The Simple Newsletter Making $20M+ A Year With 1 Employee

0:00:04 Did you save like 30,000 subscribers at $600 a year?
0:00:07 Yeah, probably in the 30,000 to 40,000 range on paid subscribers.
0:00:09 You’ve got to tell me everything here.
0:00:11 I feel like I can rule the world.
0:00:14 I know I could be what I want to.
0:00:17 I put my all in it like days off on the road.
0:00:19 All right, Kevin, what’s going on, man?
0:00:20 We’re here.
0:00:23 So I have I’ve got to do a quick story on how we met.
0:00:26 So about four years ago, I think we’re in Scottsdale,
0:00:28 Arizona at the Design Pickle Conference.
0:00:32 I just get done doing this talk about how the hustle is like doing pretty good.
0:00:33 We’re at a million subscribers, whatever.
0:00:36 At the end of the talk, I just walk backstage or I walk in the back of the crowd.
0:00:41 You’re wearing a Ramon t-shirt and like shorts.
0:00:43 And you walk up to me and you’re like, hey, nice little talk you did there.
0:00:45 And I was like, oh, thank you.
0:00:47 And you’ve got this you’ve got this confidence about you.
0:00:50 And you’re like, so how many subscribers do you have?
0:00:53 And I was like, I think a million or something like that.
0:00:55 And you go, well, you know, that’s pretty nice.
0:00:57 I got a little newsletter myself.
0:00:58 We’re doing OK.
0:01:00 We got about 30,000 subscribers.
0:01:02 And I was like, oh, that’s that’s a good start.
0:01:05 And you said, well, how much do you charge people to read the hustle?
0:01:06 And I’m like, it’s free.
0:01:07 I make money to get advertising.
0:01:10 And you’re like, oh, you don’t charge.
0:01:11 And I was like, you do.
0:01:14 And you go, yeah, we charge about six hundred dollars.
0:01:16 And it takes about 10 seconds.
0:01:17 And I’m like doing the math.
0:01:22 And I’m like, wait, did you save 30,000 subscribers at six hundred dollars a year?
0:01:24 And you’re like, yeah, what do you expect?
0:01:28 And turns out you’ve got this massive newsletter business.
0:01:29 And I was like, what’s the newsletter about?
0:01:31 And you’re like, oh, we talked to farmers.
0:01:33 It’s all about farming and agriculture.
0:01:37 And I’m like, wait, hold on, man, you’ve got to tell me everything here.
0:01:38 And that’s when my mind was blown.
0:01:40 And I was like, we got to get you on.
0:01:43 And it took about four years, but finally we made it happen.
0:01:44 I appreciate it.
0:01:47 All right, let’s take a quick break
0:01:49 because I want to talk to you about some new stuff that HubSpot has.
0:01:51 Now, they let me freestyle this ad here.
0:01:54 So I’m going to actually tell you what I think is interesting.
0:01:57 So they have this thing called the fall spotlight showing all the new features
0:01:59 that they released in the last few months.
0:02:02 And the ones that stood out to me were Breeze Intelligence.
0:02:04 I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but if you’re in HubSpot
0:02:06 and you have, let’s say, a customer there,
0:02:09 you can just basically add intelligence to that customer.
0:02:11 They estimate a revenue for that company.
0:02:14 How many employees it has, maybe their email address or their location
0:02:16 if they’ve ever visited your page or not.
0:02:20 And so you can enrich all of your data automatically with one click
0:02:22 using this thing called Breeze Intelligence.
0:02:24 They actually acquired a really cool company called Clearbit
0:02:27 and it’s become Breeze, which is great because now it’s built in.
0:02:29 I always hated using two different tools to try to do this.
0:02:30 Now it’s all in one place.
0:02:34 And so all the data you had about your customers now just got smarter.
0:02:35 So check it out.
0:02:37 You can actually see all the stuff they released.
0:02:38 It’s a really cool website.
0:02:42 Go to hubspot.com/spotlight to see them all and get the demos yourself.
0:02:44 Back to this episode.
0:02:47 Sean, what did you think when you met the Van Trumps
0:02:50 and got it got around his people?
0:02:54 Man, I would just call it a series of amazement and confusion.
0:02:57 I showed up and first of all, it’s called FarmCon.
0:03:01 So I think the conference is going to be a bunch of farmers.
0:03:04 By the way, at this point in my life, I don’t think I’d ever met a farmer.
0:03:06 I had grown up overseas.
0:03:08 I live on the coast.
0:03:10 I had never really met a farmer.
0:03:12 So I thought it’s going to be about farming and whatnot.
0:03:16 And instead, it’s actually about investing.
0:03:18 So that was the first part where I was amazed and confused about was
0:03:23 I walk in and it’s a talk going on about options, trading corn futures.
0:03:26 And and it was so far over my head.
0:03:29 And I was like, wow, wait, these guys are actually talking about
0:03:31 crazy Wall Street stuff. What’s going on here?
0:03:33 And then over time, I met a bunch of people.
0:03:35 The conference was amazing.
0:03:37 And they were like, well, what are you doing here?
0:03:38 And I was like, I don’t know.
0:03:42 I I don’t farm and I don’t trade commodities.
0:03:43 So I’m not really sure.
0:03:45 But I’m here to talk.
0:03:48 I have a talk schedule tomorrow and I’m here to just be out of my comfort zone,
0:03:51 be out of my bubble because I had only been going to tech conferences.
0:03:53 When I was doing my research for this pod,
0:03:55 I learned that you actually kind of did a similar thing,
0:03:59 which was that there was a period of your life where you wanted to shake things up
0:04:02 and you started just going to different conferences or trade shows
0:04:06 that were totally unrelated to what you were doing and what you were familiar with.
0:04:10 You kind of intentionally put yourself in that to just shake up your world view.
0:04:11 Is that right? Can you talk a little bit about that?
0:04:13 Yeah, for sure. That’s I meant Sam.
0:04:15 I mean, we were at this, I don’t even know what the hell it was.
0:04:19 My son had called and said, let’s just make it where we make ourselves go to different things,
0:04:22 make ourselves uncomfortable, get out of our comfort zone.
0:04:24 He called me and said, hey, there’s this conference in Phoenix.
0:04:28 Mom wanted to go to Phoenix and out there and I said, what is it?
0:04:30 And he said, design pickle. I said, what the hell are we?
0:04:33 They had people speaking out. We’re doing like hair.
0:04:36 You know, they’re a hair drying business and they had all kinds of crazy stuff.
0:04:38 I said, OK, I’ll go.
0:04:41 Shit. Next thing I find myself walking around the courtyard of this place,
0:04:45 holding another guy’s hand, like, you know, shit, I never do here in the Midwest.
0:04:48 I said, right, what the hell is going on?
0:04:52 You know, they had us doing some weird stuff and and that’s where I’m at Sam.
0:04:55 And so yeah, each year we try to go to different things, just to get different
0:04:59 perspective, different views. You know, we just believe in in trading and investing.
0:05:03 It’s all about perspective and, you know, you can get blindsided a million different ways.
0:05:08 And so I like to be around the younger people to help broaden my perspective
0:05:09 because, you know, we always say in our business,
0:05:12 it’s the old bear and the young bull.
0:05:16 As we get older, we tend to get more bearish just because we don’t we don’t
0:05:19 understand as much as we did when we were younger.
0:05:22 You know, when we were younger, we were aggressive and we knew the latest,
0:05:26 greatest things. And now that we get older, most of my older hedge fund
0:05:29 friends and traders were more cynical and bearish just by nature.
0:05:32 It seems like we just don’t understand a lot of the newer stuff.
0:05:34 Well, I’ll give you two things that came out of it.
0:05:38 Number one, after FarmCon, me and Ben in the lobby of the hotel,
0:05:41 while one of the talks is going on, there’s another corn futures talk
0:05:44 that was going over my head. I said, hey, let’s just hang out in the lobby real quick.
0:05:44 I just got to get out of here.
0:05:46 I don’t understand what the hell these guys are talking about.
0:05:51 Anyways, so we go to the lobby and we had talked to you about your newsletter business
0:05:53 and we go, you know what?
0:05:56 We should create a newsletter business around what we’re we’re interested in.
0:05:58 And we were very interested in crypto at the time.
0:06:01 We had been kicking around this idea, but we hadn’t really had the momentum,
0:06:04 the energy to just like create it from scratch to birth that baby.
0:06:07 And so only in the lobby of the hotel where we like,
0:06:10 let’s do this, and we named it Milk Road,
0:06:12 which was kind of like a farmy sort of name.
0:06:14 Anyways, it all came together in the lobby.
0:06:17 And then a year later, we sold that business for millions of dollars.
0:06:21 And so I got to credit you in a way because we had had a conversation with you
0:06:24 the night before and you told us, you’re like, I guess I got to go back to my room.
0:06:25 I got to write the newsletter.
0:06:27 And we were like, you still write the newsletter?
0:06:30 Like, surely you’ve hired a team of people here.
0:06:33 Like, no, I write the newsletter myself.
0:06:34 I’ve written it.
0:06:38 I think you had written it for like some absurd number, like 18 straight years
0:06:43 or 20 straight years, you hadn’t missed it, and it was you writing it every single day.
0:06:44 Is that right?
0:06:46 I have a girl eastward from the Kansas State Board of Trade.
0:06:47 It stays great.
0:06:52 She’s out in LA and she helps me with a lot of the content and a lot of the thing.
0:06:53 I write corn beans, weed.
0:06:55 I write the up top comments.
0:06:56 She she helps with those.
0:06:58 And then I write the stories down below.
0:07:02 So it’s her and I usually tag team in the whole thing to give her credit.
0:07:03 And she’s been she’s been awesome.
0:07:05 Let’s explain, though, a little bit.
0:07:07 So your main thing is the Van Trump Report.
0:07:09 So VanTrumpReport.com.
0:07:13 It’s a daily newsletter that is it’s a great read.
0:07:18 I actually have read it for a while and it’s talks about I call it for farmers,
0:07:20 but it’s way beyond that.
0:07:23 So it’s agricultural based information, but for farmers,
0:07:25 but also for people who are trading commodities.
