s business everywhere.
0:23:01 – So, it’s so funny that this episode
0:23:03 is accidentally turning into a theme.
0:23:06 A theme of things that you don’t really think about,
0:23:07 but how they became a thing.
0:23:10 I have actually an example of one of those.
0:23:11 Can I tell you it?
0:23:12 – Yeah, go.
0:23:16 – All right, so, in the 1960s in Hawaii,
0:23:17 it started to become common.
0:23:19 I think it was because of, like, one hotel
0:23:22 where your employees were allowed to wear
0:23:25 a Hawaiian shirt to work on Friday.
0:23:28 Because, for the most part, you had to wear a suit to work.
0:23:30 You know, like, dressing formal
0:23:33 was how business people operated all of the time.
0:23:36 And this whole casual Friday idea,
0:23:39 it sort of started getting popular in mainland America,
0:23:42 where, like, in the 1980s, HP was like,
0:23:44 “Hey, everyone, you can wear a Hawaiian shirt
0:23:46 “to work on a Friday,” which was a big deal
0:23:48 because they employed tens of thousands of people.
0:23:51 So, it was like, it was kind of like a statement.
0:23:55 But, in reality, up until the late ’80s and early ’90s,
0:23:58 virtually everyone wore suits to work all of the time.
0:24:01 However, this executive at Levi’s,
0:24:04 so, Levi’s had just launched a Dockers,
0:24:06 and Dockers were khaki pants.
0:24:09 Up until then, khaki pants were almost considered,
0:24:12 you know, if you look at, like, the history of fashion,
0:24:15 like, suits were considered, like, the standard.
0:24:16 That’s what you do.
0:24:19 Khakis were basically casual wear,
0:24:20 even though now we don’t look at them as casual.
0:24:21 That’s what they were.
0:24:23 They were casual wear.
0:24:25 And Levi’s creates Dockers
0:24:26 ’cause they wanted to get the khaki business.
0:24:28 But still, people are like, “This is too casual.
0:24:29 “We can’t wear these at any other time,
0:24:32 “except for Saturday and Sunday.”
0:24:34 So, this marketing executive at Levi’s
0:24:36 has this brilliant idea.
0:24:39 They print up 40,000 pamphlets
0:24:41 that explains to HR professionals,
0:24:45 here’s this new thing called Business Casual
0:24:47 and Casual Friday.
0:24:50 And here’s the rules of this holiday
0:24:51 or this, like, new tradition.
0:24:53 It was just an eight-page pamphlet,
0:24:56 and it said it didn’t promote Levi’s or Dockers, though.
0:24:58 But, in all of the photos,
0:25:00 you’ll see, like, a picture of someone wearing jeans,
0:25:02 and it is, like, a Levi’s logo,
0:25:04 or you’ll see a picture of someone wearing khakis,
0:25:07 and you just assume that it’s Dockers.
0:25:10 And so, this thing takes off.
0:25:11 It works.
0:25:12 – So, we gotta read this, though.
0:25:14 A guide to casual business wear.
0:25:16 Ideas for dressing professionally at work.
0:25:20 And then it basically shows, like, pants, jeans.
0:25:23 Like, it’s showing, like, options, ideas for it.
0:25:25 And then is there rules for it?
0:25:27 So, what are the rules that they said?
0:25:29 – Yeah, it says don’t wear, like, tattered jeans,
0:25:31 but they should be nice, new jeans.
0:25:33 Or, like, they can’t be stained,
0:25:34 or what else does it say?
0:25:36 – Uh, no sleeveless, no tanks.
0:25:37 Oh, man.
0:25:39 (laughing)
0:25:41 – I mean, discrimination.
0:25:43 – Baby steps, baby steps.
0:25:46 We’re going from suits to khakis, like, you know,
0:25:47 like, it takes time.
0:25:49 – I mean, should we, guns out Wednesday?
0:25:50 Do you think we can make this happen?
0:25:53 – I, well, I’m actually gonna talk about that in a second.
0:25:54 – But, so it’s a good–
0:25:56 – Avoid lingerie, okay?
0:25:57 Fair enough.
0:25:59 Save athletic wear for after work.
0:26:01 And don’t forget to check footwear.
0:26:03 Opalto sandals are gross.
0:26:05 No, no, it just says not appropriate.
0:26:06 – Yeah, it’s a great little pamphlet.
0:26:10 So they set this out to literally 40,000 HR executives.
0:26:14 And they even go as far to create an HR hotline.
0:26:17 So if you work at IBM and you’re like, you know,
0:26:19 I actually don’t know protocol for, like,
0:26:21 our Opalto, our sandals allowed.
0:26:23 Our, like, whatever, I could call this hotline
0:26:26 and I could ask the inventors of Casual Friday,
0:26:31 hey, can Sidney wear, like, our shoes allowed,
0:26:33 our toes allowed to be seen,
0:26:35 even if, like, their toenails are polished, like, whatever.
0:26:37 Like, you can, like, ask these questions.
0:26:38 And it takes off.
0:26:42 And Casual Friday officially becomes a thing.
0:26:46 And so it literally shaped culture.
0:26:49 And it was all because Levi’s was like,
0:26:50 we gotta sign these guys up.
0:26:51 We’re gonna start selling some of the stuff.
0:26:54 And, like, back then, it was kind of,
0:26:56 the American apparel industry was a little bit in a rut.
0:26:57 They weren’t doing that great.
0:26:59 And this changed everything.
0:27:01 And so people started buying Dockers, buying Levi’s,
0:27:05 because this movement of Casual Friday totally picked up.
0:27:07 And it got me thinking.
0:27:09 This is, like, some pretty brilliant marketing.
0:27:10 I call this marketing, you can call it
0:27:14 cultural shift marketing, or tradition hijacking.
0:27:16 And so people who have, like, found little traditions
0:27:18 and they blow up the tradition,
0:27:20 or they blow up this idea, and then they say,
0:27:22 and by the way, if you wanna buy the idea,
0:27:23 we just so happen to have the thing
0:27:25 that can make your life a little bit better.
