AI transcript
0:00:06 Okay, I have an amazing story. If you’re if you’re entrepreneurial Sam if you have a pulse in your body if there is a
0:00:09 Single blood vessel in your body
0:00:13 You are gonna be fired the fuck up after this. I don’t know what you got. What do you have scheduled after this?
0:00:15 Cancel it
0:00:27 All right, let’s hear it. What is it? All right, so you’ve probably heard of this company boom supersonic. Yes
0:00:32 Yeah, uh, I had the opportunity to do invest in this company years ago
0:00:39 And I didn’t have any money then but also I even if I did I would have passed on this because it’s it’s a it’s a ridiculous proposition
0:00:42 I didn’t have any courage then either. That was the real problem
0:00:48 Well, like a guy said that uh guide silken valley said he’s gonna build a commercial airline
0:00:54 He’s gonna build a jet that can be a supersonic commercial airplane, right? That sounds ridiculous
0:00:58 Exactly. So the the thing that’s going viral right now is
0:01:05 Former like group on product manager because he worked at group on is linked in literally goes group on product manager
0:01:09 Then created the first supersonic jet and like, you know, whatever
0:01:11 56 years
0:01:15 So it’s this insane jump on linked in and that’s kind of going viral right now
0:01:18 It got me curious because I remember back of the day. This was 2016
0:01:21 Did you see the deal?
0:01:24 I uh, I wasn’t it didn’t it’s not like somebody sent it to me to invest
0:01:29 I could have if I chased it down and then actually several times since then I could have invested but I didn’t
0:01:30 um
0:01:32 Maybe not too late. Maybe now’s the time
0:01:38 But I remember watching demo day. Do you remember this story? Do you remember his demo day pitch at yc demo day?
0:01:43 I didn’t know he went through yc. I didn’t pay that close attention to it. So he went through y-combinator
0:01:45 Exactly went through y-combinator now
0:01:50 I remember at the time it stood up now yc does a lot more like moonshot type of companies back then
0:01:58 It was all apps. It was all software. You’re making an iphone app. You’re making like a b2b sas tool and this is 16
0:02:02 16 and there was this one guy there who was like
0:02:04 We’re creating supersonic air travel
0:02:10 Like you’re gonna be able to fly from new york to london in three and a half hours. That’s what we’re doing
0:02:12 remember the concord
0:02:14 we’re gonna do that again and
0:02:19 He gets on stage and I remember thinking while he’s pitching. I’m like, how is he gonna have
0:02:26 Attraction because every yc pitch ends the same where they show their user growth. We’re growing 30 percent week over week
0:02:28 But it’s like going from like, you know
0:02:32 Three to six to nine right like it’s like they have some crazy growth rate
0:02:34 But it’s on a very small customer base, but that’s always the pitch
0:02:38 So I remember wondering what’s this guy gonna do and at the very end of his pitch
0:02:42 He whips out a piece of paper and he goes and as of last night
0:02:45 We have five billion in pre-orders
0:02:49 Thanks to virgin. Thanks to richard branson and virgin
0:02:54 And we were like what five billion and it was like he had an lly. It wasn’t actually a purchase order
0:03:01 Which basically just says uh one day if you can actually build a safe supersonic jet. We will definitely buy it
0:03:05 We will maybe buy it. That’s what it means
0:03:11 Right like when somebody invites me to like a party. I don’t want to go to I’m gonna start sending llys
0:03:13 Because at lly just means
0:03:19 I’m generally interested, but I’m probably not gonna do it. All right. Yeah, but still it was impressive five billion
0:03:25 Still to this day. Nobody’s walked into yc demo day with five billions dollars worth of letters letter of intent
0:03:29 So, okay, I remember seeing that then he disappeared for a while then he actually had to go do the work
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0:04:10 So let me tell you this guy’s story because
0:04:13 right now in silicon valley
0:04:14 there is a
0:04:16 buzzword
0:04:22 Actually, I would say it’s kind of like an early buzzword like I would be buying stock in this buzzword because it’s about to go mainstream
0:04:26 And that word is high agency. You’ve seen high agency floating around
0:04:29 No, but that is is high agency the new contrarian
0:04:33 Oh, it is I mean it’s shits on contrarian, dude
0:04:41 Like it runs where contrarian walked. We have to sell democratize democratize is done. That was the grandfather
0:04:44 We have the short contrarian. We’re going all in on high agency
0:04:47 We’re long high agency the man in the arena
0:04:50 Is that just plummeted? Had a moment had a moment
0:04:53 Uh, butt him off just butchered that one. So that one’s done
0:04:59 So all right, so check this out. So high agency is this word and there’s uh, our buddy, george mack
0:05:04 By the way is like all in on the high agency like he I think he’s writing a book about high agency right now
0:05:08 I think he by the way, he bought the domain high agency.com
0:05:15 And I was like, how’d you get that? He goes the guy let it expire after 10 years and I sniped it right away
0:05:17 Very low agency move
0:05:19 High agency by him, low agencies by the other, right?
0:05:24 It’s like in football the low man wins. No, no in business the high agency man wins and so
0:05:28 um, the classic meme which we should put on the screen on youtube is
0:05:32 Guy is the cartoon guy is trapped on an island
0:05:37 And he has these like pieces of bark or wood or whatever and he he spells out help
0:05:39 He’s waiting for someone to come save him
0:05:43 That’s the low agency guy and the high agency guy takes the wood and makes a boat and rows away
0:05:47 Um, right. So that that’s like the the gist of this. Okay, but this guy
0:05:50 This dude from boom supersonic. What’s his name? Blake?
0:05:56 He’s just absolutely dripping with agency. All right, so let’s take this out
0:06:04 He’s guy is soaked. This guy is a yeah, he’s a buffalo wing and he is tossed hand tossed in high agency. All right, so here we go
0:06:10 Story starts he drops out of high school. His parents sent him to a good high school like a nice private school
0:06:16 And he doesn’t feel like he fits in he doesn’t really look like uh get that interested in class
0:06:22 he drops out and um, so now he’s high school dropout black parents are kind of concerned
0:06:28 He ends up finding something that he’s really into like science and math like he in this like after school program
0:06:32 Or there’s some shit like that, but forget that first high agency move
0:06:38 Once he started getting interested in science math engineering. He’s like actually I think I do like school
0:06:42 I just didn’t know what I just didn’t like my high school the way I was doing it
0:06:45 But now I found I actually do like to learn I want to go to college
0:06:49 Well, how do you go to college? You don’t have a high school degree. You’re a high school dropout
0:06:55 He finds that at Carnegie Mellon, they have a special program for high school dropouts who want to go to Carnegie Mellon
0:07:01 So he applies and he applies as a junior and he writes an essay about why you have to write an essay why you didn’t finish high school
0:07:07 And he writes high school had nothing left to teach me he gets in not only is he getting he gets the merit scholarship
0:07:10 And he graduates with a you know bachelors in computer science. Okay, so
0:07:16 What does he do next his next move is that he’s like I want to be an entrepreneur
0:07:18 But I don’t know what idea I want to start yet
0:07:22 So why don’t I go and work for who I think is the greatest entrepreneur right now?
0:07:25 And that was jet bezos in 2001
0:07:32 So amazon is out the dot-com crash just happened amazon stock is in the tank
0:07:37 I that’s what I’m betting you’re looking that up right now 2001. It was I mean, it was shit. It was uh,
0:07:40 A dollar now it’s two hundred and seventy three dollars great
0:07:46 So he joins amazon in 2001 and his goal is to learn as much as he can from bezos
0:07:49 So he’s like all right, I got to build something that’s of interest to bezos and at the time
0:07:57 Bezos had an idea which was like, hey, we need to we need amazon products to show up number one in google search results
0:07:59 so
0:08:02 Blake builds this automated system where he is
0:08:04 Um
0:08:09 Buying google ads for every single product on amazon like the entire catalog. He builds an auto bidder
0:08:14 So that amazon will bid not too much but bid enough to be the top result on amazon
0:08:18 Which is one of the reasons by the way that like the you know, there’s like stories of like
0:08:23 There’s a story that a company wants you to know and then there’s a story that actually happened
0:08:25 and I’ve read a lot about amazon and one of the
0:08:30 One of the make or break moments was the fact that they were one of google’s biggest spenders
0:08:33 And they crushed it and knocked it out the park because google was underpriced and they were able to
0:08:39 Get big fast because people think all these companies are competitors. They’re also co-conspirators, right?
0:08:45 google pays apple built tens of billions of dollars to be the default search engine apple in uh,
0:08:52 Microsoft invested in apple when they were big competitors bill gates basically kind of saved apple at a time when steve jobs needed investment
0:08:58 And in this case amazon is the biggest spender on google like you know that oh what I thought these as were competitors
0:09:02 And bezos was one of the angel investors of google or something like that exactly
0:09:04 So he builds this system by 24
0:09:09 Now he’s 24 years old three years in and he was basically working under direct view of bezos
0:09:13 So he goes every three months. I had to give bezos a report on how we were doing
0:09:20 And by the age of 24, he’s running a 300 million dollar p&l inside of amazon. He’s the he’s the gm of that business
0:09:22 but
0:09:27 Even though he’s learned a bunch and he uh, kind of you know cut his cut his teeth here
0:09:33 He wanted to be an entrepreneur. So he quits even though. He’s like a rising star at amazon and he knows amazon is like a
0:09:37 amazon’s a winner right amazon was a winner if he had done nothing else
0:09:40 But just stay at amazon get promoted as an exact keep getting stock options every year
0:09:45 He would have made hundreds of millions of dollars essentially risk-free at that point
0:09:47 Yeah, but he quits and him and some guy
0:09:51 Decided to create a start so the greatest startup it kind of fails to create another startup
0:09:58 Eventually they sell that startup to group on and this is where the linkedin part of group on comes in is like this hilarious quote on on his
0:10:01 Group on linkedin description
0:10:05 So he says what he does like, you know senior whatever manager of this thing
0:10:12 And then his description goes nothing like working on internet coupons to make you yearn for doing something that you truly love
0:10:15 So he after two years at group on he quits
0:10:18 And he decides, you know, what I want to do a company
0:10:20 I don’t know what I want to do it in and his whole life
0:10:23 He had been interested in flight. He talks about like a music kid
0:10:26 He was always interested in model airplanes. His parents took up to a museum
0:10:29 He was always obsessed with flight one of his things on his bucket list
0:10:34 Was that you know in his 20s? He wanted to go mock too like he got his pilot’s license
0:10:36 He always just was interested in flight, but it was a hobby
0:10:41 And he’s trying to think of what startup ideas to do and his method for figuring this out is
0:10:44 I’m going to write a list of all the ideas starting with
0:10:47 What would be the most awesome if I did it
0:10:49 Down from there
0:10:54 And then I’ll just probably cross out the first five because they’re unrealistic or impractical
0:10:56 And I’ll probably do number five on the list was his plan
0:11:00 But number one was create a supersonic jet because like elan
0:11:07 The way elan started SpaceX you’ve heard the story where he went into it like it thinking this is not going to work
0:11:13 Well, but even before that he said, you know, he sell uh paypal sells elan now has 180 million dollars
0:11:15 He leaves and he’s
0:11:19 Just curious like what okay, what else and he’s curious
0:11:23 Um, what’s the latest with nasa’s mars mission like I haven’t heard about our mars mission
0:11:28 Like are we is it in progress and I just missed it. Is it launching soon? I can’t wait to go see it
0:11:31 Maybe I’ll fly there and go see it. I want to see the launch. I love rockets
0:11:35 And he goes on the nasa website and there’s no mention of mars
0:11:42 And he’s like what we went to the moon like in whatever 73 like how are we not? Where’s the next mission?
0:11:44 And it wasn’t even on the website
0:11:51 He’s like what and he got so upset by that that the start of SpaceX was actually that he was going to privately fund a mission
0:11:54 Just sound like a plant to mars
0:11:57 And then it became like a turtle or jelly or something
0:11:59 It was like, you know some living some technically living thing
0:12:04 And it was like I’m gonna spend 25 million dollars doing this this there’s just like a stunt
0:12:09 And uh just to kind of like reinvigorate the interest in this same way this guy blake
0:12:14 Puts on a google alert for supersonic jet. He’s like, I just can’t wait till there’s a supersonic flight
0:12:16 I’ll be the first guy to buy it
0:12:19 And he’s waiting and he’s waiting and he’s like is nobody working on this
0:12:25 And he’s like, oh it must be that it just doesn’t the numbers don’t the math ain’t math it like that’s got to be the problem
0:12:27 so he creates a spreadsheet and
0:12:30 In it he writes down the assumptions
0:12:33 He’s like basically like the engineering assumptions and he gives himself like a few months
0:12:36 To work on this where he’s like, all right, let me just dig into this
0:12:40 So I think it was two weeks where he does like it goes and buys a book because he’s like
0:12:43 I don’t know anything about how airplanes fly but he goes he buys a book
0:12:49 And he creates an excel spreadsheet on one tab was the cost model. He’s like, is it an economic problem?
0:12:50 because
0:12:54 The brief history is we had this thing called the concord back in the day
0:12:58 Have you ever seen the concord like uh, have you ever looked at photos of it? It looked great photos
0:13:04 Yes, like and it was like inspiring and everybody loved it and it was the same idea you could get from you know here to london
0:13:09 In new york to london and three and a half hours ish. Yeah, it was like three and a half hours or three hours in 45 minutes
0:13:12 Was the fastest time ever which what’s it like double the speed?
0:13:16 So it’s eight hours normal flight. So it was twice you could fly twice as fast
0:13:21 And the idea was the concord was like this luxury item in a way. It was priced really expensive
0:13:23 So this is you know
0:13:25 Almost 50 years ago that it was invented
0:13:31 But it was priced at like 15 000 dollars a ticket and if you look at the inside of it the photos
0:13:36 I think it was only like three seats by three so it was like a it was like two or three seats something passengers
0:13:39 I think yeah, so there wasn’t a lot of people at all
0:13:42 So it was hard to make a lot of money high priced low volume
0:13:45 Not a lot of routes only limited number of routes
0:13:49 But it had all these problems like if you go look up like the problems with the concord, right? Like it was like
0:13:56 Yes, it was expensive it also like got really hot like there’s this famous thing where when they first launched it to do
0:14:00 Like a pr blitz or like to sponsor it. They had Pepsi sponsored the concord
0:14:06 And so they painted it light blue and the concord before that was this white reflective material
0:14:08 To reflect heat to not store heat
0:14:14 But the light blue thing made it where it got so hot inside the cabin that you know the hour flight
0:14:17 They can only do for 20 minutes because it was like cooking everything inside
0:14:21 So like heat was a problem noise was a problem price was the problem
0:14:27 Um, you know duration was a problem. I also think there was a really famous crash too where it was like
0:14:31 That was the best now and I don’t remember if I don’t you know, this was years
0:14:33 I was a kid or I don’t even think I was alive actually
0:14:37 But I remember reading about it in the what I read was the reality
0:14:39 Is that it could have worked or it could have been great?
