7 People Making $5M-$10M From Weird Hobbies

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0:00:45 back to the pod. I’m not saying like I’m above this. No one’s above this. This is cool.
0:00:50 These guys just sold $7 million in multi-tools in like a week.
0:00:55 I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.
0:01:06 So in order for a creator business to work, the creator needs to be loved. What makes a creator
0:01:12 lovable? Like what attributes do they have where you see it and you’re like that person has it and
0:01:19 people will buy because of them? Finding creators that have like real love from their communities is
0:01:24 the whole thing, right? Because those are the most durable audiences that will kind of go,
0:01:31 it makes them not cancelable. People feel like they are their buddies, their friends. So I think
0:01:36 like what makes them loved is you feel like you’re watching a version of yourself doing it. You know,
0:01:40 when you’re, if you’re a woodworker and you watch Jonathan Katz Moses, you’re like,
0:01:47 oh, this guy’s just like me and he’s teaching me, I’m learning. And it’s like a buddy who’s walking
0:01:51 me into my favorite hobby, my favorite niche.
0:01:52 So they have to be relatable.
0:01:59 I think so. Relatable is a good way to put it. I think, you know, often feels like your big sister
0:02:02 or your big brother too, where you’re like, okay, they’re teaching me, you know, like you like
0:02:07 motorcycles, right? Like they’re a pain in the ass to like maintain, to deal with, to find the right
0:02:11 routes, to find the right routes on road, to find the right routes off road. But I got three or four
0:02:17 guys that I can call and say, hey, I’m going to the Pacific Northwest. Where do I go? What do I need
0:02:22 to pack? Like, what am I missing? Like walk me through that trip you took. And they give me the
0:02:26 tools that I need to kind of get where I want to go. And I feel like those creators are the most
0:02:30 interesting that can build durable businesses. And now you’re a partner at Slow. Is that right?
0:02:34 Yeah, I’m a venture partner at Slow. I’ve been here for about a year. And before that,
0:02:38 that was at the churning group. Man, churning, I’ve hung out with those guys a bit. They, um,
0:02:42 yes, they’re, they’re, I saw your, I saw your podcast with Kevin, which was great.
0:02:46 Yeah. We’ve had Kevin on, uh, I’m friends with Doug DeMauro.
0:02:48 Doug, I found that. I found that. That was you?
0:02:49 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
0:02:56 Your guys’ insight back in like 14, 15 and 16, which it seems so obvious now, it was like,
0:03:00 we’re going to take creators and we’re going to make them into billion dollar companies. And like,
0:03:05 obviously we know Mr. Beast does that now, but what a lot of people don’t realize is that
0:03:11 Chernin was early on this for one. And number two, they’ve had so many successes that are niche
0:03:15 communities. So for example, there’s the, uh, what’s the meat guy?
0:03:17 Meat eater. That’s Steve Ornella.
0:03:22 Yeah. Meat eater. And then there was like probably eight or nine or 10 more. We had Kevin on from,
0:03:28 uh, uh, Epic Gardening. Uh, and so like, you’ve built these like really big businesses and that’s what
0:03:32 we’re going to talk about today, particularly the creator middle class, because there’s like,
0:03:36 yeah, yeah, there’s like these, the Mr. Beasts is of the world, but there’s so many people out there
0:03:45 that are making 10, 20, $50 million a year. And they have like 800 or 400,000 followers in a very
0:03:48 niche community, like meat smoking or something like that. Right.
0:03:53 One of my favorite creators is Doug DeMauro. Doug DeMauro does these car reviews. He turned it into
0:03:58 cars and bids, which I have no idea how big they are, but I think it’s a quite a large business.
0:04:04 I’ll tell you since, since Doug started, he sold about $450 million worth of vehicles. And then he
0:04:11 takes a take rate off that. Oh my God. So this guy, Doug does these like reviews where he will review
0:04:16 an SUV or like a $2 million Ferrari. Anything that’s an enthusiast car.
0:04:23 Yes. And what’s interesting about Doug is, I don’t know how he did it, but I have a feeling it was
0:04:27 just him, probably actually not even with an iPhone when he first started, literally like a camcorder,
0:04:28 like a traditional one. That’s right.
0:04:38 And he looks schleppy. Like he has like a dirty t-shirt that, that usually, often two t-shirts that fit
0:04:44 horribly together. So like his undershirt is popping out from his, and he’s usually wearing cargo shorts
0:04:49 without a belt. So it like, it’s like falling down and he wears high white socks and like, he’s just
0:04:55 kind of a, I don’t know how, I don’t know like what, what category is, but like someone’s like a car
0:05:00 nerd. He’s a car nerd. Yeah. But even amongst car nerds, many of them are more like, uh, they dress
0:05:06 affluent because they want to fit in. He does not care about that at all. And he gives these amazing
0:05:12 reviews. And so one, that’s the relatable thing, but then you have these on this, on the other end,
0:05:17 you have like the Emma Chamberlain where young women, I think aspire to be her because she is cool
0:05:22 and has character and all that stuff. Is there something in there about a creator of like
0:05:28 wanting to be aspirational versus quirky? I think it depends on the audience, right? Like
0:05:37 Doug’s audience loves him because he has the best information about every car. Like, like his videos
0:05:43 that are 10 minutes, eight minutes, 12 minutes long, top to front, everything you want to know about that
0:05:47 car, which is generally like a couple of things, like, what do I want to drive? What do I think is
0:05:53 cool? And sometimes it’s purchase decision, right? So Doug gives you everything you need to kind of
0:05:58 learn about that rig. And he’s like totally unassuming and fun. I’m not as familiar with Emma. I know
0:06:05 she’s like very loved. Um, but yeah, aspirational. Um, you want to be here when you grow up, you think
0:06:10 she’s cool. You love her access. You like her take on things. Um, I think for the enthusiast
0:06:17 categories, I think those pop the hardest, which is to say Doug is driving a two-sided marketplace
0:06:25 that has real scale, um, and can scale without having to put goo in the bottles or get distribution
0:06:31 from stores or launch a physical location. He is like building like a venture scale business.
0:06:36 And a lot of people who come to cars and bids now didn’t even know who Doug was. It’s built
0:06:41 the scale where they’re just like, Oh, this is like, this is a great place to transact. I don’t
0:06:43 even, I didn’t even get here through the top of funnel from Doug.
0:06:50 All right. So a lot of people will talk about how you need a million dollars and three years
0:06:54 of experience to start a business. Nonsense. If you listen to at least one episode on this podcast,
0:06:59 you know, that is completely not true. My last company, The Hustle, we grew it to something
0:07:06 like 17 or $18 million in revenue. I started it with like $300. My current company Hampton
0:07:11 does over 10 million in revenue, started it with actually no money, maybe $29 or something
0:07:15 like that, nothing. And so you don’t actually need investors to start a company. You don’t
0:07:21 need a fancy business plan, but what you do need is systems that actually work. And so my
0:07:25 old company, The Hustle, they put together five proven business models that you could start
0:07:30 right now today with under $1,000. These are models that if you do it correctly, it can
0:07:35 make money this week. You can get it right now. You can scan the QR code or click the link in
0:07:42 description. Now back to the show. So can I ask you about some of these, uh, middle-class creators?
0:07:46 Cause this is pretty interesting. You mentioned one of them and I looked them up. This guy’s insane.
0:07:53 Who’s Jonathan Katz Moses? Jonathan Katz Moses. So Jonathan Katz Moses is a woodworker. He started a
0:07:59 website called KM tools. It’s tips and tricks on the right tool for the right job, essentially. And then
0:08:05 he was like, Oh, well, here’s this tool you can use to work with this buzzsaw. And here’s this tool you can
0:08:11 use to work with that. And then sold out, sold out, sold out, and then kept developing his own tools.
0:08:15 Let me tell you what I see when I go to his YouTube page, because it’s pretty incredible. So he just looks
0:08:21 like a, uh, just guy. He’s just doing woodworking stuff. But what’s crazy is the guy he only has, I mean,
0:08:28 and this is like big, but this is like, you know, pretty girl next door, like attainable. He only has 600,000
0:08:35 subscribers, which I think almost anyone dedicates four years to virtually any niche and they spend 20 hours a
0:08:41 week on it. I think they can get to 600,000 subscribers. So he only has 600,000 subscribers and each of, and he
0:08:48 only is outputting like one video a month, like not even a lot of, not even a lot of videos and they, and they look
0:08:53 great. They look like really highly produced videos. They’re not like, uh, they’re, they’re, they’re,
0:08:58 they’re polished, but his, his quantity is not through the roof and the views aren’t even through
0:09:03 the roof. No. Well, the cool thing about it is it’s, it’s, first of all, it’s evergreen content. So like
0:09:11 what he did, like how often he publish is important to kind of continue to, to provide content for the
0:09:17 community and build his audience and get to scale. And I think like taking investment, he will be able to do
0:09:22 more of that. He raised money. Yeah. It’s slow. We invested 2 million into, to Jonathan’s business.
0:09:29 And how big is it now? The investment is very recent. Um, he’s doing around 6 million in revenue now
0:09:36 from like strictly from his tool site. And he’s grown substantially year over year.
