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- [00:00]
A
All right, so check this out. I'm going to tell you about three products that are hidden in plain sight. And the genius of these is that they take something that's free and they sell it. They take a free thing and they sell it. And I'm going to tell you about one example that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars, another one that makes millions of dollars, and then another one that's made hundreds of millions of dollars.
- [00:20]
B
I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it. Like, no days off on the road. Let's travel.
- [00:28]
A
Now, I want to tell you about a couple of business ideas. I'm going to start with one that makes thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands, let's say one that makes millions of dollars, and one that makes hundreds of millions of dollars. And they're all products that are hidden in plain sight. So we've all seen them, but you probably never even realize they're businesses. And secondly, the magic thing about all of them, they sell a product that's actually free.
- [00:52]
B
What inspired this? Did you just see something?
- [00:54]
A
Found one, found a second, found a third, drew a line. Three dots make a line. So that. That's kind of what happened here. So first is, I'm on Twitter and I see Joe Gabbia, who's the founder of Airbnb, friend of the podcast. I see Joe tweet out something about a screenshot of an app that was checking water. Water quality. So the cleanliness of water. It was this app called Oasis. I thought that sounds familiar. Sam mentioned that, like, I don't know, six months ago. Sam mentioned that in passing, but I never really paid much attention to it. What is the story of this thing, Oasis? So here's one that's making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year selling a product that is free, and it's hidden in plain sight, and it's just water quality testing. So there's a kid who is behind this, and we. We chatted with him. So Oasis is a app. It's an app that checks the water quality. It'll tell you if your city's water is clean, if your county's water is clean, it'll tell you, you can hold up a bottle of this aquapona right here and it will tell you, is this aquapona actually clean, or does it contain, you know, PFAS Forever chemicals? That whole deal, Right? What's in the water?
- [02:05]
B
And a website. Right, an app and a website.
- [02:08]
A
And it started by this guy named Cormac. And Cormac is from Minnesota, which is known for having really fresh water. He said, drink. Growing up, he would just drink tap water, no problem. He'd drink hose water like you, Sam. And that was what he did. And then he moves to la and he just starts doing the same thing. He starts drinking tap water, you notice, tastes a little bit different. And he gets an upset stomach. He gets a little bit sick. Nothing life threatening, but he's like, dude, that's weird. Um, like, I just. I just drank the water. Like, why is the water so much different here? So he tries to look it up. He says, how do I find out if my water is actually safe to drink out of the tap? And it turns out that you can go to any city and you can request a report. You can request a report about the water quality in your area. So he does that, and he finds, oh, man, there's tons of contaminants in my water. And so he stops drinking tap water. He goes to Whole Foods. He buys water from Whole Foods. He says, well, let me see if this one's actually contaminated too. It turns out you could contact any bottled water company, and they have to provide you a report about the testing of their water. And he finds that the water being sold in Whole Foods also has lots of contaminants in it. And then he's like, what the. What's going on here? And so he creates a app, really, for himself, but for others, too, to be able to check the quality of water, whether it's your city, your town, or bottled water that you're drinking. And he's basically just aggregating free data that already exists that anybody could go request. So when we first mentioned it, it was on the Jeremy Giffen episode a few months back. It was at $10,000 a month in revenue.
- [03:37]
B
And the way that you make revenue is I think he has an affiliate scheme where, like, if you buy something that he recommends you, he gets a cut. And also, you pay $50. Right.
- [03:45]
A
There's a paywall. Yeah. So you basically, you request a report. You can get some information free if you want. Like, you know, the full report or whatever. You pay 40, 45 bucks, 49 bucks or something like that for a free. For an annual membership to this app so you can continue.
- [03:57]
B
And by the way, when I shared this, I knew it was a paywall. And people were like, who the hell would pay for this? And I was like, a net camp at first. And then I start clicking around the website and I'm like, oh, my God, my Town's here and it says it might be dirty, but I can't see the results unless I give them $50. And so, like, I understand why it's actually incredibly valuable.
- [04:22]
A
Hey, let's take a quick break. Because when all your marketing team does is put out fires, they're going to burn out. And with HubSpot, they can achieve their best results without the stress. You could tap into HubSpot's collection of AI tools Breeze to pinpoint leads, capture attention, and access all your data in one place. Keep your marketers cool and your campaign results hotter than ever. Visit HubSpot.com marketers to learn more. I mean, look at the numbers. So it's doing, let's say, 40,000amonth now in revenue. So 40,000amonth. So basically a half a million bucks a year. And. But if you do the math, 45 bucks if it's a, you know, $45 subscription. No, he's only got a few thousand subscribers to this thing. So it's not like it's. It's not like everybody's paying for this, but a small number of people really care about the quality of water and are willing to pay to get the information. And he structured it. And so what he did was he started off with all the free reports, and then when he, you know, couldn't get the free reports or wanted to test more things, he's. Or wanted to verify their reports. He'll do his own independent testing. But it's very expensive. It's like, you know, a couple grand to do independent testing of a product to find out does it actually line up. So he's slowly doing them one by one as he gets more money. And he said, you know, we live in a world where we think we live in abundance. You could walk to Target, Trader Joe's, you'll find 20 different protein bars, 30 different waters. But the problem is most of it's filled with toxins. None of it is actually healthy. So my mission is to build 100% independent platform to test products and provide healthy alternatives. And I think this is kind of awesome, right? Like, I think this is awesome. This is kind of amazing. And the way that he's growing this thing, because you might wonder, how does he get customers for this? Is he just does tiktoks that go viral. Check out this video. So it's a video about, like, liquid death right here, Right? And so he'll post this video, TikTok just very simple green screen over a product. And he's talking about how, you know, I used to think this is really healthy, but actually it's full of chemicals and blah, blah, blah. If you want more, if you want to figure out which products are actually clean, use my app. And this video will get, you know, a million plus views and it'll drive a bunch of, bunch of attention and it actually go, and then drives people to download the app and go ahead and, and sign up. So very simple way to test this to drive traffic to this product and it's something you can do over and over and over again. Apps like TikTok and Instagram Reels to a slightly lesser extent, YouTube shorts to a lesser extent. You can just, once you find a format that works, you can literally repost the same thing. And the algorithm is just going to say, yep, humans like this. And it's just going to keep serving it up to a lot of people, even if they're, even if they don't follow you. And so when people have figured out these like simple formats that work, they just copy, paste and post the same 90% of the same video over and over and over again. And I know several people that are building multimillion dollar businesses doing this.