0:14:44 But the perception was that this thing is dangerous and it’s too radical and it crashed. I’m never getting on that. Is that right?
0:14:50 Exactly. So the the last the thing that kind of killed the concord was they had this flight where
0:14:54 During takeoff the tire hit something on the runway
0:15:00 And it ruptured the tire and then the plane basically exploded to kill everybody on board and that was like all right
0:15:05 We’re done with this thing too dangerous. So it had safety problems price problems heat problems
0:15:10 Um, you know like noise problems because it was like, you know shatter windows when it would do a sonic boom
0:15:12 So it was like
0:15:15 Oh, whatever. So I think in like 2003 was the last flight
0:15:19 So in about 20 years has been no no no flight since nobody was even working on it
0:15:22 So he he has this spreadsheet
0:15:26 And he’s like look am I just nuts because the way I’m penciling this out
0:15:32 You know, we only need like a 30 improvement in like fuel efficiency
0:15:37 A 30 improvement in this one other thing and he’s like dude. It’s been 50 years like
0:15:41 Our tv’s got better our phones got better our computers got like dramatically better not 30 better
0:15:43 They got like 3 000 percent better
0:15:47 He’s like I’m pretty sure we could make the plane 30 percent more efficient
0:15:53 And then this would work. So he goes to this like you can buy a t you can I can get a tcl 75 inch tv for literally $600
0:15:55 And it’s delivered to my door the next day
0:15:59 Like if I can do that we can make a we can make a chat
0:16:02 So he goes to this stanford professor
0:16:05 And he’s like he’s like, hey like, you know this
0:16:10 We need a 30 i my calculations show when you’re 30 fuel efficiency
0:16:15 And by the way that conquered was designed at a time where like they used slide rulers and like, you know
0:16:19 Wind tunnels to test things like I think we could do this and the professor was like
0:16:24 Yeah, I think you can uh the math is correct. He’s like, so, you know, you might have engineering problems
0:16:26 But like the physics are fine
0:16:30 And so he gets encouraged he’s like, I just thought I must not know something
0:16:32 And that’s why this hasn’t been done
0:16:38 But it’s one of these classic things where like the beginner’s mind goes in and they don’t see the problems and therefore they do it
0:16:42 Whereas all the experts just assume that’s we tried that it doesn’t work
0:16:47 And so he goes and he he decides to create an airplane company. Okay, so what’s the next move?
0:16:50 How’s he gonna fund this thing and how’s he gonna build it?
0:16:54 Because again, this dude just bought a textbook about flight. He doesn’t know anything about this stuff
0:16:58 So he’s like, all right, I need to recruit a great team and we got a we need some money
0:17:01 So he decides he takes half of all of his life savings
0:17:05 And he decides to fund the company bank account with it and he hires up
0:17:09 Something like six to ten people one of which he poaches the
0:17:16 Former chief engineer of Gulfstream and he’s like, I thought it would be hard to get talent because here I am
0:17:21 I’m this fucking group on kid saying I’m gonna build a you know a supersonic jet
0:17:25 This never been hasn’t been done in, you know, 50 years like the last American
0:17:30 New American Airlines company that worked was like, you know, eight years ago or something
0:17:32 So the business line is a little crazy
0:17:36 Probably gonna, you know, it I think it cost the conquered like a billion dollars to make the conquered
0:17:40 Like it was like a billion dollar project. They thought it was 20 million and it ended up spending a billion
0:17:43 He’s like, I think well, I think we’ll need 200 million
0:17:47 But I don’t know where I’m gonna get all that so let me just start by fun to get myself
0:17:51 Did he did he say how much he hasn’t said the the amount but he at one point he’s like
0:17:55 I realized like I’m playing chicken with my own bank account here. He’s like, I want to go raise money
0:17:58 He ends up raising like a million bucks still almost nothing
0:18:00 But he gets like a few early believers in
0:18:04 I have one of my really close friends chris was in that round
0:18:06 Oh wow
0:18:10 Did he say what he saw or why he’s been telling me about it for years
0:18:16 And that’s originally how I heard about this and he was like this guy’s just magical and I I I just couldn’t get
0:18:24 I’m like a silicon valley software person starting a jet company. That just that’s really dumb which is evidenced by
0:18:28 dumb ideas being potentially amazing and how that’s actually
0:18:29 quite common
0:18:32 And by the way, the airline mark airplane market
0:18:39 Is super fragmented. Oh wait. No, it’s not. There’s two companies one owns 51 percent. The other one owns 49 percent
0:18:42 It’s just air bus and Boeing and that’s the whole market, right? So
0:18:48 You know, he’s trying to go to basically break up this duopoly in in theory. Okay, so let’s go back to the to it
0:18:49 So he hires this guy
0:18:56 So he hires deem and he’s like actually one of the surprising things was it was way easier to hire great talent
0:18:58 because
0:19:00 The bigger the mission the better the pitch
0:19:04 So he’s like I had a super exciting mission. I didn’t have a lot of other things
0:19:07 I didn’t have a lot of traction. I didn’t have a lot of funding, but I had a great mission
0:19:11 I had an exciting project that was basically like nerd porn
0:19:14 So he’s like any nerdy, you know engineer who worked on airplanes
0:19:17 You could either go work at Boeing or airbus
0:19:19 And your job is to like, you know
0:19:23 Make sure that the cabin temperature goes down by two degrees so that we could sell more, you know
0:19:27 Vibe electronics like that was they weren’t trying to innovate at all
0:19:30 So if you were somebody who wanted to innovate, this was like the only option
0:19:32 So you’ve recruited a team then he goes into yc
0:19:35 And he was skeptical he goes into y-combinator
0:19:40 He’s like, isn’t it just for software companies, but sam altman’s like no, no, no, we like hard hard stuff
0:19:42 um
0:19:47 Sam’s like, I don’t know if you’re gonna get in but you should go talk to these four other guys who had hardware companies that kind of failed in yc
0:19:52 But but they’ll tell you that like they would have failed much worse had they not had yc
0:19:54 So you go stop them. They’re like, yeah, it was great. Let’s do it
0:19:57 So he joins and he’s like, I realized something pretty quickly
0:20:01 He goes yc is architected in this three month program around demo day
0:20:03 Three months you’re going to stand on stage in front of all the investors
0:20:06 You’re going to make your pitch and you got to raise money. That’s the whole point
0:20:08 And so he’s like, what the hell am I going to do in three months?
0:20:11 so he goes
0:20:13 I realized that during yc
0:20:19 If I went to them and I was like, hey, we reduced the drag coefficient by 30 and this engine design is really awesome
0:20:21 And like that’s our progress update
0:20:22 We’re cooked
0:20:25 And so he’s like, I got to figure out something that I’m going to do so he comes up with two plans
0:20:27 He’s like the number one
0:20:28 I got to sell the dream
0:20:31 So he spends a good chunk of his time and money
0:20:37 Just building like a model airplane that looks sick. He’s like, all right. This is not going to actually help us
0:20:38 Make the plane
0:20:42 But uh, it’s going to help people see that we’re making a plane and it’s going to live awesome
0:20:44 How much does yc give you like 125 grand?
0:20:46 Yeah, something like at the time
0:20:51 He probably just spent all like $100,000 hiring some firm making like a really great model
0:20:54 So he had like a model like oh, you’re like a model, but then he also had
0:20:57 A like a gnarly looking engine
0:21:02 And he’s like, we just want to stand there with a big ass engine and then people will walk by like, whoa
0:21:05 Is that a jet engine? He’s like, yeah, that’s the jet engine
0:21:08 We’re going to use on our supersonic jet. Would you like to hear more?
0:21:11 So he’s like, I need that eye candy. You needed a booth babe
0:21:14 And for him, the booth babe was the model and the engine so smart
0:21:21 Right because like one of the common out is elan and these other guys is it’s you can’t just be an engineer in your in your little engineering hole
0:21:26 You got to know just enough about the rest about the marketing the capital raising all the other things to survive
0:21:29 So he did the second thing was he was like, I needed these like purchase orders
0:21:31 So he makes a list and he’s like
0:21:38 All right, how can they go get LOI’s and he’s like he makes this list and so he’s like, uh, here’s his quote. He goes
0:21:42 I realized I couldn’t show up to demo day with no sales
0:21:43 Otherwise my goose was pretty cooked
0:21:48 So I looked at my sales pipeline and it was united delta lufthansa air china
0:21:51 And we only had eight or nine weeks before demo day and I thought to myself
0:21:55 There’s no way i’m closing with fan lufthansa airlines by demo day is not going to happen
0:21:58 I’ll be lucky if I close them in nine years let alone nine weeks
0:22:02 So I realized I actually only had two options a startup airline or virgin
0:22:09 He goes so we I went all in and focused all of my air my sales efforts on startups and virgin
0:22:10 he goes
0:22:14 I went to the startups who were currently operating and I got one of them to do an LOI
0:22:20 But it was a company you’ve never heard of but it was the best I could do and here I was 24 hours before demo day
0:22:24 And the lucky break we got was that demo day was split into two days if it was demo day one
0:22:28 He would have stood by the stage and said we have a small LOI from this company. You’ve never heard of
0:22:31 Luckily we got randomly assigned to demo day two
0:22:35 So he had bought an extra 24 hours in that extra 24 hours
0:22:39 He ends up getting an email from virgin the night before demo day that says you’re allowed to announce
0:22:41 We’ll take the first 10 planes
0:22:46 We’ve got options on them and through virgin galactic will even help you build it. It goes. I fell off my chair
0:22:50 I almost screamed. I had to read the things three times. I couldn’t believe it
0:22:53 We went from we went from being the biggest laughing stock on demo day
0:22:56 So the company that showed up with five billion dollars worth of an LOI
0:23:02 Worth of LOIs a record that won’t be broken sin. Dude, that’s so sick. What year is this?
0:23:05 What year is this 2016? So I yeah, I was reading
0:23:09 I was looking up my email to try to figure out did I ever talk to this person?
0:23:12 How do I know him and the earliest thing I could only find was I think in 2020
0:23:18 It says the hustle actually wrote about him said united airline wants to buy 15 supersonic airliners from boom sonic
0:23:22 So it took him an additional two years to get the united airlines. The next for the next LOI
0:23:24 So, okay, so then how did he get branson?
0:23:30 High agency, baby. I told you he’s dripping an agency. All right. So what does he do? So he’s like, all right
0:23:33 If I want to get to richard branson, I got to go through somebody I trust
0:23:36 He goes i’m also not just going to try one path to branson
0:23:40 We got to try multiple paths for branson. So he’s like if I get blocked over a year. I got this other
0:23:42 Long shot going
0:23:46 So he’s like I had this guy on our board who was an astronaut this guy mark kelly probably heard of him
0:23:51 So that guy was on his advisory board. He’s like, he knows branson. He’s like, so i’m thinking. All right, we got
0:23:55 We got to find a way to uh to get to richard and so he goes
0:23:56 um
0:24:00 We asked we asked mark. What’s the best way to get to richard branson? How do we make that happen?
0:24:07 He got and he told me he goes hey, you you can’t get him interested in you but go where he’s interested in his own thing
0:24:12 So what do you mean? He goes virgin galactic has this big roll out for their spaceship richard’s got to be there
0:24:16 So you just got to get there go where he is and they’re like, okay
0:24:20 And so they get he’s like could you make could you email him and say hey?
0:24:26 These guys i’m advising from boom supersonic are going to be in mojave when you’re doing your rollout
0:24:28 You should meet with them when you’re there
0:24:31 And then he’s like um, and then he reaches out to the virgin guys
0:24:34 He’s like hey, we’re going to be in town uh to see richard. Can we come to the rollout?
0:24:37 Like, you know, so basically they get invited to the rollout
0:24:39 They get there
0:24:41 He’s super busy
0:24:46 They end up getting 15 minutes with him when he’s at brunch with his mom and they go up to him and they go he goes
0:24:49 um
0:24:54 Richard they show him what they’re doing to like we’re building the first supersonic jet since the concord we fix these problems
0:24:58 We’re making that happen and he goes look we’re not asking you for your money
0:25:03 All we want to know is this when this thing flies. Do you want a virgin logo on it?
0:25:08 And he goes i think that was the key you got to ask for the right thing
0:25:13 When you do a deal you it’s probably going to be hard to close you got to ask for what’s really going to help you
0:25:16 So we told richard look if you’re our customer, we will get money elsewhere
0:25:19 We don’t need money from you and that was crucial
0:25:22 Uh, basically like the first few babies of these that are in the air
0:25:24 Do you want them with a virgin logo or not?
0:25:30 And so that was the thing that got richard branson across the line was making the intelligent ask and hustling their way
0:25:32 Dude, this is a movie. This is a movie
0:25:36 If it works if it ends well, it’s a movie. Well, they just did their flight
0:25:40 So they just did their first demo flight where but it wasn’t a um
0:25:42 I think what the test was if I remember correctly
0:25:47 Was it the engine that they were testing they got the engine because the plane is like a it’s a small plane
0:25:50 right this was a smaller plane than the real plane that they’re gonna have
0:25:54 And I don’t think it was the full speed that they’re gonna have but they did achieve
0:25:57 I believe they achieved supersonic flight. You could check me on that. But yeah, yeah
0:26:01 They they achieved the right that they crossed the threshold. They did it safely
0:26:05 They landed it and is there like whatever xb1 or whatever they’re calling that thing
0:26:10 Okay, he’s got some great startup advice. So here’s here’s the way he described his startup. I like the way he phrased this
0:26:12 so he goes
0:26:14 Here’s my advice for startups
0:26:17 Pick something that’s going to be worth it to you personally
0:26:20 That is what that is how you stack the deck in your favor
0:26:26 Stack to the deck so that you will be motivated and when you look at what you’re creating versus if you went to google or facebook or amazon
0:26:28 It should be a no contest
0:26:32 If you haven’t found that just don’t even start a startup. I did that my first time
0:26:36 I just started a startup just for just because and it was a horrible idea
0:26:40 You you should start a startup when you’re like I must make this happen
0:26:41 and
0:26:47 Something I’ve come to believe is that the bigger the idea the easier it becomes because it motivates you and the people around you
0:26:52 And you attract better people to come work on it. When we were brainstorming this most of the ideas we came up with were like
0:26:56 No one’s going to really appreciate this blah blah blah blah, but for us
0:27:01 It was like the most exciting thing we could ever do and so that’s all that mattered was like you know stacking the deck in your favor
0:27:07 Doing it as a must rather than a we could do this. Um, and so that that’s I thought one
0:27:09 Really great takeaway
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0:27:23 It’s called a billion dollar moves and of course it’s brought to you by the hub spot podcast network
0:27:28 The number one audio destination for business professionals billion dollar moves
0:27:34 It’s hosted by sarah chen spelling sarah is a venture capitalist and strategist and with billion dollar moves
0:27:40 She wants to look at unicorn founders and funders and she looks for what she calls the unexpected leader
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0:27:56 So again, if you like my first million check out billion dollar moves, it’s brought to you by the hub spot podcast network again
0:27:59 billion dollar moves. All right back to the episode
0:28:05 I was reading this quote by the guy I don’t know how to say his last name
0:28:08 But the guy who wrote crime and punishment, you know, like this famous novel and he said um
0:28:13 Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself
0:28:21 For nothing and I was reading I I just read that like an hour ago and it’s sat with me and what you’ve described is exactly that
0:28:25 Yeah, I love this guy. Uh, so I don’t know him, but I’m rooting for them
0:28:29 I want to invest now because you know, why not? Let’s let’s get on the team
0:28:35 You know they um and there’s been a lot of I think there’s been well there definitely has been but there’s been
0:28:40 I think he’s wrote publicly about a lot of the downsides of all this which is that it’s this has not been clear
0:28:44 I think he had to take a huge down round and he tweeted out about it
0:28:48 I believe and I think his most recent valuation was two billion dollars
0:28:50 Um, which was down from the other amount
0:28:55 But didn’t he tweet about the down round and how like they basically almost ran out of money and how it’s almost failed
0:28:57 a bunch of different times
0:28:59 I don’t know. I didn’t see that I also
0:29:06 I’m different than you. I feel like you love to know the downsides of things like even when a guest comes on
0:29:10 That’s one of the questions you tend to ask which is interesting to me because I never really think about it
0:29:12 But you’re always like what are the honest
0:29:19 Like it’s not all peaches and cream like what what are the downsides of your approach, which is obviously an intelligent question
0:29:22 But I think there’s something
0:29:27 Good about being delusional about it too and just being like I have a convenient
0:29:30 Hole in my memory and in my brain
0:29:34 To not even really pay attention or remember those things
0:29:40 The reason I ask that is because I have been a victim of this many times where I go and say well
0:29:45 This guy did it. Why can’t I do it and then I start doing it and I think to myself
0:29:48 This is way harder than it than it than it looked. Why is this so hard?