0:09:42 And when you and made the investment, what was your upside? Like, what did you,
0:09:45 what do you expect in five years? How big of a business will this be?
0:09:49 Yeah. I mean, we play a little longer than five years cause we’re early stage.
0:09:54 So, you know, I think whatever, I don’t know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we, we’d love to see Jonathan
0:10:00 get to a hundred, $200 million in revenue in the next 10 years. That’s crazy. Yeah. Is he going to
0:10:03 enjoy his life while he’s doing that? Cause it looks like you had a pretty good life before taking your
0:10:09 money. He, he loves, he wants to build a massive business. I mean, we’re not reaching out to
0:10:13 creators and saying, Hey, you look like you have a really nice lifestyle business making 10 million
0:10:18 bucks a year. Do you want to go to a hundred? Like we’re, we’re, he reached out to us, you know,
0:10:24 he’s like, I want to build a business of scale. You know, he, he needs more inventory. He needs more
0:10:29 product designers. He sells out all the time. So he, he wants to get to scale. Like he loves,
0:10:33 he loves what he’s doing. This is a great one. And what’s when you, when you’re,
0:10:38 when you’re doing research, like if you’re this guy, Jonathan or someone listening and you have
0:10:46 like a, like woodworking is a niche, huge niche, but nonetheless, is there like, um, math between
0:10:50 how you decide how big it can get? Or do you just look at like comparables? Are you like, well,
0:10:54 there’s this one woodworking e-com store that already does this much revenue. I think it can be that
0:10:59 big. That’s a good question. I mean, I think it’s a little bit of both where we say
0:11:05 team and theme, right? So it’s like, can we invest in, is Jonathan backable? Does he have
0:11:10 the hunger? Is he a founder or is he just a content creator? And then does he have the hunger to build
0:11:15 something big? So it’s early stage. We’re betting on Jonathan, right? Now we can’t bet on Jonathan if
0:11:19 he wants to, it’s funny. He made, he said a funny quote. He goes, I, you know, they have no control.
0:11:24 I could build ballet shoes if I wanted. Now we have to look at the category that he’s in and make sure we
0:11:29 feel like it can be, it can get to scale. So yeah, we do a little, once we get deeper down
0:11:33 and figure out that this guy’s great, he’s going to figure something out. He’s going to take a lot
0:11:37 of different shots on goal until he does, which we’ve seen with lots of great creators who they’re
0:11:40 like, okay, I tried this business and I tried that business and it didn’t work. And they’re going to
0:11:45 keep going. Jonathan feels like the kind of guy who’s going to keep going no matter what. And then,
0:11:48 yeah, we’ve looked, we looked at woodworking, like, are there other businesses in his,
0:11:55 in his genre that are making tools that are at 50, 100, $200 million in revenue? And we look at that
0:11:58 and we compare them and we say, Hey, listen, this is a, this is good signal.
0:12:03 Can I actually walk through that? Because I am curious because like if I have a passion or if I’m
0:12:07 a listener and I have a passion for something and I’m like, does this have legs or maybe it doesn’t
0:12:11 quite have legs, but if I just change it a little bit, like the trajectory might be a lot different,
0:12:16 but still within the passion of what I want to make content wise. So like, all right. So if you’re
0:12:23 doing woodworking, where would I start to research to give me faith that this can be a $50 million a year
0:12:28 company? Right. Okay. So that, that’s a really good question. So the, the really interesting thing
0:12:34 about backing creators that are in passion categories is they have real expertise in the
0:12:39 area that they’re in, which is to say, because Jonathan’s creating content in woodworking,
0:12:46 he knows all the other woodworkers. He knows all the tool companies. He knows everybody in that area.
0:12:53 And we kind of trust them to understand their own white space. So these creators that we’re backing
0:13:00 and the creators that like, I think have the best opportunity are the ones that are deep, so deep
0:13:05 in a niche that they’ve been working in for five, 10 years. They’re like, oh, they identify
0:13:11 the white space. It’s not for us. Like we’re, we’re here to say, Hey, you’re, we’re, we want to match
0:13:16 capital with creators and who are founders who want to build something scaled. And we rely on them,
0:13:21 you know, Doug DeMuro, right back to Doug, like Doug’s been in the car game, both on the editorial
0:13:29 side and creating content, meeting all the manufacturers. He knows when he, you know,
0:13:33 there’s four or five other auction platforms that are available to people who are buying cars.
0:13:37 Doug’s like, this is the one we need to build. And this is why.
0:13:42 But when you’re, when you’re trying to justify that, surely you’re, you’re thinking like, okay,
0:13:48 I feel like with some degree of certainty, the best case scenario is it’s going to be a billion
0:13:52 dollar company in 10 years, something like that. And so what I’m curious about though, is let’s say
0:13:58 that like, let’s say that I’m interested in architecture, but also like art history. Let’s
0:14:03 say that I’m like, uh, you know, a 28 year old person. I hate my job. I’m sort of interested in
0:14:09 art history and architecture, but I want to build something sustainable and like potentially one,
0:14:14 like the route that I pick when, with my content, I would imagine there’s some type of equation where
0:14:21 it’s like, I guess it would be the size of the audience multiplied by the gross profit per item
0:14:27 sold multiplied by the quantity that they will buy. Do you guys have anything like that?
0:14:34 I think it’s a little bit more creative than math, uh, which is to say, we can’t be experts
0:14:40 in every, every niche category and say, Hey, this is how, this is how this is going to pan out. I mean,
0:14:44 you have a sense of like, Hey, these are, these are, I mean, like, look, Kevin, Kevin’s in the seed
0:14:50 business. Like seeds don’t seem like they’re very, you know, like they’re very inexpensive, but at scale,
0:14:54 like it’s a massive business. I think we look for categories where they’re, they’re high spend,
0:15:00 um, where people are passionate about them and that the founder really understands the category
0:15:07 and is telling us where they think the white space is more than us saying, Oh, here’s a math. Here’s
0:15:13 math to solve that problem. Yeah. That’s funny. I mean, I, my, my last company was the hustle and like
0:15:18 Jesse or churning came to me and they’re like, Oh, maybe you can be one of these. Like, I don’t even
0:15:23 think they had like a word for it, but they were recruiting me to become, uh, it was very, uh,
0:15:27 light recruitment, but it was like a, let’s see if there’s a fit. Maybe we could invest in you and
0:15:31 you’d be one of these creator led businesses. And I was like, yeah, I didn’t even have faith that it
0:15:34 can become that. Like, I didn’t know. You know what I mean? I definitely didn’t believe it.
0:15:35 What?
0:15:41 Yeah. Churning was really interesting because, you know, we, at churning, it was, it was different at
0:15:46 kind of a growth stage because you at post investment, you can spend some more, so much more time with the
0:15:50 businesses that you can early stage, you know, there’s a willingness to roll up your sleeves and
0:15:55 like help, help build it out. Like there’s a lot of work we put into those companies post-investment
0:15:59 at churn in that earlier stage. We kind of are betting on the founder to figure it out.
0:16:05 I think every man who’s above like 35 years old has a dream to do what this next creator is doing,
0:16:11 which is owning a ranch and selling meat. What is, what is five Marys?
0:16:17 Well, five Marys is rad. So it’s, it was started by a woman named Mary Hefferdon and her, her husband,
0:16:22 Brian as well. But Mary’s like, Mary’s the big driver of it. And Brian would agree with that as
0:16:31 well. She started as a restaurateur in the Bay and couldn’t find like ethically sourced meats in the
0:16:36 way that she really wanted at scale that she wanted for her, for her restaurants. So she started looking
0:16:40 at ranches and she ended up buying a ranch. She’s like super entrepreneurial, get up and go
0:16:46 badass. She found this ranch kind of in the Mount Shasta area, this area called Fort Jones, which is
0:16:51 near the like California, Oregon border. And she bought a ranch and started raising her own cattle
0:16:59 there. She now has 600 acres, 600 kett of cattle. She’s got a butchery. She does shipping. She has a,
0:17:05 you know, like a FDA approved slaughterhouse. And she’s built a very large scale business
0:17:10 from 400, 400, 400,000 followers on her Instagram channel.
0:17:14 And what was her original content? Like what, what got the first 10,000 followers?
0:17:20 It was all her moving to this ranch and building out this ranch life. So she tells stories about
0:17:26 herself, her family. She’s got four daughters that are all rad, that are all cowgirls. Obviously they
0:17:29 didn’t start that way when they were, when they were little, but they’re now kind of like 16,
0:17:36 14, 14, 15, 13, like in that area. They’re all ropers. They like compete. So they’re always going
0:17:41 around, but it’s like ranch life, caring about the food, caring about the people who you work with,
0:17:47 building out business. Also just a very strong female entrepreneur vibe. She like taught courses
0:17:54 to other women who were building businesses. Actually the ballerina farms woman took her course
0:17:57 and then launched ballerina farms, which is a massive scale now.
0:17:58 That’s another, is similar.