0:27:27 And so there’s a few other examples of this
0:27:28 that I can present to you.
0:27:30 So the first one is De Beers.
0:27:32 So they’re a diamond company.
0:27:33 They’ve been around, I think, for hundreds of years, actually.
0:27:36 In the 1940s, they ran this campaign
0:27:37 called The Diamond is Forever.
0:27:39 And it was this idea that, like, diamonds are special,
0:27:41 because up until the 1940s, diamonds were special,
0:27:44 but they weren’t nearly as special as we think they are now.
0:27:46 And they also came up with this insane idea,
0:27:48 which is they’re like, this campaign that come up with,
0:27:50 how much should you spend on a diamond?
0:27:54 And they said roughly two to three months of your salary,
0:27:55 which is, like, outrageous.
0:27:58 But that alone is like, that campaign is credited
0:28:00 as helping shape the diamond industry.
0:28:01 They even ran further campaigns that said,
0:28:05 on certain anniversaries, you have to get your wife a diamond.
0:28:06 Another one is breakfast being
0:28:09 the most important meal of the day.
0:28:11 Kellogg invented that idea.
0:28:13 And so, like, we grow up now and we tell our kids,
0:28:15 you have to eat breakfast, it’s the most important thing.
0:28:17 Kellogg invented that, prior to that,
0:28:18 people didn’t always think that.
0:28:21 Two other ones are baby showers and wedding registries.
0:28:23 So baby showers weren’t a thing
0:28:25 until Johnson and Johnson started running ad campaigns.
0:28:28 You have to have a baby shower if you’re pregnant.
0:28:32 Or if your Macy’s came up with the idea of wedding registries,
0:28:34 they said, you’re gonna get married?
0:28:36 You gotta, people gotta buy you all this stuff.
0:28:38 And in fact, you don’t want people just to buy you
0:28:39 random stuff, because when they buy you the same stuff
0:28:41 that you already have, or two guests buy you the same thing,
0:28:44 like, that’s ridiculous, you have to create this registry
0:28:46 at Macy’s that you can register.
0:28:48 And then finally, spring cleaning is another one.
0:28:49 That really wasn’t a thing until Lysol
0:28:51 came up with this idea of spring cleaning.
0:28:52 – Wow.
0:28:53 Dude, these are great.
0:28:55 I love, I don’t know if other people
0:28:56 get as fired up about these.
0:28:57 I get so fired up about these.
0:29:02 I think because it’s the same idea as,
0:29:03 oh, wow, these businesses are hidden plain sight.
0:29:05 You know, this object just didn’t just get here.
0:29:07 Someone made it come here.
0:29:12 All of these occasions, these sayings, these holidays,
0:29:14 they didn’t just pop up out of nowhere.
0:29:15 Somebody made them happen.
0:29:18 And when you find out that it’s a marketing dork,
0:29:20 it’s some marketing dork somewhere that was like,
0:29:21 you know, like, how do we,
0:29:23 spring sales are slow, spring sales are slow,
0:29:27 spring, spring, spring, fling, no, spring, cling, no,
0:29:29 spring cleaning, yes, that’s how we’re gonna get people
0:29:31 to buy cleaning products in the spring.
0:29:32 I love that.
0:29:36 I love that just a mad ad man somewhere in the world
0:29:38 can just shift how people do things.
0:29:41 There’s a grip, we did an episode with Craig Clements
0:29:43 about exactly this.
0:29:44 Was it like leaky gut?
0:29:46 – He did, he did prebiotics,
0:29:48 but he didn’t talk too much about that.
0:29:53 It was, he was talking about the ones that have,
0:29:55 like the ones you’re talking about,
0:29:57 like why we bake it for breakfast?
0:29:59 Why we drink orange juice, right?
0:30:00 Like where orange juice came from.
0:30:02 And like all these things that today just seem like,
0:30:03 I don’t know, this is what we do.
0:30:06 It’s just staples of the, of people’s diet.
0:30:07 It’s just tradition.
0:30:08 And it’s like, no, no, that wasn’t tradition.
0:30:10 Or, you know, the classic one is toothpaste.
0:30:12 He talks about how, at a certain time,
0:30:16 about only 6% of the population brushed their teeth.
0:30:18 And so when they wanted to increase sales of toothpaste,
0:30:20 he said, well, we can’t just sell more toothpaste
0:30:23 to the 6% of people who already brushed their teeth.
0:30:25 We need to get the other 94% of people
0:30:26 to start brushing their teeth.
0:30:28 How are we gonna do that?
0:30:30 And that’s when he came up with that campaign.
0:30:31 Not Craig, but–
0:30:32 – By Claude Hopkins.
0:30:35 It was like rub the tongue on your teeth
0:30:37 and you feel that film.
0:30:39 – Yeah, one of them, exactly.
0:30:41 It was like, you know, basically saying,
0:30:42 take your tongue, rub it on your teeth,
0:30:43 you feel that film.
0:30:45 That’s, and people did that.
0:30:46 As soon as they read it, they do it,
0:30:48 they’d stick their tongue there and then it’s gross
0:30:49 and you’re like, there’s a way to get that off.
0:30:52 And then you’ll have that Hollywood pearl smile.
0:30:53 And then people wanted that, right?
0:30:55 And so that created this movement.
0:30:56 And then by the end of that campaign,
0:30:58 something like 70 or 80% of people
0:31:00 now brush their teeth in America.
0:31:02 It was like a huge shift that happened.
0:31:06 Just off of that one ad man, that single big idea.
0:31:08 And I love these.
0:31:10 I’ve really actually like toyed with the idea
0:31:13 of writing a book about just these crazy ad men
0:31:16 and then the way that they’ve actually shifted culture.
0:31:19 – Yeah, and that fascinates me as well.