0:29:54 And and so I always look for those I always ask those questions not to say that someone shouldn’t do something
0:30:01 But just to say that it is much more challenging than it appears and that is okay and normal because I remember thinking on my journey
0:30:08 This sucks, you know, this person he never felt that way. Why do I feel that way? Like I’m I’m full of shit
0:30:13 What the hell I’m not I’m not good enough and then I don’t want to like be reminded that like this is a normal feeling
0:30:19 This is a normal problem. I’m having you got to keep going. That’s why I ask those questions
0:30:23 Yeah, I think it’s totally helpful to have that the one that helps me is um
0:30:26 Tony Robbins does this thing where he talks about dabblers
0:30:30 Versus stressor achievers versus masters and I’ve talked about this up. I won’t do the whole thing
0:30:35 But like one of the things he says at the end is that anybody who’s pursuing anything
0:30:40 No matter what if you are in it, you’re going to hit plateaus
0:30:45 So frigid even downs but like just plateaus where it feels like it’s not working the progress
0:30:49 It’s not happening. It’s not happening as fast as you want. It’s not growing. It’s not working
0:30:52 Everyone’s saying no, we don’t have that investor whatever it is, right?
0:30:56 And the one thing that Tony said that just always stuck in my mind almost like as a
0:31:02 It’s like a it’s like a jingle in a song or like a commercial where he goes
0:31:05 When that plateau comes the dabbler quits
0:31:12 The stressor stresses and the master says, ah, I thought I’d be seeing you soon. Hello, my old friend
0:31:18 You’re here. I was expecting you which is like we have this one company. We started uh
0:31:23 Just a little over a year ago. That’s just been like up and to the right like this company
0:31:26 is I haven’t announced it yet, but it’s like
0:31:34 Almost a 10 million dollar run rate already profitable bootstrapped in one here. It’s like insanely insanely successful
0:31:38 But we just hit like our you know our first plateau and I feel like
0:31:39 When we called it out
0:31:43 it was almost like this kind of like embarrassing down feeling of like, oh man like
0:31:46 We didn’t have ridiculous growth this month
0:31:52 And we’re out whereas I was like, dude, I’ve been expecting you. Where is the plateau? I know it’s coming
0:31:57 I almost don’t even trust that it’s happening until you’re that this is real until we start to face some of these and so
0:32:03 Yeah, that’s why I ask those questions is I don’t want us as a media or whatever we are to be the ones who
0:32:09 Who I want to be realistic the biggest business influencers on itunes. Well, yeah
0:32:12 As Spotify’s 13th biggest business influencer
0:32:18 I just want to say that it is a fucking pain in the ass and it’s still worth it. Do you know what I mean?
0:32:20 Yeah, yeah, you’re right
0:32:21 Speaking of
0:32:26 Insane agency speaking of insane downs on a way to a huge up
0:32:29 Have you listened to this episode I did with nick mowbray?
0:32:31 It came out this morning and I hadn’t listened to it yet
0:32:36 But I went and like saw I saw it pop up this morning and I went and googled his company
0:32:41 And I own a ton of the toys that he makes like like not my kid me
0:32:43 So like he owns uh
0:32:50 He owns mini brands you bathe with the robo fish. Well, I’ve we have a robo fish actually for my daughter does
0:32:55 But you know, I told you about mini toys, right? Uh and how like I oh, that’s his
0:33:00 Mini brands he owns mini brands and so like my wife is fucking weird and when she was pregnant and like not feeling well
0:33:05 I would go and surprise her by buying these mini toys, which is the stupidest thing ever
0:33:11 It’s just like a miniature. It’s a ball full of miniature things like a miniature can of coke a miniature kick cap
0:33:16 A miniature notebook the weirdest shit if people love it and then the other thing
0:33:20 Dude, I don’t know why my wife like loves your 32 year old loves those
0:33:25 Dude, you know what I did was I I went and bought like literally $300 worth and I hid them in my drawer
0:33:29 And whenever like she had a bad pregnancy day when she was like uh sick or something
0:33:31 I would go and get one and be like I got something for you
0:33:33 It was like I was like, you know, I had like a secret stash
0:33:37 And then also he makes these electric water guns that I went and bought
0:33:40 Last summer that I would shoot at my daughter like messing around
0:33:44 Have you seen the electric water guns? I think it’s hilarious how into the toys you are right now
0:33:47 Uh, could I tell you the biggest?
0:33:51 Oh, holy shit moment from the whole thing. Well, you got to tell the background
0:33:52 It’s from what I know
0:33:57 It’s two brothers in New Zealand that have a toy company that does like three or four or five more than that more than that
0:34:04 So let’s just let me start with this. We have interviewed. I don’t know how many 200 guests on this podcast 250 maybe
0:34:06 hundreds
0:34:13 Millionaires millionaires young old man woman, whatever criminals not criminals criminals non criminals
0:34:16 Guys, you don’t want to hang out with guys that you don’t want to hang out with right?
0:34:18 There’s a lot of people we’ve had on this podcast
0:34:20 he is
0:34:25 At the top of the mountain. He’s number one number one most impressive entrepreneur
0:34:32 Of all of them. I was blown away. He is these he has these scrappiest hustle story
0:34:36 And like the like his bottom was like the bottom
0:34:40 Literally living on a dollar a day for years
0:34:44 Literally, this is all funny. This guy is so he is okay
0:34:47 Now I’ll zoom out now. I’ll give you the context that you wanted
0:34:51 But like I just needed to say that that out of every yes, I’ve ever had on this podcast ever
0:34:56 He is the number one most impressive founder that I’ve ever had on the podcast. Okay, and we’ve had some cool people
0:35:01 No offense everybody. Yes. All right, so um, but sort of story. Yeah
0:35:04 But no your place
0:35:08 With all due respect you fucking suck
0:35:12 Okay robins I found Batman
0:35:15 This guy I say he’s the wealthiest man in new zealand
0:35:21 He’s got a company that him and his brother started family owned bootstraps self-made billionaire
0:35:26 They do a few billion dollars a year in revenue. They do a billion dollars a year and just profit
0:35:29 I like that and they’ve been doing that
0:35:34 Um, they never had outside investors. He has dominated the toy industry
0:35:36 So he built the most profitable toy company in the world
0:35:40 He then built the fastest growing diaper company in the world
0:35:43 You ever heard of rascals diapers or million moon at target?
0:35:47 Yeah, he’s got the fastest growing diaper company in the world doing hundreds of millions
0:35:49 And by the way, he made that while he was on sick leave
0:35:55 He got his intestine removed because he got croon’s disease and while he was on his sick bed laying there
0:36:00 He’s like, oh, I guess I’ll just dominate diapers now. I even say I need a diaper. That’s what happened
0:36:06 So he creates the fast growing diaper company creates the fastest growing haircare company on tiktok now. Wait, what?
0:36:09 He’s Monday hair hair caro. Whenever he owns Monday
0:36:15 Um, not only all that he now is building the largest factory in the world
0:36:21 bigger than the tesla factory bigger and all that where robots are going to build houses
0:36:25 Autonomously and that’s what he’s doing. He’s building houses with robots now
0:36:28 um self funding the whole thing by the way
0:36:34 Problem I asked all those likes that just got to be hundreds of millions of dollars of self funding and he just laughed
0:36:36 um, so
0:36:40 So take that for what it’s worth. Let me now tell you okay, so that’s that’s what the guy does
0:36:44 Can I tell you some of the just holy shit stories from this thing? Yeah
0:36:47 all right, so the dude’s 18 years old
0:36:50 and he
0:36:53 Like after selling door-to-door in new zealand where they lived
0:36:58 Uh trying to sell his brother like invented this hot air balloon toy at a science fair
0:37:02 And his brother his older brother and put him to work and was like, yo, you need to go sell this door-to-door
0:37:08 Um, the dude the they were they’re like, you know what we need to factory and they’re like, oh all the manufacturing is in china
0:37:12 So they moved to china, but the hilarious thing is at 19 at 18
0:37:15 I think 18 19 something like that
0:37:16 He they go to china
0:37:19 That’s the story where they sleep in the bush outside the airport because the airport lights were too bright
0:37:25 So they leave the airport sleeping a bush get bit by mosquitoes. They have no money. So they’re like there’s on their own
0:37:27 so he
0:37:31 I was like, oh, so you found a manufacturer in china that you scaled up because what do you found a manufacturer?
0:37:35 We went to china and then built a factory on the side of a river
0:37:39 Like we just went with like wood and like a hammer and we built a factory and I was like
0:37:43 What was the point of going to china? You know, you go to china to their factories are already there
0:37:48 He’s like, yeah, we didn’t understand that like we just went there and we just
0:37:51 Built our own factory on the side of a river and we found this like
0:37:55 Mom to make us food for two rmb a day 30 cents a day
0:38:00 And then she had some people that could come work in the factory and then we just had the we had our own production line
0:38:02 And it sounds like a it sounds like a shed
0:38:06 Yeah, they literally built a shed and then they just kept scaling up the shed
0:38:09 And he’s like my brother didn’t come back home for like eight or nine years
0:38:14 He just slept on the floor of the factory and I I slept on the floor too then except for when I had to go sell
0:38:18 All right, so how did they win? He’s like and our product sucked by delay. This is one of my favorite things
0:38:23 So it’s like everybody who makes it they’re like the key is just to have a great product
0:38:28 And then if you’re a founder, you’re like, dude, what like, okay, I’ve made a great product now. What nothing’s happening
0:38:32 um, and you know, they don’t like people tend to leave out the like
0:38:39 The manual work it took the lucky breaks it took to like get get the thing to start working
0:38:43 What was the product it was a hot it was like a plastic hot air balloon toy or what?
0:38:47 Um, even worse so starts with a hot air balloon quickly rear is like we did again
0:38:49 We didn’t know anything about anything
0:38:53 So we go we build a shed by the river in china or making our hot air balloons
0:38:56 Then we’ve learned you can’t even export a hot air balloon
0:39:02 He’s like literally it’s a fire in a tiny can like we can’t sell that so he’s like we realized that was a waste
0:39:06 So we got to come up with a new toy and again, everybody everybody tries to say we’re so innovative
0:39:11 So we innovated innovation is great and then we made a great product. He is the opposite
0:39:14 He’s like so we found that this other toy was selling so we copied it
0:39:20 Uh, we ruthlessly copied that toy and we made a shitty version of it because we didn’t know anything about manufacturer
0:39:27 Dude, so this like white guy moved to china and out chinese the chinese. Yeah, exactly exactly
0:39:29 It was like dude, we lived on a dollar a day
0:39:34 I was like so you I was like I heard the story you ate mcdonald’s every day and he’s like every day that I wish
0:39:38 mcdonald’s was our christmas treat we would go to mcdonald’s and
0:39:42 He’s like I for years I just remember saying like Merry Christmas, bro. He’s like Merry Christmas, bro
0:39:44 We would cheers our fries
0:39:46 He’s like I used to eat half the fries and take it back and be like hey
0:39:52 There’s only half the fries in here you guys jit me and get like the second serving of fries and he’s like that was the treat
0:39:55 Dude, I used to do that all the time at bars. I would order an iced tea and be like
0:40:00 You made the long island iced tea wrong. You forgot the liquor and by the way, he was not saying never works pride
0:40:02 He was like I was almost like
0:40:06 A therapist because this guy’s never done a podcast by the way. This was the first podcast
0:40:10 He’s I think he’s ever done and there’s no stories you could find at this guy like I went to do the research
0:40:16 There’s no like oh him you know normally we do research you you go walks the three most watch podcast that they’ve done and you
0:40:18 Pick up a bunch of stuff. He had zero
0:40:23 He had to download google chrome to do the interview. He’s like it’s not letting me do this
0:40:26 I were like what and we’re like just open chrome. He’s like what’s chrome?