0:07:29 And you have said that politicians read it to understand a little bit
0:07:31 about what’s going on in that world.
0:07:34 And you’ve told me I don’t remember exactly what you said.
0:07:38 You told me that it was doing something like 30,000 people
0:07:40 paying something like six hundred dollars a year.
0:07:43 And it’s basically just you writing it, which if you did that math, that’s true.
0:07:46 That’s like 18 million dollars a year in revenue from a newsletter.
0:07:48 Is that right?
0:07:50 Yeah, it’s just myself.
0:07:54 There’s about four of us on our staff here, a friend of mine that used to be
0:07:58 a golf bro, a buddy that I went school with, Stacey out in California
0:08:00 and my son, Jordan, on this side of the fence.
0:08:03 My wife does bookkeeping with accounting team.
0:08:04 But that’s really it.
0:08:08 And like you said, yeah, I did the newsletter and just, you know,
0:08:12 wanted to write about what I was interested in and everything that kind of interests me.
0:08:15 And so, you know, that’s that’s really what we do and what we put out.
0:08:19 Yeah, we’ve got several congressmen, senators, a lot of big trading groups,
0:08:20 hedge fund people.
0:08:26 Yeah, about 35 or probably in the 30 to 40,000 range on paid subscribers.
0:08:30 It’s also got like five pages of memes in it, which I love because I was like,
0:08:30 I would read it.
0:08:33 And the first part was cool is commentary on where you think the market’s headed.
0:08:36 And it’s written the way you talk is very informal.
0:08:39 It’s it’s a straight shooter type of vibe, which makes it fun to read,
0:08:40 even if it’s not your stick.
0:08:42 And then it’s got a bunch of memes, which made me laugh.
0:08:46 And I was like, this is hilarious that you chose that was the product we see today.
0:08:47 Is that basically how you started it?
0:08:48 Is that what it was at the beginning?
0:08:50 And how did you get it off the ground?
0:08:52 What was the how’d you get the initial momentum with that?
0:08:53 Yeah, pretty much.
0:08:57 So I my very my high school sweetheart, we were both from a small rural town
0:09:01 near Missouri, I got to work for a group that was contract with the NFL,
0:09:02 do camps, combines clinics.
0:09:04 So I’m traveling all around the country.
0:09:06 Got a really cool job making no money.
0:09:09 My wife kind of lands her dream job in Chicago.
0:09:12 And, you know, we had to come for me, but neither one of our parents or anything.
0:09:15 We didn’t have any money really, so to speak, when we were younger.
0:09:16 So my wife gets this job.
0:09:19 She was going to run the Eddie Bauer out on Michigan Avenue.
0:09:21 They was going to be their premier store and all this.
0:09:23 So we thought, man, this is going to be great.
0:09:25 You know, we go up there and I didn’t know anything.
0:09:28 And some of my friends in the NFL are like, you got to get in the trading business.
0:09:30 Shit, I didn’t know anything about trading.
0:09:34 And I said, I was a small, rural town farm kid, played last sports all my life.
0:09:35 And they said, well, we’ll give you this interview.
0:09:37 I go, get an interview of this guy.
0:09:41 And the guy just kind of looks at me like, damn, you’re a big, tall guy.
0:09:43 And I was probably about six, four, three, 50 at the time.
0:09:46 And they’re like, you like to fight?
0:09:48 And I’m, what the hell kind of interview question is it?
0:09:50 You know, I’m like, what?
0:09:51 And I said, yeah, sure, shit.
0:09:54 I go out every weekend, you know, I’m getting a rumble or two at the bars.
0:09:56 And they’re like, yeah, you’re great.
0:09:57 We’re your iron.
0:09:58 And I said, well, what am I doing?
0:09:59 I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing.
0:10:01 And they’re like, oh, everybody will see you on the floor.
0:10:03 It’ll give us a little edge and advantage.
0:10:05 So, you know, I started to bury at bottom.
0:10:09 They wanted me to be a phone clerk, you know, and then moved where I was in for
0:10:10 getting orders off.
0:10:11 So I meet a few people.
0:10:12 They start me off.
0:10:15 I go over and I’m trading Swiss banks, D marks and foreign currencies over at the
0:10:18 Merc and then I flip back over to the board.
0:10:19 I was trading treasuries.
0:10:23 So wait, Kevin, this was back when you used to have to kind of push and shove
0:10:25 your way with the papers, getting your trade off.
0:10:28 And they were like, your size was actually an asset.
0:10:30 Yeah, big dig time.
0:10:32 You know, they’d hire a basketball guy’s ex-football guy.
0:10:35 There’d be fights break out all the time on the floor.
0:10:38 And so then we got off the floor where we were arbing minis.
0:10:40 E-minis first came out.
0:10:42 We were arbing minis against bigger S&Ps.
0:10:48 And then really my strong suit became really more people got interested in
0:10:52 grains, corn, because they started using corn as ethanol and things like that.
0:10:55 So a lot of our big energy traders and friends, they didn’t know anything
0:10:58 about the Midwest, you know, and so it was all just foreign language to them.
0:11:01 So they would keep asking me questions.
0:11:05 And then I would go back home to my small rural town where the farmers
0:11:08 were playing dominoes in the morning, you know, up and getting breakfast or caught.
0:11:11 And, you know, they’d be like, hey, city slicker, you know, tell us what’s
0:11:14 happening here in the corn bean or wheat market or cattle market.
0:11:18 And I would do like you said, shut up, I would just dumb it down to my, you know,
0:11:22 my back home speaking in more of a blue collar and just tell them, Hey,
0:11:24 here’s what they’re really meaning or saying.
0:11:29 And so in ’07, I just does before that a little bit when the government
0:11:32 came out with the RFS, that’s where they turned corn and ethanol.
0:11:36 I started writing a newsletter kind of just for myself and journal.
0:11:39 I said, Hey, I’m going to be a better trader and better investor.
0:11:41 I’ve listened to a lot of people.
0:11:46 I’ve been broke twice on a couple of deals and it’s like, let’s do it the right way.
0:11:50 So I started journaling and I said, Hey, I’m going to send my notes out to friends.
0:11:53 And then it started circulating back to me.
0:11:56 It was coming from guys at Goldman and different trading firms.
0:12:00 It was circling back to me and I told my wife, I said, Shit, we were
0:12:03 investing trying to do some, uh, oh, storage units at the time.
0:12:06 So I thought, I’ll send it out for 40 bucks a month.
0:12:07 It’ll be like a storage unit deal.
0:12:10 Let’s just see if people will buy or pay.
0:12:12 And it just kind of took off and went nuts from there.
0:12:15 And we’d never advertised and we’re about 45 countries now.
0:12:17 And all the growth was organic then.
0:12:20 Oh, yeah, we’ve never advertised one touch.
0:12:21 I love it.
0:12:23 And then you have the conference, the thing that I went to.
0:12:25 And I think it was originally called the van Trump conference.
0:12:26 You renamed it to farm con.
0:12:30 And for those who don’t know, you are like a God at this thing.
0:12:35 It was really inspiring to see because you weren’t trying to be,
0:12:37 you know, the front and center of it.
0:12:40 But you could just tell you had so much respect from the community.
0:12:42 People really appreciated this gathering
0:12:44 because they were getting a lot of value out of it.
0:12:48 And you ran it like a family affair and you got your son there
0:12:49 and he’s got his swag business.
0:12:52 And so how did the farm con thing come about?
0:12:54 And is that like a big part of the business?
0:12:56 Why do you do it?
0:13:01 Yeah, you know, it kind of, well, it started off just myself and probably 30
0:13:04 or 40 friends, traders, investors.
0:13:05 We’d get together once a year,
0:13:08 drink some beers and tell each other what our favorite trades or favorite
0:13:09 investments were.
0:13:11 And they loved coming to Kansas City because it was kind of an anomaly,
0:13:14 you know, where you used to be on the coast of New York or California.
0:13:17 So they’d come here and it would be kind of fun.
0:13:19 And so they would start to invite their friends.
0:13:23 And we all had investments in land, bigger land investments and different.
0:13:27 But next thing they had a lot of hunting and fishing guys were coming.
0:13:31 And just people at own big farms, they were flying their private planes in.
0:13:34 And so, yeah, then we just kind of blew up and they started selling
0:13:35 more and more of their friends.
0:13:39 And next thing we started selling out, most everywhere will have that.
0:13:41 You know, it’s really cool.
0:13:42 You know, fun time.
0:13:47 Can we talk a little bit about kind of like your empire and what it is now?
0:13:49 So you’ve got the publishing business, the newsletter.
0:13:55 And then you have this thing called Ag Swag, which is a merch company.
0:13:57 Is that right?
0:13:59 Yeah, really back up to be quick.
0:14:01 You know, some of the people grandfathered in.
0:14:04 We started charging $40 about 400 a year or 40 bucks.
0:14:07 Then we went about eight years ago to 660.
0:14:10 And we have some people that white label the report and send it to their
0:14:13 their businesses and their staff and things like that.
0:14:14 So that’s all in the mix.
0:14:17 But yeah, so I had a friend, Dave Krumholz.
0:14:18 He recently passed away.
0:14:20 He was a CEO of Payless Cashways.
0:14:22 And Dave came back here to Kansas City.
0:14:24 He started a business consulting company.
0:14:28 And then he got hired at a place called American Identity.
0:14:32 And I said, Dave, what the hell are you doing in coming to American Identity?
0:14:35 I said, don’t they just sell like hats and Chachki stuff?
0:14:37 And he’s like, yeah, a private equity company.
0:14:38 He bought them and they’re going to dress it up.
0:14:40 They want to have a, you know, big executive team.
0:14:41 So they’re bringing me in as a CEO.
0:14:43 And he’s like, I think we’ll have a good exit.
0:14:45 Well, about three or I think it was three or four years.
0:14:46 They sold the staples.
0:14:49 I believe it was undisclosed, but the thing was close to eight billion dollars.
0:14:51 They sold the staples.
0:14:52 And I said, holy shit.
0:14:55 I said, what would you guys do over there in American Identity?
0:14:58 And they said, you know, made hats, shirts and Chachki set.
0:14:59 And I said, well, who the hell are your biggest clients?