0:18:04 Yeah. Ballerina farms has a lot, has a little bit more controversy around it, but the woman’s name,
0:18:12 who I forget right now lives in Utah, her husband and her bought a ranch and it’s like very well
0:18:18 shot. It’s very beautiful. And, uh, it’s a little bit more composed than Mary’s content. Mary’s content
0:18:22 is a little bit more like, if you look at Mary’s content right now, you’re like literally watching her
0:18:27 build a house, her and her husband and her kids are going out and like grabbing rocks and putting
0:18:31 from the land and putting them on the hearth and she’s building them out. She’s feeding cows.
0:18:33 So was she successful before she bought the ranch?
0:18:36 No, she had like three or four restaurants in San Francisco.
0:18:37 Got it.
0:18:41 Yeah. She was like, she’s been, she’s a, I mean, as you know, with restaurants, they’re not like,
0:18:45 they can be doing great, but they’re not, they’re not like you can’t, it’s hard to retire off them
0:18:50 until you get to real scale. So she was a proprietor. I think of her as a proprietor. That’s the
0:18:54 category I would put her in. She had restaurants. She was serving great food. She had a good life,
0:18:59 but it wasn’t what she wanted. So she went out to the farm instead of, uh, she, she saw an
0:19:06 opportunity to like build a ranch that had ethically sourced meats and raise cattle and tell the story
0:19:09 while she was doing it. It’s like so deeply authentic.
0:19:15 It’s, it’s basically like, um, I think I saw, um, uh, I forget the director’s name, guy, something,
0:19:20 um, Guy Ritchie, guy, Ritchie. And he was telling this story that always stuck with me. I think I
0:19:24 heard it when I was a little bit younger and, um, it always stuck with me, but it was basically like
0:19:29 when I try to live my life, he’s like, I am a director and I want my life to be a movie. And
0:19:35 I’m the director of my own movie. I’m the director of my own life. And I hear like what she’s doing,
0:19:40 or I see what Mary’s doing. And to me, it’s like social media makes it so much easier and attainable
0:19:46 to say, I’m going to do something Epic and I’m going to bring people along the way. And that is
0:19:51 why it’s going to be so Epic because they’re going to support me. And this is so awesome. So how big of
0:19:55 a company does she have? And she’s, and it’s just selling beef. She, well, she does a lot of things.
0:20:01 So she sells subscription boxes of beef. She also sells these, she does, she’s done these courses.
0:20:08 Like I mentioned, she sells, uh, whiskey and cookbooks. Um, she actually doubled down recently
0:20:14 on a tallow product line. So she, you know, because she processes her own meat and has,
0:20:18 she has like tons of tallow and has been making it, you know, sparingly.
0:20:22 This lady’s awesome. They do camps. They do a cowboy camp where you could like go and
0:20:26 Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s a small part of her business, but it’s definitely like she brings,
0:20:30 she brings people on. It’s, it’s a heavy lift. She does it like it’s seasonally, but she brings
0:20:35 people in and kind of teaches them with the idea that people can learn what it’s like to live a ranch
0:20:38 life and come out there kind of in a dude ranchy kind of way, but she’ll make you roll up your
0:20:42 sleeves and do stuff for sure. How, how big is this business? It’s five Mary’s ranch.
0:20:47 I mean, so as far as like all of these businesses that I’m talking about, like as an investor,
0:20:52 I talked to all these folks and I can’t like some of them, if it’s publicly disclosed, I w I’d be happy
0:20:57 to share that. But the way I would frame this business is that it is like, it has the ability
0:20:58 to, to achieve venture scale.
0:21:02 And I would say the threshold of venture scale is probably a hundred million in revenue, right?
0:21:03 It can do it.
0:21:06 Yeah. Uh, yeah, this is awesome.
0:21:11 Also the, the coolest thing about Mary is like, you know, the meat, the meat business is great.
0:21:15 And I think she will always do it. And it is, but this towel line that she launched
0:21:21 is something that can scale even more. Like, I don’t know how much you’ve seen about what’s
0:21:27 gone on with beef tallow, uh, and people using it for their skin and care. It’s very popular. And
0:21:32 she does it right there on her farm. She makes, she makes it, she, they built a place to process it and
0:21:37 they do it right there on the farm. And that’s another line of business. And that brings me to
0:21:42 another topic with all these guys is they have opportunity to take lots of shots on goal. It’s
0:21:48 like, okay, I built out this meat business. How much scale can it get to? Can I exit it? Do I want
0:21:51 to exit it and you get to a certain place there? And then you say, okay, well, what else can I offer
0:21:57 my audience that is totally organic to who I am? They will totally buy because they, it’s something
0:22:02 that they want. And maybe that thing becomes the thing that is venture scale, or maybe she tries
0:22:06 something else that becomes venture scale. But the beautiful thing about all these creators in this
0:22:10 kind of creator middle-class that we’re talking about is like, it’s not just one business that
0:22:13 they can start. But two things, I’m going to push back on two things that I want you to prove
0:22:21 me wrong. Number one, focus. Like nine out of 10 times, one of the reasons, nine out of 10 times,
0:22:26 a lack of focus is what kills a company. Like it’s more often than not, it’s better to do one thing
0:22:30 incredibly well than to do a bunch of things because it’s just hard to pull off a bunch of things.
0:22:31 Great.
0:22:37 The second thing is operations is very challenging, particularly for a ranch. I mean,
0:22:43 just like a software company is pretty easy. You’re just behind a screen and there’s no CapEx for a ranch.
0:22:48 That’s really hard. Who is operating her business and how on earth do you find all these wonderful
0:22:54 operators and also balance creating content? Because I do this podcast two times a week and then I also
0:22:58 have a company and it’s quite challenging and that’s probably a lot easier than running a ranch.
0:23:04 Great. Running a ranch is very hard and she will tell you and you can watch and you can see. So I
0:23:11 agree with that. So when I think of focus, I think of my answer to your focus is prioritization, which is to say
0:23:20 she’s gotten the ranch to a place and now she decides if she wants to double down on another line of business
0:23:27 and then she needs to make sure that she has operators in place that can, that she has enough time to try and
0:23:33 build out that next line of business and or bring in another person or two to operate and help launch that
0:23:38 next line of business. So she’s got a ranch, then she’s got to make sure she has enough time, energy,
0:23:42 either with the people who are supporting her ranch or somebody to help her with the tallow line.
0:23:47 So it’s about prioritization and then building it out. I agree with you. But you look at somebody
0:23:52 like, can I, like, if you look at somebody like Jocko Willink, are you familiar with Jocko?
0:23:59 Uh, I, what I know about him is he was, um, a former seal, uh, bad-ass looks like a seal,
0:24:03 looks like a GI Joe and has a podcast, but I don’t know much about his products.
0:24:10 Yeah. So, so that’s another example of like how you get to scale where you’re trying shots on goal
0:24:15 and, uh, thinking about prioritization. So Jocko, like you said, he’s got a massive podcast.
0:24:21 You’re agree. He looks like a GI Joe and you’re right that he, that he is a, an ex seal. And he’s
0:24:25 also very like taking pictures of his watch at 4am when he’s starting his workout. And he’s a big
0:24:29 jujitsu guy. He’s also a very intentional father and talks about how to raise your kid, you know,
0:24:34 kind of, uh, you know, not glued to screens and, and, and, you know, within, with intentionality,
0:24:40 things like that. So Jocko like speaks to a lot of people and he has a great, uh, course,
0:24:47 called echelon, which he teaches to fortune 500 CEOs and people, and the, the, the general public
0:24:51 can, can kind of apply and be part of those as well. And he did pretty well with that business.
0:24:53 And he continues to do well with that business.
0:24:58 Echelon is like, uh, so he dropped, I’m looking at the website, it’s corporate. So I imagine like,
0:25:02 if I had to guess, it’s six figures and he comes and talks and then like three of his
0:25:06 team will drop in and help you with some leadership issues and within your business.
0:25:11 That’s right. That’s right. I think it’s a more scale than that, but yes, he, I mean,
0:25:16 he does, he, he does big conferences with like multiple like fortune 500 CEOs and he’s very well
0:25:21 respected in that, in that world. Um, in the leadership, in the leadership, he talks a lot
0:25:26 in his podcast and in books about how to be a great leader and how to like, you know, manage up and
0:25:31 manage down. And he’s, he’s pretty prolific in that, in that sense. And then he launched a
0:25:38 tactical apparel brand starting with boots and moving into clothes, which are like, um, you know,
0:25:44 your American made kind of workout slash military guy clothes, which I would have to imagine that
0:25:49 would be one of the harder businesses actually to run. That’s a very hard business because returns
0:25:55 and yeah, returns and sizes and that would be hard. Yeah. Supply chain. And yeah, it’s, it’s hard.
0:26:00 Right. And so he took those shots on goal, right? He saw a place where he thought he could move his
0:26:07 audience. Really interesting. Then he launched Jocko fuel. What’s that protein? Like it’s like a, um,
0:26:13 pre-workout, post-workout, during-workout, energy drink kind of grouping of drinks. Dude, that probably
0:26:17 crushes it. Crushes. He probably makes a hundred million dollars a year in revenue off of that.