0:40:32 And I was like you’re a billionaire. You don’t know google. What are you using? He’s like. Oh, I think I have chrome hold on
0:40:37 He’s like oh, I got chrome. Okay. Got it. Got it. Let me switch to my laptop. This is gonna work
0:40:41 Okay, he had like just what’s he talking with you? No, he was dead serious
0:40:47 And so uh, I was like, dude, why don’t you do any podcasts to tell your stories? Like, I don’t know. I just never did
0:40:56 So I’m obsessed with being transparent about money particularly with ultra high net worth people
0:41:00 The reason being is that there’s not a lot of information on this demographic
0:41:03 And so because I own Hampton, which is a community for founders
0:41:07 I have access to thousands of young and incredibly high net worth people
0:41:11 We have people worth hundreds of millions and sometimes billions of dollars inside of Hampton
0:41:16 And so every year we do this thing called the Hampton wealth report where we survey over a thousand entrepreneurs
0:41:20 And we ask them all types of information about their personal finances
0:41:26 We ask them about how they’re investing their money what their portfolio looks like we ask them about their monthly spend habits
0:41:31 We ask them how they’ve set up their estate how much money they’re gonna lead to charity how much money they keep in cash
0:41:37 How much money they’re paying themselves from their businesses basically every question that you want to ask a rich person
0:41:41 We went and we do it for you and we do it with hundreds and hundreds of people
0:41:44 So if you want to check out the report, it’s called the Hampton wealth report
0:41:49 Just go to joinhampton.com click our menu and you’re gonna see a section called reports and you’re gonna see it all right there
0:41:52 It’s very easy. So again, it’s called the Hampton wealth report
0:41:57 Go to joinhampton.com click the menu and then click the report button and let me know what you think
0:42:07 What motivates this guy it’s just a maniac dude. He uh, he’s like was he was he calm very calm
0:42:11 I felt like I was almost like a therapy session because I’m asking him about these times back in the day
0:42:16 And he’s almost like, yeah, I don’t know what we were doing. Why we were thinking like he just doesn’t think about
0:42:19 And he was like not he’s like, yeah, we you know, we we were super scrappy
0:42:25 But he’s like we were also a little mentally ill like we just were he goes we were so naive that naive is not even the right word
0:42:29 So he’s like for example, we got sued for millions of dollars because again, we like copied someone’s toy
0:42:32 And so it’s like a two million dollar lawsuit
0:42:36 It’s either going to bankrupt the company because we don’t have two million dollars or we have to fight it
0:42:39 But the lawyers that we talked to were like it’s going to cost you a million dollars to fight this
0:42:41 He’s like, dude, we had like a few thousand dollars
0:42:44 He’s like, so I go to colorado and I find this lawyer
0:42:50 He’s like this guy eventually got disbarred, but I find this guy chad and I tell him
0:42:53 Hey, I’m going to do all the legal work. You put your name on this
0:42:56 And we’re going to fight this this way and I paid him 50 dollars
0:43:02 To put his name on it and I did the all the lawsuit stuff myself just like googling
0:43:07 And we fought the lawsuit that way and then chad got disbarred like later for other reasons
0:43:12 He told the story of he’s like, dude, we got this
0:43:18 Expect we got this he goes I used to I was like, so how did you sell the thing like how did you sell these toys?
0:43:21 You’re saying the products up and you were copying somebody else. So why would anybody buy this?
0:43:26 He goes I emailed because I made a list of every retail buyer
0:43:32 Of every store in every region of the world and I emailed her called them every single day
0:43:34 He remembered the name of every buyer
0:43:37 This is from like 15 years ago because he would call or email them every day
0:43:39 He goes the walmart buyer
0:43:41 He’s like I would call her or email her every day
0:43:44 He’s like I never forget her and he’s like one day she emailed me being like nick
0:43:49 I do not need your daily email about your product and he goes
0:43:51 Well listen jen. I’m sorry. It’s just a great product
0:43:54 And I just had to tell you about it because we’ve really got some exciting things to the party
0:43:56 It’s like I just didn’t let up
0:44:00 Finally, he goes she just sent me to the two most beautiful words in the in the english language
0:44:05 Send sample and he’s like we’re in and he gets this like walmart order
0:44:10 And by the way, actually before that somebody’s like, hey, do you have your showroom in hong kong?
0:44:15 I’ll send one of my buyers. He goes, of course, of course showroom in hong kong. Yeah. Yeah, we got one of those
0:44:17 It’s like, what’s a showroom in hong kong? So he goes to hong kong
0:44:22 He rents this little cubicle where they put like escorts and you know, it’s like the red light district
0:44:27 And like it’s enough for one human body and he just sleeps in there because he doesn’t have enough money for our hotel
0:44:31 Sleeps in there and then when a buyer shows up he just pops out and he’s like, hey, it’s me
0:44:34 Whatever you would like to see our showroom and they’re like, yeah, we’re what is what is this?
0:44:39 There’s a dressing room for like one person to change clothes and he’s like, yeah, yeah toys are inside. Here you go
0:44:42 And he ends up getting this order from walmart
0:44:44 for
0:44:49 Two million units and he’s like, oh my god, that’s 30 million dollars. He’s like, this is amazing
0:44:51 At that time the revenue was like 150k a year
0:44:54 And district tells this story about how he’s like
0:44:58 First he’s like I go he goes I learned two words of chinese
0:45:05 Too slow and go faster because our factory our little old factory by the river had never produced two million units of anything
0:45:08 And he’s like so we had to produce two million units of this thing
0:45:09 I come home
0:45:12 I take over the factory because I’m just like my brother’s like not working fast enough
0:45:17 And then he’s like and then walmart basically cancels the order after he’s like super deep in it
0:45:22 And he like took a loan from the like from a contract manufacturer to like help him build the two million units
0:45:27 And then he like goes and harasses the walmart buyer to like hold up to the end of the bargain
0:45:29 And he’s like by the way
0:45:35 Product doesn’t sell not a single one. He’s like it retails at 30 dollars discount to 25 discount to 20
0:45:38 He just got to 15 because it ends up selling for 50 cents
0:45:41 He’s like he’s like it was like concrete on the shelf
0:45:48 How’d you find this guy? I don’t know. I I read something. I I must have heard something or read something
0:45:54 Because about a few years ago we talked about him on the podcast and then yeah, I remember that like three years ago
0:45:59 Ben has emailed him. No joke. He showed me 17 times over the next 18 months
0:46:02 Um to get him to come on the podcast
0:46:06 Dude, it’s a finally said. Yeah, it sounds awesome. I need to go watch this. What are you listening to this episode?
0:46:08 It’s not like
0:46:14 You know, he’s not like mr. Like super storyteller mr. Swab or he’s a great guy
0:46:19 But like he just tells it like it is but if you listen to this thing, I don’t know how long it is like 90 minutes or something like that
0:46:28 I mean, it is one of the most incredible entrepreneurial stories. I’ve never heard by the way. All right, so I let me tell you a story now because we
0:46:32 This is chinese related, but we’re just telling stories about interesting people
0:46:34 I got to tell you about someone I just read about have you ever
0:46:39 Have you ever even been to new york? Have you ever been to new york like Manhattan? Yes, I am. Yeah, okay
0:46:46 When you were here, did you see these crazy guys on electric? They’re like they’re called electric bikes
0:46:50 But they’re basically motorcycles. They’re like the uber eats and door-dash drivers
0:46:54 No, I don’t think those happen even dude. So in new york like four years ago
0:47:03 It just popped up that all of these ubers there’s 70 000 uber eats and door-dash people in new york city and like the Manhattan and brooklyn area
0:47:07 It’s like and they’re all riding these electric bikes that fly
0:47:12 They look like they’re normal bicycles, but these things literally go 60 miles an hour
0:47:19 And I ride my bike everywhere when i’m in new york city and like I these fuckers have almost killed me tons of times and they’re and they’re dangerous
0:47:24 They’re really dangerous and what you’ll notice is that they all have like these gloves on their bikes
0:47:27 Have you ever seen these like door-dash drivers in the winter? Yeah, I’ve seen that
0:47:30 Well, they keep them there in the winter in the summertime too
0:47:37 And the reason they do that is because underneath those gloves they have like a motorcycle style acceleration
0:47:41 Like a twisty thing on the grip, which is illegal. You can’t have that because that like
0:47:45 You know at what point are you do go from being a bicycle to being a motorcycle where you there has to be rules
0:47:47 and so there’s
0:47:51 There’s this weird thing where I’d be walking around and I’m like I even would ask these guys
0:47:54 What is this bike and they don’t speak english like like they couldn’t tell me
0:47:59 But I was like I want to know what this bike is that goes 60 miles an hour and has like a twisty throttle thing because
0:48:00 This is sick
0:48:05 I want one and so I started doing research around it and I think I talked about it in the podcast
0:48:07 I couldn’t find out what it was
0:48:14 Well two or three days ago an article came out and it told the story about what this thing was and it’s pretty ridiculous and so
0:48:17 Basically, there’s a guy who comes from china
0:48:25 He’s got a two heart of a name to pronounce but his american name is andy. He comes in 2011 and when he comes
0:48:31 He basically admits that he goes I paid a guy 45 grand and he smuggled me in from mexico
0:48:34 I came illegally and then in this article
0:48:38 They even linked to a rap video that he did when he was broke and poor and he was like
0:48:42 I decided to come to america to make it rich that was like the chinese lyrics of this video
0:48:48 Well, it turns out the first thing that he did was he noticed that there was all these uber each
0:48:53 Like bike riders and they get punished if they don’t bring or if they don’t show up in time
0:48:56 Like if you don’t deliver quickly you get like docked like you don’t get the full rate
0:49:02 And so he starts importing he I think he borrowed 12 grand from someone and he starts importing these electric bikes from china
0:49:08 And he opens up a shop and one of these shops was right by my house where I used to stay in brooklyn years ago
0:49:11 And I would always see these guys like like they would kind of hang out outside the shop
0:49:17 Well, what I didn’t realize was that he scaled this thing so fast to where he started having um
0:49:23 Like literally 30 different stores all around Manhattan to where he’s selling these things. It’s called fly e-bikes
0:49:29 He’s selling these e-bikes that go like 40 50 miles an hour and they’re only a thousand dollars
0:49:32 It’s incredible and they’re incredibly illegal like
0:49:37 Like they literally just don’t file any of the laws
0:49:41 But if you look at the under there’s like a when you order these bikes
0:49:45 There’s like says something in the plate. It says like there’s literally like a metal plate and it says like, you know, this
0:49:52 Uh meets this usa standard this and that and like in the article someone was like nobody checks that
0:49:55 It’s just basically an honor system and that we hope that you do it
0:49:57 But there’s no one actually checking these things
0:50:01 But the guy ends up andy selling 70 000 bikes
0:50:04 In four years and a few months ago
0:50:09 I think it was in september he had the audacity to take the company public
0:50:11 and so
0:50:19 It goes public on the nasdaq and it’s uh, I think the ticker is f l e y and you can see the ticker
0:50:21 I think that uh
0:50:23 The and you can see I put all their financials in this document
0:50:29 But the year before they went public they were doing like 30 million in revenue and like two or three million dollars in profit
0:50:35 But they’re getting sued like crazy because one of their bikes catch on fire because they follow no rules
0:50:41 He basically admits that he’s like, yeah, we’re cowboys. We uh bill first and we ask questions later
0:50:45 And so like homes that built down people have actually died from the batteries being
0:50:52 Catching on fire in someone’s apartment and burning the fucking apartment down and they’re getting sued and one of the lawyers suing them
0:50:55 He’s got this quote where he’s like dude
0:51:01 Six years ago these guys were busboys serving dishes or cleaning dishes in restaurants now
0:51:04 They’re running a publicly traded company. They know nothing about building bikes
0:51:07 They’re just like getting the cheapest shit they can over here
0:51:09 And it’s all true by the way, they’re insane
0:51:16 But I cannot believe they went public and in like the the one of the I went and watched listen to this
0:51:18 I I listened to one of their um
0:51:23 Their reports or like when they were in like investors were interviewing the CEO andy
0:51:27 Before he took it public and they’re like, why’d you go decide to take a public?
0:51:30 And he says he was inspired by the movie wolf of wall street
0:51:33 And that’s why he decided to take the company public
0:51:37 He says that in a youtube video in a youtube video
0:51:40 He says I decided to take it public because I saw a wolf of wall street
0:51:45 And so now because of all these lawsuits and because the company is just like shit
0:51:48 Like it’s just like they’re breaking so many laws. They just do whatever the hell they want
0:51:51 The the stock has crashed
0:51:55 We need to spin off pod of just absolutely
0:52:01 Renegade chinese founders just doing doing things that that we would never dream of
0:52:09 I would subscribe to that instantaneously. Well, he’s like the real-life zhinyang from uh silicon valley
0:52:11 Where like he just sit there smoking cigars
0:52:14 Sigs and like someone’s like, you know, you really need safety stuff and he’s like
0:52:17 Who says like, you know what I mean? Like he did
0:52:23 It’s like the deep-seek founder right right now the deep-seek founder is gonna get a lot of pub for this same reason
0:52:29 It’s just this guy’s hilarious and but it is actually inspiring that like all these dorks are like we got to do this
0:52:32 We got to do we got to like have this process. We got to do this and meanwhile
0:52:35 We brought this guy nick moving to china and not knowing shit and then we got this chinese guy
0:52:38 moving to new york and not knowing shit and like
0:52:43 It’s and it still works and his company by the way. He started a
0:52:47 Electric bike company. It does 30 million in revenue and three million in income. So like it’s
0:52:55 Not nothing. Yeah, so and he started with 12 000. Uh, it’s pretty badass though. It besides the fact that it’s um
0:52:59 You know like incredibly illegal and dangerous and people are dying
0:53:05 But besides that it’s like kind of an interesting story because I’ve always wondered where these freaking bikes have come from
0:53:10 I got to give a shout-out to kerb. They have um an article and it’s called the moped king
0:53:14 How an x delivery worker upended the streets of new york city for better and for worse
0:53:21 Um, and it’s called fly e-bike e-bike. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I just leave the spin off somebody needs to make the uh
0:53:23 Not not the right way to do it, but still impressive
0:53:26 version of much
0:53:28 Uh, yeah, we went from like
0:53:36 We went from like um inspiring who cares about money. We’re gonna like make travel better to um
0:53:42 Hardcore shark does whatever it takes, but still ethical, but like I’m gonna get rich and just conquer the world
0:53:45 to uh
0:53:47 Fuck everyone get paid
0:53:52 The full journey exactly. Yeah. All right. That’s it. That’s the pot. Is that it? That’s it. That’s the pot. All right
0:53:56 I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to
0:54:02 I put my all in it like no days on for the road. Let’s travel never looking back
0:54:10 Hey, shon here a quick break to tell you an ev william stories
0:54:14 He started twitter and before that he sold a company to google for a hundred million dollars and somebody asked him
0:54:19 They said ev what’s the secret man? How do you create these huge businesses billion-dollar businesses?
0:54:22 And he says well, I think the answer is that you take a human desire
0:54:24 Preferably one that’s been around for thousands of years
0:54:28 And then you just use modern technology to take out steps
0:54:32 Just remove the friction that exists between people getting what they want
0:54:37 And that is what my partner mercury does they took one of the most basic needs any entrepreneur has managing your money
0:54:39 And being able to do your financial operations
0:54:43 So they’ve removed all the friction that has existed for decades no more clunky interfaces
0:54:46 No more 10 tabs to get something done
0:54:49 No more having to drive to a bank get out of your car just to send a wire transfer
0:54:53 They made it fast. They made it easy. You can actually just get back to running your business
0:54:56 You don’t have to worry about the rest of it. I use it for not one not two
0:55:01 But six of my companies right now and it’s used by also 200 000 other ambitious founders
0:55:07 So if you want to be like me head to mercury.com open them account in minutes and remember mercury is a financial technology company
0:55:14 Not a bank banking services provided by choice financial group and involve bank and trust members fdic. All right back to the episode
0:55:16 (upbeat music)
0:00:09 Single blood vessel in your body
0:00:13 You are gonna be fired the fuck up after this. I don’t know what you got. What do you have scheduled after this?