0:15:03 And he’s like John Deere, ADM, Cargill.
0:15:05 I’m like, oh, I said, I know all those people.
0:15:08 I know all the, you know, all the farming ag people.
0:15:11 And he says, well, I tell you, you know, if you ever get where you guys are
0:15:15 going to start somewhere, want something just under the radar, non-intrusive business,
0:15:17 you know, this, this would be a great way to get something rolling.
0:15:21 So I told my son, Jordan, when he got out of college or he’s about out.
0:15:24 I said, hey, if you ever, if you want to try something on your own, I got an idea.
0:15:26 I said, I’ve come up with a name, Ag Swagg.
0:15:31 And I said, you know, we could probably spin this off and take care of a lot of our clients
0:15:35 and just provide a lot better service and be a lot, you know, more fun
0:15:38 and friendly and give people some great fresh ideas.
0:15:39 And so we launched Ag Swagg.
0:15:43 And it’s, you know, just a swag company that provides hats, things of that nature
0:15:46 to people really specifically in the ag world.
0:15:50 We do other things, but that’s really our Jordan sports.
0:15:52 And now he’s running that he’s hired an art team.
0:15:54 He’s got about four or five artists.
0:15:56 My daughter came back to help him.
0:15:58 He’s got a team of logistics people.
0:15:59 And I think they’re going to do.
0:16:02 He said somewhere between 25 and 30 million this year.
0:16:05 So, you know, they’re they’re growing like crazy.
0:16:07 And, you know, every day, if we want to pull up on a slide,
0:16:09 I can walk you guys through a little bit of the business.
0:16:11 Well done, dad. Yeah, let’s do it.
0:16:14 You know, this is just a simple example.
0:16:17 You draw, you know, you have your your scale of uniqueness on the left
0:16:19 and your scale of total value on the right.
0:16:25 And so if you go to your far right, you have high value and low uniqueness, right?
0:16:27 And you’re asking, what the hell would that be?
0:16:29 And that’s like a tire business.
0:16:31 I always use an example like, you know,
0:16:34 people have to have it so it’s not unique.
0:16:37 But there’s high value because everyone
0:16:39 doesn’t know what’s killed their family and any damn tires on the car.
0:16:40 So they want it to be good.
0:16:44 That if you see your business in that aspect,
0:16:46 you know, you’re in a low gross business model.
0:16:49 Meaning you’re going to have to be a low cost provider.
0:16:50 You’re going to have to do volume.
0:16:53 And, you know, that’s going to be your play.
0:16:55 If you get up into the upper right quadrant,
0:16:57 it just keeps me out of a lot of bad business deals.
0:17:01 Here you have low value, but high uniqueness.
0:17:05 You know, you start to ask yourself, what, you know, what is that?
0:17:08 Remember when Snap or Google came out with the glasses,
0:17:12 those glasses or I would sell them back in my day like a laser disc.
0:17:17 You know, you know, you’re going to be cost a lot of money to educate the masses.
0:17:19 It’s going to cost a lot to get it to market.
0:17:21 And there might not be any longevity in it.
0:17:25 So you got to be careful in, you know, not a lot of value
0:17:27 and high uniqueness. That’s a tough spot to play in.
0:17:30 Now you get over to where Apple likes to play or some of the others.
0:17:32 You go high value, high uniqueness.
0:17:36 That’s something like an iPod, 10,000 songs in your pocket.
0:17:37 You know, that was their main stick.
0:17:40 And it’s like, that’s where you can create high gross.
0:17:42 That’s where you can create high margin.
0:17:44 And that’s where you can make a lot of great things happen.
0:17:48 Obviously, lower left corner, you’re you’re an idiot if you’re so worried.
0:17:51 No value, no uniqueness.
0:17:53 No bad idea, you know.
0:17:55 And I always say on there, people buy value, not price.
0:17:57 And this was a hard one to understand for a lot of people.
0:18:02 Because if I went into Walmart and I put a whole bin of laser disk in there
0:18:07 and I put them for sale for five cents, I mean, bag it.
0:18:11 No, he’s gonna buy them just because there’s no value to, you know, what I’m saying.
0:18:14 Now maybe there is a little now because people are looking to sell some of those types of item.
0:18:20 But I’m just saying you have to be aware of people by price, people by value, not price.
0:18:22 And so you make the price as low as you want to go.
0:18:25 And it was just not good. It’s not good.
0:18:27 And I see people get trapped in that a lot in real estate and some other things.
0:18:33 So, you know, this is where we try to we try to categorize the business deals
0:18:36 when they come down the pipe, where this is at and how this is going to play out.
0:18:39 Because it’s never the soldiers I send in at first, right?
0:18:42 It’s never the first money we send in on the deal.
0:18:45 It’s how many more soldiers are going to get called into duty
0:18:50 and maybe never come back home into my bank account or come back, you know, missing limbs and arms.
0:18:55 And so it’s like, you have to be careful, I think, in that aspect.
0:18:58 You know, it’s that because I’m my wife all the time is like,
0:19:00 my gosh, we’re writing more capital call check.
0:19:05 But we kind of know when if we can categorize in this way, we know what we’re getting into.
0:19:11 Where we went with AgSwag, what’s critically important, we believe is knowing your funnel.
0:19:16 So your light users, there’s obviously you’re going to be able to get more market share on your light users.
0:19:19 As you move down the customer continuum, that would be your heavy user.
0:19:24 So as Sean pointed out, that would be John Deere or that would be a cargo.
0:19:29 Now, we what you have to understand in all businesses, you’re always going to be pulled to the right.
0:19:34 So you’re always going to be pulled to the high user and low gross.
0:19:35 They’re going to try to get you over there.
0:19:39 If people like what you have, they like what you’re doing.
0:19:42 They’re going to take you over there more to the right and, you know,
0:19:47 try to beat you up on your price, try to beat you up on gross because they say they’re a heavy user.
0:19:51 That’s why it’s really imperative for most people, you don’t want to get an order from wall.
0:19:57 You know, you don’t want to go that way because it’s next to impossible to get your business back to the left.
0:20:02 And to the left is where you’re going to see a lot more profitability, a lot more high gross.
0:20:07 And so we tried to position AgSwag in the middle away from the John Deere’s and ADM.
0:20:13 So we’ve had calls from them wanting their play is for us to, you know, store all of their merch for the year.
0:20:16 We ship it out. It becomes a logistics business.
0:20:17 The gross shrinks up to nothing.
0:20:24 And we’ve got a, you know, a real, you know, you know, we’re running a real people business where we’ve got a lot of hands and a lot of touches.
0:20:31 So we’ve tried to stay out of that space as much as possible early on so we can create and build more smaller accounts,
0:20:35 smaller business owners and people like that where there’s more fragmentation for us.
0:20:37 So you have these other slides that I really like.
0:20:41 So you had this poker versus chess one that I loved.
0:20:44 Can you talk about this one?
0:20:50 Yeah, you know, I just think, you know, they talk a lot about life being like chess or a lot of times you’ll hear people talk about those things.
0:20:56 You know, you know, I say life’s more like poker than chess just because the cards are faced down and a lot of luck’s involved a lot of times.
0:20:59 So, you know, you can be the greatest, have the greatest skill in the world.
0:21:06 And I’ve met some of the most brilliant, brilliant people, but if they don’t catch any breaks or don’t catch any luck and, you know, it becomes tough.
0:21:11 So I think you have to remind yourself and that’s what we were kind of talking about earlier.
0:21:17 If you think you’re a genius and you’re you’re just smarter than everyone else, I think you run into a ton of problems and a ton of roadblock.
0:21:24 That’s where I think, you know, you have to look at it more like poker, like you’re going to get lucky every now and then to get on a run and get a little heater.
0:21:30 And sometimes, you know, that’s when you really have to push and go all in is when when you’re when your luck’s going your way.
0:21:36 When when you feel like some of those things aren’t going your way, you got to pull way back, you know, that’s not when you double triple down.
0:21:39 That’s when you kind of hunker down and let the storm clouds pass.
0:21:42 And then hopefully your luck will shift and turn around a little bit.
0:21:44 Well, it seems like there’s three three parts to the poker thing, right?
0:21:47 There’s the cards are face down.
0:21:51 So there’s a lot of unknowns, unlike chess, then you’re talking about luck and variance.
0:21:52 That’s the second part.
0:21:56 But then the third part was you said that the amateur players just play too many hands.
0:22:01 A pro only plays, you know, 15 to 20 percent of their hands, but an amateur is playing half the hands.
0:22:08 And so the trick is actually just to pass on the average opportunity to save room for the huge opportunity.
0:22:12 And that’s that’s the other one, and I think Warren Buffett calls this waiting for the fat pitch.
0:22:14 He’s like, there’s no called strikes.
0:22:17 You can let 50 opportunities go by and just pass on them.
0:22:19 Even if there were some good ones in there, it’s OK.
0:22:23 As long as you just when you do swing, you swing at the right ones.
0:22:24 100 percent, I 100 percent agree.
0:22:26 I mean, you know, we use that analogy.
0:22:28 We use the Ted Williams thing all the time.
0:22:31 There’s Ted Williams as a batting chart and Ted Williams was one of the first
0:22:35 persons to go and document all of his where he would hit balls and where he could, you know,
0:22:38 what his percentage was, if it was high and outside, low and inside.
0:22:41 And he figured out where his sweet spot was.
0:22:44 And then Williams would just sit and wait for his bitch.
0:22:46 And when he got it, he don’t knock shit out of it.
0:22:49 So it’s similar to what you’re so you talk about luck.
0:22:53 And you say passing on the average opportunity to save room for the huge opportunity.
0:22:58 And with your trading, what have been opportunities that you’ve thought were huge,
0:23:02 that you pounced on, as well as maybe some that you didn’t because you thought they were average.
0:23:05 Yeah, tons. I could go through those by crazy.
0:23:08 And, you know, but I agree with that.
0:23:11 And we’ve we’ve talked about this myself and a lot of my trading friends.
0:23:13 It’s that as we’ve gotten older, we’ve we’ve learned.
0:23:17 We can look back through all of our document, tag docs and everything.