0:26:22 Crushes, you know, and then, and then Chris Pratt joined in because, you know, Chris Pratt is very
0:26:27 military friendly and likes Jocko and like all that kind of stuff. And that thing is like, you know,
0:26:31 it’s in Walmart, it’s in GNCs. It’s like, you know, and Walmart really likes to support those
0:26:36 like military founders. And like, you know, it’s a, it’s a product that people like and people really
0:26:39 trust them because he has, you know, like a, like, like they would a Huberman because that, you know,
0:26:44 he’s, he’s, he’s such a specimen and he talks about working out and training and people really do
0:26:50 that. So these are all places that he totally has permission to be in. And so you can say, okay,
0:26:54 well, the focus is why one of them is not working better. Or you like, try something,
0:26:55 you launch it. It does fine.
0:26:59 But what do you do with the fine thing? Like as someone running his clothing company?
0:27:02 Yeah. I mean, that’s, I think that’s what you do with the fine thing is you say, okay,
0:27:06 this thing is like doing fine. Let’s get, let’s make sure somebody’s running it. And I’m sure
0:27:11 somebody’s running it. He, he, he’s a prolific content creator. So I’m sure he has partners and
0:27:15 operators that are running these things, you know, um, being a leadership guy and being in the
0:27:19 military. I’m sure his network is vast when it comes to like getting great operators and knowing
0:27:22 how to work with them and communicate with them. I mean, he’s a proper entrepreneur.
0:27:27 You know, what’s funny is I, um, I guess I am a creator, which I don’t have anything wrong with
0:27:31 that, with that title, but I didn’t seek out to become that. I previously started a business
0:27:38 and I was mildly okay at running a company. I’m pretty good at hiring, but I was mildly okay at doing
0:27:44 the work myself and I would say I’m mildly okay at being a creator, but finding operators is still
0:27:50 hard for me. And like working with them as a partner is quite challenging. How do you find a
0:27:55 partner? If like, let’s say that you’re listening to this and let’s say that you have 20 or 30,000
0:28:02 followers and you’re like, something is here, but I don’t know when to get help. And how do you decide
0:28:11 when and how? Yeah. I mean, I think entrepreneurs have to be able to, that, that, that is kind of
0:28:15 one of the telltale signs if they are, if they’re a founder that they know how to hire and that they
0:28:21 can attract people to hire, which is to say, if you’re a creator who like does general comedy
0:28:27 and, or just general entertainment and you decide, okay, I want to start coffee or I want to start
0:28:33 goo in a bottle. I think attracting a operator is going to be very hard because they’re going to say,
0:28:38 okay, well, is this person really going to put the time into it? Are they really behind it? Is
0:28:41 their audience really going to believe it? Like, is their audience really going to move when they say
0:28:49 move? And you have to have a real value proposition for an operator to want to come on board and work
0:28:55 with you. So I think if you have sound principles and what you want to build and why you can find a good
0:29:00 operator, like part of that is the test of at least what we invest in. We invest in a creator
0:29:05 that is a founder that can attract talent to run their businesses. So where do you go to find them?
0:29:10 I mean, first you got to decide what your special sauce is and where you need support. And I’ve heard
0:29:14 you talk about many times, like where are places that you need support and you need to be very clear
0:29:20 about that. And you need to, you need to like make sure that you’re attracting talent. That’s going
0:29:27 to like cover the 180 degrees. Also, you don’t have to, you can kind of date before you marry,
0:29:32 which is to say, work on some projects with them, you know, work on like, say, Hey, I want to build
0:29:37 this out. I want to try this out. Um, or make sure you’re, you’re putting enough capital into it. So
0:29:42 you have money to pay an operator and that you have a plan for it. So I think it’s really important
0:29:46 to, we, we look for, we look for folks that you need that that can attract that kind of talent.
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0:30:31 Can I ask you about like maybe one, or you tell me one or two more of these interesting folks,
0:30:35 cause I love hearing about this, but then also after that, I’m going to ask you about if you’re
0:30:39 starting from scratch, like which niches or categories do you like?
0:30:43 Well, I love, okay. So there’s, there’s, there’s a couple of creators that are really interesting in
0:30:49 the auto care space. There’s this great guy named Larry. He has a company called Ammo NYC
0:30:55 and Larry does, and Larry does detailing of like celebrity cars.
0:31:03 Wow. Larry has 2.3 million subscribers on YouTube and all he’s doing is cleaning cars and making videos
0:31:03 about it.
0:31:05 He details cars.
0:31:09 Sorry. Yeah. That was, that was the caveman version of that. I’m looking at his videos.
0:31:13 And first of all, there’s like a $4 million acid martin that he cleans, but then there’s also going
0:31:19 to be like a car that’s been in a barn for 40 years and that’s going to take like a week.
0:31:27 Right. Yeah. Yeah. So he, yeah. So Larry has a robust business cleaning celebrity cars that either
0:31:33 are going to auction or they just have a bad-ass collection and they’re going to be taking it to,
0:31:39 you know, a car show or they’re going to be, you know, going on, going on a, a, a trip that’s with all
0:31:45 the like hot, hot, hot shit car owners. And he really gets in there and like really understands
0:31:55 the cars and has built products with his own mixtures and built his own brushes and towels and
0:32:06 everything all D to C. And he uses the top of funnel, which is the car content of detailing these cars,
0:32:12 which is like kind of car porn for people. And any car enthusiast who has like a proper
0:32:18 collection knows Larry and uses his products. Dude, I would watch these videos like on silent.
0:32:22 Like this would be like, just played the background of my living room on Apple TV for like, you know,
0:32:26 eight hours while I’m just hanging out at day. Just Larry’s awesome. Check out this other guy,
0:32:32 detail geek. So this is the other side of, of Larry. Oh my God. This guy has almost 4 million
0:32:38 subscribers. So what’s he, what’s he do? Like more low end stuff. He just like, he is somewhere
0:32:46 in, I want to say like the Dakotas or the Midwest. I don’t know. I don’t, I can’t remember exactly
0:32:50 where he is. Somewhere where they drive lots of pickup trucks that get dirty. That’s right. It looks like
0:32:55 the cars have been for like four weeks on a hunting trip in the mud where he’s like getting out shotgun
0:33:01 shells. And he does these 20 minute long videos that get insane views. And he too launched his
0:33:08 own products called detail geek. Really, really interesting guy. I’ve tried to talk to him many
0:33:15 times. I talked to him once. Um, he’s very happy with his lifestyle business. He does not want to
0:33:21 engage with people who invest in these things and help scale these things. He’s like, I like my family.
0:33:29 I like my life and I make good money and Bob’s your uncle. Um, and he doesn’t, he doesn’t need it.
0:33:35 And you know, Larry, Larry’s a little bit more in the sexy world. Uh, but this, but, but the detail
0:33:41 geek does not care. This guy’s awesome. What’s your, what’s your, uh, you probably can’t say it’s a stupid
0:33:45 question for me to even ask, but this company definitely does more than 10 million in revenue.
0:33:51 I would think here’s what I’ll say. All of these middle-class creators, I think have the ability to
0:33:56 be veil, uh, venture style businesses with the right, with the right founder and the right hires.
0:34:03 So, which is to say direct to consumer businesses who kind of, somebody came up with an idea like Casper
0:34:09 or, or, or glasses that you can buy over the internet or shoes that are different. Like they were kind of
0:34:15 built in a brand boardroom and somebody said, okay, well I have a new product, right? That I
0:34:19 think the audience wants. And then I’m going to go build a brand. And then I’m going to go build an
0:34:24 audience and I’m going to go spend a money, a bunch of money to, to build consumers. These kinds of
0:34:29 middle-class brands have gotten to a place where they’re like, I already have the audience. I know
0:34:35 product market fit. I’m ready to, I’m ready to go. And then it’s the right fuel to the fire
0:34:37 determines whether they’re going to get to venture scale or not.
0:34:44 When they’re starting, is it just oftentimes them with an iPhone and them editing it either on
0:34:50 their phone or on their computer? And how, how big have you seen them get it with just doing it in
0:34:57 that sort of scrappy hustler way? Great. That’s a great example. So Mary, back to Mary, she just shoots
0:35:03 everything on her iPhone. Like that’s it. You know, she’s, she’s on Instagram. She shoots everything on
0:35:09 her iPhone. It goes on her reels. Like, you know, it’s just her making the content. So that’s one,
0:35:14 that’s one version of it. So if the question is from your audience, can I get started without a big
0:35:19 setup? The answer is yes. You know, like, yes. And obviously it depends on the genre you’re in
0:35:24 and the stories that you’re telling. You know, Mary’s telling a story about her life. She’s relatable.
0:35:29 Like you, you want to know where your meat comes from? It’s Mary. It comes from there. It’s not
0:35:34 highly produced, beautiful, you know, it’s just Mary doing her thing. And Mary’s rad and her kids
0:35:40 are rad and her husband’s rad. And you can tell that right away. Larry started with a small setup and
0:35:48 now he’s got a four bay or a three bay garage in his spot in Connecticut. That’s all lit. And he’s got
0:35:52 a guy who shoots it with him and he still does it all himself.
0:35:56 It’s just two guys, two guys, but two with almost 3 million subscribers, basically.