0:31:20 And like another one is like Wall Street Journal.
0:31:23 And so they tried to like, they sort of nailed it,
0:31:25 but it hasn’t stuck with us.
0:31:27 But it was the idea of once you graduate college,
0:31:30 the gift that you get is a Wall Street Journal subscription.
0:31:33 Just like, I think Rolex did it was like once you,
0:31:35 you know, president’s club is you get a Rolex
0:31:38 if you sell, if you hit some sales quota,
0:31:40 or you become president of whatever.
0:31:43 And so I was thinking, what other things
0:31:46 haven’t been hijacked, that can be.
0:31:48 And so I’ve got a few examples,
0:31:52 but the first one being friendsgiving.
0:31:54 So friendsgiving is what like 20 somethings
0:31:56 who are single is what they celebrate.
0:31:58 Instead of a Thanksgiving with a family,
0:31:59 they do friendsgiving in their town
0:32:01 or in the city that they’re living in.
0:32:03 And so I think friendsgiving is one
0:32:06 that there’s not a clear winner as to who owns friendsgiving,
0:32:08 but we can make it an entire week
0:32:10 of being thankful for your friends.
0:32:12 And you will do various gestures,
0:32:14 including having them over for dinner
0:32:17 to show how appreciative you are
0:32:19 that they are now your friends.
0:32:21 And so we could sell gift boxes.
0:32:22 We could sell gratitude journals.
0:32:23 We could do digital cards.
0:32:24 We could do all types of stuff.
0:32:26 And by the way, speaking of cards,
0:32:28 Hallmark is like one of the inventors
0:32:31 of like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, things like that.
0:32:34 The other one, graduation season.
0:32:37 So turning into a life transition planning
0:32:42 or celebrating new life phases all because of graduating.
0:32:44 So we’re gonna call it graduation season.
0:32:46 And so what do you get for graduation season?
0:32:48 You get financial planning subscriptions,
0:32:51 productivity tools, career coaching, travel discounts.
0:32:53 That’s for graduation season.
0:32:54 You said you’ve thought about those.
0:32:55 What are the ones that you’ve thought about?
0:32:56 – Oh, I mean, come on.
0:32:59 On the hot hands. – No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
0:33:01 Like examples of things where you’re like,
0:33:03 that’s amazing that they pulled that off.
0:33:06 – Like Craig talked about the Otis elevator one,
0:33:07 which I thought was amazing.
0:33:08 Do you remember this? – What was that?
0:33:10 – So he basically talks about how back in the,
0:33:14 elevators got invented far before they were used.
0:33:15 What does that mean?
0:33:16 So the elevator gets invented,
0:33:17 but people didn’t want to use them.
0:33:18 They didn’t want to, they didn’t-
0:33:20 – They’re scared. – They’re scared.
0:33:22 Because there were situations where elevators
0:33:23 would just plummet and you just plummet to your death.
0:33:25 So it’s like, okay, no thanks.
0:33:27 And the consequence of that is, think about it.
0:33:28 If you don’t have elevators,
0:33:29 you don’t have tall buildings, right?
0:33:31 Because people only going to go up so many flights of stairs.
0:33:34 So like New York was like, four stories high.
0:33:37 There was no buildings taller than that.
0:33:40 So cities were kind of limited in how big they could be.
0:33:43 And this guy Otis ends up creating
0:33:46 an elevator with automatic brakes.
0:33:49 So Otis creates the automatic braking elevator.
0:33:50 He’s like, this is it.
0:33:51 This is going to be amazing.
0:33:53 Everybody’s going to buy my elevators.
0:33:54 And if you look today, by the way,
0:33:55 you go to any elevator,
0:33:57 you’ll see a little thing on the wall.
0:33:59 It almost always says Otis.
0:34:01 But it didn’t happen right away.
0:34:02 And he couldn’t figure out why.
0:34:04 He’s like, this has automatic brakes.
0:34:05 It solves the problem.
0:34:07 But nobody believed him.
0:34:09 And so Craig talks about how one of the techniques
0:34:11 that the marketers use is a-
0:34:12 – But they have to like break the elevator
0:34:14 and like film it like getting caught.
0:34:15 – Well, exactly.
0:34:17 So the world fair was going on
0:34:19 and Otis decides to go all in.
0:34:21 And he creates this show basically.
0:34:23 So he creates this exhibit
0:34:25 where he’s got an elevator suspended in the air
0:34:28 hanging by ropes, cables, like they would.
0:34:30 And he, ’cause he had watched Cirque du Soleil.
0:34:32 He was kind of like inspired by, oh wow, Cirque du Soleil.
0:34:33 Man, they’re stunts and they’re spectacles.
0:34:35 They’re so awe-inspiring.
0:34:36 You can’t help but look at it.
0:34:38 So he said, I gotta do that.
0:34:39 So he gets somebody up there
0:34:40 and he stands in the elevator.
0:34:42 And he says, ladies and gentlemen,
0:34:45 I have created the world’s first safe elevator,
0:34:48 the elevator with automatic brakes.
0:34:51 And he gets the guy at the top to swing an ax
0:34:52 and he cuts one rope
0:34:55 and the elevator starts swaying and swinging.
0:34:56 And he’s hanging by a thread now
0:34:57 and everyone’s gasping in the crowd.
0:34:59 And he’s like, cut the rope.
0:35:02 And then the guy swings, he cuts the rope.
0:35:04 Elevator starts to go down two feet
0:35:05 and then it automatic breaks and it stops.
0:35:08 And he says, all safe gentlemen.
0:35:09 And he says something like whatever.
0:35:12 He says some famous phrase that’s basically says like,
0:35:14 Otis Elevator, when you’re in an Otis elevator,
0:35:16 you know, it’s all as well.