- [07:05]
B
I'm so turned on right now. This is the greatest dude. This, this guy. So he shows his revenue on Twitter, which is pretty cool. So Oasis metrics over the last 28 days monthly gross revenue, he shows us 25,000 and he shows his churn. He shows everything. I actually predict this could be a significantly larger product than I think it could be worth many tens of millions of dollars or even more. The reason being is the way that these review websites work is you typically have to hire a lot of freelancers in order to go out and write all of the articles. But if you're just using data to like organize as a table, it's way more profitable. Also, he's getting early in, he's getting in early on a trend. I think this water thing is still tiny, tiny, tiny compared to what it's going to be like in the next 10 and 20 years. I think he's onto something life changing for himself.
- [08:00]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so I promised you I would tell you about a company that's hidden in plain sight that is using free, selling free information and making hundreds of thousands. Check. Now I want to tell you about one that's making millions and then we'll go to the hundreds of millions. Okay, so the millions one. And we've mentioned this once before, but it was years ago. So I want to bring it up again. If you've Ever been to a company's office and you walk into their break room or their, maybe their, their kitchen where they have snacks. You'll always notice on the wall that there's this poster. And our eyes just glaze over it. We don't ever look at it. Looks just like a, looks like, you know, when you're on an airplane and you see the safety thing and the, the seat back in front of you, it looks like that, but it's on the wall. And this is a labor law poster. And the reason that your office had it is the reason that all offices have that. It's required by law that you have to post this in your company, your employee, you know, break room or open area. And these labor law posters, they update every year. So you have to get a new one every year, and they're required by law. Okay, so that's the, that's the good news. The bad news is you have to buy them or do you. And so here's the, the interesting thing about this business. There's a couple of companies that do this. I, I, I don't have all their, their names and information here, but I remember finding one that was like, based in Minnesota. And what the guy was doing was he's just pr. All he does is print labor law posters. So what, what they'll do is they'll mail you a letter to your business. And the letter looks a little bit scary, and it says, hey, if you don't have this poster up, you are in vi. Violation of California labor laws right now. And you must have this up. It is a, is a requirement by law. It costs $45. Tick this box. Send this back to us. We will send you your poster. And you do that, and you send it, they send you the poster, you put it up on your wallet, you forget about it, you move on.
- [09:44]
B
And this is a private company that sends that letter.
- [09:46]
A
Correct. Now, the thing is, these labor law posters are actually free. You could just go to your state labor law website. You can get the labor law posters. But companies have realized that using this sort of like, awareness tactics tactic, making it easy, sort of scaring the hell out of you, is a way to make a couple million dollars a year on super high margins. Because all you do is printing the same poster, single skew, single product, 1, 1 product a year. And you just send it out to businesses and they, and then they, in.
- [10:16]
B
All fairness, I'm on, I'm on the government's website and figuring out how to order the poster for free is actually hard of course, of course.
- [10:23]
A
Just like filing your taxes is a little bit confusing, and TurboTax and others have made a. You know, they. They turned the button into bright, shiny green buttons instead of small gray buttons that you don't know which one to click. Right. So there is a tremendous amount of value in simply either aggregating and structuring data and making it available for people, or helping you just comply without, you know, having to figure out how to comply. And, you know, maybe the $50 tax is worth it every year as your subscription, but that's what these companies do. And so labor law posters, a way to make millions of dollars selling a product that's free and a business, again, that's hidden in plain sight. And I bring this up because one of the great things about this podcast that I hope we do for people is that you will go from a mindset where success seems rare and hard to grasp, and you're sort of thinking, what is it? I need a great idea. And great ideas are rare, they're hard to find, to a mindset of everything I see in my life, every object in my view. It's not there by accident. That is, that sign is there for a reason. That cable is there for a reason. Somebody realized you needed that, and they created that. Once you realize that, you realize, oh, my God, business is everywhere. This is a business. This is a business. This is a business. And then you realize, wow, all I gotta do is figure out one of these. That seems easy, right? It's like in a jar full of Skittles, picking one, it doesn't seem that hard. And that's what, you know, I think I hope to sort of achieve by bringing up these businesses, because not only are they clever little business models, but it just points out that your eyes are just glazing over million dollar opportunities everywhere you walk, because they are literally everywhere. You will go into a parking lot, look at the ground, somebody painted those stripes. And when you go look at it, you go, you can go ask the owner of the real estate, you say, who paints the stripes for your parking lot? They'll say, oh, we use these guys. You go talk to them. You say, wow, you just paint straight lines in parking lots. That's what you do. Yep. How much money do you make? You know, is this a small business? Oh, you did 7 million last year. Revenue, no profit. Oh, my God, right? And then you realize, oh, my God, there's somebody who makes $7 million a year profit painting white lines on the. On the road.
- [12:27]
B
Dude, I. When I first Moved to San Francisco. I lived with this guy, he was one of my roommates and he was a piece of crap. But he was telling me how he's making hundreds of dollars a month because apparently the church of Latter day Saints Mormons, they, you can order a bible for free on their website, I guess, but they like, it's like legion and they'll like come and hand deliver it, but they'll like try to like, you know, convert you to their faith or whatever. And he created an online store selling Bibles for 20 bucks and somehow raped on Google. And he just went and took the person's information and put it into the morbid's website. And on his website they're like, you know, we hand deliver bibles or something like that. And it was like, oh, that's hilarious. And I, I remember this guy and I was like, this is a horrible scam. That's amazing. But it was very funny. He was making like 500amonth doing this.
- [13:15]
A
That is so funny. Oh my God. What happened to that guy?