0:36:00 Yeah. I mean, he’s got more people that work in the business, but yeah, it’s like two or three guys,
0:36:07 but it’s like a beautiful studio slash detail spot. It’s all well lit. He’s very intentional about the
0:36:11 look and feel. And that makes sense for like these high end cars, right? Like it’s like
0:36:16 for high end cars and people who are like very wealthy, who have, you know, multi-million dollar
0:36:20 car collections who are watching this kind of video. Like you want to like, you don’t want to just
0:36:24 shoot it on iPhone. You want it to look beautiful because Larry cares about what one side of the
0:36:29 car looks like before and one side of the car looks like after. And you got to, you got to really show
0:36:33 that. So you need equipment and you need light and it, you can’t just shoot it, you know, in the front,
0:36:37 you know, in the, in the front driveway. There’s one more really funny story that I think you would,
0:36:42 you would like. There’s this guy named Tonester. Oh, I like him already. Who’s Tonester?
0:36:48 Yeah. Yeah. Tony, I don’t really know. I don’t want to butcher his last name, but he better be some
0:36:54 Italian guy with the name of Tonester. So he was working at Sherman Williams making like,
0:36:59 you know, like as like an entry level job, making blends for paints. Oh, tone, like paint tone. I
0:37:03 thought it was like Tony from the garage with like slick back hair. It’s like a little bit. It’s like
0:37:06 a little bit of that. He’s not like a slick old guy like that. He’s like, he’s a, he’s an interesting
0:37:12 cat and he’s done a great job. So he starts making Tik TOKs while he’s working at Sherman Williams,
0:37:17 while he’s blending paint, just kind of like talking about paint blends and just kind of
0:37:23 posting Tik TOKs casually. And he starts to blow up and then he gets fired from Sherman Williams because
0:37:26 he’s using their office for Tik TOK. Oh, they blew that one.
0:37:32 Which is like, duh. Right. So he launched his own paint brand.
0:37:34 Oh my God.
0:37:38 Called Tonester paints. And it’s like running a clown card into a bank other than he’s not a
0:37:43 clown. He’s really smart and he’s done a really great job. And he, if you look at his Tik TOK,
0:37:47 you know, he’s got North of a million followers and he’s has like a.
0:37:51 No dude. On Tik TOK, he’s got 2.3 and on YouTube, he’s got a million. And I’m almost positive
0:37:57 that all the videos, it’s literally just a camera on a paint can and he sticks the drills in there and
0:37:59 he mixes it. That’s all it is.
0:38:04 That’s right. And so that’s where it’s kind of like back to your story where you can just start.
0:38:10 And then if you hit the right audience, you can, you can, you can really build it out. But I think
0:38:16 the, the ones that are, and we’ll see how he does. He’s doing great now and he’s a smart business
0:38:21 guy and he’s figuring it out. And is that a venture scale business? Like, is he going to
0:38:25 have his own Sherman Williams? Is it going to get to a hundred million dollars in here? He could,
0:38:30 it depends on execution at that point. I think that the ones that I look at and the things that
0:38:35 we want to invest in it slow and the things that I think have a better shot to get to venture scale
0:38:42 businesses are the ones that have been building audience trust for years that are known for that
0:38:47 specific niche and they have a really strong community and they are creators that are
0:38:48 entrepreneurs.
0:38:52 How long are they typically creating content before they launch a product?
0:38:57 It could, they could do it on their first one or they could do it after four or five years.
0:39:01 You know, Jonathan Katz Moses, the woodworker, you know, he, he launched a product very soon
0:39:06 after and kind of his story was about launching the product, a lot of it, but he, he did a lot
0:39:10 of videos about woodworking and tips and tricks and people were following him around for a while.
0:39:16 So I don’t think, I think it just depends on your niche and your audience. Like, I think like
0:39:22 you really have to be a trusted voice of authority in your niche. You know, like you have to,
0:39:28 people really trust Jocko, you know, people really trust Atiyah, people really trust Huberman, people
0:39:29 really trust Mary.
0:39:36 But I’ll push back a little bit on that because, because, okay, so Jocko was a veteran. So like,
0:39:41 he knows about being tough, which is like kind of his thing. Peter Atiyah is a doctor, so he knows
0:39:46 about health. But yeah, like this guy worked at Sherman, Sherwin Williams.
0:39:48 I agree. That’s why it’s like, who knows?
0:39:52 It’s not like you need a PhD. You know, I think like they’re not to discredit them, but like, I bet
0:39:58 you, I could spend one year learning how to clean cars and I, and I can like make at least interesting
0:40:03 enough content. And then maybe after a little while longer, like formulate a product. You know what I
0:40:07 mean? It’s not like I need to, I don’t need to spend eight years of schooling to do this.
0:40:11 Totally make, totally make, I agree with your point. Exactly. Which is to say,
0:40:18 Tonester is a we’ll see because he hasn’t spent, like for me, somebody who has spent years and years
0:40:22 and as a trust. So back to your architecture, architecture idea or your art, your, your
0:40:28 artist idea, like somebody who has built five or six years of trust and authenticity with
0:40:36 an audience and scaled it, they have more permission to launch paint. And then you think that you feel
0:40:42 better about their understanding of both the industry and product market fit feedback from
0:40:47 their audience, what their lane is, what they can sell. Like you feel better about investing in somebody
0:40:51 who’s been in it for a long time versus somebody who is like, okay, for a couple of years, they’ve been
0:40:56 creating content. So Tonester is like a big, we’ll see. I think he’s great and he’s smart and he’s going
0:41:03 to do something, but somebody like Larry. Yeah. I think you could start a detailed channel and like
0:41:10 grow it. Um, but Larry’s been doing this for 10 years. And when it comes to getting distribution
0:41:15 in other, you know, it’s like getting to scale, like the chemical guys did, which, you know,
0:41:20 they took an $800 million check and they were, they had shops, they had locations, they scaled into
0:41:25 all the different auto specialty shops and home Depot and everywhere. Like that comes from years
0:41:29 and years being involved in the industry and really understanding the white space and really
0:41:33 understanding your audience, that people who kind of just get started, like, you know, Mary’s been at it
0:41:38 for six, seven years, um, and built that trust. So I think the ones that build the trust and
0:41:42 understand the community, like they really have an opportunity to scale in a way that somebody who just
0:41:48 is getting started is like a, let’s see. So, um, you can use a little bit of me as an example,
0:41:55 but just the, just the audience, anyone who’s listening and has a passion, but like I’ve sort
0:41:59 of thought like, Oh, it might be interesting to do YouTube or Instagram a little bit more. It might be
0:42:06 interesting to get into this creator space. What’s the lessons that I should learn from these people on
0:42:11 the repeatable process? Like what’s the best practices that I should take away? Like, I know
0:42:17 that this is part art where it’s just like, if you have an it factor, it just kind of can work, but
0:42:23 surely there’s some type of workout plan where if I lift this amount of weight and eat this amount of
0:42:27 food, then I’m going to be, I’m going to be at least in the 90th percentile, like do it for two years
0:42:32 versus everyone else. So like, what are the, what’s like the, the lift weights and eat and eat lots
0:42:38 of protein, uh, kind of checklist version of this. Yeah. That’s a good question. I mean, I’ve a couple
0:42:44 of things that come to mind. Um, and I’ll, and I’ll, we can decide together if it’s a complete answer
0:42:49 or not. I think for you personally and for, or, or, or to take you as an example, like, I think you
0:42:53 double down on the stuff that’s really interesting to you and stuff that you want to talk about and
0:42:59 bring people and you can build an audience around your journey. Right. So you, you’re doing a lot of
0:43:04 that now, which is like business building. You’re interested in entrepreneurs. You’re interested in
0:43:08 like what’s going on in the business world. And that, that, that’ll drive into, you can decide if
0:43:14 that’s going to work in the bottom of the funnel where you can go beyond being a creator every day.
0:43:21 So for example, like you like motorcycles, you are sober, uh, you have a family and you are interested
0:43:26 in like intentionally raising your kids and being a husband. I would think through the things that are
0:43:31 your passion hobbies and that bring you the most joy. And I would double down on creating for those
0:43:37 things with keeping in mind, it doesn’t have to be day one, but pretty soon that you have to be thinking
0:43:43 about creating content, building an audience, establishing yourself as a voice of authority
0:43:48 in something that there is a bottom of the funnel. Bottom of the funnel, meaning a product that I could
0:43:55 eventually sell. Yes. Kevin sells raised farm beds and seeds. Doug sells cars. Jonathan, the woodworker
0:44:02 sells tools. The detailer sells chemicals. The tonester guy sells paint. Mary sells meat, you know,
0:44:08 on and on and on and on. Do you think it’s safe to say that any content niche can come up with a product
0:44:14 or service that can sell? Or should you think first, like, what could I sell? And then let me think of
0:44:18 which content falls within that category of something I’d be willing to dedicate 10 years to creating that
0:44:23 content around. Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, I think you don’t want to, uh, you know,
0:44:29 like it’s really hard to sell products if you’re just funny, right? You know, those people, like I was
0:44:34 telling you about my Mormon buddies, they like the LA New York crowd might laugh at them like, oh, these like
0:44:40 they might like, you know, be highbrow and laugh at these people. The, the funny New York like, or LA
0:44:46 actor, comedian crew who I know who makes content, they’re, they’re broke. They don’t sell anything.