0:00:15 Cancel it
0:00:27 All right, let’s hear it. What is it? All right, so you’ve probably heard of this company boom supersonic. Yes
0:00:32 Yeah, uh, I had the opportunity to do invest in this company years ago
0:00:39 And I didn’t have any money then but also I even if I did I would have passed on this because it’s it’s a it’s a ridiculous proposition
0:00:42 I didn’t have any courage then either. That was the real problem
0:00:48 Well, like a guy said that uh guide silken valley said he’s gonna build a commercial airline
0:00:54 He’s gonna build a jet that can be a supersonic commercial airplane, right? That sounds ridiculous
0:00:58 Exactly. So the the thing that’s going viral right now is
0:01:05 Former like group on product manager because he worked at group on is linked in literally goes group on product manager
0:01:09 Then created the first supersonic jet and like, you know, whatever
0:01:11 56 years
0:01:15 So it’s this insane jump on linked in and that’s kind of going viral right now
0:01:18 It got me curious because I remember back of the day. This was 2016
0:01:21 Did you see the deal?
0:01:24 I uh, I wasn’t it didn’t it’s not like somebody sent it to me to invest
0:01:29 I could have if I chased it down and then actually several times since then I could have invested but I didn’t
0:01:30 um
0:01:32 Maybe not too late. Maybe now’s the time
0:01:38 But I remember watching demo day. Do you remember this story? Do you remember his demo day pitch at yc demo day?
0:01:43 I didn’t know he went through yc. I didn’t pay that close attention to it. So he went through y-combinator
0:01:45 Exactly went through y-combinator now
0:01:50 I remember at the time it stood up now yc does a lot more like moonshot type of companies back then
0:01:58 It was all apps. It was all software. You’re making an iphone app. You’re making like a b2b sas tool and this is 16
0:02:02 16 and there was this one guy there who was like
0:02:04 We’re creating supersonic air travel
0:02:10 Like you’re gonna be able to fly from new york to london in three and a half hours. That’s what we’re doing
0:02:12 remember the concord
0:02:14 we’re gonna do that again and
0:02:19 He gets on stage and I remember thinking while he’s pitching. I’m like, how is he gonna have
0:02:26 Attraction because every yc pitch ends the same where they show their user growth. We’re growing 30 percent week over week
0:02:28 But it’s like going from like, you know
0:02:32 Three to six to nine right like it’s like they have some crazy growth rate
0:02:34 But it’s on a very small customer base, but that’s always the pitch
0:02:38 So I remember wondering what’s this guy gonna do and at the very end of his pitch
0:02:42 He whips out a piece of paper and he goes and as of last night
0:02:45 We have five billion in pre-orders
0:02:49 Thanks to virgin. Thanks to richard branson and virgin
0:02:54 And we were like what five billion and it was like he had an lly. It wasn’t actually a purchase order
0:03:01 Which basically just says uh one day if you can actually build a safe supersonic jet. We will definitely buy it
0:03:05 We will maybe buy it. That’s what it means
0:03:11 Right like when somebody invites me to like a party. I don’t want to go to I’m gonna start sending llys
0:03:13 Because at lly just means
0:03:19 I’m generally interested, but I’m probably not gonna do it. All right. Yeah, but still it was impressive five billion
0:03:25 Still to this day. Nobody’s walked into yc demo day with five billions dollars worth of letters letter of intent
0:03:29 So, okay, I remember seeing that then he disappeared for a while then he actually had to go do the work
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0:04:10 So let me tell you this guy’s story because
0:04:13 right now in silicon valley
0:04:14 there is a
0:04:16 buzzword
0:04:22 Actually, I would say it’s kind of like an early buzzword like I would be buying stock in this buzzword because it’s about to go mainstream
0:04:26 And that word is high agency. You’ve seen high agency floating around
0:04:29 No, but that is is high agency the new contrarian
0:04:33 Oh, it is I mean it’s shits on contrarian, dude
0:04:41 Like it runs where contrarian walked. We have to sell democratize democratize is done. That was the grandfather
0:04:44 We have the short contrarian. We’re going all in on high agency
0:04:47 We’re long high agency the man in the arena
0:04:50 Is that just plummeted? Had a moment had a moment
0:04:53 Uh, butt him off just butchered that one. So that one’s done
0:04:59 So all right, so check this out. So high agency is this word and there’s uh, our buddy, george mack
0:05:04 By the way is like all in on the high agency like he I think he’s writing a book about high agency right now
0:05:08 I think he by the way, he bought the domain high agency.com
0:05:15 And I was like, how’d you get that? He goes the guy let it expire after 10 years and I sniped it right away
0:05:17 Very low agency move
0:05:19 High agency by him, low agencies by the other, right?
0:05:24 It’s like in football the low man wins. No, no in business the high agency man wins and so
0:05:28 um, the classic meme which we should put on the screen on youtube is
0:05:32 Guy is the cartoon guy is trapped on an island
0:05:37 And he has these like pieces of bark or wood or whatever and he he spells out help
0:05:39 He’s waiting for someone to come save him
0:05:43 That’s the low agency guy and the high agency guy takes the wood and makes a boat and rows away
0:05:47 Um, right. So that that’s like the the gist of this. Okay, but this guy
0:05:50 This dude from boom supersonic. What’s his name? Blake?
0:05:56 He’s just absolutely dripping with agency. All right, so let’s take this out
0:06:04 He’s guy is soaked. This guy is a yeah, he’s a buffalo wing and he is tossed hand tossed in high agency. All right, so here we go
0:06:10 Story starts he drops out of high school. His parents sent him to a good high school like a nice private school
0:06:16 And he doesn’t feel like he fits in he doesn’t really look like uh get that interested in class
0:06:22 he drops out and um, so now he’s high school dropout black parents are kind of concerned
0:06:28 He ends up finding something that he’s really into like science and math like he in this like after school program
0:06:32 Or there’s some shit like that, but forget that first high agency move
0:06:38 Once he started getting interested in science math engineering. He’s like actually I think I do like school
0:06:42 I just didn’t know what I just didn’t like my high school the way I was doing it
0:06:45 But now I found I actually do like to learn I want to go to college
0:06:49 Well, how do you go to college? You don’t have a high school degree. You’re a high school dropout
0:06:55 He finds that at Carnegie Mellon, they have a special program for high school dropouts who want to go to Carnegie Mellon
0:07:01 So he applies and he applies as a junior and he writes an essay about why you have to write an essay why you didn’t finish high school
0:07:07 And he writes high school had nothing left to teach me he gets in not only is he getting he gets the merit scholarship
0:07:10 And he graduates with a you know bachelors in computer science. Okay, so
0:07:16 What does he do next his next move is that he’s like I want to be an entrepreneur
0:07:18 But I don’t know what idea I want to start yet
0:07:22 So why don’t I go and work for who I think is the greatest entrepreneur right now?
0:07:25 And that was jet bezos in 2001
0:07:32 So amazon is out the dot-com crash just happened amazon stock is in the tank
0:07:37 I that’s what I’m betting you’re looking that up right now 2001. It was I mean, it was shit. It was uh,
0:07:40 A dollar now it’s two hundred and seventy three dollars great
0:07:46 So he joins amazon in 2001 and his goal is to learn as much as he can from bezos
0:07:49 So he’s like all right, I got to build something that’s of interest to bezos and at the time
0:07:57 Bezos had an idea which was like, hey, we need to we need amazon products to show up number one in google search results
0:07:59 so
0:08:02 Blake builds this automated system where he is
0:08:04 Um
0:08:09 Buying google ads for every single product on amazon like the entire catalog. He builds an auto bidder
0:08:14 So that amazon will bid not too much but bid enough to be the top result on amazon
0:08:18 Which is one of the reasons by the way that like the you know, there’s like stories of like
0:08:23 There’s a story that a company wants you to know and then there’s a story that actually happened
0:08:25 and I’ve read a lot about amazon and one of the
0:08:30 One of the make or break moments was the fact that they were one of google’s biggest spenders
0:08:33 And they crushed it and knocked it out the park because google was underpriced and they were able to
0:08:39 Get big fast because people think all these companies are competitors. They’re also co-conspirators, right?
0:08:45 google pays apple built tens of billions of dollars to be the default search engine apple in uh,
0:08:52 Microsoft invested in apple when they were big competitors bill gates basically kind of saved apple at a time when steve jobs needed investment
0:08:58 And in this case amazon is the biggest spender on google like you know that oh what I thought these as were competitors
0:09:02 And bezos was one of the angel investors of google or something like that exactly
0:09:04 So he builds this system by 24
0:09:09 Now he’s 24 years old three years in and he was basically working under direct view of bezos
0:09:13 So he goes every three months. I had to give bezos a report on how we were doing
0:09:20 And by the age of 24, he’s running a 300 million dollar p&l inside of amazon. He’s the he’s the gm of that business
0:09:22 but
0:09:27 Even though he’s learned a bunch and he uh, kind of you know cut his cut his teeth here
0:09:33 He wanted to be an entrepreneur. So he quits even though. He’s like a rising star at amazon and he knows amazon is like a
0:09:37 amazon’s a winner right amazon was a winner if he had done nothing else
0:09:40 But just stay at amazon get promoted as an exact keep getting stock options every year
0:09:45 He would have made hundreds of millions of dollars essentially risk-free at that point
0:09:47 Yeah, but he quits and him and some guy
0:09:51 Decided to create a start so the greatest startup it kind of fails to create another startup
0:09:58 Eventually they sell that startup to group on and this is where the linkedin part of group on comes in is like this hilarious quote on on his
0:10:01 Group on linkedin description
0:10:05 So he says what he does like, you know senior whatever manager of this thing
0:10:12 And then his description goes nothing like working on internet coupons to make you yearn for doing something that you truly love
0:10:15 So he after two years at group on he quits
0:10:18 And he decides, you know, what I want to do a company
0:10:20 I don’t know what I want to do it in and his whole life
0:10:23 He had been interested in flight. He talks about like a music kid
0:10:26 He was always interested in model airplanes. His parents took up to a museum
0:10:29 He was always obsessed with flight one of his things on his bucket list
0:10:34 Was that you know in his 20s? He wanted to go mock too like he got his pilot’s license
0:10:36 He always just was interested in flight, but it was a hobby
0:10:41 And he’s trying to think of what startup ideas to do and his method for figuring this out is
0:10:44 I’m going to write a list of all the ideas starting with
0:10:47 What would be the most awesome if I did it
0:10:49 Down from there
0:10:54 And then I’ll just probably cross out the first five because they’re unrealistic or impractical
0:10:56 And I’ll probably do number five on the list was his plan
0:11:00 But number one was create a supersonic jet because like elan
0:11:07 The way elan started SpaceX you’ve heard the story where he went into it like it thinking this is not going to work
0:11:13 Well, but even before that he said, you know, he sell uh paypal sells elan now has 180 million dollars
0:11:15 He leaves and he’s
0:11:19 Just curious like what okay, what else and he’s curious
0:11:23 Um, what’s the latest with nasa’s mars mission like I haven’t heard about our mars mission
0:11:28 Like are we is it in progress and I just missed it. Is it launching soon? I can’t wait to go see it
0:11:31 Maybe I’ll fly there and go see it. I want to see the launch. I love rockets
0:11:35 And he goes on the nasa website and there’s no mention of mars
0:11:42 And he’s like what we went to the moon like in whatever 73 like how are we not? Where’s the next mission?
0:11:44 And it wasn’t even on the website
0:11:51 He’s like what and he got so upset by that that the start of SpaceX was actually that he was going to privately fund a mission
0:11:54 Just sound like a plant to mars
0:11:57 And then it became like a turtle or jelly or something
0:11:59 It was like, you know some living some technically living thing
0:12:04 And it was like I’m gonna spend 25 million dollars doing this this there’s just like a stunt
0:12:09 And uh just to kind of like reinvigorate the interest in this same way this guy blake
0:12:14 Puts on a google alert for supersonic jet. He’s like, I just can’t wait till there’s a supersonic flight
0:12:16 I’ll be the first guy to buy it
0:12:19 And he’s waiting and he’s waiting and he’s like is nobody working on this
0:12:25 And he’s like, oh it must be that it just doesn’t the numbers don’t the math ain’t math it like that’s got to be the problem
0:12:27 so he creates a spreadsheet and
0:12:30 In it he writes down the assumptions
0:12:33 He’s like basically like the engineering assumptions and he gives himself like a few months
0:12:36 To work on this where he’s like, all right, let me just dig into this
0:12:40 So I think it was two weeks where he does like it goes and buys a book because he’s like
0:12:43 I don’t know anything about how airplanes fly but he goes he buys a book
0:12:49 And he creates an excel spreadsheet on one tab was the cost model. He’s like, is it an economic problem?
0:12:50 because
0:12:54 The brief history is we had this thing called the concord back in the day
0:12:58 Have you ever seen the concord like uh, have you ever looked at photos of it? It looked great photos
0:13:04 Yes, like and it was like inspiring and everybody loved it and it was the same idea you could get from you know here to london
0:13:09 In new york to london and three and a half hours ish. Yeah, it was like three and a half hours or three hours in 45 minutes
0:13:12 Was the fastest time ever which what’s it like double the speed?
0:13:16 So it’s eight hours normal flight. So it was twice you could fly twice as fast
0:13:21 And the idea was the concord was like this luxury item in a way. It was priced really expensive
0:13:23 So this is you know
0:13:25 Almost 50 years ago that it was invented
0:13:31 But it was priced at like 15 000 dollars a ticket and if you look at the inside of it the photos
0:13:36 I think it was only like three seats by three so it was like a it was like two or three seats something passengers
0:13:39 I think yeah, so there wasn’t a lot of people at all
0:13:42 So it was hard to make a lot of money high priced low volume
0:13:45 Not a lot of routes only limited number of routes
0:13:49 But it had all these problems like if you go look up like the problems with the concord, right? Like it was like
0:13:56 Yes, it was expensive it also like got really hot like there’s this famous thing where when they first launched it to do
0:14:00 Like a pr blitz or like to sponsor it. They had Pepsi sponsored the concord
0:14:06 And so they painted it light blue and the concord before that was this white reflective material
0:14:08 To reflect heat to not store heat
0:14:14 But the light blue thing made it where it got so hot inside the cabin that you know the hour flight
0:14:17 They can only do for 20 minutes because it was like cooking everything inside
0:14:21 So like heat was a problem noise was a problem price was the problem
0:14:27 Um, you know duration was a problem. I also think there was a really famous crash too where it was like
0:14:31 That was the best now and I don’t remember if I don’t you know, this was years
0:14:33 I was a kid or I don’t even think I was alive actually
0:14:37 But I remember reading about it in the what I read was the reality
0:14:39 Is that it could have worked or it could have been great?
0:14:44 But the perception was that this thing is dangerous and it’s too radical and it crashed. I’m never getting on that. Is that right?