0:35:17 All as well, you will be safe.
0:35:20 And elevator sales take off from there.
0:35:21 And when elevator sales take off,
0:35:23 now buildings can be taller.
0:35:25 It literally reshaped the way that cities work
0:35:27 all because this guy realized
0:35:29 that he needed to think out of the box
0:35:30 in terms of his marketing
0:35:31 and he needed to do something
0:35:32 that would break through the noise
0:35:34 and it would actually shift culture,
0:35:37 shift perception about a product in a dramatic way.
0:35:39 And one tool of the tool belt is that.
0:35:42 Craig called these the hijacks of the human mind,
0:35:43 the seven human hijacks.
0:35:45 And he’s like, one way to hijack the mind
0:35:47 is a spectacle like this.
0:35:48 – Does Craig have a book?
0:35:49 I got to re-listen to that one.
0:35:50 Does Craig have a book?
0:35:54 After that episode, I hit Craig up and I was like,
0:35:56 “Hey, I want to write this book with you.”
0:35:57 And we talked about it.
0:35:58 We’re both not really excited about it,
0:35:59 but we’re both busy.
0:36:02 So this might be the motivation to rekindle that project.
0:36:05 – Dude, the seven human hijacks signed me up.
0:36:07 – I wrote the intro for it.
0:36:07 It’s pretty dope.
0:36:09 I’ll read it to you sometime.
0:36:10 – Oh, that is awesome.
0:36:11 I’m going to have to go listen to that
0:36:13 ’cause that was like two years ago.
0:36:14 And I remember listening to it and thinking,
0:36:15 “He’s amazing.”
0:36:19 – Can I read you the intro to this book?
0:36:20 – Yeah.
0:36:21 – We can cut this out if it’s boring,
0:36:23 but I just want to get your opinion on this.
0:36:25 All right, so I wrote this a while back.
0:36:28 All right, it’s called hijacks or seven human hijacks,
0:36:29 Confessions of a Billion Dollar Marketer.
0:36:31 Okay, so that’s Craig.
0:36:35 Craig sold over a billion dollars of products online himself.
0:36:37 Okay, so I said, here’s how it goes.
0:36:39 If you read this book, I need you to make me a promise.
0:36:39 Repeat after me.
0:36:42 I promise to use these tactics only for good and not evil
0:36:43 because the techniques in this book
0:36:45 are not just tactics, they are hijacks.
0:36:47 The same way a terrorist can hijack an airplane,
0:36:49 marketers can hijack the minds of consumers
0:36:52 to get them to buy products they didn’t even know they wanted.
0:36:52 You might be skeptical.
0:36:55 In fact, I think you should be skeptical
0:36:57 of somebody making such a bold claim,
0:36:58 but I could tell you that these products,
0:36:59 these hijacks have been used to sell.
0:37:01 I’ve used these products to sell,
0:37:03 I’ve used these hijacks to sell over a billion dollars
0:37:04 of products personally.
0:37:07 That’s one billion with a B in case you lost count.
0:37:10 But rather than let me convince you, let me ask you,
0:37:12 did you brush your teeth this morning?
0:37:13 More importantly, why?
0:37:14 Who told you to do that?
0:37:16 Who told you to brush your teeth in the morning?
0:37:16 Your mom?
0:37:18 Well, who told her?
0:37:18 Her mom?
0:37:21 Well, yeah, before that, who told all the moms to do this?
0:37:22 It must be the dentist, right?
0:37:24 But wait, who told the dentist?
0:37:26 The answer, it turns out, is a man named Claude Hopkins.
0:37:28 Before Claude Hopkins, only 7% of the population
0:37:30 brushed their teeth.
0:37:32 Sidebar, can you imagine dating back in 1913?
0:37:35 Nobody brushed their teeth, feel bad for grandpa.
0:37:37 After Claude Hopkins, 65% of the population
0:37:38 brushed their teeth.
0:37:39 And Claude didn’t just sell toothpaste,
0:37:41 he literally changed the world.
0:37:43 He got millions of people to change their daily habits
0:37:44 with one brilliant marketing campaign
0:37:46 I’ll show you in chapter two.
0:37:47 But before I show you how you did it,
0:37:48 blah blah blah.
0:37:50 And then I go, and then the chapters are like,
0:37:52 how diamonds became a girl’s best friend,
0:37:55 and blah blah blah, like each of the different products
0:37:57 that got embedded into culture.
0:38:01 What are the seven human, like what are they?
0:38:03 Sounds like I succeeded and got you curious.
0:38:06 You’re gonna have to pay $14.99 and get the book.
0:38:09 Like, is it literally like seven different,
0:38:11 like tactics, or is it several different examples of?
0:38:14 No, tactics, and then each one has example
0:38:15 and you stack them.
0:38:17 So what he showed was like, you know,
0:38:19 for example, one of the tactics is a spectacle,
0:38:21 like I told you about the Otis elevator.
0:38:24 So like a spectacle would be one of the seven.
0:38:26 Yeah, like a spectacle is one of the seven,
0:38:27 but like even the thing about like,
0:38:29 take your tongue and put it on your teeth.
0:38:33 So like a magic trick, basically it’s like the thing,
0:38:35 you know, but remember the thing where people used to,
0:38:37 that power band or whatever, those bracelets.
0:38:39 And they made you like, hold your arm and they’re like,
0:38:40 look, you see how now you could have–
0:38:41 Put your arms out and watch.
0:38:44 I can’t push you over, right?
0:38:47 Wow, but that sort of, I forgot what he called it,
0:38:50 but that sort of magic trick is one of the things
0:38:53 where it’s a demonstrate, a powerful demonstration, right?
0:38:55 So you can demonstrate on the person themselves,
0:38:57 you can get them to feel it themselves
0:38:59 in order to want to buy a product.
0:39:02 Did Craig come up with this idea of seven?