0:44:51 That’s right. I think you can build a big audience that doesn’t transact and you should be careful about
0:44:57 that. And I think if you’re in a niche passion category that you like learn and love, you will
0:45:01 eventually figure out what the white space is and you can build a product or a service that works there.
0:45:07 Um, and I can give you more examples of people who are doing that, but I think if you’re building
0:45:11 content, you have to be keeping in mind, what’s the bottom of the funnel. Like, what am I moving?
0:45:15 What am I going to move people to? But I think you start by building a voice of authority in a, in an
0:45:23 area. Like you can’t, even if you have a large scale audience in, um, you know, in an, in an area,
0:45:26 it doesn’t mean that you can move product. Like you have to learn how to do it. Like the, the people
0:45:30 that we’ve been talking about today, like have learned how to move product and learn how to build
0:45:37 product and learn supply chain and hiring and, you know, subscription and blogs and how to keep
0:45:42 their audience from churning and how to, you know, keep things in stock. Like you’re an entrepreneur.
0:45:46 You gotta, you gotta know how to, you gotta know how to build a business. And that is to say also,
0:45:51 like there are two kinds of business. I mean, there’s lots of kinds of businesses, but two,
0:45:54 there’s like lifestyle business where it’s like, Hey, I can make a million dollars a year doing this,
0:45:58 or I can make half a million dollars a year doing this. And, or I can make $2 million a year doing this.
0:46:03 And that’s just fine with me. The problem with that is, is from varying deals and AdSense and
0:46:07 like selling like merch and a couple of little things here and there. The problem is, is once
0:46:14 you stop, like your revenue goes away, you’re, you’re just a freelancer. Yeah, exactly. You’ve
0:46:18 built something that you can’t exit. And for some people that’s okay. And like, it’s not like a,
0:46:22 what’s better or what’s worse. But like, if you’re going to spend five years building your audience,
0:46:27 build them into something that you can like transact into, and you can add value to them
0:46:34 by cool new tools or like great ethically sourced meat or like cool color tones for your bedroom or,
0:46:39 you know, uh, anything, um, that kind of like adds value to your audience.
0:46:44 Is there a medium or a platform that matters? So you’ve, we’ve talked about TikTok, Instagram,
0:46:49 and, um, YouTube. Those are all video. One thing that I’ve predicted, I wrote this, I did it, we did
0:46:54 a podcast on this where I’m like, there hasn’t been like a billion dollar Twitter creator, but I think
0:46:57 there will be. And there might be actually some now I said this like three or four years ago.
0:47:03 Do you think that it has to be video and audio or video? Uh, and we know podcasting works too. So video
0:47:08 and audio, I think video and audio are the, are the examples that I’ve seen where people have been
0:47:16 able to build kind of like lifestyle plus slash venture scale businesses. I think the, uh, audio is a
0:47:20 great way to connect with your audience, like consistently, and you can really like own the
0:47:28 relationship and, um, and build like a cadence of trust with them. It’s a very intimate platform where if
0:47:34 you love something, you listen to it weekly, I think, uh, video, video is the same way and building
0:47:39 an ecosystem around the video, the video first platforms is for me, it has more signal.
0:47:43 All right. Instead of a commercial break, I’m going to tell you a little quick little story.
0:47:48 So a few years ago, I got really into crypto, Bitcoin, Ethereum. I was all about it. And I wanted
0:47:52 to be at the center of the action. I didn’t want, just want to buy the coins. I actually wanted to be,
0:47:55 you know, on the edge. I wanted to be a part of the community that was actually building this
0:48:00 thing. And look, I’m not a genius. I don’t know how to build a blockchain. Uh, but I did realize
0:48:04 that I could create a newsletter that would keep people up to date on what was going on in the
0:48:08 world of crypto. That’s what I had, uh, wanted. I wanted to know what’s new, what’s interesting,
0:48:13 what should I pay attention to? And I had friends that had sold their newsletter companies like Sam
0:48:16 had built the hustle. Austin had built morning brew and they had sold their newsletters for tens of
0:48:20 millions of dollars. So I thought, how hard could it be? I launched a newsletter called the milk road.
0:48:24 It was a daily crypto newsletter and it grew like wildfire. We grew it from zero to over
0:48:29 quarter million subscribers in a year, partly because the content was good, but partly because
0:48:33 people were crazy about crypto and that was a good time to be doing this. But the reality is that
0:48:38 we wouldn’t have been able to do that and build that business that we ended up selling a year later for
0:48:43 millions of dollars. Had we not had beehive beehive was the reason we could do it in a year, because
0:48:48 if we didn’t have that, we would have had to build all sorts of custom stuff or pay expensive consultants
0:48:52 to do things or use five different tools and try to stitch them together. Beehive just did it all for us.
0:48:58 It is the best way to start and grow a newsletter. An email newsletter is this little secret of the
0:49:01 business world because they’re free to send, they’re free to grow, and you could build this
0:49:05 incredible relationship between you and the readers. So check it out. Beehive is actually offering 30%
0:49:10 off your first three months if you use the code MFM30. So go to beehive.com and then use the code
0:49:13 MFM30 to get the deal today. There’s a link in the description.
0:49:19 I was going to ask you what niches you think like someone should exploit. You said that was,
0:49:23 you gave me the energy that was hard to answer, but I’m going to, so I’m going to like tease you up.
0:49:23 You’re going to push me.
0:49:26 Yeah, well, I’m definitely going to push you, but we’re going to ease into it.
0:49:26 Push me, push me.
0:49:27 Listen.
0:49:27 Yeah, yeah.
0:49:35 So I’m sure that you have a list of like creators that have one to 5,000 people and you see them
0:49:42 and you’re like, oh, they’re, they got something here. And, and, and who is on that list? Is there
0:49:45 anyone like that or a category like that?
0:49:50 I am, um, I’m going to preface this by saying like a lot of the companies that we’ve talked about
0:49:55 here are very dude focused. And so I, I, I want to like also say that there’s, there’s lots of
0:50:01 categories that I’m, I’m still, I’m learning and getting better at. And, uh, but one is everyday
0:50:03 carry, I think is a really interesting category.
0:50:08 Everyday carry being handguns or does that include like mace and knives and everything?
0:50:13 I think like knives, I mean, obviously we’ve seen what’s going on with Ridge wallet, but like a
0:50:19 creator that owns that, um, like what you keep, what you keep in your, in your, in your pocket
0:50:27 every day. So yeah, knives, a wallet, a watch, key chain, pens, writing tables. There’s, there’s
0:50:31 some creators out there that do it. There’s a really cool scaled company that sells knives called
0:50:38 blade HQ. It’s also a, a, a, a company that’s in, uh, that’s in Utah and they started creating
0:50:42 content because they couldn’t advertise because they were selling what is considered by the internet
0:50:52 weapons. Um, and, um, I think the, the every, the everyday carry creator, there are some of them
0:50:55 that are really kind of popping up. They haven’t, some of them haven’t reached the scale.
0:51:00 You know what? I, I completely agree with that. And if I was listening to this, so I think that
0:51:04 there can be a Hodinkee. So Hodinkee was a watch blog that eventually.
0:51:06 I was on the board of Hodinkee. We invested in it.
0:51:12 And I don’t know, it did, the outcome wasn’t as expected, but it doesn’t, but I don’t think
0:51:15 that meant the business itself was bad. I don’t know anything about the company, but if I had to
0:51:19 guess, maybe it was like, they just grew too fast or something like that. And you can correct me if
0:51:25 I’m wrong, but I think there should be a Hodinkee for fountain pens or a Hodinkee for fancy pens.
0:51:30 I agree. That’s, I mean, I think those are the kind of things when we see those, we’re like,
0:51:35 whoa, you know, like chess creators, really interesting. People who play chess, passionate,
0:51:40 you know, um, that’s interesting. Yeah. Fountain pens, any of the everyday carry stuff is great.
0:51:45 I also think two egg creators, like second amendment, right? Creators who are teaching, um, who kind of
0:51:49 do product reviews on different guns and different vinyl and different holsters and things like that
0:51:53 have a massive audience. I mean, obviously we’ve seen what happened with black rifle coffee.
0:52:02 Um, but, um, the ones who are actually teaching about tactics and safety and different weapons and
0:52:09 scopes and, and vinyl to, to kind of carry it, like those have massive audiences and have, and some of
0:52:12 them have built scale businesses. And I think that that those are, that’s an interesting category as
0:52:17 well. There’s a guy named, um, I actually, this is like the first time I ever said this word out loud.
0:52:21 It’s just one of those words that I read it and I know it, but I’m afraid it. So I don’t know if
0:52:26 it’s Hickcock or Hick. Okay. 45. I thought maybe that meant like he’s in Oklahoma and he’s like a
0:52:33 redneck and he was born in 1945. And he’s this old man that you would only understand this if you live
0:52:39 in the South or you live in the Midwest, like I am from. And we all had grandfathers like this.