- [13:21]
B
I. He's one of those guys, you know how like you have these friends and frankly you and I are those people maybe where they're like do hacky shit.
- [13:29]
A
You have those friends. It's like, dude, do you remember how we met?
- [13:31]
B
Yeah. Where it was like, you do this hacky shit and like this is going to go one of two ways. Like it's going to go the right way or the wrong way. Miles was the wrong way. So like he like kind of disappeared. He probably got in trouble for a crypto scam. What's the. Yeah, it was like, it was crazy. But like Anna's about page. He was like, why did my, why did the person who delivered my Bible want to talk to me? And his thing said, yeah, they tend to do that. Mormons loved it. Like, it said like, like it just explained how like you're going to get hand delivered by these Mormon guys. Uh, what's the third one?
- [14:01]
A
Okay, third one. Here's a product that is used, I believe 6 billion times a day. It is a product that Time magazine said is in the 50 things that made the world economy work. Do you want to take a guess what this is? It's a hard one.
- [14:16]
B
I know, this is, this is pretty fun. Do you have one or two more hints?
- [14:20]
A
Like many great inventions. It was invented maybe 20 years before it actually got used. So somebody invented this thing. They're like, this is great, cool. But how do we, what do we use it for? They couldn't find a Use case. And finally they found a use case. Oh, I. I'll give you another example. Every time you buy a product, you use this product. I feel like I'm doing those annoying riddles where it's like, I'm. I'm awake at night, but not during the day. What am I?
- [14:45]
B
Or like, you could sit on me but not take me with you.
- [14:49]
A
All right, I'll end the suspense.
- [14:50]
B
The answer, by the way, is a chair. What is that?
- [14:53]
A
It's a barcode, so.
- [14:54]
B
Oh, that's cool.
- [14:55]
A
Do you know the story behind the barcode?
- [14:58]
B
No.
- [14:58]
A
All right, so let me give you a little history lesson. I know you like history. So barcode is invented by these two guys, Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver. And these guys are inspired by Morse code. They realize, like, wow, Morse code is so simple. It's just basically, it's dots and dashes. The dash, I think, is a. Like a rest, basically. And the dot is like, you know, the sound. And they're like, could we create another system that's like that? Maybe a visual system? So they created a system actually looked like a circle at the time. So it was like a circle. And they're like, oh, look, with thin lines and thick lines, we can create like an. Basically an infinite number of unique tags for something. And they're like, oh, this is great. They patent it, but it's not really a good use case for it. And then people try to use it for a couple things. You know, they realize, oh, you know what we could do? We could track train containers. You know, we're always wondering where those containers are, where in the route that they are, and if they ever get unloaded. So they put a barcode on the side of a train container and it works great. Everyone's really excited. That's working great for a second. And then the problem is trains are outside. They get dirty, and as soon as any dirt gets on the thing, it ruins the barcode. So they're like this bad idea. Take it off, scrap it. And then they try it on some second thing. Doesn't really work either. And basically, for like, I don't know, a couple of decades or something, nobody's using barcodes at the same time, in another part of the world, you get the invention of the laser, and the laser gets invented. And the laser is a really great way to scan something that becomes interesting, but they don't really know what they're scanning. What are we scanning this for? Lasers have multiple uses, but that gets invented. And then in the third part of the world, Three things come together. The third part of the world is grocery stores are having a really tough time because they are trying to stock inventory, and they're sort of by hand, keeping track of all the inventory they have. Think about this. A store, there's so many units, it's taking so many hours of labor. And then if any customer checks out, it's so slow because, okay, every item you have, I got to punch it into the register. Exactly what this is. I got to either remember the prices, or I got to write this in, and then I have to keep stock of the inventory levels. It's a pain in the ass. So they create.
- [17:02]
B
Do you think that, like, when wall. So Walmart was invented, created, founded almost around this time. Do you think that a barcode is one of the reasons? Like, would that have prevented companies from scaling. Is just the operational manpower.
- [17:15]
A
So Walmart opened their first store in 1962. This was now 10 years later. So 74 is when this starts to happen. They're hitting this problem. It's too slow, too much labor, too expensive. So they create the ad hoc committee for the Uniform Grocery Product Identification Code. And they go into the lab and they're like, all right, we need something. They find this technology. They're like, oh, remember, what's that guy Norman, always talking about that goddamn barcode? What if we use that? What if we use this laser and they come together and they create the barcode and they change the shape of it. Instead of the circle shape, they change it to the rectangular shape that we all know and love today. And the first barcode ever gets scanned as a pack of Wrigley's gum in 1974. And so. And they're like, wow, that just took. It knew the price. It took me one second, and it's deducted my stock level by one. Oh, my God, that's. This was magic. And so, you know, this is like the blockchain getting invented, right? It's like, oh, my God.
- [18:11]
B
How do they convince all of the manufacturers to put this on their thing? They just, like, rally around.
- [18:15]
A
Retailers demand it. So the retailers are saying this, going to. They're the ones with the hair on fire problem, right? They're spending all this money and time on labor. So they say, hey, if you want to be in our store, you got to start adding these things to your product. And. And so for a manufacturer, you're like, oh, if I want shelf space, which is the most important thing for me, oh, great, I'll happily stick this. This on here. And so they're all working. And where do you. But the problem is, where do they get the code? And how do I make sure that your code is not the same as my code? Right. Like what, what's going to prevent that? Well, we all got to go through some central thing that's going to, you know, give us the barcodes that are. I can use for my product to make sure nobody else can use it. It's like reserving namespace or a license plate. It's like, how do I get my. My exact license plate that nobody else is going to have? And there became what's known today as GS1. GS1 is the nonprofit that issues these barcodes and keeps track of who owns the barcode space. And to get barcode space, you gotta pay. But again, remember, every store has standardized on one thing. So if you wanna be in a store or you want your goods in an Amazon warehouse, for example, you now need to use their system, which means they have infinite pricing leverage and they charge a shit ton for these barcodes. And so.
- [19:27]
B
And is that GS1 who's charging us one?