0:39:03 Did you have been hijacked
0:39:05 or did you come up with it on the pod?
0:39:08 So he was gonna come on and it was like,
0:39:09 cool, we could talk about your business,
0:39:10 we could talk about whatever.
0:39:12 And I was like, you know, I asked him one question,
0:39:13 this is a very valuable question.
0:39:16 I said, what’s the best talk you’ve given recently?
0:39:17 Like, have you given like a presentation
0:39:19 or a talk at all that just like really killed?
0:39:21 Like you could just tell the audience loved it.
0:39:24 He said, oh dude, I did this one talk inside my company
0:39:25 just to get them fired up.
0:39:26 He’s like, basically my company’s like a giant marketing
0:39:28 company and I wanted them to come into work
0:39:30 and not just feel like, oh, we need to raise sales
0:39:32 by like 7% this quarter.
0:39:34 Like, no, like, he’s like, I wanted him to realize,
0:39:38 yo, marketers, you don’t just drive some revenue
0:39:42 or lift sales by X% like a marketer can literally change
0:39:43 the way that society works.
0:39:46 And he’s like, so to get them fired up about that,
0:39:49 I told them these examples of stories that they did.
0:39:50 And then he’s like, when I was putting them together,
0:39:53 I realized it’s the same set of techniques
0:39:56 that they’ve been using across these 8, 10 examples,
0:39:58 just the same set of tactics,
0:40:00 these hijacks that they’ve been using.
0:40:01 And he’s like, that could be cool.
0:40:03 And I was like, yes, do that on the fun.
0:40:04 – Check this out.
0:40:07 If you Google seven human hijacks, Craig Clements,
0:40:10 the first post is on Reddit and it says Craig Clements
0:40:13 on MFM talking about the seven human hijacks
0:40:14 and how to use them in your marketing.
0:40:17 And it links to this amazing post
0:40:21 that this guy wrote where he lists the seven.
0:40:22 – On r/marketing.
0:40:24 – Yeah, it’s so good.
0:40:25 – So one of them, for example,
0:40:28 is he talks about like the act of rebellion.
0:40:30 So how do you make your consumer feel
0:40:32 like they’re giving the middle finger to the man
0:40:33 by buying your product?
0:40:35 So the example he gives us back in the day
0:40:38 when cigarette sales were flat.
0:40:39 And cigarette sales were flat
0:40:42 because basically cigarettes were only smoked by men.
0:40:45 And there was like, so it was already super saturators.
0:40:47 Like, dude, we can’t really get more men to smoke.
0:40:49 They kind of all smoke already.
0:40:51 And so they realized like the only way we’re gonna grow sales
0:40:53 is by getting the other 50% of the population
0:40:54 to start smoking.
0:40:55 So how do we get women to start smoking at the time?
0:40:57 It was seen as not cool.
0:40:59 It was seen as sort of like,
0:41:02 it was like a kind of dirty masculine thing to do.
0:41:05 And so the guy behind the campaign,
0:41:07 basically what he did was he used influencers.
0:41:09 So influencers, one of the hijacks.
0:41:11 So he got all of the like,
0:41:13 whoever like the Kardashians of their time were.
0:41:16 So he got like 30 of them all together, all at once.
0:41:19 And it was at a time where the big problem
0:41:22 in culture or society was like,
0:41:24 I forgot if it was like women being able to vote
0:41:25 or was like some other thing where it was like,
0:41:28 women were repressed in some way.
0:41:30 And so he got them all to go to this,
0:41:33 the parade or the fair, the New Year’s fair,
0:41:34 the Macy’s fair, whatever it was,
0:41:37 like the parade that happens in New York.
0:41:38 And they all stood on this float
0:41:39 and he gave them all cigarettes.
0:41:41 He said, all right, when you turn this corner,
0:41:43 you’re going to light that cigarette.
0:41:44 Right when the journalists are all there,
0:41:46 they all have their cameras pointed at you.
0:41:47 You’re going to light the cigarette
0:41:49 and you’re going to defiantly smoke the cigarette
0:41:50 in front of them.
0:41:51 And you’re going to do this thing that women
0:41:52 aren’t supposed to do as an actor.
0:41:53 You know what he called them?
0:41:58 He called it, he called the Sigs torches of freedom.
0:42:00 Exactly, exactly.
0:42:02 And that’s what the newspapers,
0:42:04 so he then put somebody in the crowd
0:42:05 where the journalists were.
0:42:08 And he said that out loud to the journalists
0:42:10 who then went and wrote that in their story.
0:42:13 Like they lit up these torches of freedom.
0:42:15 You see those ladies up there, guy?
0:42:18 Those are torches of freedom.
0:42:19 That’s what those are.
0:42:21 That’s what Jewel needs to do.
0:42:24 And he’s be like, these are vapes of freedom
0:42:26 that these kids are using.
0:42:27 Oh, look at that guy.
0:42:29 That’s a sex machine that he’s using.
0:42:31 He’s going to have sex with so many people
0:42:33 because he’s using that thing.
0:42:36 Even that same, so then I think it was like Lucky Strike
0:42:38 or whoever, their brand color was green
0:42:40 and green was like not in vogue at the time.
0:42:42 And he’s like, yeah, the women don’t want to buy it
0:42:44 because these cigarettes, the box is not fashionable.
0:42:45 It’s like, do we need to rebrand?
0:42:47 He’s like, hold my beer.
0:42:48 Don’t rebrand.
0:42:50 And so instead he got those same women
0:42:52 to go to the whatever the big like fashion,
0:42:55 you know, like the Met Gala type of thing.
0:42:57 And all of them wore green.
0:42:59 They all wore that same green color dress.