0:23:21 I mean, the more trades we made, the worse year we had.
0:23:25 It seemed like the fewer trades, by far, the better of the year.
0:23:28 And, you know, now we’re trading even less and less and less.
0:23:31 And I know I think some of our readers got to probably get these.
0:23:35 They want the action and everything, but, you know, it’s like wrestling, you know,
0:23:39 as a great wrestler, a high school college wrestler, they’re super patient.
0:23:43 They wait for the the market, in this case, to make a mistake late for the market
0:23:47 to get out of out of a line or over leveraged or overtilted.
0:23:50 And then you come in and you try to make a play.
0:23:52 You know, most all your money is made.
0:23:55 The greatest traders will say all your money is made sitting, you know, sitting and waiting.
0:24:00 And it’s incredibly hard to do the decision to do nothing is a decision.
0:24:05 And in our world, a lot of times it can be the best decision you could possibly make.
0:24:08 So, you know, and as far as, like Sam said, you know, we, like I said,
0:24:10 we were early with Declan, we were early with Tesla.
0:24:16 I was trading when Amazon first came out and we had 30,000 shares of Amazon,
0:24:18 like right out of the hole.
0:24:19 And I went negative on it.
0:24:20 I’d never forget story.
0:24:23 My wife and I, shit, we didn’t have enough money to pay attention at the time.
0:24:27 And we were sitting there and they I had this position on.
0:24:28 It wouldn’t guess me.
0:24:31 And I said, man, if this thing just gets back to even in Amazon,
0:24:32 I’d trade like three or four bucks a time.
0:24:34 It got back to even and I blew out.
0:24:37 And I mean, it would have been like, you know, the craziest trade of all times
0:24:38 if I’d have stuck with it.
0:24:41 But I wouldn’t have stuck with it, probably, you know, I’m a trader.
0:24:44 So it’s like, you can’t, you can’t beat yourself up saying, man,
0:24:47 if I would have just stayed in that or not stuck with it.
0:24:50 And I think a lot of people do that to themselves, you know, it’s a psychological game.
0:24:54 And you just want to try not to beat yourself up and not get down on yourself
0:24:57 because then it then it gets hard to fail and recover.
0:25:01 So what’s the case for being a trader versus a investor?
0:25:03 Because if you read about all the investing greats,
0:25:06 they all kind of poo poo traders a little bit.
0:25:07 They’re like, oh, you don’t want to be a trader.
0:25:10 You want to be, you know, a buy and hold guy.
0:25:13 You want to buy, find a great asset and then sit on it for a long time.
0:25:17 Am I just only reading the advice from the investors and that’s why?
0:25:18 Or is there something to what they’re saying?
0:25:19 No, you’re absolutely right.
0:25:22 I mean, there’s plenty of trades I’ve been in that I’ve become an investor
0:25:27 because they went against me and we just kept holding and holding and holding.
0:25:30 Right. But it was meant to be a short term trade, but turned into a long term,
0:25:32 you know, just ass kicking.
0:25:34 So it’s like, no, I agree.
0:25:35 My job, though, I was a trader.
0:25:38 So, you know, I was at the floor, I was at the exchange,
0:25:42 I was at the Kansas City Board Trade, you know, and so my whole job
0:25:45 revolved around trading and fairly quick movements in the market.
0:25:48 I was never I did own a day trading firmer one time.
0:25:51 And you should have seen, you know, the success rate on people.
0:25:53 They trade was just a miserable business.
0:25:54 So we don’t day trade, so to speak.
0:25:58 We’ll be more swing trading will be multi days in a trade.
0:26:01 You know, the commodity markets are a little different for every buyer.
0:26:03 There’s a loser and they’re a little different than stocks.
0:26:05 And there’s expirations on the contract.
0:26:09 So, you know, we’re more short term oriented, but we’re also longer term investors.
0:26:13 Like you would say, Sean, I do think I advise my kids, my own kids.
0:26:17 Exactly what you’re saying, you know, no, unless you’re going to be full time
0:26:21 and you really want the belly aches, I wouldn’t advise probably, you know,
0:26:26 trading or trying to time market movements, like said, I’m more with Buffett.
0:26:29 You know, I think, you know, everybody’s trying to beat the indexes.
0:26:31 I mean, everybody’s trying to beat the SBA here in a second.
0:26:34 And you’re in and you’re out that stuff to do.
0:26:36 And, you know, so I think, you know, as a passive investor,
0:26:41 long term hold is probably a good plot for the majority of most people.
0:26:44 And that’s the way to build wealth.
0:26:46 How many years have you beat the index?
0:26:48 How long have you been doing this 20 or 30 years?
0:26:50 Do you think that you’ve beat the index?
0:26:52 You know, I mean, the years that we beat it, we beat it by a mile
0:26:56 because we get lucky in some certain position or some certain stock.
0:26:58 And like this year, I’m trailing.
0:27:02 I have decent amount put over into, you know, we’re still in a lot of CDs
0:27:04 at five and a quarter or five percent.
0:27:07 And, you know, a lot of our wealth building has come from real estate.
0:27:10 That’s just buying land, farmland, or what are you buying?
0:27:14 Buying real estate, you know, we have everything from commercial properties
0:27:18 to single families that we’ve turned into various Airbnbs.
0:27:23 Yeah, land, farmland, regular land, those have been our biggest winners.
0:27:28 Has the majority of your net worth come from the income
0:27:30 that the newsletter has produced or has it been from trading?
0:27:33 So I think there’s two ways you can do with your business.
0:27:36 You know, when you’re breaking money, you can either take the money
0:27:39 and reinvest it back in your business, which we didn’t do.
0:27:40 That was kind of my play.
0:27:42 I’m like, I’m not going to do that.
0:27:45 I’m going to take my money and then I’m going to put it out and see
0:27:47 and try and invest in other people’s businesses.
0:27:52 And, you know, and we’ve we’re we’re partners with a firm
0:27:54 private firm called ISELEC.
0:27:57 So we’re early investors in ag tech startups and some biotech.
0:28:02 And so we’ve had a ton of losers, but they’ve all led to meeting new people,
0:28:04 learning new things.
0:28:07 And then that in turn comes to something else today that so, you know,
0:28:10 we try to grow our revenue and then take that revenue
0:28:14 and invest it in various other vehicles and other sources.
0:28:17 What’s the like sentiment like amongst the people that
0:28:20 are reading the newsletter or would come to the conference?
0:28:22 You know, are people bullish right now?
0:28:23 Are they optimistic?
0:28:24 Are the big headwinds or tailwinds?
0:28:28 What’s going on in the food producer world?
0:28:32 Yeah, you know, it’s it’s pretty dark right now over in our world, so to speak.
0:28:37 The big jump in rates was obviously a kind of a real pinch for a lot of our
0:28:40 ag tech startups and a lot of the people just in agriculture in general.
0:28:44 So you’ve had a big jump in rates and then we also have, you know,
0:28:46 a little bit of a glut right now.
0:28:50 We have a free burdensome supply of corn over 2 billion bushel supply of corn.
0:28:54 You know, we got about 500 million bushel supply of beans coming down the pipe.
0:28:57 And sorry, that that means that last season overproduced.
0:29:00 Yeah, you know, we had a good year last year.
0:29:03 South America is coming off a pretty good year.
0:29:06 Argentina, like, for example, Argentine production doubled
0:29:07 from what they had.
0:29:10 They had a big drought last year and some production problems.
0:29:12 Brazil’s got a little bit of they’re down from a little bit.
0:29:15 But China, like so China right now hasn’t been a buyer of U.S.
0:29:19 new crop beans, haven’t booked any any cargoes, which is unusual.
0:29:22 So we’re worried we got this election coming up.
0:29:26 If anything can happen, we’re not sure how China is going to play it with
0:29:28 Trump coming back into the mix.
0:29:30 Are we going to have a bigger hit on tariffs?
0:29:34 So when Trump was in office, we had bean prices go break pretty considerably
0:29:36 because we got into a pissing match with China.
0:29:39 And, you know, they’re the number one buyer of beans in the world.
0:29:42 So it’s we’re kind of trying to weigh this thing out here
0:29:44 and see how things are going to shake out.
0:29:45 But we do have some new things on the front.
0:29:47 We got sustainable aviation fuel.
0:29:50 So soybeans are now going to be used to make sustainable
0:29:52 aviation fuel, which is going to be a big one.
0:29:56 We’re trying to push to get corn to where the corn production is going to
0:29:59 also be used to make sustainable aviation fuel.
0:30:02 There’s a few pipeline issues that need to be addressed and some things like that.
0:30:08 But we’re moving for more food for fuel is becoming more little more prevalent.
0:30:12 So we’re seeing more countries move to that for cleaner energy sources.
0:30:16 So we’re seeing more utilities and more usage for traditional crops.
0:30:19 And we’re seeing more utility and more usage for land.
0:30:23 We were just seeing a ton more buyers and bidders come in for land.
0:30:29 People wanting to put in solar, you know, solar fields to create energy, windfields.
0:30:33 There’s just a lot more utilities being used now for data centers.
0:30:37 We’re seeing a big push through the Midwest on companies wanting to build
0:30:41 these massive data centers really through the glut of the Midwest.
0:30:45 And we think it’s kind of like Cushing’s, Oklahoma, where we store our oil.
0:30:48 Now we think data is going to be kind of the new oil.
0:30:52 And so we’re going to try and store our data here in the US centrally into the Midwest.
0:30:56 So we’re seeing a big push in some farmground being gobbled up for big data.
0:30:59 My father is a produce broker.
0:31:04 So he owns a small brokerage where, like, let’s say that over the course of 20 years,
0:31:08 he’s sold a hundred million dollars worth of onions, you know, over the course of 20 years.
0:31:11 The the the margin is like five percent.
0:31:14 Like, so he’ll make five million dollars over 20 years or whatever if you sell
0:31:16 a hundred million dollars worth of onions.
0:31:17 So it’s a huge quantity.
0:31:20 But in that space, he’s a small dog, you know, really tiny.
0:31:25 But I remember during a week, like I remember I was only 17 or 18.
0:31:27 I was watching the news and I was like, you know, dad,
0:31:31 why do you seem like you’re making more money now than than before,
0:31:32 where everyone else seems to be going broke.