- [19:30]
A
So GS1, let me tell a little bit about this. This nonprofit. You can go look them up, because they're a nonprofit. So last year, $81 million in revenue barcode sales makes up 90, 93% of this. And again, a barcode is nothing. It's literally like just a set of lines that they're selling for $90 million a year. And they now have $416 million of assets that they've just been stockpiling. The CEO makes $3 million a year. The CFO makes $1 million a year. The SVP of community engagement, which God knows what that guy's doing, making $800,000 a year. This might be the job of all time.
- [20:06]
B
Does he hose happy hours?
- [20:07]
A
Exactly.
- [20:08]
B
Like, what do you do?
- [20:11]
A
And they, you know, they stash $30 million in overseas places like the Caribbean and Central America. And all of their expenses, pretty much. And half of their expenses are they.
- [20:20]
B
Like staff salaries, lobbying against the QR code. Is there like a barcode QR code like lobby, where they're just fighting each other?
- [20:28]
A
I think QR codes are just a type of barcode. They're just a three dimensional.
- [20:32]
B
Got it. Okay.
- [20:33]
A
Or 2D. Sorry. So, yeah, that isn't that crazy though, that this, this nonprofit now has half a billion dollars in assets just selling barcodes. And any retailer, anybody who's ever had to like get your products, you know, you. Let's say you want to sell on Amazon, Amazon Says, you got to do this. It's a racket. You end up just having to pay whatever they demand in order to get your products on the shelves.
- [21:00]
B
All right, my friends, I have a new podcast for you guys to check out. It's called Content is Profit, and it's hosted by Luis and Fonzie Cameo, and it's brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast network. After years of building content teams and frameworks for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory Fitness, Louise and Fonzie are on a mission to bridge the gap between content and. And revenue. In each episode, you're going to hear from top entrepreneurs and creators, and you're going to hear them share their secrets and strategies to turn their content into profit. You can check out a recent episode called the Secret to Content that converts and they break down our buddy Alex Hermos blueprint for effective video production. So you can check out Content is Profit wherever you get your podcasts. Do you know how, like, there's been a lot of cool movies lately? There's been a cool movie on the guy who created BlackBerry. I think there was one on the person who helped create Tetris, and then there was another one for the person who helped create the Pop Tart. These, like, kind of cool, like, product creation stories go. I wonder if. Is there an interesting one here?
- [22:05]
A
Somebody's just sitting there as, like, what if podcasts were movies? And then they just turned, like, every episode of, like, Acquired or how I built this into a documentary, dude.
- [22:15]
B
Well, this guy, Bernard Silver, like, that. That. This is actually a way more interesting story than I would have thought, because this is something that changed culture. It changed so many things. Like it. You know, we talk about inflections and how, like, you know, the iPhone was invented, which had all these ramifications, including a GPS being there, which now means that Uber has the ability to exist. And then there's like, million. A million examples of that. This is one of those inflections where, like, this barcode helped create, let's say, or made a Walmart possible or made of this other thing possible, which, like, literally shaped history. And this is actually really fascinating stuff.
- [22:51]
A
Yeah, exactly. So. So this is just a. It's a space that you. Again, you don't think. You don't even think. This is like a. You don't think, where does this come from? Where does this little thing come from? And again, it doesn't come from nowhere. Somebody creates it. And then that person who creates it now has, you know, something they can charge for. And there's business everywhere.
- [23:09]
B
So it's so funny that this episode is accidentally turning into a theme, a theme of things that you don't really think about, but how they became a thing. Um, I have actually an example of one of those. Can I tell you? It.
- [23:22]
A
Yeah, go.
- [23:23]
B
All right. So in the 1960s in Hawaii, it started to become common. I think it was because of, like one hotel where your employees were allowed to wear in a Hawaiian shirt to work on Friday because for the most part, you had to wear a suit to work. You know, like, dressing formal was how business people operated all of the time. And this whole Casual Friday idea, it sort of started getting popular in mainland America where, like in the 1980s, HP was like, hey, everyone, you can wear a Hawaiian shirt to work on a Friday. Which was a big deal because they employed tens of thousands of people. So it was like a crack. It was kind of like a statement. But in reality, up until the late 80s and early 90s, virtually everyone wore suits to work all of the time. However, this executive at Levi's. So Levi's had just launched a Dockers. And Dockers were khaki pants. Up until then, khaki pants were almost considered, you know, if you look at like the history of fashion, like, suits were considered like the. That's the standard, that's what you do. Khakis were basically casual wear, even though now we don't look at them as casual. That's what they were. They were casual wear. And Levi's creates Dockers because they wanted the khaki business. But still, people are like, this is too casual. We can't wear these any other time except for Saturday and Sunday. And so this marketing executive at Levi's has this brilliant idea. They print up 40,000 pamphlets that explains to HR professionals, here's this new thing called business casual and Casual Friday. And here's the rules of this holiday or this, like, new tradition. It was just an eight page pamphlet and it said it didn't promote Levi's or Dockers though. But in all of the photos, you'll see like a picture of someone wearing jeans and it is like a Levi's logo. Or you'll see a picture of someone wearing khakis and you just assume that it's Dockers. And so this thing takes off, it works.
- [25:22]
A
And so they go, you gotta read this though, a guide to casual businesswear, ideas for dressing professionally at work. And then it basically shows like, pants, jeans, like, it's showing, like options, ideas for it. And then is there a rules for it? So what are the rules that they said?
- [25:38]
B
Yeah, it says don't wear, like, tattered jeans, but they should be nice new jeans, right? Or, like, like, they can't be stained or. What else does it say?
- [25:46]
A
Sleep? No sleeveless. No. Tanks. Oh, man. I mean, discrimination.
- [25:52]
B
Maybe steps, maybe sets. We're going, we're going for suits to khakis. Like, you know, like, it takes time.
- [25:58]
A
I mean, should we Guns Out Wednesday? Do you think we can make this happen?
- [26:01]
B
I, I, I. Well, I'll be actually gonna talk about that in a second, but so it's a good.
- [26:05]
A
Avoid lingerie. Okay, fair enough. Save athletic wear for after work. And don't forget to check footwear. Open toe sandals are gross. No, no, it just says not appropriate.