0:14:50 Exactly. So the the last the thing that kind of killed the concord was they had this flight where
0:14:54 During takeoff the tire hit something on the runway
0:15:00 And it ruptured the tire and then the plane basically exploded to kill everybody on board and that was like all right
0:15:05 We’re done with this thing too dangerous. So it had safety problems price problems heat problems
0:15:10 Um, you know like noise problems because it was like, you know shatter windows when it would do a sonic boom
0:15:12 So it was like
0:15:15 Oh, whatever. So I think in like 2003 was the last flight
0:15:19 So in about 20 years has been no no no flight since nobody was even working on it
0:15:22 So he he has this spreadsheet
0:15:26 And he’s like look am I just nuts because the way I’m penciling this out
0:15:32 You know, we only need like a 30 improvement in like fuel efficiency
0:15:37 A 30 improvement in this one other thing and he’s like dude. It’s been 50 years like
0:15:41 Our tv’s got better our phones got better our computers got like dramatically better not 30 better
0:15:43 They got like 3 000 percent better
0:15:47 He’s like I’m pretty sure we could make the plane 30 percent more efficient
0:15:53 And then this would work. So he goes to this like you can buy a t you can I can get a tcl 75 inch tv for literally $600
0:15:55 And it’s delivered to my door the next day
0:15:59 Like if I can do that we can make a we can make a chat
0:16:02 So he goes to this stanford professor
0:16:05 And he’s like he’s like, hey like, you know this
0:16:10 We need a 30 i my calculations show when you’re 30 fuel efficiency
0:16:15 And by the way that conquered was designed at a time where like they used slide rulers and like, you know
0:16:19 Wind tunnels to test things like I think we could do this and the professor was like
0:16:24 Yeah, I think you can uh the math is correct. He’s like, so, you know, you might have engineering problems
0:16:26 But like the physics are fine
0:16:30 And so he gets encouraged he’s like, I just thought I must not know something
0:16:32 And that’s why this hasn’t been done
0:16:38 But it’s one of these classic things where like the beginner’s mind goes in and they don’t see the problems and therefore they do it
0:16:42 Whereas all the experts just assume that’s we tried that it doesn’t work
0:16:47 And so he goes and he he decides to create an airplane company. Okay, so what’s the next move?
0:16:50 How’s he gonna fund this thing and how’s he gonna build it?
0:16:54 Because again, this dude just bought a textbook about flight. He doesn’t know anything about this stuff
0:16:58 So he’s like, all right, I need to recruit a great team and we got a we need some money
0:17:01 So he decides he takes half of all of his life savings
0:17:05 And he decides to fund the company bank account with it and he hires up
0:17:09 Something like six to ten people one of which he poaches the
0:17:16 Former chief engineer of Gulfstream and he’s like, I thought it would be hard to get talent because here I am
0:17:21 I’m this fucking group on kid saying I’m gonna build a you know a supersonic jet
0:17:25 This never been hasn’t been done in, you know, 50 years like the last American
0:17:30 New American Airlines company that worked was like, you know, eight years ago or something
0:17:32 So the business line is a little crazy
0:17:36 Probably gonna, you know, it I think it cost the conquered like a billion dollars to make the conquered
0:17:40 Like it was like a billion dollar project. They thought it was 20 million and it ended up spending a billion
0:17:43 He’s like, I think well, I think we’ll need 200 million
0:17:47 But I don’t know where I’m gonna get all that so let me just start by fun to get myself
0:17:51 Did he did he say how much he hasn’t said the the amount but he at one point he’s like
0:17:55 I realized like I’m playing chicken with my own bank account here. He’s like, I want to go raise money
0:17:58 He ends up raising like a million bucks still almost nothing
0:18:00 But he gets like a few early believers in
0:18:04 I have one of my really close friends chris was in that round
0:18:06 Oh wow
0:18:10 Did he say what he saw or why he’s been telling me about it for years
0:18:16 And that’s originally how I heard about this and he was like this guy’s just magical and I I I just couldn’t get
0:18:24 I’m like a silicon valley software person starting a jet company. That just that’s really dumb which is evidenced by
0:18:28 dumb ideas being potentially amazing and how that’s actually
0:18:29 quite common
0:18:32 And by the way, the airline mark airplane market
0:18:39 Is super fragmented. Oh wait. No, it’s not. There’s two companies one owns 51 percent. The other one owns 49 percent
0:18:42 It’s just air bus and Boeing and that’s the whole market, right? So
0:18:48 You know, he’s trying to go to basically break up this duopoly in in theory. Okay, so let’s go back to the to it
0:18:49 So he hires this guy
0:18:56 So he hires deem and he’s like actually one of the surprising things was it was way easier to hire great talent
0:18:58 because
0:19:00 The bigger the mission the better the pitch
0:19:04 So he’s like I had a super exciting mission. I didn’t have a lot of other things
0:19:07 I didn’t have a lot of traction. I didn’t have a lot of funding, but I had a great mission
0:19:11 I had an exciting project that was basically like nerd porn
0:19:14 So he’s like any nerdy, you know engineer who worked on airplanes
0:19:17 You could either go work at Boeing or airbus
0:19:19 And your job is to like, you know
0:19:23 Make sure that the cabin temperature goes down by two degrees so that we could sell more, you know
0:19:27 Vibe electronics like that was they weren’t trying to innovate at all
0:19:30 So if you were somebody who wanted to innovate, this was like the only option
0:19:32 So you’ve recruited a team then he goes into yc
0:19:35 And he was skeptical he goes into y-combinator
0:19:40 He’s like, isn’t it just for software companies, but sam altman’s like no, no, no, we like hard hard stuff
0:19:42 um
0:19:47 Sam’s like, I don’t know if you’re gonna get in but you should go talk to these four other guys who had hardware companies that kind of failed in yc
0:19:52 But but they’ll tell you that like they would have failed much worse had they not had yc
0:19:54 So you go stop them. They’re like, yeah, it was great. Let’s do it
0:19:57 So he joins and he’s like, I realized something pretty quickly
0:20:01 He goes yc is architected in this three month program around demo day
0:20:03 Three months you’re going to stand on stage in front of all the investors
0:20:06 You’re going to make your pitch and you got to raise money. That’s the whole point
0:20:08 And so he’s like, what the hell am I going to do in three months?
0:20:11 so he goes
0:20:13 I realized that during yc
0:20:19 If I went to them and I was like, hey, we reduced the drag coefficient by 30 and this engine design is really awesome
0:20:21 And like that’s our progress update
0:20:22 We’re cooked
0:20:25 And so he’s like, I got to figure out something that I’m going to do so he comes up with two plans
0:20:27 He’s like the number one
0:20:28 I got to sell the dream
0:20:31 So he spends a good chunk of his time and money
0:20:37 Just building like a model airplane that looks sick. He’s like, all right. This is not going to actually help us
0:20:38 Make the plane
0:20:42 But uh, it’s going to help people see that we’re making a plane and it’s going to live awesome
0:20:44 How much does yc give you like 125 grand?
0:20:46 Yeah, something like at the time
0:20:51 He probably just spent all like $100,000 hiring some firm making like a really great model
0:20:54 So he had like a model like oh, you’re like a model, but then he also had
0:20:57 A like a gnarly looking engine
0:21:02 And he’s like, we just want to stand there with a big ass engine and then people will walk by like, whoa
0:21:05 Is that a jet engine? He’s like, yeah, that’s the jet engine
0:21:08 We’re going to use on our supersonic jet. Would you like to hear more?
0:21:11 So he’s like, I need that eye candy. You needed a booth babe
0:21:14 And for him, the booth babe was the model and the engine so smart
0:21:21 Right because like one of the common out is elan and these other guys is it’s you can’t just be an engineer in your in your little engineering hole
0:21:26 You got to know just enough about the rest about the marketing the capital raising all the other things to survive
0:21:29 So he did the second thing was he was like, I needed these like purchase orders
0:21:31 So he makes a list and he’s like
0:21:38 All right, how can they go get LOI’s and he’s like he makes this list and so he’s like, uh, here’s his quote. He goes
0:21:42 I realized I couldn’t show up to demo day with no sales
0:21:43 Otherwise my goose was pretty cooked
0:21:48 So I looked at my sales pipeline and it was united delta lufthansa air china
0:21:51 And we only had eight or nine weeks before demo day and I thought to myself
0:21:55 There’s no way i’m closing with fan lufthansa airlines by demo day is not going to happen
0:21:58 I’ll be lucky if I close them in nine years let alone nine weeks
0:22:02 So I realized I actually only had two options a startup airline or virgin
0:22:09 He goes so we I went all in and focused all of my air my sales efforts on startups and virgin
0:22:10 he goes
0:22:14 I went to the startups who were currently operating and I got one of them to do an LOI
0:22:20 But it was a company you’ve never heard of but it was the best I could do and here I was 24 hours before demo day
0:22:24 And the lucky break we got was that demo day was split into two days if it was demo day one
0:22:28 He would have stood by the stage and said we have a small LOI from this company. You’ve never heard of
0:22:31 Luckily we got randomly assigned to demo day two
0:22:35 So he had bought an extra 24 hours in that extra 24 hours
0:22:39 He ends up getting an email from virgin the night before demo day that says you’re allowed to announce
0:22:41 We’ll take the first 10 planes
0:22:46 We’ve got options on them and through virgin galactic will even help you build it. It goes. I fell off my chair
0:22:50 I almost screamed. I had to read the things three times. I couldn’t believe it
0:22:53 We went from we went from being the biggest laughing stock on demo day
0:22:56 So the company that showed up with five billion dollars worth of an LOI
0:23:02 Worth of LOIs a record that won’t be broken sin. Dude, that’s so sick. What year is this?
0:23:05 What year is this 2016? So I yeah, I was reading
0:23:09 I was looking up my email to try to figure out did I ever talk to this person?
0:23:12 How do I know him and the earliest thing I could only find was I think in 2020
0:23:18 It says the hustle actually wrote about him said united airline wants to buy 15 supersonic airliners from boom sonic
0:23:22 So it took him an additional two years to get the united airlines. The next for the next LOI
0:23:24 So, okay, so then how did he get branson?
0:23:30 High agency, baby. I told you he’s dripping an agency. All right. So what does he do? So he’s like, all right
0:23:33 If I want to get to richard branson, I got to go through somebody I trust
0:23:36 He goes i’m also not just going to try one path to branson
0:23:40 We got to try multiple paths for branson. So he’s like if I get blocked over a year. I got this other
0:23:42 Long shot going
0:23:46 So he’s like I had this guy on our board who was an astronaut this guy mark kelly probably heard of him
0:23:51 So that guy was on his advisory board. He’s like, he knows branson. He’s like, so i’m thinking. All right, we got
0:23:55 We got to find a way to uh to get to richard and so he goes
0:23:56 um
0:24:00 We asked we asked mark. What’s the best way to get to richard branson? How do we make that happen?
0:24:07 He got and he told me he goes hey, you you can’t get him interested in you but go where he’s interested in his own thing
0:24:12 So what do you mean? He goes virgin galactic has this big roll out for their spaceship richard’s got to be there
0:24:16 So you just got to get there go where he is and they’re like, okay
0:24:20 And so they get he’s like could you make could you email him and say hey?
0:24:26 These guys i’m advising from boom supersonic are going to be in mojave when you’re doing your rollout
0:24:28 You should meet with them when you’re there
0:24:31 And then he’s like um, and then he reaches out to the virgin guys
0:24:34 He’s like hey, we’re going to be in town uh to see richard. Can we come to the rollout?
0:24:37 Like, you know, so basically they get invited to the rollout
0:24:39 They get there
0:24:41 He’s super busy
0:24:46 They end up getting 15 minutes with him when he’s at brunch with his mom and they go up to him and they go he goes
0:24:49 um
0:24:54 Richard they show him what they’re doing to like we’re building the first supersonic jet since the concord we fix these problems
0:24:58 We’re making that happen and he goes look we’re not asking you for your money
0:25:03 All we want to know is this when this thing flies. Do you want a virgin logo on it?
0:25:08 And he goes i think that was the key you got to ask for the right thing
0:25:13 When you do a deal you it’s probably going to be hard to close you got to ask for what’s really going to help you
0:25:16 So we told richard look if you’re our customer, we will get money elsewhere
0:25:19 We don’t need money from you and that was crucial
0:25:22 Uh, basically like the first few babies of these that are in the air
0:25:24 Do you want them with a virgin logo or not?
0:25:30 And so that was the thing that got richard branson across the line was making the intelligent ask and hustling their way
0:25:32 Dude, this is a movie. This is a movie
0:25:36 If it works if it ends well, it’s a movie. Well, they just did their flight
0:25:40 So they just did their first demo flight where but it wasn’t a um
0:25:42 I think what the test was if I remember correctly
0:25:47 Was it the engine that they were testing they got the engine because the plane is like a it’s a small plane
0:25:50 right this was a smaller plane than the real plane that they’re gonna have
0:25:54 And I don’t think it was the full speed that they’re gonna have but they did achieve
0:25:57 I believe they achieved supersonic flight. You could check me on that. But yeah, yeah
0:26:01 They they achieved the right that they crossed the threshold. They did it safely
0:26:05 They landed it and is there like whatever xb1 or whatever they’re calling that thing
0:26:10 Okay, he’s got some great startup advice. So here’s here’s the way he described his startup. I like the way he phrased this
0:26:12 so he goes
0:26:14 Here’s my advice for startups
0:26:17 Pick something that’s going to be worth it to you personally
0:26:20 That is what that is how you stack the deck in your favor
0:26:26 Stack to the deck so that you will be motivated and when you look at what you’re creating versus if you went to google or facebook or amazon
0:26:28 It should be a no contest
0:26:32 If you haven’t found that just don’t even start a startup. I did that my first time
0:26:36 I just started a startup just for just because and it was a horrible idea
0:26:40 You you should start a startup when you’re like I must make this happen
0:26:41 and
0:26:47 Something I’ve come to believe is that the bigger the idea the easier it becomes because it motivates you and the people around you
0:26:52 And you attract better people to come work on it. When we were brainstorming this most of the ideas we came up with were like
0:26:56 No one’s going to really appreciate this blah blah blah blah, but for us
0:27:01 It was like the most exciting thing we could ever do and so that’s all that mattered was like you know stacking the deck in your favor
0:27:07 Doing it as a must rather than a we could do this. Um, and so that that’s I thought one
0:27:09 Really great takeaway
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0:27:28 The number one audio destination for business professionals billion dollar moves
0:27:34 It’s hosted by sarah chen spelling sarah is a venture capitalist and strategist and with billion dollar moves
0:27:40 She wants to look at unicorn founders and funders and she looks for what she calls the unexpected leader
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0:27:59 billion dollar moves. All right back to the episode
0:28:05 I was reading this quote by the guy I don’t know how to say his last name
0:28:08 But the guy who wrote crime and punishment, you know, like this famous novel and he said um
0:28:13 Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself
0:28:21 For nothing and I was reading I I just read that like an hour ago and it’s sat with me and what you’ve described is exactly that
0:28:25 Yeah, I love this guy. Uh, so I don’t know him, but I’m rooting for them
0:28:29 I want to invest now because you know, why not? Let’s let’s get on the team
0:28:35 You know they um and there’s been a lot of I think there’s been well there definitely has been but there’s been
0:28:40 I think he’s wrote publicly about a lot of the downsides of all this which is that it’s this has not been clear
0:28:44 I think he had to take a huge down round and he tweeted out about it
0:28:48 I believe and I think his most recent valuation was two billion dollars
0:28:50 Um, which was down from the other amount
0:28:55 But didn’t he tweet about the down round and how like they basically almost ran out of money and how it’s almost failed
0:28:57 a bunch of different times
0:28:59 I don’t know. I didn’t see that I also
0:29:06 I’m different than you. I feel like you love to know the downsides of things like even when a guest comes on
0:29:10 That’s one of the questions you tend to ask which is interesting to me because I never really think about it
0:29:12 But you’re always like what are the honest
0:29:19 Like it’s not all peaches and cream like what what are the downsides of your approach, which is obviously an intelligent question
0:29:22 But I think there’s something
0:29:27 Good about being delusional about it too and just being like I have a convenient
0:29:30 Hole in my memory and in my brain
0:29:34 To not even really pay attention or remember those things
0:29:40 The reason I ask that is because I have been a victim of this many times where I go and say well
0:29:45 This guy did it. Why can’t I do it and then I start doing it and I think to myself
0:29:48 This is way harder than it than it than it looked. Why is this so hard?