0:31:35 And he was like, well, look at the corner of our kitchen.
0:31:37 There’s onions and potatoes there.
0:31:40 Like, people are still going to buy this stuff no matter what.
0:31:43 And then when the economy is going well, like, you’re going to go out to eat
0:31:44 and I’ll crush it then, too.
0:31:46 So it was like, I’m in a good business.
0:31:51 And I remember thinking, like, as I got older, I kind of forgot about farming
0:31:54 and I forgot about food and agriculture.
0:31:56 And I just I didn’t really think about it.
0:32:02 But what I’ve learned is that over the years that America is really good at two or three things.
0:32:03 One of them being culture.
0:32:05 So we export culture like amazingly well.
0:32:09 So Hollywood is like our biggest export, I would say, or culture.
0:32:13 The second thing that we do really well, we are so fucking good at growing corn.
0:32:16 America is so good at growing corn.
0:32:23 And I forget how important agriculture is to our to our way of life in America.
0:32:26 So when you’re talking about some of these things about what China is doing,
0:32:28 what Brazil is doing, if China is buying stuff from us.
0:32:32 How big is like this entire industry that you’re associated?
0:32:37 I mean, what percentage of the GDP or economic value is it creating in America
0:32:39 compared to other things?
0:32:40 So massive.
0:32:43 I mean, it’s, you know, one of the and we’re seeing more and more of the wealthy
0:32:45 get into agriculture.
0:32:47 And that’s why I’m saying it’s a really hot area.
0:32:49 And you’re seeing the Gates Foundation Buffett’s group.
0:32:53 Well, Warren, son, Howard, he used to be a big farmer.
0:32:58 And he had just recently gotten out and still on the ground.
0:33:00 But they’re having some other people farmer and do some things like that.
0:33:03 But yeah, seeing a big, big push and more and more people being interested in
0:33:06 ag and interested in food and where it’s coming from.
0:33:09 We’re seeing Sean LaRosa say is more people going direct to the farmers.
0:33:14 Just recently in the last few weeks, we’ve seen more ranches come online,
0:33:15 kind of form a little coalition.
0:33:18 There’s a group of about seven, eight good ranches down in Texas
0:33:20 that are now selling direct to the public.
0:33:24 You know, they were getting maybe they were getting minimal for their beef.
0:33:27 You know, and now that they’re selling direct, they’re really doing well
0:33:29 and people like buying direct.
0:33:32 And so did you just buy off their website or or the there’s some startup
0:33:34 that’s doing this? Yeah, they have an auction.
0:33:36 I think it’s called bid for beef.
0:33:38 I thought that was a dating site.
0:33:41 Yeah, yeah, you know, so they could be whatever you’re into.
0:33:46 Yeah, but, you know, they’re starting to make more traction.
0:33:48 And we’re seeing that across the board with other plays.
0:33:52 What’s going on with like farms that are kids don’t want to take it over?
0:33:54 What is the succession plan look like?
0:33:56 And is somebody solving that problem?
0:33:57 That’s a huge issue.
0:34:01 And that’s being discussed heavily and in the ag world that, you know,
0:34:05 so you have this this big succession
0:34:08 roll over, I think I don’t know what the number I can remember off time.
0:34:11 I think it’s OK 80 percent of the farms are owned by people over 60, you know,
0:34:13 and it’s it’s a really aging demographic.
0:34:16 And a lot of the the kids, you know,
0:34:19 I have other jobs or went off to great colleges and great schools
0:34:20 and they don’t necessarily want to come back.
0:34:23 So yes, there is there is a big issue.
0:34:25 And a lot of the people in the farming world
0:34:27 keep their cards really close to their chest.
0:34:30 And they don’t really talk a lot openly with their kids
0:34:33 or they don’t have a lot of great succession planning in place.
0:34:34 And we’re seeing that a lot.
0:34:37 I think, you know, we’ve tried to be super open with our kids
0:34:40 and discuss everything and show them everything and say, hey,
0:34:41 here’s where everything’s at.
0:34:42 Here’s where you need to know.
0:34:44 Here’s where you need to be.
0:34:49 And, you know, hopefully you only tell our other friends to similar type things.
0:34:51 So yes, the session planning is very important.
0:34:54 And I think it’s something that we all have to address as we own businesses.
0:34:56 So what do you think is going to happen?
0:34:59 Like, if 80 percent of these are owned by people over 60
0:35:02 and a lot of the kids are going like, is this just going to be private equity
0:35:05 owns all the farms? Like, what happens here?
0:35:07 We are going to see a lot of rollover, a lot of turnover.
0:35:10 So in the farming space or when you’re buying acreage,
0:35:13 there’s there’s two bidders that are going to come against you.
0:35:15 The person who’s farmed butts up against you.
0:35:17 They’re going to be willing to pay a big premium
0:35:20 because the land may only come available once in their lifetime.
0:35:22 And so they’re going to be bid and have one.
0:35:25 So whoever’s in close proximity, because, as you know,
0:35:28 driving the combines or driving the hard, it makes a lot of says
0:35:30 to get a continuing piece of ground.
0:35:34 And now you’re also having like California teachers
0:35:36 benching, fun bidding against you.
0:35:39 You have other high profile, fun people bidding against you.
0:35:41 So yes, who runs it?
0:35:43 They just play somebody to go live on the farm and what?
0:35:46 Sean, have you ever been on a farm?
0:35:49 No, so I don’t know where I would go to find a farm.
0:35:50 Where do you go?
0:35:51 Without a map somewhere.
0:35:55 My my aunts and uncles and cousins are farmers in Oklahoma.
0:35:57 And they have like two or three thousand acres.
0:35:59 And they are, I guess they’re ranchers.
0:36:02 And so they own like fifteen hundred cattle, I believe.
0:36:06 And a bunch of their cattle are Sean, you’ve probably never heard this term.
0:36:08 They’re bucking bulls. Have you heard of?
0:36:10 You know what a bucking bull is? I do not.
0:36:13 So what they do is they the PDR,
0:36:15 which is the professional rodeo association.
0:36:20 They if you get a good bull, a good bull can be worth, I don’t know,
0:36:23 Kevin, what like 50 grand all the way up to a million dollars.
0:36:24 And yeah, more than that.
0:36:28 Some of these good bulls you get, you make money in two ways.
0:36:32 You make money because at the rodeo, the rider gets paid.
0:36:36 So if you stay on a bull for a certain amount of time, you win and you get paid.
0:36:39 But the bull that bucks the hardest also gets paid.
0:36:41 And that’s like like a rating system.
0:36:45 And so there’s like famous bulls that are known as like really hard bucking bulls.
0:36:47 Who’s the Michael Jordan of bulls?
0:36:51 It’s Bushwacker. Bushwacker Bushwacker has been the best for a long time.
0:36:55 No, Bushwacker is a famous bull, the guy who like dominated Bushwacker.
0:36:58 What’s his name? J.R. or something he like just retired, I believe, right?
0:36:59 What was that guy saying?
0:37:02 My son played football a couple of kids who were PBR bull riders.
0:37:04 They’re insane.
0:37:07 So my cousin and the family, this is what they do.
0:37:09 And so I went and stayed with them every once in a while.
0:37:14 And we get up at like eight and starting at like 10,
0:37:18 you go to the feed store and you buy a huge amount of feed.
0:37:19 You bring the feed back.
0:37:21 You call the bulls and you throw it all over.
0:37:25 Like you scatter it out throughout the area and they come up and they eat it.
0:37:31 And then on the weekends, they drive these bulls from Oklahoma to Texas,
0:37:32 which is like 12 hours.
0:37:35 And these bulls, when you put them into the truck,
0:37:37 you would think a bull that you birthed and raised,
0:37:39 like they will literally be there when they birth this bull.
0:37:42 But once the bull hits puberty, I guess, or it has balls,
0:37:45 it wants to fucking kill you no matter what.
0:37:48 It doesn’t matter if you raised or birthed this bull.
0:37:51 This bull wants to murder you every chance it gets.
0:37:53 And so just to get the bull on to the truck,
0:37:55 it’s like a life or death situation every once in a while.
0:37:59 Like this it’s a fifteen hundred pound thing that you got to get into this truck.
0:38:02 And they would drive these bulls all around the country
0:38:07 and they get paid, I think, four grand just as an appearance fee or something like that
0:38:11 to show up on the PBR and then the other the cows, the females.
0:38:15 And so they make their money by raising the cows that they sell for beef.
0:38:18 And then the bulls, they either sell them to get bread
0:38:24 or they make money directly from the rodeo and it’s like a huge cash business.
0:38:28 So my cousins and aunts and uncles, they’ll always have a lot of cash
0:38:31 because they’ll go to the auction and it’s just like a really heavy cash business.
0:38:35 They get, let’s say, 10 grand for selling 10, 10 cows.
0:38:39 They take that 10 grand and they spend eight of it like that day on more cow feed.
0:38:43 And so it’s like a really heavy, I’m probably getting some numbers wrong,
0:38:47 but it’s a really heavy cash business and it’s fucking hard.
0:38:51 My cousin Sam would drive around and he’d be drinking like natural light
0:38:54 while he’s driving his truck, checking on all the like on all the cows.
0:38:59 Dude, it’s a hard living and it’s really fun.
0:39:00 I’ve like spent time on there.
0:39:04 It’s been it’s fun for me as a visitor, but it is a hard job to do this shit.
0:39:07 You are working and walking constantly.
0:39:08 Yeah, you’re right.
0:39:11 And, you know, I lost I lost a good joke, not a big joke,
0:39:14 but I did when you said somebody’s mind getting said,
0:39:18 hey, let’s start raising these bulls to be PBR bulls, you know, rodeo bulls.
0:39:20 Shit. I don’t think I ever cashed one check.
0:39:22 I think it just it was a lot of fun.
0:39:24 Like you said, a lot of drinking thatty light and driving around
0:39:27 the pickup, checking on them and, you know, yeah, like it’s like fun,
0:39:33 but it’s fucking hard and it’s a very capital intensive business.
0:39:34 Hey, I’ll give you one.