0:43:01 And so then green became cool for women.
0:43:05 Like, basically it became in trend right after that.
0:43:08 And then the sales of that brand went up basically
0:43:11 because he made the color cool.
0:43:13 And it’s kind of just cool to see somebody
0:43:15 who can puppeteer society in this way.
0:43:18 I’m summarizing it like a nine month old episode.
0:43:21 So I might have some of the details wrong here.
0:43:24 – This Reddit poster said, side note,
0:43:26 a lot of these stories are documented
0:43:29 in this amazing book called Propaganda.
0:43:30 – Yeah.
0:43:32 That’s the Bernays book, right?
0:43:34 It’s a hard read, dude.
0:43:35 – I wanted to read it,
0:43:37 but it seems like intimidating.
0:43:38 What’s so hard about it?
0:43:40 – You know, these old books that are just like so dense.
0:43:41 It’s not an easy read.
0:43:42 I don’t know.
0:43:43 My brain is very simple.
0:43:44 Like a lot of people will recommend books to me.
0:43:45 They’re like, oh, this is a great book.
0:43:48 Have you read, you know,
0:43:50 Rene Girard, like memetic theory.
0:43:52 It’s like, oh, I’m interested to go buy the book.
0:43:54 And I’m like, I’m just too dumb to read this.
0:43:54 Like I’m too dumb.
0:43:55 – Did I even read the-
0:43:56 – Do not have the attention span
0:43:57 to read something like this.
0:43:59 – I read like the memetic theory,
0:44:00 like summary book.
0:44:01 Like, what was that one that came out recently?
0:44:03 And I think it was still hard.
0:44:05 – I still read like a third of that one.
0:44:06 – I read that.
0:44:08 That was like the Malcolm Gladwell version
0:44:09 of like Rene Girard.
0:44:11 And I like read it and I’m like,
0:44:13 so I want what other people want.
0:44:13 Is that it?
0:44:14 – Right.
0:44:17 – Like that’s the, it was,
0:44:18 I read the whole thing and I was like,
0:44:20 I don’t understand why this is so many words.
0:44:21 What am I missing?
0:44:24 And so I’ve heard about this book prop.
0:44:28 I’ve heard all about this book propaganda.
0:44:30 – I would be fun to read or at least try to read.
0:44:32 – There’s something about books that are like
0:44:33 more than 50 years old
0:44:37 where their brains were just able to like,
0:44:38 you know, they spoke differently.
0:44:40 They talk, they talk differently.
0:44:42 They write differently.
0:44:43 And for whatever reason,
0:44:46 my brain can’t really process it very well.
0:44:48 So I kind of need somebody to like translate
0:44:50 into modern speak or into like simple to speak for me.
0:44:54 – Yeah. I think maybe I’ll try and do that.
0:44:55 This guy, this seems like a cool book.
0:44:57 Oh, the guy who wrote it was born in 1891
0:44:59 and he died in 1995.
0:45:00 Wow, I saw a lot.
0:45:04 All right, a quick break.
0:45:06 I know that if you’re listening to my first million,
0:45:08 that means you love numbers.
0:45:10 Well, I’ve got a new podcast called Money Wise
0:45:12 and the premise is simple.
0:45:13 We talked to high net worth people.
0:45:17 So people who have somewhere between 50 to $500 million
0:45:19 and we start with simple premise,
0:45:22 which is tell me exactly how much money you have,
0:45:24 how much money you make every month,
0:45:26 what your portfolio looks like,
0:45:28 how much money you spend every month,
0:45:30 and every other bit of information
0:45:32 that involves your net worth and your spending.
0:45:34 And the reason we do this
0:45:37 is because I wanna demystify money.
0:45:38 So we just had this woman named Anne
0:45:42 who has a $94 million portfolio after selling her business
0:45:44 and she spends $360,000 a month
0:45:46 and she talks about where the money is
0:45:47 and what she spends it on
0:45:48 and why she spends that much
0:45:49 and if it makes her happy or not.
0:45:51 And then we dive deep on different topics
0:45:55 like children buying versus renting, giving money away.
0:45:56 We basically are having a conversation
0:45:57 that I see a lot of rich people
0:46:00 having behind closed doors, we do it publicly.
0:46:02 So check it out, it’s called Money Wise
0:46:05 and you can find it wherever you get your podcast.
0:46:07 All right, let me tell you about something that I did.
0:46:09 So on, did you see, you probably didn’t see this,
0:46:13 but on Friday I tweeted that I’m going to Yale’s campus.
0:46:15 I tweeted that I’m gonna go check out Yale
0:46:18 because it’s like an old historical place
0:46:20 and I wanted to like do something interesting
0:46:22 for the weekend, something easy on Saturday.
0:46:25 I tweeted it out, I got like a lot of replies
0:46:27 and it was like kind of overwhelming on what to do.
0:46:29 So on Saturday morning, we just drive up there
0:46:33 and I just go to the busiest, just like part of the town
0:46:34 where I think like, I’ll just figure it out
0:46:35 when I get there.
0:46:38 I show up, I see a student tour,
0:46:40 like if you’re a prospective student,
0:46:42 you know, like when you go at your mom and dad
0:46:44 and I just like tag team.
0:46:46 Yeah, I just like get on, I just like, I just like pop it
0:46:48 and like it’s pretty funny because it’s Sarah and I
0:46:50 who I don’t think either of us look young enough
0:46:52 to be a students and then I’ve got my baby
0:46:54 like strapped to my chest.
0:46:55 Well, I gave it away.
0:46:58 Yeah, so we’re just like, we’re like,
0:47:01 we like just like at the back of this like student
0:47:03 led tour, listening in and then out of nowhere,
0:47:05 this kid, I guess he’s not that much of a kid