0:29:54 And and so I always look for those I always ask those questions not to say that someone shouldn’t do something
0:30:01 But just to say that it is much more challenging than it appears and that is okay and normal because I remember thinking on my journey
0:30:08 This sucks, you know, this person he never felt that way. Why do I feel that way? Like I’m I’m full of shit
0:30:13 What the hell I’m not I’m not good enough and then I don’t want to like be reminded that like this is a normal feeling
0:30:19 This is a normal problem. I’m having you got to keep going. That’s why I ask those questions
0:30:23 Yeah, I think it’s totally helpful to have that the one that helps me is um
0:30:26 Tony Robbins does this thing where he talks about dabblers
0:30:30 Versus stressor achievers versus masters and I’ve talked about this up. I won’t do the whole thing
0:30:35 But like one of the things he says at the end is that anybody who’s pursuing anything
0:30:40 No matter what if you are in it, you’re going to hit plateaus
0:30:45 So frigid even downs but like just plateaus where it feels like it’s not working the progress
0:30:49 It’s not happening. It’s not happening as fast as you want. It’s not growing. It’s not working
0:30:52 Everyone’s saying no, we don’t have that investor whatever it is, right?
0:30:56 And the one thing that Tony said that just always stuck in my mind almost like as a
0:31:02 It’s like a it’s like a jingle in a song or like a commercial where he goes
0:31:05 When that plateau comes the dabbler quits
0:31:12 The stressor stresses and the master says, ah, I thought I’d be seeing you soon. Hello, my old friend
0:31:18 You’re here. I was expecting you which is like we have this one company. We started uh
0:31:23 Just a little over a year ago. That’s just been like up and to the right like this company
0:31:26 is I haven’t announced it yet, but it’s like
0:31:34 Almost a 10 million dollar run rate already profitable bootstrapped in one here. It’s like insanely insanely successful
0:31:38 But we just hit like our you know our first plateau and I feel like
0:31:39 When we called it out
0:31:43 it was almost like this kind of like embarrassing down feeling of like, oh man like
0:31:46 We didn’t have ridiculous growth this month
0:31:52 And we’re out whereas I was like, dude, I’ve been expecting you. Where is the plateau? I know it’s coming
0:31:57 I almost don’t even trust that it’s happening until you’re that this is real until we start to face some of these and so
0:32:03 Yeah, that’s why I ask those questions is I don’t want us as a media or whatever we are to be the ones who
0:32:09 Who I want to be realistic the biggest business influencers on itunes. Well, yeah
0:32:12 As Spotify’s 13th biggest business influencer
0:32:18 I just want to say that it is a fucking pain in the ass and it’s still worth it. Do you know what I mean?
0:32:20 Yeah, yeah, you’re right
0:32:21 Speaking of
0:32:26 Insane agency speaking of insane downs on a way to a huge up
0:32:29 Have you listened to this episode I did with nick mowbray?
0:32:31 It came out this morning and I hadn’t listened to it yet
0:32:36 But I went and like saw I saw it pop up this morning and I went and googled his company
0:32:41 And I own a ton of the toys that he makes like like not my kid me
0:32:43 So like he owns uh
0:32:50 He owns mini brands you bathe with the robo fish. Well, I’ve we have a robo fish actually for my daughter does
0:32:55 But you know, I told you about mini toys, right? Uh and how like I oh, that’s his
0:33:00 Mini brands he owns mini brands and so like my wife is fucking weird and when she was pregnant and like not feeling well
0:33:05 I would go and surprise her by buying these mini toys, which is the stupidest thing ever
0:33:11 It’s just like a miniature. It’s a ball full of miniature things like a miniature can of coke a miniature kick cap
0:33:16 A miniature notebook the weirdest shit if people love it and then the other thing
0:33:20 Dude, I don’t know why my wife like loves your 32 year old loves those
0:33:25 Dude, you know what I did was I I went and bought like literally $300 worth and I hid them in my drawer
0:33:29 And whenever like she had a bad pregnancy day when she was like uh sick or something
0:33:31 I would go and get one and be like I got something for you
0:33:33 It was like I was like, you know, I had like a secret stash
0:33:37 And then also he makes these electric water guns that I went and bought
0:33:40 Last summer that I would shoot at my daughter like messing around
0:33:44 Have you seen the electric water guns? I think it’s hilarious how into the toys you are right now
0:33:47 Uh, could I tell you the biggest?
0:33:51 Oh, holy shit moment from the whole thing. Well, you got to tell the background
0:33:52 It’s from what I know
0:33:57 It’s two brothers in New Zealand that have a toy company that does like three or four or five more than that more than that
0:34:04 So let’s just let me start with this. We have interviewed. I don’t know how many 200 guests on this podcast 250 maybe
0:34:06 hundreds
0:34:13 Millionaires millionaires young old man woman, whatever criminals not criminals criminals non criminals
0:34:16 Guys, you don’t want to hang out with guys that you don’t want to hang out with right?
0:34:18 There’s a lot of people we’ve had on this podcast
0:34:20 he is
0:34:25 At the top of the mountain. He’s number one number one most impressive entrepreneur
0:34:32 Of all of them. I was blown away. He is these he has these scrappiest hustle story
0:34:36 And like the like his bottom was like the bottom
0:34:40 Literally living on a dollar a day for years
0:34:44 Literally, this is all funny. This guy is so he is okay
0:34:47 Now I’ll zoom out now. I’ll give you the context that you wanted
0:34:51 But like I just needed to say that that out of every yes, I’ve ever had on this podcast ever
0:34:56 He is the number one most impressive founder that I’ve ever had on the podcast. Okay, and we’ve had some cool people
0:35:01 No offense everybody. Yes. All right, so um, but sort of story. Yeah
0:35:04 But no your place
0:35:08 With all due respect you fucking suck
0:35:12 Okay robins I found Batman
0:35:15 This guy I say he’s the wealthiest man in new zealand
0:35:21 He’s got a company that him and his brother started family owned bootstraps self-made billionaire
0:35:26 They do a few billion dollars a year in revenue. They do a billion dollars a year and just profit
0:35:29 I like that and they’ve been doing that
0:35:34 Um, they never had outside investors. He has dominated the toy industry
0:35:36 So he built the most profitable toy company in the world
0:35:40 He then built the fastest growing diaper company in the world
0:35:43 You ever heard of rascals diapers or million moon at target?
0:35:47 Yeah, he’s got the fastest growing diaper company in the world doing hundreds of millions
0:35:49 And by the way, he made that while he was on sick leave
0:35:55 He got his intestine removed because he got croon’s disease and while he was on his sick bed laying there
0:36:00 He’s like, oh, I guess I’ll just dominate diapers now. I even say I need a diaper. That’s what happened
0:36:06 So he creates the fast growing diaper company creates the fastest growing haircare company on tiktok now. Wait, what?
0:36:09 He’s Monday hair hair caro. Whenever he owns Monday
0:36:15 Um, not only all that he now is building the largest factory in the world
0:36:21 bigger than the tesla factory bigger and all that where robots are going to build houses
0:36:25 Autonomously and that’s what he’s doing. He’s building houses with robots now
0:36:28 um self funding the whole thing by the way
0:36:34 Problem I asked all those likes that just got to be hundreds of millions of dollars of self funding and he just laughed
0:36:36 um, so
0:36:40 So take that for what it’s worth. Let me now tell you okay, so that’s that’s what the guy does
0:36:44 Can I tell you some of the just holy shit stories from this thing? Yeah
0:36:47 all right, so the dude’s 18 years old
0:36:50 and he
0:36:53 Like after selling door-to-door in new zealand where they lived
0:36:58 Uh trying to sell his brother like invented this hot air balloon toy at a science fair
0:37:02 And his brother his older brother and put him to work and was like, yo, you need to go sell this door-to-door
0:37:08 Um, the dude the they were they’re like, you know what we need to factory and they’re like, oh all the manufacturing is in china
0:37:12 So they moved to china, but the hilarious thing is at 19 at 18
0:37:15 I think 18 19 something like that
0:37:16 He they go to china
0:37:19 That’s the story where they sleep in the bush outside the airport because the airport lights were too bright
0:37:25 So they leave the airport sleeping a bush get bit by mosquitoes. They have no money. So they’re like there’s on their own
0:37:27 so he
0:37:31 I was like, oh, so you found a manufacturer in china that you scaled up because what do you found a manufacturer?
0:37:35 We went to china and then built a factory on the side of a river
0:37:39 Like we just went with like wood and like a hammer and we built a factory and I was like
0:37:43 What was the point of going to china? You know, you go to china to their factories are already there
0:37:48 He’s like, yeah, we didn’t understand that like we just went there and we just
0:37:51 Built our own factory on the side of a river and we found this like
0:37:55 Mom to make us food for two rmb a day 30 cents a day
0:38:00 And then she had some people that could come work in the factory and then we just had the we had our own production line
0:38:02 And it sounds like a it sounds like a shed
0:38:06 Yeah, they literally built a shed and then they just kept scaling up the shed
0:38:09 And he’s like my brother didn’t come back home for like eight or nine years
0:38:14 He just slept on the floor of the factory and I I slept on the floor too then except for when I had to go sell
0:38:18 All right, so how did they win? He’s like and our product sucked by delay. This is one of my favorite things
0:38:23 So it’s like everybody who makes it they’re like the key is just to have a great product
0:38:28 And then if you’re a founder, you’re like, dude, what like, okay, I’ve made a great product now. What nothing’s happening
0:38:32 um, and you know, they don’t like people tend to leave out the like
0:38:39 The manual work it took the lucky breaks it took to like get get the thing to start working
0:38:43 What was the product it was a hot it was like a plastic hot air balloon toy or what?
0:38:47 Um, even worse so starts with a hot air balloon quickly rear is like we did again
0:38:49 We didn’t know anything about anything
0:38:53 So we go we build a shed by the river in china or making our hot air balloons
0:38:56 Then we’ve learned you can’t even export a hot air balloon
0:39:02 He’s like literally it’s a fire in a tiny can like we can’t sell that so he’s like we realized that was a waste
0:39:06 So we got to come up with a new toy and again, everybody everybody tries to say we’re so innovative
0:39:11 So we innovated innovation is great and then we made a great product. He is the opposite
0:39:14 He’s like so we found that this other toy was selling so we copied it
0:39:20 Uh, we ruthlessly copied that toy and we made a shitty version of it because we didn’t know anything about manufacturer
0:39:27 Dude, so this like white guy moved to china and out chinese the chinese. Yeah, exactly exactly
0:39:29 It was like dude, we lived on a dollar a day
0:39:34 I was like so you I was like I heard the story you ate mcdonald’s every day and he’s like every day that I wish
0:39:38 mcdonald’s was our christmas treat we would go to mcdonald’s and
0:39:42 He’s like I for years I just remember saying like Merry Christmas, bro. He’s like Merry Christmas, bro
0:39:44 We would cheers our fries
0:39:46 He’s like I used to eat half the fries and take it back and be like hey
0:39:52 There’s only half the fries in here you guys jit me and get like the second serving of fries and he’s like that was the treat
0:39:55 Dude, I used to do that all the time at bars. I would order an iced tea and be like
0:40:00 You made the long island iced tea wrong. You forgot the liquor and by the way, he was not saying never works pride
0:40:02 He was like I was almost like
0:40:06 A therapist because this guy’s never done a podcast by the way. This was the first podcast
0:40:10 He’s I think he’s ever done and there’s no stories you could find at this guy like I went to do the research
0:40:16 There’s no like oh him you know normally we do research you you go walks the three most watch podcast that they’ve done and you
0:40:18 Pick up a bunch of stuff. He had zero
0:40:23 He had to download google chrome to do the interview. He’s like it’s not letting me do this
0:40:26 I were like what and we’re like just open chrome. He’s like what’s chrome?