0:39:36 I’ll give you one that was a big miss.
0:39:38 Now, a guy came to me and say I’m going to kick out.
0:39:42 I came to the house probably 20 years ago and 50, you know,
0:39:43 the other guy was just getting going.
0:39:45 He said, man, I got this great idea.
0:39:48 And the guy came in and he was all suited and I said, well,
0:39:50 he’s an English major and all that.
0:39:53 He says, what I’m going to do is I’m going to build his websites
0:39:56 and I’m going to hire a couple other English majors and we’re going to write
0:40:01 really eloquent descriptions of these cattle and these bulls and their stems,
0:40:04 the stem that they call the sperm, you know, and he’s like,
0:40:07 then I’m going to sell this sperm all over in Japan, all over the world.
0:40:10 I said, dude, it’s this shit ain’t gonna work.
0:40:12 You know, this was early on up to the blue it up.
0:40:13 He blew it up.
0:40:16 How do you eloquently describe the sperm of a bull?
0:40:18 What’s it? What’s your website?
0:40:20 You know, the background, the lineage.
0:40:22 I don’t know. I have not followed him for a number of years,
0:40:24 but I remember he came back through and some people were like, man,
0:40:26 this guy just, hey, I’ll tell you one.
0:40:27 We were at the Louisville farm show.
0:40:31 They had me come down there to speak as US’s world largest indoor
0:40:33 fiery show and so I go down there to be the keynote speaker.
0:40:35 And there’s this little boost set up next to this.
0:40:39 They got all these Polaroids on this little 10 by 10 booth tent.
0:40:41 And I go to talk to you guys. So what the hell is this thing?
0:40:44 He’s like, it’s called farmers only.com.
0:40:46 And you guys are seeing all of the ads.
0:40:47 But I’m not shitting you, Sean.
0:40:48 We’re like all making fun of him.
0:40:52 And then the next year he comes and he has like a 20 by 20 booth.
0:40:56 And then the next year he’s there and shit, his booth, damn it.
0:40:57 Biggest John Deere. I mean, his booth is massive.
0:41:00 And we’re like, the hell then he’s got Super Bowl ads.
0:41:03 It’s just only.com.
0:41:05 You’re looking to marry a farmer, you know, that thing just blew up.
0:41:08 And he, shit, he turned that into a great deal.
0:41:11 When you, so let’s say I wanted to become a gentleman farmer,
0:41:14 and I wanted to go buy a farm, walk me through that.
0:41:15 So first, where would I find a farm?
0:41:19 Do is this like sold like on Zillow or is this a brokers only?
0:41:22 How do people find farms to buy?
0:41:24 You know, some people are now investing fractively through.
0:41:28 I mean, I’m invested in a company, AcreTrader, AcreTrader.com.
0:41:29 So we buy farms.
0:41:31 We even have farms out near the neck of the woods, Sean.
0:41:36 Out in, we have nut farms out in California.
0:41:39 We have regular other row crop production farms
0:41:41 through Bakersfield in that area through there.
0:41:44 You know, and all over the United States,
0:41:46 you have various farms grow very similar products.
0:41:49 So a farmer is selling a fraction of their of their farm.
0:41:51 What happens at AcreTrader?
0:41:52 We go in and actually buy the entire farm
0:41:56 from a family, say they’re one now or this is a session planning.
0:41:58 And they will. So we’ll buy the entire farm.
0:42:00 And most of the time we’ll have a farmer in that area
0:42:03 that has called us about the farm and said,
0:42:05 hey, we don’t have the money, but if you guys
0:42:07 want to put up the money, we’d be happy to farm it for you
0:42:11 and do revenue sharing, crop sharing or some type of, you know,
0:42:13 split into the revenue.
0:42:15 We’re looking to just hold the ground for appreciation
0:42:16 over 10, 12 year period.
0:42:19 The years you have good years, you have some really good years.
0:42:21 Some years, though, you’re going to have some some losing years.
0:42:24 But over the course of time, 10, 15, 20 years,
0:42:26 your appreciation on the land is going to be
0:42:28 that’s really going to carry you forward.
0:42:30 And that’s what the that’s what a lot of hedge funds are looking for.
0:42:32 A lot of funds are looking for that longer term appreciation.
0:42:34 Well, what are these trade for?
0:42:37 Like if I go buy a farm, what is the multiple you pay on a farm?
0:42:41 Typically, or would it be just price per acre price per acre?
0:42:42 And it’s gone nuts lately.
0:42:46 I mean, my buddy just sold his mom left him a chunk of ground
0:42:47 that they had in the family.
0:42:49 And he said, hey, what do you think?
0:42:51 And I said, I don’t know, man, it’s a great time.
0:42:52 This was about seven, eight months ago.
0:42:55 I said, you know, farmers are flush with some cash.
0:42:57 Maybe it was about a year ago.
0:43:00 And he ended up getting 20,000 an acre down here outside of Missouri.
0:43:02 Now, that’s pretty rare off the books.
0:43:08 You know, acreage around here typically go for five to 12 to 15.
0:43:11 But if someone needs the ground or wants the ground
0:43:13 and it’s a continuing piece of track to their farm,
0:43:15 you can see guys get the bidding war.
0:43:16 And so you get bidding wars.
0:43:18 Yeah, you can go out anywhere, look up farm grounds.
0:43:21 You want to, you know, there’s a lot of things you want to look for.
0:43:23 Like in Kansas, you can’t drill any wells in him.
0:43:25 You can’t drill new wells.
0:43:29 And so Kansas and Nebraska, there’s a lot going on with the underground aquifer.
0:43:32 And there’s a lot of problems with with water use.
0:43:37 And so, you know, we believe, though, we like C and B grade ground.
0:43:39 We like ground that’s maybe in a flood plain.
0:43:42 Or we like ground that’s watered to fish it
0:43:46 because we believe that all the technology and the money from Gates Foundation or Buffett,
0:43:51 they’re they’re really putting their money into new technology
0:43:54 that will help grow crops in third world countries that have really poor soil.
0:43:56 So, you know, Iowa has the best soil.
0:43:59 Iowa and Illinois, they’ll argue with each other, who’s got the richest soil.
0:44:03 And they’ve got great soil and great farms that you really don’t have to do a lot to.
0:44:06 You get to some of these peripheral areas, though.
0:44:10 You know, these guys, you get a biker jacket, but you got no bike, right?
0:44:12 That’s that’s more of my my my land.
0:44:14 So I just needed to I’m asking questions just so I have the lingo
0:44:18 in case I ever get pressed so that I can sound like I know what I’m talking about
0:44:20 without actually knowing anything.
0:44:24 Yeah, you’re you have to get some land to match that car heart coat that you want to get.
0:44:25 I get that.
0:44:30 So here’s the deal.
0:44:33 I made most of my money from a newsletter business.
0:44:34 It was called The Hustle.
0:44:37 And it was a daily newsletter at scale to millions of subscribers.
0:44:39 And it was the greatest business on earth.
0:44:44 The problem with it was that I had close to 40 employees and only three of them
0:44:46 were actually doing any writing.
0:44:49 The other employees were growing the newsletter, building out the tech
0:44:51 for the platform and selling ads.
0:44:53 And honestly, it was a huge pain in the butt.
0:44:56 Today’s episode is brought to you by Beehive.
0:45:00 They are a platform that is built exactly for this.
0:45:02 If you want to grow your newsletter, if you want to monetize a newsletter,
0:45:06 they do all of the stuff that I had to hire dozens of employees to do.
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0:45:12 That’s B E E H I I V dot com.
0:45:16 Well, what about the other tech?
0:45:19 So like I’ve seen people do these like Fitbit for cows, where they’re like,
0:45:22 you know, like cows, valuable, you know, asset.
0:45:25 And you don’t know if it’s sick, you know, keep driving around, keep checking on it.
0:45:28 What if you could know before it’s too late, what tech is working?
0:45:30 Yeah, it is.
0:45:32 And we’re invested in a few companies to do that.
0:45:34 And they’ll tag them, they’ll tag the cattle, you know,
0:45:38 because there is a push to have less antibiotics, less, you know,
0:45:42 less, you know, shots and things into into our food supply.
0:45:45 So if you’re able to identify when they have a fever earlier,
0:45:47 you can get them segregated from the herd, get them away from the herd,
0:45:51 give them the give them the medicine that they need in a more timely fashion.
0:45:54 So, yeah, all those are great, you know, zoetis, the publicly traded company.
0:45:57 They’re a leader really, probably in the animal health space.
0:46:00 If you’re looking for some of the longer term play, we’re invested in zoetis.
0:46:04 I have a business on that my friend’s working on that my interest too, Kevin.
0:46:12 So basically he’s putting he’s put RFT, RFD, RFID, RFID, sorry, tags on chickens and cows.
0:46:18 And you know how like a chicken will like when you buy eggs, it says free range.
0:46:22 And you just kind of trust like, I guess that means a chicken was just like out walking around,
0:46:24 which is better for me because it’s somehow healthier.
0:46:26 And it’s also like if you’re if you care about animals, you’re like, all right,
0:46:29 at least I know it had like a better life and whatever.
0:46:33 But free range, I think that’s a technical term, actually,
0:46:34 where it has to have a certain amount of space.
0:46:37 But I don’t think that it’s actually necessarily always followed.
0:46:42 And so what he did was he’s putting these these tags on the cows and chickens.
0:46:45 And so, you know, the beef that you bought, the tag number,
0:46:50 and you could actually go and see how much did it walk around and where did it go?
0:46:53 Which sounds a little morbid and weird, but it’s actually supposed to be
0:46:58 like reassuring where it like, look, my farm is now you can hold my farm accountable
0:47:02 to know that this meat was actually raised in the way that I promised it was going to be.
0:47:06 And that’s like an interesting idea because I think, Sean, you said this,
0:47:10 I think you said in like some period of time, 20 or 50 or 60 years,
0:47:12 we’re going to look back at the way that we treated cows.
0:47:13 And we’re going to be like, that was pretty unfortunate.
0:47:15 Like this, it shouldn’t have been done that way.
0:47:18 We’re an animal is just born in a pen and never leaves.
0:47:20 And then we eat them and I actually agree with that.