0:52:46 They like wore like overalls or wrangler jeans and like a flannel shirt. And they’re pretty nice and
0:52:52 stoic and you liked being around them. Well, that’s what this guy is. Except his passion is like
0:52:57 every type of gun on earth. And so he’ll do like a machine gun and they’ll say like, Oh, this is a
0:53:02 cute little machine gun. Let’s see what it’s about. Or he’ll be like a, like a revolutionary. And I don’t
0:53:06 know anything about guns, but I just like watching it, but it’ll be like a revolutionary war cannon or
0:53:12 like, uh, the type of gun in the civil war where they like, uh, you know, put the thing down and then
0:53:16 they load the blacks. I don’t know anything about this shit or like a silencer on a gun. You’re like,
0:53:21 what’s that sound like? And this guy, have you ever seen this guy? He’s got 8 million subscribers
0:53:28 on YouTube. No, I haven’t seen. Oh my God. It’s like, look at T-Rex arms. He’s the Bob Ross of guns
0:53:32 is what he is. That’s the best way to put it. That’s awesome. Yeah. There’s some, and there’s
0:53:38 some newer cats on the scene. Like check out this T-Rex arms. It was started by a couple of brothers.
0:53:44 One of them’s name was Lucas Botkin, and he’s actually since broken off from T-Rex arms,
0:53:50 but it’s like tactical second amendment content creators, massive firearms, accessory business,
0:53:54 you know, does some advertising, but there’s a lot of restrictions on that. Sells their own tactical
0:54:00 gear, has a total cult-like loyalty and they’re running a really scaled business. Now what crazy
0:54:05 thing is, is, is Lucas is part of brothers and Lucas and the brothers have split and Lucas is now
0:54:11 starting his own thing. So I’m actually interested to see what Lucas builds on his own. And if, if,
0:54:15 if T-Rex continues to grow, but that’s a, that’s a properly scaled business.
0:54:17 All right. So everyday carry, what else?
0:54:22 I mentioned chess. I think that’s interesting. People are really passionate about that. We’ve
0:54:24 seen some really cool scale businesses come out of chess.
0:54:26 What’s a chess business that’s scaled?
0:54:29 Chess.com.
0:54:31 I mean, that’s a multi-billion dollar company.
0:54:35 That’s right. That’s right. Um, jujitsu.
0:54:37 Yeah, we, we know that.
0:54:41 That’s a really great category. Have you seen Brazilian jujitsu fanatics?
0:54:47 I lived in Texas, man. I feel like if you, you, you like everyone did that shit.
0:54:53 Yeah. Look, look up the Brazilian jujitsu fanatics website. This is a two-sided marketplace started by
0:54:58 a jujitsu champion and a guy who kind of did commute, like, uh, continuing education.
0:55:03 Oh, of course I know who this guy is. This is, uh, the famous coach, right?
0:55:09 Right. But what he does, it’s a two-sided marketplace. So jujitsu instructors can upload
0:55:15 their videos and then people can sort through, like, I want to do, learn how to do a, you know,
0:55:20 rear naked choke, or I want to learn how to sprawl better or whatever. They can pick coaches that
0:55:25 they like. The site can help kind of ID coaches that you might be interested in. It’s total web
0:55:29 1.0. This is great. And I can’t say how much they’re doing, but it’s a, it’s a good business.
0:55:34 What about you being the creator? No, man, this is like the hardest thing I do, man. Talking,
0:55:40 talking, like seeing myself on the internet is like my least favorite thing. I’m very excited to talk to
0:55:44 you. I think that’s what you want to talk about is great, but man, I will never watch this because
0:55:46 I just cannot watch myself. I cannot be a creator.
0:55:52 No one watches themselves. Like I’ve never seen MFM in my life. And it’s one of these things where
0:55:57 you just, you have to have tough skin, but, uh, like the, the Mormon family that I mentioned,
0:56:02 um, they have a whole subreddit dedicated to mocking them. And I met them and these people
0:56:07 were the most, the nicest people in the world. It was the most loving family. They took us in. I felt
0:56:11 like I barely knew them and I was their cousins. They were like the most loving family and people
0:56:17 mocked. I’m like crazy. And then on our pod, someone will be like, you know, you, you look
0:56:22 fatter or skinnier than I thought, or you look older or young. And like, we get mocked constantly.
0:56:26 Yeah, no, I think it’s a very hard thing to do is like putting it out there and, and, and building
0:56:30 their audience around things that they’re really passionate about talking about. And, um, and yeah,
0:56:35 I love the idea of getting involved in a creator led business, but right, right now, I really love the,
0:56:41 the thesis that we have at slow kind of like building out, uh, supporting them and matching
0:56:45 capital to creators who are entrepreneurs who are really wanting to build, build things at scale.
0:56:49 Let’s say someone said, all right, you got to quit slow right now and you have to go and join. Um,
0:56:54 we’ll give you like a draft. Like you get three, you get three picks of creators that you’re like,
0:56:59 I want to, Oh, actual creators. I want to join that company. And I want like a little stake in it.
0:57:03 Um, are there three that you think are going to the moon? You know, we, we have this things called
0:57:09 Sarah’s list. Sarah’s was my wife because she joined, uh, we like planned where she could join
0:57:16 Airbnb at a time where she could still have a very comfy gig, like a 40 hour, you’re not totally grinding
0:57:21 and you get a lot of salary, but your stock, it’s still a 10 X, you know, if there was a, if there was
0:57:28 a, a, a billy list, uh, for you and traders that you like, what would the top three or four be?
0:57:30 Oh my God.
0:57:38 I love what Kevin and Doug are doing at Epic gardening and cars and bids. Like those are both
0:57:45 humans that I like and would like to work with, which, which is kind of like my most important,
0:57:52 which if you asked me if I hypothetically would go and work with a creator, like I would need to
0:57:56 like love them as a human and love the category. And those are both categories I can really get behind.
0:57:58 I just sold my car on cars and bids.
0:57:59 Oh, you did? What car?
0:58:03 Uh, 2020 AMG E 63 station wagon.
0:58:05 Nice. Were you happy with the price?
0:58:07 Yeah, I got what I wanted. I hit my reserve.
0:58:13 Oh, good. Yeah. I think that’s awesome. I only own old cars. So now that Doug is selling old cars as
0:58:19 well, I can sell my scout if I, if I’m, if I’m ready to move on it, but I, I, uh, that’s great.
0:58:24 Yeah. Yeah. It’s a good, it can be a really good about buying experience for everybody. Okay. Um, you
0:58:31 should follow Sarah McAllister. Sarah McAllister has a company called go clean go right now. Sarah is
0:58:36 just like the queen of clean and people have been following her since like the pandemic and she’s been
0:58:43 building. She’s got a couple million subscribers on Instagram, I think 2.4. And I think she’s got a real
0:58:47 shot to build a really awesome business. So I think she’s really cool.
0:58:49 Wait, does she own a housework.com?
0:58:52 That’s the, that’s what it is. I don’t remember exactly what it is, but yeah.
0:59:00 So she has people that love her. They dress up for her as Halloween and, um, she is a badass and she
0:59:03 is really cool. So I really liked that business.
0:59:07 Does she sell anything yet? Or is it just, it looks like she doesn’t even have like her own product.
0:59:11 So there is still like, it looks like it’s, she’s still a prominently a media company.
0:59:16 She mostly, uh, makes revenue through, yeah. Affiliate links and brand deals and stuff like
0:59:17 that at the moment.
0:59:18 Oh, this lady’s going to kill it. That’s a good one.
0:59:19 I think she’s great.
0:59:21 The queen of clean. That’s a good one.
0:59:25 I don’t know if that’s what anybody calls her, but I, I just, I just said that.
0:59:30 Dude, if this lady comes out with a laundry detergent, like that’s going to be the greatest
0:59:30 thing ever.
0:59:31 Forget it.
0:59:32 Yeah.
0:59:40 I really like her. Um, I also really like this creator named Gohar Khan. So when he was like 13,
0:59:47 14 or maybe even younger, he started making like Minecraft YouTube videos, right? And he built
0:59:54 this massive audience and then he kind of like put it down, focused on school, got into MIT. And
1:00:00 when he was in MIT, it was during COVID. So he started making videos about going to, going to an
1:00:06 Ivy, right? Like going to MIT, you know, I think he has, you, you tell me, I don’t have it in front
1:00:08 of me. What does he have? Six million YouTube subscribers?
1:00:15 Yeah. More. Oh my God. I’m looking at his numbers. Uh, how, so is he in his teens still?
1:00:19 So he launched this, no, no, no, no. He’s post-college and he’s launched this thing called
1:00:24 Next Admit, which helps students write college entrance exams.
1:00:26 Just teaches them how to use ChatGPT?
1:00:32 No. It teaches them like, teaches them how to not, right? So he has people that like read through
1:00:37 them who have also been into IVs. He reads through them and he basically like, you know, at 80 bucks
1:00:40 a pop or something, he helps you kind of like do that. But he’s also kind of gives you a lot of
1:00:46 information about how to think about the big story you’re going to tell when you want to get into
1:00:50 college about the thing you did in high school. And now he’s starting like SAT prep courses.
1:00:58 And he just knows his audience and he knows that young, first generation kid who wants to get into
1:01:05 that IV, not, not bums like you and I were in high school. And he really has an opportunity to build a
1:01:12 really scaled, uh, service business that really understands what kids are thinking and kids want
1:01:15 when they’re trying to get into IVs and they’re trying to get into colleges.
1:01:15 That’s awesome.
1:01:17 So I like him a lot.