0:47:07 but he’s like 20 years old.
0:47:09 He goes, “Hey, Sam.”
0:47:10 And I go, “What’s up, man?”
0:47:12 He goes, “Hey, I’m a big fan of the pod.
0:47:12 I listen to religiously.
0:47:14 I saw that you were gonna be here.
0:47:16 So can I show you around?”
0:47:17 And I was like, “Yeah, I would love that.
0:47:19 What are you doing here?
0:47:19 What are you doing today?”
0:47:21 He’s like, “Well, I saw that you were coming
0:47:22 and I just went to the most busy place there was
0:47:24 and I just hoped that I was gonna see you.”
0:47:26 (laughs)
0:47:27 And here you are.
0:47:29 And so this kid gave me this.
0:47:32 And now I didn’t think through what happens after that.
0:47:33 (laughs)
0:47:34 But it was great.
0:47:35 And like, by the way,
0:47:36 that’s like the third time that’s happened.
0:47:39 And I love when that happens because I like,
0:47:40 he’s doing me a favor of like,
0:47:43 I would love like a local to like show me around.
0:47:45 And so he shows me all this amazing stuff.
0:47:47 So I’ve heard of skull and bones.
0:47:51 The secret society of Yale where presidents are in
0:47:52 or all that.
0:47:52 Is it legit?
0:47:54 What was it?
0:47:55 – It’s quote, a secret society,
0:47:57 but I don’t know like how much of a secret it is
0:47:59 when there’s like a building and like it’s like a,
0:48:01 like it’s like a nonprofit with like an endowment.
0:48:03 So like, I don’t know like what,
0:48:04 I don’t know what the secret is.
0:48:05 I don’t know like what, what secret,
0:48:08 but it was just cool to like see this building
0:48:08 that I’ve read about.
0:48:11 And then we went and saw this old graveyard.
0:48:14 It’s the oldest graveyard in America.
0:48:16 And I was looking through it
0:48:18 and I’m going to explain to you why I’m obsessed
0:48:20 with old stuff, particularly the Ivy League.
0:48:21 The Ivy League.
0:48:23 So it’s kind of like a nerdy thing of mine
0:48:27 where I liked, I’ve been to Harvard, Princeton, Yale,
0:48:28 a bunch of others.
0:48:29 Cause I just love like touring these old schools.
0:48:31 They’re just cool.
0:48:32 We go through this old graveyard
0:48:34 and we saw Noah Webster’s grave.
0:48:35 You know who Noah Webster is?
0:48:36 Have you heard that name?
0:48:38 – Dictionary Webster, is that him?
0:48:38 – The dictionary.
0:48:40 Merriam Webster’s dictionary.
0:48:42 The guy who invented the dictionary.
0:48:43 And I just was like looking at this,
0:48:48 this old graveyard next to him was a Charles Goodyear,
0:48:49 the guy who created Vulcanized Rubber,
0:48:52 which created Goodyear tires.
0:48:53 And it was awesome.
0:48:54 It was so cool.
0:48:56 And I’m actually really envious of you that you went to Duke,
0:48:58 this like historical old institution,
0:49:02 because it was so cool to like be around history
0:49:04 where like someone came up with something
0:49:05 and they literally invented
0:49:07 or standardized the English language.
0:49:09 Like something that like shapes history.
0:49:10 And it’s still, you know,
0:49:12 they’ve still impacted the way that we’ve done things.
0:49:15 And so it was an awesome, awesome weekend
0:49:18 to like see all this old stuff because it inspired me.
0:49:20 You know how like when you get behind the computer,
0:49:21 like every single day and you’re like,
0:49:22 I’m gonna do something that just makes a little bit
0:49:23 of money sometimes.
0:49:25 You kind of get these ruts of like thinking small.
0:49:27 It was very inspirational to like see Yale
0:49:30 and see this old institution that has lasted for centuries
0:49:31 and how big and global was.
0:49:32 It was very, very cool.
0:49:33 And I want to give a shout out to that kid.
0:49:34 I don’t want to say his name
0:49:35 because he said he wanted to be low-key,
0:49:37 but I want to give him a shout out or show me around.
0:49:38 – That’s awesome.
0:49:41 Most white person hobby ever to go to a graveyard.
0:49:46 You’ll never see a non-white tourist
0:49:47 hanging out in a graveyard.
0:49:49 It’s not another thing we do.
0:49:50 – Dude, it was awesome.
0:49:51 – It was great.
0:49:54 – So you saw the Webster’s Dictionary a good year
0:49:56 and you’re like, all right, I’m gonna come back in podcast.
0:49:58 What was your, what are you gonna do?
0:49:59 What’s the move?
0:50:02 – You know, it kind of put me into a little bit of a crisis
0:50:03 where like I was asking that.
0:50:05 But like, you know, this podcast is definitely part of it.
0:50:06 You know, I don’t know about you,
0:50:09 but I sometimes think like this is like a podcast
0:50:10 is not like impactful compared to like,
0:50:12 we’re talking to guys who are inventing robots
0:50:15 that are doing X, Y, and Z or like who are going into the moon.
0:50:16 But a lot of these guys were authors
0:50:19 that I, who’s like, who’s Grave I saw
0:50:20 and I was still inspired by them.
0:50:22 And so I felt a little bit of inspiration of that,
0:50:24 but there was a little bit of a crisis of like, oh man,
0:50:26 like it’s important to do something like
0:50:28 that can impact people for centuries.
0:50:31 – Parstosaurus, I don’t know.
0:50:32 Just putting that out there.
0:50:33 See how that lands.
0:50:35 I feel like you’re good with coming up
0:50:37 with alternative phrases for things.
0:50:39 So instead of saying, you know.
0:50:40 – Well, not just because I don’t know the real phrase
0:50:41 and I can’t pronounce the word.
0:50:43 So when I mumble, it just sounds like,
0:50:45 did you get this feeling at Duke where it was cool