0:40:32 And I was like you’re a billionaire. You don’t know google. What are you using? He’s like. Oh, I think I have chrome hold on
0:40:37 He’s like oh, I got chrome. Okay. Got it. Got it. Let me switch to my laptop. This is gonna work
0:40:41 Okay, he had like just what’s he talking with you? No, he was dead serious
0:40:47 And so uh, I was like, dude, why don’t you do any podcasts to tell your stories? Like, I don’t know. I just never did
0:40:56 So I’m obsessed with being transparent about money particularly with ultra high net worth people
0:41:00 The reason being is that there’s not a lot of information on this demographic
0:41:03 And so because I own Hampton, which is a community for founders
0:41:07 I have access to thousands of young and incredibly high net worth people
0:41:11 We have people worth hundreds of millions and sometimes billions of dollars inside of Hampton
0:41:16 And so every year we do this thing called the Hampton wealth report where we survey over a thousand entrepreneurs
0:41:20 And we ask them all types of information about their personal finances
0:41:26 We ask them about how they’re investing their money what their portfolio looks like we ask them about their monthly spend habits
0:41:31 We ask them how they’ve set up their estate how much money they’re gonna lead to charity how much money they keep in cash
0:41:37 How much money they’re paying themselves from their businesses basically every question that you want to ask a rich person
0:41:41 We went and we do it for you and we do it with hundreds and hundreds of people
0:41:44 So if you want to check out the report, it’s called the Hampton wealth report
0:41:49 Just go to joinhampton.com click our menu and you’re gonna see a section called reports and you’re gonna see it all right there
0:41:52 It’s very easy. So again, it’s called the Hampton wealth report
0:41:57 Go to joinhampton.com click the menu and then click the report button and let me know what you think
0:42:07 What motivates this guy it’s just a maniac dude. He uh, he’s like was he was he calm very calm
0:42:11 I felt like I was almost like a therapy session because I’m asking him about these times back in the day
0:42:16 And he’s almost like, yeah, I don’t know what we were doing. Why we were thinking like he just doesn’t think about
0:42:19 And he was like not he’s like, yeah, we you know, we we were super scrappy
0:42:25 But he’s like we were also a little mentally ill like we just were he goes we were so naive that naive is not even the right word
0:42:29 So he’s like for example, we got sued for millions of dollars because again, we like copied someone’s toy
0:42:32 And so it’s like a two million dollar lawsuit
0:42:36 It’s either going to bankrupt the company because we don’t have two million dollars or we have to fight it
0:42:39 But the lawyers that we talked to were like it’s going to cost you a million dollars to fight this
0:42:41 He’s like, dude, we had like a few thousand dollars
0:42:44 He’s like, so I go to colorado and I find this lawyer
0:42:50 He’s like this guy eventually got disbarred, but I find this guy chad and I tell him
0:42:53 Hey, I’m going to do all the legal work. You put your name on this
0:42:56 And we’re going to fight this this way and I paid him 50 dollars
0:43:02 To put his name on it and I did the all the lawsuit stuff myself just like googling
0:43:07 And we fought the lawsuit that way and then chad got disbarred like later for other reasons
0:43:12 He told the story of he’s like, dude, we got this
0:43:18 Expect we got this he goes I used to I was like, so how did you sell the thing like how did you sell these toys?
0:43:21 You’re saying the products up and you were copying somebody else. So why would anybody buy this?
0:43:26 He goes I emailed because I made a list of every retail buyer
0:43:32 Of every store in every region of the world and I emailed her called them every single day
0:43:34 He remembered the name of every buyer
0:43:37 This is from like 15 years ago because he would call or email them every day
0:43:39 He goes the walmart buyer
0:43:41 He’s like I would call her or email her every day
0:43:44 He’s like I never forget her and he’s like one day she emailed me being like nick
0:43:49 I do not need your daily email about your product and he goes
0:43:51 Well listen jen. I’m sorry. It’s just a great product
0:43:54 And I just had to tell you about it because we’ve really got some exciting things to the party
0:43:56 It’s like I just didn’t let up
0:44:00 Finally, he goes she just sent me to the two most beautiful words in the in the english language
0:44:05 Send sample and he’s like we’re in and he gets this like walmart order
0:44:10 And by the way, actually before that somebody’s like, hey, do you have your showroom in hong kong?
0:44:15 I’ll send one of my buyers. He goes, of course, of course showroom in hong kong. Yeah. Yeah, we got one of those
0:44:17 It’s like, what’s a showroom in hong kong? So he goes to hong kong
0:44:22 He rents this little cubicle where they put like escorts and you know, it’s like the red light district
0:44:27 And like it’s enough for one human body and he just sleeps in there because he doesn’t have enough money for our hotel
0:44:31 Sleeps in there and then when a buyer shows up he just pops out and he’s like, hey, it’s me
0:44:34 Whatever you would like to see our showroom and they’re like, yeah, we’re what is what is this?
0:44:39 There’s a dressing room for like one person to change clothes and he’s like, yeah, yeah toys are inside. Here you go
0:44:42 And he ends up getting this order from walmart
0:44:44 for
0:44:49 Two million units and he’s like, oh my god, that’s 30 million dollars. He’s like, this is amazing
0:44:51 At that time the revenue was like 150k a year
0:44:54 And district tells this story about how he’s like
0:44:58 First he’s like I go he goes I learned two words of chinese
0:45:05 Too slow and go faster because our factory our little old factory by the river had never produced two million units of anything
0:45:08 And he’s like so we had to produce two million units of this thing
0:45:09 I come home
0:45:12 I take over the factory because I’m just like my brother’s like not working fast enough
0:45:17 And then he’s like and then walmart basically cancels the order after he’s like super deep in it
0:45:22 And he like took a loan from the like from a contract manufacturer to like help him build the two million units
0:45:27 And then he like goes and harasses the walmart buyer to like hold up to the end of the bargain
0:45:29 And he’s like by the way
0:45:35 Product doesn’t sell not a single one. He’s like it retails at 30 dollars discount to 25 discount to 20
0:45:38 He just got to 15 because it ends up selling for 50 cents
0:45:41 He’s like he’s like it was like concrete on the shelf
0:45:48 How’d you find this guy? I don’t know. I I read something. I I must have heard something or read something
0:45:54 Because about a few years ago we talked about him on the podcast and then yeah, I remember that like three years ago
0:45:59 Ben has emailed him. No joke. He showed me 17 times over the next 18 months
0:46:02 Um to get him to come on the podcast
0:46:06 Dude, it’s a finally said. Yeah, it sounds awesome. I need to go watch this. What are you listening to this episode?
0:46:08 It’s not like
0:46:14 You know, he’s not like mr. Like super storyteller mr. Swab or he’s a great guy
0:46:19 But like he just tells it like it is but if you listen to this thing, I don’t know how long it is like 90 minutes or something like that
0:46:28 I mean, it is one of the most incredible entrepreneurial stories. I’ve never heard by the way. All right, so I let me tell you a story now because we
0:46:32 This is chinese related, but we’re just telling stories about interesting people
0:46:34 I got to tell you about someone I just read about have you ever
0:46:39 Have you ever even been to new york? Have you ever been to new york like Manhattan? Yes, I am. Yeah, okay
0:46:46 When you were here, did you see these crazy guys on electric? They’re like they’re called electric bikes
0:46:50 But they’re basically motorcycles. They’re like the uber eats and door-dash drivers
0:46:54 No, I don’t think those happen even dude. So in new york like four years ago
0:47:03 It just popped up that all of these ubers there’s 70 000 uber eats and door-dash people in new york city and like the Manhattan and brooklyn area
0:47:07 It’s like and they’re all riding these electric bikes that fly
0:47:12 They look like they’re normal bicycles, but these things literally go 60 miles an hour
0:47:19 And I ride my bike everywhere when i’m in new york city and like I these fuckers have almost killed me tons of times and they’re and they’re dangerous
0:47:24 They’re really dangerous and what you’ll notice is that they all have like these gloves on their bikes
0:47:27 Have you ever seen these like door-dash drivers in the winter? Yeah, I’ve seen that
0:47:30 Well, they keep them there in the winter in the summertime too
0:47:37 And the reason they do that is because underneath those gloves they have like a motorcycle style acceleration
0:47:41 Like a twisty thing on the grip, which is illegal. You can’t have that because that like
0:47:45 You know at what point are you do go from being a bicycle to being a motorcycle where you there has to be rules
0:47:47 and so there’s
0:47:51 There’s this weird thing where I’d be walking around and I’m like I even would ask these guys
0:47:54 What is this bike and they don’t speak english like like they couldn’t tell me
0:47:59 But I was like I want to know what this bike is that goes 60 miles an hour and has like a twisty throttle thing because
0:48:00 This is sick
0:48:05 I want one and so I started doing research around it and I think I talked about it in the podcast
0:48:07 I couldn’t find out what it was
0:48:14 Well two or three days ago an article came out and it told the story about what this thing was and it’s pretty ridiculous and so
0:48:17 Basically, there’s a guy who comes from china
0:48:25 He’s got a two heart of a name to pronounce but his american name is andy. He comes in 2011 and when he comes
0:48:31 He basically admits that he goes I paid a guy 45 grand and he smuggled me in from mexico
0:48:34 I came illegally and then in this article
0:48:38 They even linked to a rap video that he did when he was broke and poor and he was like
0:48:42 I decided to come to america to make it rich that was like the chinese lyrics of this video
0:48:48 Well, it turns out the first thing that he did was he noticed that there was all these uber each
0:48:53 Like bike riders and they get punished if they don’t bring or if they don’t show up in time
0:48:56 Like if you don’t deliver quickly you get like docked like you don’t get the full rate
0:49:02 And so he starts importing he I think he borrowed 12 grand from someone and he starts importing these electric bikes from china
0:49:08 And he opens up a shop and one of these shops was right by my house where I used to stay in brooklyn years ago
0:49:11 And I would always see these guys like like they would kind of hang out outside the shop
0:49:17 Well, what I didn’t realize was that he scaled this thing so fast to where he started having um
0:49:23 Like literally 30 different stores all around Manhattan to where he’s selling these things. It’s called fly e-bikes
0:49:29 He’s selling these e-bikes that go like 40 50 miles an hour and they’re only a thousand dollars
0:49:32 It’s incredible and they’re incredibly illegal like
0:49:37 Like they literally just don’t file any of the laws
0:49:41 But if you look at the under there’s like a when you order these bikes
0:49:45 There’s like says something in the plate. It says like there’s literally like a metal plate and it says like, you know, this
0:49:52 Uh meets this usa standard this and that and like in the article someone was like nobody checks that
0:49:55 It’s just basically an honor system and that we hope that you do it
0:49:57 But there’s no one actually checking these things
0:50:01 But the guy ends up andy selling 70 000 bikes
0:50:04 In four years and a few months ago
0:50:09 I think it was in september he had the audacity to take the company public
0:50:11 and so
0:50:19 It goes public on the nasdaq and it’s uh, I think the ticker is f l e y and you can see the ticker
0:50:21 I think that uh
0:50:23 The and you can see I put all their financials in this document
0:50:29 But the year before they went public they were doing like 30 million in revenue and like two or three million dollars in profit
0:50:35 But they’re getting sued like crazy because one of their bikes catch on fire because they follow no rules
0:50:41 He basically admits that he’s like, yeah, we’re cowboys. We uh bill first and we ask questions later
0:50:45 And so like homes that built down people have actually died from the batteries being
0:50:52 Catching on fire in someone’s apartment and burning the fucking apartment down and they’re getting sued and one of the lawyers suing them
0:50:55 He’s got this quote where he’s like dude
0:51:01 Six years ago these guys were busboys serving dishes or cleaning dishes in restaurants now
0:51:04 They’re running a publicly traded company. They know nothing about building bikes
0:51:07 They’re just like getting the cheapest shit they can over here
0:51:09 And it’s all true by the way, they’re insane
0:51:16 But I cannot believe they went public and in like the the one of the I went and watched listen to this
0:51:18 I I listened to one of their um
0:51:23 Their reports or like when they were in like investors were interviewing the CEO andy
0:51:27 Before he took it public and they’re like, why’d you go decide to take a public?
0:51:30 And he says he was inspired by the movie wolf of wall street
0:51:33 And that’s why he decided to take the company public
0:51:37 He says that in a youtube video in a youtube video
0:51:40 He says I decided to take it public because I saw a wolf of wall street
0:51:45 And so now because of all these lawsuits and because the company is just like shit
0:51:48 Like it’s just like they’re breaking so many laws. They just do whatever the hell they want
0:51:51 The the stock has crashed
0:51:55 We need to spin off pod of just absolutely
0:52:01 Renegade chinese founders just doing doing things that that we would never dream of
0:52:09 I would subscribe to that instantaneously. Well, he’s like the real-life zhinyang from uh silicon valley
0:52:11 Where like he just sit there smoking cigars
0:52:14 Sigs and like someone’s like, you know, you really need safety stuff and he’s like
0:52:17 Who says like, you know what I mean? Like he did
0:52:23 It’s like the deep-seek founder right right now the deep-seek founder is gonna get a lot of pub for this same reason
0:52:29 It’s just this guy’s hilarious and but it is actually inspiring that like all these dorks are like we got to do this
0:52:32 We got to do we got to like have this process. We got to do this and meanwhile
0:52:35 We brought this guy nick moving to china and not knowing shit and then we got this chinese guy
0:52:38 moving to new york and not knowing shit and like
0:52:43 It’s and it still works and his company by the way. He started a
0:52:47 Electric bike company. It does 30 million in revenue and three million in income. So like it’s
0:52:55 Not nothing. Yeah, so and he started with 12 000. Uh, it’s pretty badass though. It besides the fact that it’s um
0:52:59 You know like incredibly illegal and dangerous and people are dying
0:53:05 But besides that it’s like kind of an interesting story because I’ve always wondered where these freaking bikes have come from
0:53:10 I got to give a shout-out to kerb. They have um an article and it’s called the moped king
0:53:14 How an x delivery worker upended the streets of new york city for better and for worse
0:53:21 Um, and it’s called fly e-bike e-bike. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I just leave the spin off somebody needs to make the uh
0:53:23 Not not the right way to do it, but still impressive
0:53:26 version of much
0:53:28 Uh, yeah, we went from like
0:53:36 We went from like um inspiring who cares about money. We’re gonna like make travel better to um
0:53:42 Hardcore shark does whatever it takes, but still ethical, but like I’m gonna get rich and just conquer the world
0:53:45 to uh
0:53:47 Fuck everyone get paid
0:53:52 The full journey exactly. Yeah. All right. That’s it. That’s the pot. Is that it? That’s it. That’s the pot. All right
0:53:56 I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to
0:54:02 I put my all in it like no days on for the road. Let’s travel never looking back
0:54:10 Hey, shon here a quick break to tell you an ev william stories
0:54:14 He started twitter and before that he sold a company to google for a hundred million dollars and somebody asked him
0:54:19 They said ev what’s the secret man? How do you create these huge businesses billion-dollar businesses?
0:54:22 And he says well, I think the answer is that you take a human desire
0:54:24 Preferably one that’s been around for thousands of years
0:54:28 And then you just use modern technology to take out steps
0:54:32 Just remove the friction that exists between people getting what they want
0:54:37 And that is what my partner mercury does they took one of the most basic needs any entrepreneur has managing your money
0:54:39 And being able to do your financial operations
0:54:43 So they’ve removed all the friction that has existed for decades no more clunky interfaces
0:54:46 No more 10 tabs to get something done
0:54:49 No more having to drive to a bank get out of your car just to send a wire transfer
0:54:53 They made it fast. They made it easy. You can actually just get back to running your business
0:54:56 You don’t have to worry about the rest of it. I use it for not one not two
0:55:01 But six of my companies right now and it’s used by also 200 000 other ambitious founders
0:55:07 So if you want to be like me head to mercury.com open them account in minutes and remember mercury is a financial technology company
0:55:14 Not a bank banking services provided by choice financial group and involve bank and trust members fdic. All right back to the episode
0:55:16 (upbeat music)
Episode 675: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) tell the three stories of founders with insanely high agency.
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Show Notes:
(0:00) Boom Supersonic
(30:50) Nick Mowbray, #1 most impressive founder
(43:43) The Moped King
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Links:
• Boom Supersonic – https://boomsupersonic.com/
• ZURU – http://zurutoys.com/
• Fly E-Bike – https://www.flyebike.com/
—
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