- [26:16]
B
Yeah, it's a great little pamphlet. So they sent this out to literally 40,000 HR executives, and they even go as far to create an HR hotline. So if you work at IBM and you're like, you know, I actually don't know protocol for, like, our open, our Sanos allowed, our, like, whatever. I could call this hotline, and I could ask the inventors of Casual Friday, hey, can Sydney, where, like, open are shoes allowed or toes allowed to be seen, even if, like, their toenails are polished? Like, whatever. Like, you can, like, ask these questions. And it takes off and Casual Friday officially becomes a thing. And so it literally shaped culture. And it was all because Levi's was like, we gotta sign these guys up. We gotta start selling some of the stuff. And like, back then, it was kind of the American Apparel industry was a little bit in a rut. They weren't doing that great. And this changed everything. And so people started buying Dockers, buying Levi's, because this movement of Casual Friday totally picked up. And it got me thinking. This is like, some pretty brilliant marketing. I call this marketing. You can call it cultural shift marketing or tradition hijacking. And so people who have, like, found little traditions, and they blow up the tradition or they blow up this idea, and then they say, and by the way, if you want to buy inside idea, we just so happen to have the thing that could make your life.
- [27:35]
A
What do you know?
- [27:36]
B
And so there's a few other examples of this that I can, I can present to you. So the first one is De Beers. So they're a diamond company. They've been around, I think, for hundreds of years. Actually, in the 1940s, they ran this campaign called the diamond is Forever. And it was this idea that, like, diamonds are special because up until the 1940s, diamonds were special, but they weren't nearly as special as we think they are now. And they also came up with this insane idea, which is they're like this campaign. They come up with, how much should you spend on a diamond? And they said, roughly two to three months of your salary. Which is, like, outrageous. But that alone is, like, what that campaign is credited as helping shape the diamond industry. They even ran further campaigns and said, on certain anniversaries, you have to get your wife a diamond. Another one is breakfast being the most important meal of the day. Kellogg invented that idea. And so, like, we grow up now, we tell our kids, you have to eat breakfast. It's the most important thing. Kellogg invented that. Prior, prior to that. People didn't always think that, right? Two other ones are baby showers and wedding registries. So baby showers weren't a thing until Johnson and Johnson started running ad campaigns thinking, you have to have a baby shower if you're pregnant or if you're. Macy's came up with the idea of wedding registries. They said, you're going to get married. People got to buy you all this stuff. In fact, you don't want people just to buy you random stuff because when they buy you the same stuff that you already have or two guests buy you the same thing, that's ridiculous. You have to create this registry at Macy's that you can register. And then finally, spring cleaning is another one. That really wasn't the thing until Lysol came up with this idea of spring cleaning.
- [29:02]
A
Wow, dude, these are great. I love, I, I, I don't know if other people get as fired up about these. I get so fired up about these, I think because it's the same idea as, oh, wow. These businesses are hidden, plain sight. You know, this object just didn't just get here. Someone made it come here. All of these occasions, these, these sayings, these, these holidays, they didn't just pop up out of nowhere. Somebody made them happen. And when you find out that it's some marketing dork, it's some marketing dork somewhere that was like, you know what? Like, how do we. Spring sales are slow. Spring sales are slow. Spring, Spring fling. No spring clean, no spring cleaning. It's like, yes, that's how we're going to get people to buy cleaning products in the spring. I love that. I love that. Just a mad admin somewhere in the world can just shift how people do things. There's a grip. We did an episode with Craig Clements about exactly this.
- [29:54]
B
Was it like leaky gut?
- [29:55]
A
He did, he did Prebiotics. But he didn't talk too much about that. It was. Was. He was talking about the ones that have, like, the ones you're talking about, like, why we bake it for breakfast, why we drink orange juice. Right. Like where orange juice came from. And like, all these things that today just seem like, I don't know, this is what we do. It's just staples of the. Of people's diet. It's just tradition. And it's like, no, no, that wasn't tradition. Or, you know, the classic one is toothpaste. He talks about how at a certain time about only 6% of the population brushed their teeth. And so when they wanted to increase sales of toothpaste, he said, well, we can't just sell more toothpaste to the 6% of people who already brush their teeth. We need to get the other 94% of people to start brushing their teeth. How are we going to do that? And that's when he came up with that campaign, not Craig, but by Claude Hopkins.
- [30:43]
B
It was. It was like, rub the tongue on the. On your teeth. And you feel that film.
- [30:48]
A
Yeah, one of one of them. Exactly. It was like, you know, basically saying, take your tongue, rub it, rub it on your teeth. You feel that film. That's any. And people did that. As soon as they read it, they do it. They'd stick their tongue there and then it's gross. And you're like, there's a way to get that off. And then you'll have that Hollywood pearl smile. And then people wanted that. Right. And so that created this movement. And then by the end of that campaign, something like 70 or 80% of people now brush their teeth in America. It was like a huge shift that happened just off of that one admin, that single big idea. And I love these. I've really actually like, toyed with the idea of writing a book about just these crazy admin. And then the way that they've actually shifted culture.
- [31:27]
B
Yeah. And that fascinates me as well. And like, another one is like Wall Street Journal. And so they try to, like, they sort of nailed it, but it hasn't permit. It hasn't stuck with us. But it was the idea of once you graduate college, the gift that you get is a Wall Street Journal subscription. Just like I think Rolex did. It was like, once you, you know, President's club is you get a Rolex if you sell, if you hit some sales quota.
- [31:49]
A
Right.
- [31:49]
B
Like, or you become president of whatever. And so I was thinking, what other things haven't been Hijacked. That can be. So I've got a few examples, but the first one being friends giving. So friends giving is what, like 20 somethings who are single is what they celebrate. Instead of a Thanksgiving with their family, they do friends g in their town or in the city that they're living in. And so I think friendsgiving is one that there's not a clear winner as to who owns friendsgiving, but we can make it an entire week of being thankful for your friends. And you will do various gestures, including having them over for dinner to show your how appreciative you are that they are now your friends. And so we could sell gift boxes, we could sell gratitude journals, we could do digital cards, we could do all types of stuff. And by the way, speaking of cards, Hallmark is like one of the inventors of like Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, things like that. The other one, graduation season. So turning into a life transition planning or celebrating new life phases, all because of graduating. So we're gonna call it graduation season. And so what do you get for graduation season? You get financial planning subscriptions, productivity tools, career coaching, travel discounts. That's for graduation season. You said you've thought about this. What are other ones that you've thought about?