1:01:17 Those are two good ones.
1:01:18 I think he’s really interesting.
1:01:21 So, and I’ll, and I’ll wrap up by reciprocating. I’ll give you my two.
1:01:22 Okay, good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Please.
1:01:23 Do you have YouTube in front of me right now?
1:01:26 I should have made you go first, bro. I should have made you go first.
1:01:27 Well, I had a thing while you were talking.
1:01:34 So the first one I mentioned, this guy’s got a harder path to build a business because clothes
1:01:39 are harder, but it’s called the Iron Snail. All right. So the Iron Snail, I started following
1:01:44 this guy a while ago. His background is that he went to film school and Sean and I talked about
1:01:48 this on a previous podcast that the creators nowadays, the younger folks,
1:01:53 when, you know, when I was, well, still, but even when I was younger and YouTube was just
1:01:57 getting started, it was all about being authentic, which meant like kind of scrappy and just thrown
1:02:03 together. Now they’re way more well-produced. And so this guy tells you both the history of
1:02:09 clothing, like why, why Jamaicans are obsessed with Clark shoes. Apparently there’s like some
1:02:10 history behind that.
1:02:17 But then he’ll also do like, here’s the highest quality, lowest price clothing ranked. He’ll say,
1:02:20 why are the Jap, why do Japanese makes the best jeans on earth?
1:02:27 And so he’ll like break down and do these really interesting stuff. And you know, what’s funny
1:02:32 is like the, the reason why he’s going to win is because you can be a woman. This is mostly men’s
1:02:35 clothes. You could be a woman. You can not give a shit about clothing. You can not give a shit about
1:02:40 history, but you watch his videos because they’re so well-produced. And because he’s so funny, he’s
1:02:46 hilarious that you’re engaged and you’re bought in. And he is currently in the process of launching
1:02:52 his own clothing line. And so he’s like, he’s documenting it. Clothing is like the hardest thing
1:02:58 ever. So it’s going to be a hard business, but, and the second one is Project Air. So look up Project
1:03:05 Air. It’s this young guy named James who’s in the UK and it originally started out with him building
1:03:12 model airplanes. So what started as just like a model plane turned into like an RC plane, which
1:03:19 then turned into, I’m going to build the world’s fastest RC jet, or I’m going to build the world’s
1:03:27 largest RC jet, or I’m going to set the land speed record for an RC car. And he’s even done things like
1:03:31 I’m going to send a, like a SpaceX, I’m going to send a rocket up and I’m going to have it land right back
1:03:37 down. Uh, just like SpaceX does, except I’m going to do it like in my garage. So it’s like became like
1:03:43 hacker engineering stuff to where the stuff that he does is actually incredibly challenging math
1:03:48 problems. Like he’s a proper engineer. He’s got one video where he built an RC battleship and he was
1:03:55 like, I’m going to have them fight and sink each other. Uh, and I see this guy and I, what do you think
1:04:01 his bottom of the funnel is selling RC kits? It’s very similar to, um, Mark, uh, what’s Mark
1:04:07 Rober crunch labs? Yeah. It’s very similar where it’s educational stuff. And if I had to guess a large
1:04:13 percentage of fathers like me who want my children to like, I think it’s cool, but like, I don’t want
1:04:16 to build an RC plane and take it somewhere. I’m going to look like a pedophile going and doing this
1:04:22 shit. I’m going to be weird. But if I get my kid into it, I can still, you know, like have fun,
1:04:25 do this shit. You know what I mean? Like I don’t want to go like buy an RC car and take it to a
1:04:28 school. How old’s your, how old’s your, how old’s your little one again? We got a ways to go.
1:04:32 We got a ways to go, but you’re just going to bring them along in the, in the pram. Yeah. I’ll be like,
1:04:37 yeah, yeah, yeah. My kid’s just a prop basically. So I can go to a schoolyard with a, with a really
1:04:44 fast RC car. Awesome. And so, and so I think there’s a bottom of the funnel for that to like build,
1:04:49 uh, like model kits. I will check him out. Yeah. Rober has done it right. Like that’s, I mean,
1:04:52 that business has exploded. Those guys have done a great job building out those,
1:04:58 that subscription kits. And there’s this entire, there’s this one guy, his name’s Remy. I think
1:05:07 R E M I, and this will be my last one type in Remy RC plane. So check this out. This is so strange.
1:05:14 So it’s R A M I R C is a million followers. Tell me what the first video that you see. Can you,
1:05:21 can you tell me what that says? Remy RC plane, world’s biggest RC, 20 million views on this one,
1:05:28 building an airbus. This guy is building a freaking airbus. So he’s building remote control airplanes
1:05:34 that are the size of a, of a Olympic size pool. Like these, it’s basically a fucking plane is what he’s
1:05:40 building. And there’s a really weird part about this story. So they never truly call this out.
1:05:45 I think maybe they do occasionally, but you’re going to see them on like an air, uh, like an
1:05:50 airstrip and you’re going to see him take, take off from a house. And you’re like, does this guy,
1:05:56 is Remy just a rich guy with a, with a, where, what is going on? Right. It’s Tyler Perry’s house.
1:06:05 So Tyler Perry, his hobby is he loves RC planes. And so he is this guy’s patron. And so this guy,
1:06:11 Remy, I don’t know if he lives there or if he just spends some time there, but Tyler Perry puts him,
1:06:14 he just puts them in a pram and takes them to the park. He does. I don’t know what he does,
1:06:19 but Tyler Perry has this massive hanger at his house, except I bet you he has a hanger with real
1:06:25 planes to be honest. He’s so wealthy, but he also has one dedicated to RC planes. And you’ll see,
1:06:30 it’s so funny. Tyler makes cameos. Like you’ll see him, like basically I know that Tyler’s paying
1:06:35 for it because Tyler is always the one flying the plane. And so these guys, Remy will like build the
1:06:41 jets and just hand it to this like guy who they barely talk about or mentioned. And it’s Tyler
1:06:44 flying the jet because they like, don’t want to wreck, you know, it probably costs a hundred grand
1:06:50 for this jet. And, uh, this guy it’s, it’s such a, Oh, I guess they do call it out. So flying planes
1:06:54 with Tyler Perry, but that’s like basically it. Like they barely talk about it. The fact that it’s
1:07:00 that it’s just this like guy, I think he’s from Dubai. That’s the internet, bro. It’s so cool.
1:07:04 And so this guy has a million followers and I think that’s like another interesting thing. So those are
1:07:11 my picks. Yeah, that’s good. This isn’t a pick that, that, uh, like my, anyway, you should check this one
1:07:18 out. Have you seen Hacksmith? What’s Hacksmith? Dude, these guys just dropped something called the
1:07:24 Smith blade. Oh, these guys are going to kill it. Dude, seven, they just did $7 million on Kickstarter
1:07:32 in like a week, 13. Well, it says 13 days to go. I think, I think they dropped it this time last week.
1:07:38 That’s what I want to say. $7 million. And it’s just a box cutter. It’s a, no, it’s a multi-tool.
1:07:44 A multi-tool is like a Swiss army knife, right? It’s got like five different kinds of knives on it.
1:07:47 And then like, you know, a Swiss army knife is going to have your toothpick and your tweezers and
1:07:51 a couple of different kinds of knives that have different edges and blades on it. And this one
1:07:56 is built with the kind of intention of everything that you would need. Like these guys also sell
1:08:01 lightsabers. Like you got to check out their, their YouTube page. Oh my God. And they have 15
1:08:09 million subscribers. Yeah. They, they sell like lightsabers and, and, and, uh, all kinds of like
1:08:15 What’s a lightsaber? Is that just a flashlight? A lightsaber? Have you seen Star Wars? I know what
1:08:18 it is, but I don’t know how I would make one. So you haven’t seen, you just know about Star Wars.
1:08:24 You haven’t seen Star Wars? No, I was like playing sports and stuff and going outside. I was, I also
1:08:29 played sports and I know, and I know what Star Wars is. I know what it is, but I don’t know how,
1:08:35 is it a flame? It’s a little, it’s a mini lightsaber, bro. Check it out. I mean, they call
1:08:40 them sabers. What’s comes out of the metal part, a piece of plastic light, but that’s just a flashlight.
1:08:45 No, these are, yeah, they’re bad-ass flashlights. You could call it that, but they’re, you know,
1:08:54 they’re $150 Canadian or they’re $350 or they’re $500. They’re like bad. I just bought a $500 laser
1:08:57 pointer the other day because apparently if I can shine it on a piece of paper, it’s going to light
1:09:02 it on fire. So I’m not saying like I’m above this. Yo, no, no, no, no. No one’s above this. This
1:09:08 is cool. I’m, I’m into it. I’ll tell you no, no one’s above it. These guys just sold $7 million
1:09:15 in multi-tools in like a week. So I hope our wives are still willing to have sex with us by the end
1:09:21 of this episode. Billy, man, you’re, uh, you’re cool. I’m really thankful that, uh, you came on and,
1:09:25 and, and hopefully, hopefully we’ll stay friends, but, uh, you’re the man. Yeah, man. Thanks for having
1:09:31 me on. I love what you’re doing and, uh, you know, happy hunting. Thank you. That’s it. That’s the pod.
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