0:47:23 I agree with that sentiment where like the way that we treat certain animals,
0:47:27 I’m cool to eat them, but it’s better to better them have a certain life.
0:47:29 And so this idea is kind of interesting to me.
0:47:32 Yeah, we think that that’s going to be prevalent throughout.
0:47:35 We think you’re going to blockchain the farm is what we’re calling in our world.
0:47:36 You know, you’re going to blockchain the farm,
0:47:40 meaning the fertilizer companies and the input companies are going to have to report
0:47:45 all that and you’re going to know what was put on whatever it is you’re eating
0:47:48 or, you know, and the reason they want to blockchain it is just like,
0:47:51 remember when Spolta was having those issues several years back, you know,
0:47:54 with some things they want to be able to go right to the field, right to the spot
0:47:58 and know exactly what happened and what was put on and what time and where it was at.
0:47:59 And so, yeah, I agree with you, Sam.
0:48:01 I think that’s definitely where the world’s headed.
0:48:05 And, and, you know, I think we’re seeing farmers make that transition more and more.
0:48:08 They’re a lot more tech savvy than people give them credit.
0:48:10 Ops in the world, they’re very tech savvy, as a matter of fact.
0:48:12 And nobody treats their animals.
0:48:16 I mean, my I think I have never been on a farm in my entire life
0:48:19 that I seen any abuse to animals.
0:48:23 I mean, nobody treats their animals better just because it’s generally
0:48:26 what typically the way they make their own living, the way they make their their money
0:48:28 and they teach their kids to take care of the, you know, they love them
0:48:31 and show them at four H’s and go all around.
0:48:34 It’s sad that they do get it such a bad rap in the media
0:48:37 when I’ve personally never come across it.
0:48:43 And what’s your take on the alternative meat movement thing where
0:48:46 in Silicon Valley, there’s a bunch of startups that are trying to grow
0:48:49 beef from cells so that you won’t have to farm the animal.
0:48:53 You won’t have to harm the animal to be able to have the same genetic meat.
0:48:56 It should be virtually identical, genetically identical.
0:48:58 What’s your take on that movement?
0:49:00 And is that where you think things are going?
0:49:04 I think there will be a segment of the space that continues to grow.
0:49:06 And I think you’re going to see it continue to gain market share.
0:49:12 I think as as population shifts and moves out, you know, as the baby boomers
0:49:14 continue to age and move on, we get more people.
0:49:19 I think you’re going to see alternative types of pro protein be developed.
0:49:23 And I think as they get more money in the labs,
0:49:27 they’re getting better at reducing the cost and creating better flavor.
0:49:29 And I think as those two things continue to move forward,
0:49:34 just like with Tesla and Elon Musk, you know, it’s it’s only a matter of time.
0:49:37 How’s everything happened gradually that all at once?
0:49:39 And, you know, it’s like the electric vehicle.
0:49:41 I think you have a lot fewer moving parts.
0:49:43 It’s a lot better than the combustion engine.
0:49:47 I think you’re going to see things, you know, gradually gain more and more market share.
0:49:52 We’ll have farmers taken to like, I always read the comments of like in Texas,
0:49:53 message boards and things like that.
0:49:56 They it doesn’t it seems like it’s 50 50.
0:50:00 If like the rural community thinks that electric vehicles are worth it.
0:50:04 Yeah, right now at the time, no, because just the distance traveled.
0:50:07 You know, a lot of folks have traveled massive distances out in rural America.
0:50:10 And so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to them at the moment.
0:50:14 I think eventually, yes, I think they’ll see it have better torque,
0:50:17 you know, better low end, get up and go out of the hole.
0:50:19 And I think you’ll see a lot more transition.
0:50:21 I like anything though.
0:50:25 Nobody wants to, I guess, let go of their heritage and their roots.
0:50:27 And, you know, it’s same with the fake meat.
0:50:29 You know, a lot of farmers just bash it and want to go nuts about it.
0:50:32 I think there’s definitely going to be a place for it.
0:50:35 And I think there’s it’s going to be able to gain and grow some market share.
0:50:38 You know, probably, you know, as they get cost lower and lower,
0:50:41 I think it’ll be, you know, a way that we see things up.
0:50:45 If you were twenty four years old again
0:50:48 and you had the entrepreneurial energy to go do something,
0:50:49 what would you be?
0:50:53 What would you advise that 24 year old to go to go do in this space?
0:50:55 Where do you think the opportunity is?
0:50:59 I think there’s going to be a big push with air quality or, you know,
0:51:02 just the quality of air from this whole virus,
0:51:05 just the testing for the viruses.
0:51:07 And we’re seeing a lot more testing take place in general
0:51:10 just over the entire space.
0:51:13 So I think there’s going to be a big push in things to do with air
0:51:14 and creating good air quality.
0:51:17 We’re seeing a lot more kids that have asthma or asthma related problems.
0:51:20 And I think, you know, not just here in the United States,
0:51:22 but I’m talking globally and taking.
0:51:23 What’s an example solution?
0:51:27 What’s an example solution of that from an agricultural perspective?
0:51:32 Well, you know, we’re big right now into the carbon market.
0:51:35 So, you know, we’re trying to reduce carbon footprints
0:51:39 and no one really reduces it much more than the giant cornfield.
0:51:43 Cornfield plants, you know, things of that nature.
0:51:47 And so, you know, yeah, I think there’s a big play and a big push into the carbon.
0:51:51 Trying to reduce, like I said, trying to reduce the footprint.
0:51:57 Anything that’ll help save energy, improve our water usage, improve water purity.
0:51:59 You know, I think anything to do with the natural resources
0:52:02 that are just to become more heavily relied upon.
0:52:04 If we transition all this to electric,
0:52:06 I mean, the rare earth minerals are going to be hard.
0:52:07 They’re going to be scary.
0:52:10 I mean, there’s going to be a lot of plays in, you know,
0:52:13 what we see on the on that whole side and that whole front.
0:52:17 So I think, you know, natural resources, things to do with natural resources,
0:52:20 things to do with air, water, like I said, food quality.
0:52:22 You know, we really love the blue collar space.
0:52:25 I mean, I think we love, you know, like what Cody Sanchez has
0:52:29 going on or some of the other things we like the thought of buying blue collar
0:52:33 businesses, rolling them up and, you know, kind of packaging them up and selling them.
0:52:34 Why do you like that?
0:52:37 Because they’re they’re retiring.
0:52:38 I think they’re retiring.
0:52:42 I think we didn’t see near as many kids go into the trades as we had in the past.
0:52:46 You know, my dad and my wife, I mean, everybody was in trade back then.
0:52:48 That was everyone’s goal to go to college.
0:52:52 So, you know, you just had a big lull or a big, I guess, you know,
0:52:56 where they’re just a short supply of good skilled people.
0:52:58 And now we think you can go into that space.
0:53:02 And we’ve tried it a couple of times and, you know, where we can build out some things.
0:53:06 And I think you provide people with good quality service and an onboarding
0:53:10 process that, you know, you can cut your customer retention rate down to a
0:53:12 feasible level.
0:53:15 I think there’s just the sky’s the limit on growth.
0:53:17 You know, do you use Kevin, do you use TikTok?
0:53:19 But I’m on it.
0:53:20 Yeah, I see it.
0:53:24 Have you guys seen the popularity amongst young people and the trades?
0:53:28 Like, it’s it like glamorize it in a in a in a cool way.
0:53:32 And I think in an accurate way, which is like, I’m making over one hundred and
0:53:34 fifty or one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
0:53:35 I just want to trade it for two years.
0:53:38 It goes so well on TikTok because it’s like a novelty.
0:53:39 It’s like going to the zoo.
0:53:40 It’s like, wow, you made that.
0:53:42 You know how to do things with your hands.
0:53:46 And that’s what a carrot looks like when it when it comes out like that’s incredible.
0:53:47 Swipe. All right.
0:53:49 On to the next one. That was easy.
0:53:52 But but I actually think that some of these young people are actually being
0:53:56 influenced by this because they’re like, shit, I graduated with a hundred and fifty
0:54:00 or two hundred grand in debt and I don’t make anything remotely like that amount
0:54:02 of money and I’m sitting on my computer all day.
0:54:05 Like this might be a little bit more intriguing and I don’t have any data.
0:54:09 But it does seem like young people are more open minded to the trades than at
0:54:12 least Sean and I’s like graduating classes.
0:54:14 Yeah, I’m seeing that as well.
0:54:17 We’re hearing that from some of the younger kids that are often not to go to
0:54:21 college and they’re going in to be a pipe fitter or going into pipe fitters union
0:54:22 or the plumbing union or electrical union.
0:54:27 So yeah, we’re we’re definitely because AI ain’t going to replace plumbers
0:54:29 or or electricians or HVAC people.
0:54:32 It may be one day, but but no time soon.
0:54:35 And like I do think that’s getting more popular.
0:54:37 And I think that’s really cool and fascinating.
0:54:40 There’s like it’s also like ripped buff, dude.
0:54:43 So it’s always like chicks like commenting.
0:54:46 You’re like about like, have you seen that guy, Sean, who just cuts wood?
0:54:48 Yeah, the lumberjack guy, he’s incredible.
0:54:49 I love that.
0:54:50 It’s not just chicks.
0:54:52 I’ll sit there and I’ll watch that video twice.
0:54:54 It’s just an incredible video.
0:54:58 It’s this guy that uses an axe and he’s sometimes shirtless, sometimes not.
0:55:01 And he’s just like, you know, obviously a 10 out of 10.
0:55:05 And he’s just chopping wood and like everyone’s like, I need this in my life.
0:55:06 They’re puny.
0:55:08 Have you been a part of any rollups?
0:55:11 I always find rollups to be a really interesting business strategy.
0:55:14 It seems like there’s a lot of money to be made in a successful rollup.
0:55:15 I’m curious if you’ve been a part of anything.
0:55:17 I have not personally.
0:55:21 No, I usually their exit ahead of time or, you know, get a little nervous.
0:55:25 So it blames out that I have a couple of friends that, yeah, that’s their whole
0:55:27 their whole way they’ve created all their wealth.
0:55:29 You got one of the gentlemen I’m speaking of right now.