- [33:06]
A
Oh, I mean, come on.
- [33:08]
B
No, like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like examples of things where you're like, that's amazing that they pulled that off.
- [33:14]
A
Like, Craig talked about the Otis Elevator 1, which I thought was amazing. Did he?
- [33:18]
B
What was that?
- [33:19]
A
So he basically talks about how back in the elevators got invented far before they were used. What does that mean? So the elevator gets invented, but people didn't want to use them. They didn't want to. They didn't.
- [33:29]
B
They're scared.
- [33:30]
A
They're scared because there were situations where elevators would just plummet and you just plummet to your death. So it's like, okay, no thanks. And the consequence of that is, think about it. If you don't have elevators, you don't have tall buildings, right? Because people are only going to go up so many flights of stairs. So like New York was like, you know, four stories high. There was just no, there was no buildings taller than that. So cities were kind of limited in how big they could be. And this guy Otis ends up creating a, an elevator with automatic brakes. Okay? So Otis creates the automatic braking elevator. He's like, this is it. This is going to be amazing. Everybody's going to buy my elevators. And if you look today, by the way, you go, go to any elevator you'll see a little thing on the wall almost always says Otis, but it didn't happen right away, and he couldn't figure out why. He's like, this has automatic brakes. It solves the problem. But nobody believed it. And so Craig talks about how one of the techniques that the marketers use is a.
- [34:22]
B
Like, break the elevator. Like a film it. Like getting caught.
- [34:25]
A
Exactly. So the World Fair was going on, and Otis decides to go all in. And he creates this show, basically. So he creates this exhibit where he's got an elevator suspended in the air, hanging by ropes, cables, like they would. And he. Because he had watched Cirque du Soleil and he was kind of like, inspired by, oh, wow. Cirque du Soleil, man. Their stunts and their spectacles are so awe inspiring, you can't help but look at it. So he said, I gotta do that. So he gets somebody up there and he stands in the elevator and he says, ladies and gentlemen, I have created the world's first safe elevator. The elevator with automatic brakes. And he gets the guy at the top to swing an ax, and he cuts one rope. And the elevator starts swaying and swinging and is hanging by a thread now. And everyone's gasping in the crowd, and he's like, cut the rope. And then the guy swings, he cuts the rope, Elevator starts to go down two feet, and then it automatic breaks and it stops. And he says, all safe, gentlemen. And he says something like, whatever. He says some famous phrase that basically says, like, otis, elevate. When you're in an Otis elevator, you know, it's all's well, all's well. You will be safe. And elevator sales take off from there. And when elevator sales take off now buildings can be taller. It literally reshaped the way that cities work. All because this guy realized that he needed to think out of the box in terms of his marketing, and he needed to do something that would break through the noise and it would actually shift culture, shift perception about a product in a dramatic way. And one tool of the tool belt is that Craig called these the hijacks of the human mind. The seven human hijacks. And he's like, one way to hijack the mind is a spectacle like this.
- [35:58]
B
Does Craig have a book? I got to re listen to that one. Does Craig have a book?
- [36:01]
A
This is after that episode. I hit Craig up, and I was like, hey, I want to write this book with you. And we talked about it. We both got really excited about it, but we're both busy, so this might be the motivation to Rekindle that project.
- [36:13]
B
Did the Seven Human Hijacks.
- [36:15]
A
I wrote the.
- [36:16]
B
Sign Me Up.
- [36:17]
A
I wrote the intro for it. It's pretty dope. I'll read it to you sometimes.
- [36:20]
B
Oh, that is awesome. I'm going to have to go listen to that because that was, like, two years ago. And I remember listening to it and think, he's amazing.
- [36:28]
A
Can I read you the intro to this book?
- [36:30]
B
Yeah.
- [36:31]
A
We can cut this out if it's boring, but I just want to get your opinion on this. All right, So I wrote this a while back, all right? It's called Hijacks or Seven Human Hijacks. Confessions of a Billion Dollar Marketer. Okay, so that's Craig. Craig sold over a billion dollars of products online himself. Okay? So I said, here's how it goes. If you read this book, I need you to make me a promise. Repeat after me. I promise to use these tactics only for good and not evil. Because the techniques in this book are not just tactics, they are hijacks. The same way a terrorist can hijack an airplane. Marketers can hijack the minds of consumers to get them to buy products they didn't even know they wanted. You might be skeptical. In fact, I think you should be skeptical. Skeptical of somebody making such a bold claim. But I could tell you that these products, these hijacks have been used to sell. I've. I've used these products, I've used these hijacks to sell over a billion dollars of products. Personally, that's 1 billion with a B, in case you lost count. Um, but rather than convince you, rather than let me convince you, let me ask you. Did you brush your teeth this morning? More importantly, why? Who told you to do that? Who told you to brush your teeth in the morning? Your mom? Well, who told her? Her mom? Well, yeah, before that. Who told all the moms to do this? It must be the dentist, right? But wait, who told the dentist? The answer, it turns out, is a man named Claude Hopkins. Because before Claude Hopkins, only 7% of the population brushed their teeth. Sidebar. Can you imagine dating back in 1913? Nobody brushed their teeth. I feel bad for Grandpa. After Claude Hopkins, 65% of the population brushed their teeth. And Claude didn't just sell toothpaste. He literally changed the world. He got millions of people to change their daily habits with one brilliant marketing campaign. I'll show you in chapter two, but before I show you how you did it, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I go. And then the chapters are like, How Diamonds Became a Girl's Best Friend and blah, blah, blah. Like each of the different products that got know, embedded into culture.