0:50:48 to be around like old, like historical things
0:50:50 that have lasted for a long time?
0:50:51 – I know exactly what you mean.
0:50:54 There is definitely a vibe and a feeling
0:50:55 when you’re at something that is not just bigger
0:50:58 than yourself, but sort of timeless.
0:51:01 The problem with Duke and other Southern schools
0:51:03 that have this is like, you’re like, oh wow, who made,
0:51:04 you know, what is this?
0:51:06 It’s like, this is the slave wall.
0:51:08 It’s like, oh, okay, never mind.
0:51:09 It’s like, what’s the name of this road?
0:51:11 It’s like, this is tobacco road.
0:51:12 We had tobacco plantations.
0:51:17 Like everything is, there’s like a sort of dark side
0:51:18 to a lot of history there.
0:51:19 So that wasn’t cool.
0:51:21 But the rest of it is, in fact, I used to love going
0:51:25 to the center of Duke’s campus is the chapel.
0:51:26 And I used to go there all the time,
0:51:28 even though I’m not religious,
0:51:30 but just the aura, the vibe.
0:51:32 Like the vibe of a church is kind of unmatched, to be honest.
0:51:33 – That’s great.
0:51:36 – And so yeah, I really love that.
0:51:39 – Here’s why I like Silicon Valley
0:51:41 and why like old stuff, it’s kind of similar,
0:51:43 which is I love thinking about things
0:51:45 that we take for granted.
0:51:48 So for example, like buildings that have been there
0:51:49 for a long time or that are really large,
0:51:53 or even just like your streets or institutions like Yale.
0:51:56 And I’m like, how did someone create something
0:51:57 that became such an institution
0:51:58 that we take it for granted?
0:51:59 And we don’t even like reflect
0:52:01 on like how this became a thing.
0:52:04 And Silicon Valley is cool because it’s ideally the outcome
0:52:06 is that you are creating something in real time
0:52:08 that will become an institution like an Airbnb,
0:52:10 like a Google where it becomes a verb.
0:52:11 – Right.
0:52:11 – Like, you know what I mean?
0:52:13 And you get to see that happening.
0:52:15 And I think it’s really cool to be in Silicon Valley
0:52:19 to see the beginning of hopeful institutions in the making.
0:52:21 And then also go and see the old stuff
0:52:22 of like, this is how it’s done.
0:52:23 – So we just had Gary Tan on,
0:52:26 don’t you think that YC should just have a campus
0:52:28 and it should have this sort of gothic,
0:52:31 you know, old school institutional vibe?
0:52:33 And even if they’re not gonna do it,
0:52:36 why wouldn’t I just go create a campus,
0:52:41 a small microcampus for YC people, free room and board.
0:52:45 So free place to live, free food, that’s healthy.
0:52:47 And all I do is just cherry pick investments
0:52:48 from people on campus.
0:52:50 I just get to invest in their companies.
0:52:52 It would be, I don’t even need YC to do this.
0:52:54 Why wouldn’t I do this?
0:52:56 – There’s a, or even just a museum.
0:52:58 Have you ever heard of the Museum of American Finance?
0:53:00 It’s this thing in New York City
0:53:04 where it’s like a museum for like the history of finance.
0:53:07 And frankly, it’s badass, it’s awesome.
0:53:08 And just like a place to like go
0:53:11 and like physically explore all that YC has done,
0:53:12 it is kind of interesting.
0:53:13 – It’s just like Bill Ackman’s loafers,
0:53:15 what’s inside this thing?
0:53:18 What is the Museum of what, of finance?
0:53:20 – Yeah, it’s a Museum of American Finance.
0:53:22 So if you look at a photo, it’s just like,
0:53:25 it shows like, here’s what like the stock tickers
0:53:27 used to look like and people would stand here
0:53:29 and like trade like in the 1800s.
0:53:31 And then like, then it switched to have like,
0:53:34 the phones were on the floor or you do this, whatever.
0:53:36 Like tells the history of it and then like important things
0:53:40 related to it, but it’s a museum in downtown Manhattan.
0:53:42 – That’s cool, I like that.
0:53:43 – Dude, this is a fun episode.
0:53:44 – Yeah, that was a banger.
0:53:45 – All right, that’s it.
0:53:46 That’s the pod.
0:53:48 ♪ I feel like I can rule the world ♪
0:53:51 ♪ I know I could be what I want to ♪
0:53:53 ♪ I put my all in it like the days of ♪
0:53:56 ♪ On a road less travel never looking back ♪
0:53:59 (upbeat music)
0:54:09 [BLANK_AUDIO]

Episode 645: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk about cash-printing businesses that are around us every day and how to spot them. 

Show Notes: 

(0:00) $1M dollar product: Water quality testing

(8:26) $10M dollar product: EZ Labor Law Posters

(15:22) $100M dollar product: Barcodes

(22:55) Idea: Casual Friday

(28:44) Marketing campaigns that altered culture

(36:00) Shaan reads his intro

(40:06) “Torches of freedom”

(44:42( Sam tours Yale campus

(50:59) Idea: YC campus

Links:

• Oasis – https://www.oasiswater.app/ 

• GS1 – https://www.gs1us.org/ 

• Propaganda – https://tinyurl.com/2fc959jr 

• Craig Clemens Episode – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N9rNShYI_g 

Check Out Shaan’s Stuff:

Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it’s called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd

Check Out Sam’s Stuff:

• Hampton – https://www.joinhampton.com/

• Ideation Bootcamp – https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/

• Copy That – https://copythat.com

• Hampton Wealth Survey – https://joinhampton.com/wealth

• Sam’s List – http://samslist.co/

My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

Leave a Comment