0:55:31 He’s doing it with cranes.
0:55:36 He’s buying small crane companies that’ll have two or three cranes
0:55:38 and he’s buying them and he’s putting them all together.
0:55:42 And, you know, he’s going to sell that and he’s done it with several other things,
0:55:44 whether it’s restaurants or different things in the past.
0:55:47 So, yeah, I thought it was interesting on the crane play, you know,
0:55:49 he came to me about an investment and we just didn’t do it.
0:55:52 But I’m sure he’ll hit a huge home run with it.
0:55:55 Dude, Sean, I think the shit that Kevin’s doing is way more exciting
0:55:58 than the shit that our friends are doing.
0:56:00 You’re going to quit and go do it?
0:56:02 No, I don’t know about that.
0:56:03 It sounds like a lot of work.
0:56:06 It sounds like a lot of a lot of words, then, if you’re not going to go do it.
0:56:11 No, what it means is I like hanging out with these types of people sometimes.
0:56:13 That’s what it means.
0:56:15 Yeah, it gives you guys that, you know, I think it gives both of us.
0:56:18 I like hanging out with your group of people because I think it gives me
0:56:21 different perspective and learn different things that you guys have gone on that I
0:56:23 can make applicable to my world as well.
0:56:26 And so, you know, yeah, there’s a good synergy there between all.
0:56:27 And how do you do that practically?
0:56:31 Because I think you do a good job of getting yourself into positions
0:56:34 like we talked about going to random conferences that are totally outside your
0:56:37 industry that you didn’t need to go to, but you wanted to go to to shift your
0:56:41 lens a little bit or hanging out with younger people who may be demographically
0:56:44 just doing different things, culturally doing different things than the guy
0:56:46 who made it and is at a country club now might might be disconnected
0:56:49 from whatever the culture shifts are.
0:56:51 How do you tactically go about doing that?
0:56:52 How do you put yourself in those positions?
0:56:54 What questions do you ask?
0:56:55 Honestly, I just make myself.
0:56:58 I always yelled at the kids and we were growing up.
0:57:01 So I played sports at a high level and had several friends of one World Series
0:57:03 and, you know, Super Bowls.
0:57:05 We always talk, you know, we get a bad coach.
0:57:08 You know, everybody get a bad coach or things like that.
0:57:11 And it’s like, look, man, you got to be able to steal something from the guy.
0:57:12 The guy was great player.
0:57:15 He was, you know, you got to go in there with an open mind and you got to be
0:57:18 able to take away some things that they’ve done well and that they’ve done
0:57:20 positive and then use those and put those errors in your quiver.
0:57:25 So I just always had the kids looking for new, crazy, weird conferences or things
0:57:28 to go to. And and from there, I’d make myself go the last couple of years.
0:57:33 I didn’t want to go. And I’m like, but each time I went, I, I, I took away
0:57:37 several little gold nuggets that we implemented into our business models.
0:57:39 And hell, we’ve made big returns on them, each one of them.
0:57:42 And, you know, I didn’t think I’d get anything out of going to the car.
0:57:43 And I just like, this is going to be a waste.
0:57:45 But I just sucked it up and did it.
0:57:47 You know, it’s like going to work out or you got a rudder.
0:57:50 So it’s like, ah, shit, I guess I just got to go do it.
0:57:53 Yeah, we had a friend when we were going to FarmCon who was supposed to come
0:57:54 with us. It was me, Ben and our buddy.
0:57:57 And the morning of we were like, hey, we’ll meet you in the lobby.
0:58:01 You know, your flight was you landed like an hour ago, right?
0:58:04 And he basically woke up, looked at and he said, Kansas City.
0:58:08 He looked at the flight time, then he’s like, ah, you know what?
0:58:11 He just bailed. And I was like, man.
0:58:14 But of course, I felt that everybody feels that in the moment.
0:58:17 Like, do I really want to go do this thing that I don’t have to do?
0:58:19 That is unknown, right?
0:58:22 It’s back to your thing about, are you willing to sprint for an unknown distance?
0:58:25 And we didn’t know what value we would get out of it.
0:58:28 That was the hard part. That was the challenge.
0:58:31 And doing it when we didn’t know what would come out of it was really, really valuable.
0:58:38 And it’s ironic, because that same friend, he he gave me a great analogy one time.
0:58:39 We were talking to a younger friend.
0:58:41 This guy was the youngest VC in Silicon Valley.
0:58:46 So 19, 20 years old, he was investing, I don’t know, ten million dollars into the things.
0:58:49 He was like, he got written up as the youngest VC in Silicon Valley.
0:58:52 So we were meeting with this guy, but now five years have gone by.
0:58:57 And it was like, you hadn’t seen him really progressing at that same rate
0:59:00 that you would expect somebody who definitely had that sort of phenom type
0:59:04 of upbringing, where it seemed like he had all the potential in the world.
0:59:07 And I was like, man, what do you think he’s doing wrong?
0:59:09 Well, what would you do differently?
0:59:12 He goes, oh, it’s it’s like windows and doors.
0:59:14 He goes, he’s only willing to do something if it’s a window.
0:59:18 If he can immediately see through and see the what’s on the other side of it, then he’ll do it.
0:59:22 But anytime there’s a door and it’s opaque and you don’t know what’s on the other side of it,
0:59:26 he’s not willing to knock on a door and open it up and see what might be inside.
0:59:28 He’s only looking at doors and windows.
0:59:30 He’s never willing to go through a door.
0:59:33 And if once he starts going through doors, this guy’s career is going to take off.
0:59:36 And I remember hearing that and really taking that to heart
0:59:38 because I thought that was very, very wise.
0:59:39 That’s a great analogy.
0:59:41 Yeah, I never heard that for so I’ve heard a lot.
0:59:43 That’s a yeah, that’s a great one there for sure.
0:59:46 So Sean, the reason why you like a lot of these folks in the Midwest
0:59:50 and some folks in the South is because you love phrases.
0:59:53 You love phrases like windows and doors.
0:59:55 You love cool sayings.
0:59:56 And you know what?
0:59:57 I love them too.
0:59:59 And that’s why I’m happy I’m friends with both of you guys.
1:00:00 We were at a dinner.
1:00:03 So at FarmCon, you invited us to like a private dinner at the end.
1:00:04 It’s like 10 people.
1:00:07 This guy stands up and he delivers two of the coldest lines I’ve ever heard.
1:00:12 So he stands up and we’re doing our intros like a and so I stand up
1:00:14 and I give some super vanilla intro.
1:00:14 Hi, I’m Sean.
1:00:19 I live in San Francisco and I’m a tech founder and an investor.
1:00:20 All right, sit down.
1:00:22 Forgittable this guy stands up.
1:00:25 He’s got a big presence and he goes up.
1:00:29 I don’t remember what his name was exactly, what he said.
1:00:33 He goes, you know, I don’t know a lot of things.
1:00:35 I don’t know. I don’t know the score of the game right now.
1:00:36 There’s a big game going on.
1:00:38 He says, I don’t know the score of the game right now.
1:00:41 I don’t know anything about this.
1:00:44 And he goes, he goes, hell, I don’t know where the remote is in my house
1:00:47 half the time, but I know deals and I made a lot of deals.
1:00:50 He’s like, I’m a private equity guy and he starts talking about his dealmaking.
1:00:52 I was like, wow, he goes, I’ve been around for a long time.
1:00:53 You cut me open.
1:00:55 You can see a lot of rings in the middle.
1:00:57 I was like, wow, it’s one way of saying it.
1:00:58 He’s just on fire.
1:01:00 And he goes, somebody goes, somebody asked him.
1:01:02 They go, what if, well, what if they don’t, what if they don’t go for it on this deal?
1:01:06 Sounds like you really need them to say, yes, what if, what if they say no,
1:01:08 what if you get rejected?
1:01:10 He goes, I’m not afraid of rejection.
1:01:11 And he’s a big, big old dude.
1:01:14 And he goes, I’ve stood in front of women in my life naked before.
1:01:17 I’ve heard no, no, no, no, no, I’m okay with it.
1:01:23 I was like, wow, this guy is like half comedian, half businessman.
1:01:24 And I loved it.
1:01:27 But it was just, it was just another day at the office for him.
1:01:31 But for me coming from, from our world, that was like the charisma levels.
1:01:35 And the, the, the, the gift of the gab was so, was so incredible to see.
1:01:35 I loved it.
1:01:39 Yeah, it’s definitely wild dubs.
1:01:40 Yeah.
1:01:41 And you got that too.
1:01:44 A little bit that I like just hearing what you have to say, Kevin.
1:01:48 And for the people listening, maybe, maybe we’ll get you some new subscribers.
1:01:50 It’s the VanTrump.com.
1:01:52 I like your, you always, you do something cool.
1:01:55 But you’ll just like have a selfie with you and your wife.
1:01:57 And you’re like, say, today we’re on vacation.
1:01:57 Here’s what we’re doing.
1:01:59 And you’ll say something kind of funny and cute.
1:02:01 And I love it.
1:02:04 But we should just get like a group of 20 of our, of our listeners,
1:02:06 a select small group to go to farm con.
1:02:09 And we’ll go all go together as a field trip next, next time you guys do it.
1:02:10 When is it?
1:02:13 First week in January, January 8th and 9th this year coming up.
1:02:14 How much is the ticket?
1:02:17 I think this year we’re like 1200 bucks or something.
1:02:19 And you sell a lot of them too, right?
1:02:22 Yeah, we’ll sell out whatever they give us, you know, our capacity.
1:02:25 We sell out the hotel every year and yeah.
1:02:26 We appreciate you doing this.
1:02:27 You’re the man.
1:02:27 Thank you.
1:02:30 And thank you for years of being a cool dude.
1:02:32 You’ve always been a great guy to me.
1:02:32 So thank you.
1:02:33 Yeah, I appreciate it.
1:02:35 Good luck to both of you guys and your families and that’s the pod.
1:02:36 Thank you very much.
1:02:38 I feel like I can rule the world.
1:02:44 I know I could be what I want to put my all in it like the days on the road.
1:02:46 Let’s travel never looking back.
1:02:49 (upbeat music)