- [38:08]
B
What are the seven human hijack? Like, what are they?
- [38:12]
A
Sounds like I succeeded and got you curious. You're going to have to pay $14.99 and get. And get the book.
- [38:18]
B
Like, is it literally like seven different, like, tactics, or is it seven different examples of tactics?
- [38:23]
A
Tactics. And then each one has examples and you stack them. So what he showed was like, you know, for example, one of the tactics is a spectacle, like I told you about the Otis Elevator.
- [38:32]
B
So like, a spectacle would be one of the seven.
- [38:35]
A
Yeah, like spectacles. One of the seven. But like, even the thing about, like, take your tongue and put it on your teeth. So like a. Like a. Like a magic trick, basically. It's like the thing, you know, but remember the thing where people used to that power band or whatever, those bracelets.
- [38:48]
B
And they made you, like, hold your arm and they're like, look, you see out.
- [38:51]
A
Now you can put your arms out. I can't push you over, right?
- [38:54]
B
Yeah. Wow.
- [38:55]
A
That's sort of. That's what. I forgot what he called it. But that sort of magic trick is. Is one of the things where it's a. It's a. Demonstrate. A powerful demonstration, right? So you can demonstrate on the person themselves. You can get them to feel it and feel it themselves in order to. To want to buy a product.
- [39:10]
B
Did Craig come up with this idea of seven human hijacks, or did you come up with it on the pod?
- [39:16]
A
So he was gonna come on and it was like, cool. We could talk about your business. We could talk about whatever. And I was like, you know, I said. I said, one question. That's a very valuable question. I said, what's the best talk you've given recently? Like, have you given, like, a presentation or a talk at all that just, like, really killed? Like, you could just tell the audience loved it. He's like, oh, dude, I did this one talk inside my company just to get them fired up. He's like, basically, my company is like a giant marketing company, and I wanted them to come into work and not just feel like, oh, we need to raise sales by like, 7% this quarter. Like, no. Like, he's like, I wanted him to realize, yo, marketers, you don't just drive some revenue or lift sales by X percent. Like, a marketer can literally change the way that society works. And he's like, so to get them fired up about that, I told them these examples of stories that they did. And then he's like, When I was putting them together, I realized it's the same set of techniques that they've been using across these 8, 10 examples. Just the same, same set of tactics, these hijacks that they've been using. And he's like, that could be cool. And I was like, yes, do that on the pod.
- [40:14]
B
Check this out. If you Google seven human hijacks, Craig Clements. The first post is on Reddit, and it says Craig Clemens on MFM talking about the seven human hijacks and how to use them in your marketing. And it links to this amazing post that this guy wrote where he lists the seven on R slash marketing. Yeah, it's so good.
- [40:35]
A
So one of them, for example, is he talks about, like, the act of rebellion. So how do you make your consumer feel like they're giving the middle finger to the man by buying your product? So the example he gives us back in the day when cigarette sales were flat and cigarette sales were flat because basically cigarettes were only smoked by men. And so. And there was like. So it was already super saturated. It's like, dude, we can't really get more men to smoke. They kind of all smoke already. And so they realized, like, the only way we're going to grow sales is by getting the other 50% of the population to start smoking. So how do we get women to start smoking? At the time, it was seen as not cool. It was seen as sort of like, you know, it was like a kind of dirty, masculine thing to do. And so the guy behind the campaign, basically what he did was he used influencers. So influence is one of the hijacks. So he got all of the, like, whoever, like the Kardashians of their time were. So he got like 30 of them all together all at once. And it was at a time where the big problem in culture or society was like, I forgot if it was like women being able to vote or it was like some other thing where it was like women were repressed in some way. And so he got them all to go to this. The parade or the fair, the, you know, the New Year's fair, the Macy's Fair, whatever. It was like the parade that happens in New York. And they all stood on this float and he gave them all cigarettes. He said, all right, when you turn this corner, you're going to light that cigarette, right? When the journalists are all there, they all have their cameras pointed at you, you're going to light the cigarette and you're going to defiantly smoke the cigarette in front of them, and you're Going to do this thing that women aren't supposed to do as an actor.
- [42:03]
B
You know what he called them? He called it. He called the Sigs torches of freedom.
- [42:09]
A
Exactly, exactly. And that's what the, the newspapers, he. So he then put somebody in the crowd where the journalists were, and he said that out loud to the journalists who then went and wrote that in their story. Like they, they lit up these torches of freedom.
- [42:24]
B
You see those ladies up there, guy? Those are, those are, those are torches of freedom. That's what those are.
- [42:30]
A
That's what Jewel needs to do. And he used to be like, these are vapes of freedom that these kids are using.
- [42:37]
B
Oh, look at that guy. That's a, that's a sex machine that he's using. He's. He's gonna have sex with so many people because he's using that thing.
- [42:44]
A
Even, even that same. So then I think it was like Lucky Strike or whoever, their brand color was green, and green was like not in vogue at the time. And he's like, yeah, the women don't want to buy it because these cigarette. The box is not fashionable. It's like, do we need a rebrand? He's like, hold my beer, don't rebrand. And so instead he got those same women to go to the whatever, the big, like fashion, you know, like, like the Met gala type of thing. And all of them wore green. They all wore that same green color dress. And so then green became cool for women. Like, you know, basically it became in trend right after that. And then, you know, the sales of that, that, that brand went up basically because he made the color cool. And it's kind of just cool to see somebody who can puppeteer society in this way. I'm summarizing it like a nine month old episode. So I might have some of the details wrong here.
- [43:32]
B
This Reddit poster said, side note, a lot of these stories are documented in this amazing book called Propaganda.
- [43:40]
A
Yeah, and that's the Bernays book, right? It's a hard read, dude.
- [43:45]
B
I wanted to read it, but it seems like, intimidating. What's so hard about it?
- [43:49]
A
You know these old books that are just like so dense. It's not an easy read. I don't know, my brain is very simple. Like, a lot of people recommend books to me. They're like, oh, this is a great book. Have you read, you know, Rene Girard, like, Memetic Theory? It's like, oh, I'm interested to go buy the book. And I'm like, I'm just too dumb to read this. Like I'm too dumb.
- [44:05]
B
Did I even read the.
- [44:06]
A
Do not have the attention span to read something like this.
- [44:08]
B
I read, like, the memetic theory, like, summary book. Like, what was that one that came out recently? And it was still hard.
- [44:14]
A
I still read, like, that one.
- [44:16]
B
I read that that was, like, the Malcolm Gladwell version of, like, Renee Gerard. And I read it, and I'm like, so I want what other people want. Is that it?
- [44:24]
A
Right?
- [44:25]
B
Like, that's the. It was. I read the whole thing, and I was like, I don't understand why this is so many words. What am I missing? And so. But I've heard about this book. I've. I've heard all about this book propaganda. It would be fun to read, or at least try to read.
- [44:41]
A
There's something about books that are, like, more than 50 years old where their brains were just able to, like, you know, they spoke differently, they talked. They. They talk differently. They. They. They write differently. And for whatever reason, my brain can't really process it very well. So I kind of need somebody to, like, translate into modern speak or into, like, simpleton speak for me.
- [45:02]
B
Yeah, I think maybe I'll try and do that. This guy. This seems like a cool book. Oh, the guy who wrote it was born in 1891, and he died in 1995. Wow. I saw a lot. So here's the deal. I made most of my money from a newsletter business. It was called the Hustle, and it was a daily newsletter at scale to millions of subscribers, and it was the greatest business on earth. The problem with it was that I had close to 40 employees, and only three of them were actually doing any writing. The other employees were growing the newsletter, building out the tech for the platform, and selling ads. And honestly, it was a huge pain in the butt. Today's episode is brought to you by Beehive. They are a platform that is built exactly for this. If you want to grow your newsletter, if you want to monetize a newsletter, they do all of the stuff that I had to hire dozens of employees to do. So check it out. Beehive.com. that's B E E H I V dot com. All right, let me tell you. Let me tell you about something that I did so on. Did you see. You probably didn't see this, but on Friday, I tweeted that I'm going to Yale's campus. I've tweeted that I'm going to go check out Yale because it's like, an old historical place, and I wanted to, like, do something interesting for the weekend. Something easy on Saturday, tweeted it out. I got, like, a lot of replies, and it was, like, kind of overwhelming on what to do. So on Saturday morning, we just drive up there and I just go to the busiest, just, like, part of the town where I think, like, I'll just figure it out when I get there. I show up, I see a student tour. Like, if you're a prospective student, you know, like, when you go to your mom and dad and I just, like, slip. Tag team. Yeah. I just, like, get it. Like, I just, like, pop it. And, like, it's pretty funny because it's Sarah and I, who I don't think either of us look young enough to be students. And then I've got my baby, like, strapped to my chest. Well, I gave it away. Yeah. So we're just like. We're like. We, like, just, like, are at the back of this, like, student led tour, listening in. And then out of nowhere, this kid, I guess he's not that much of a kid, but he's like 20 years old, he goes, hey, Sam. And I go, what's up, man? He goes, hey, I. I'm a big fan of the pilots from Religiously. I saw that you were going to be here, so can I show you around? And I was like, yeah, I would love that. What are you. What are you doing here? What are you doing today? He's like, well, I saw that you were coming, and I just went to the most busy place there was, and I just hoped that I was going to see you. And here you are. And so this kid gave me.
- [47:27]
A
Now, I didn't think through what happens.
- [47:29]
B
After that, but it was great. And, like, by the way, that's like the third time that's happened. And I love when that happens because I, like, he's doing me a favor of, like, I would love, like, a local to, like, show me around. And so he shows me all this amazing stuff. So have you heard of Skull and Bones?
- [47:45]
A
The secret society of Yale where presidents are in or all that. Is it legit? What is it?
- [47:52]
B
It's, quote, a secret society, but I don't know, like, how much of a secret it is when there's, like, a building and, like, it's like a. Like, it's like a nonprofit with, like, an endowment. So, like, I don't know, like, what. I don't know what the secret is. I don't know, like, what. What secret, but it was just cool to, like, see this building that I've read about. And then we went and Saw this old graveyard. It's the oldest graveyard in America. And I was looking through it, and I'm gonna explain to you why I'm obsessed with old stuff, particularly the Ivy League. The Ivy League. So it's kind of like a nerdy thing of mine where I liked. I've been to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, a bunch of others, because I just love, like, touring these old schools. They're just cool. We go to this old graveyard and we saw Noah Webster's grave. You know who Noah Webster is? Have you heard that name?
- [48:34]
A
Dictionary Webster. Is that him?
- [48:36]
B
The dictionary, Merriam Webster's Dictionary, the guy who invented the dictionary. And I just was, like, looking at this old graveyard, and next to him was Charles Goodyear, the guy who created vulcanized rubber, which created Goodyear tires. And it was awesome. It was so cool. And I'm actually really envious of you that you went to Duke, this, like, historical old institution, because it was so cool to, like, be around history where, like, someone came up with something and they literally invented or standardized the English language. Like, something that, like, shapes history. And it's still an. You know, they've still impacted the way that we've done things. And so it was an awesome, awesome weekend to, like, see all this old stuff because it inspired me, you know how, like, when you get behind the computer like, every single day and you're like, I'm going to do something that just makes a little bit of money, sometimes you kind of get in these ruts of, like, thinking small. It was very inspirational to, like, see Yale and see this old institution that has lasted for centuries and how big and global it was. It was very, very cool. And I want to give a shout out to that kid. I don't want to say his name because he said he wanted to be low key, but I want to give him a shout out for showing me around.
- [49:35]
A
That's awesome. Most white person hobby ever to go to a graveyard. You'll never see. You'll never see non white tourists hanging out in a graveyard. It's not. Not a. Not a thing we do.
- [49:47]
B
Dude, it was awesome. It was great.
- [49:49]
A
So you. You saw the Webster's Dictionary, Goodyear, and you're like, all right, I'm going to come back and podcast. What was your. What are you going to do? What's the move?
- [49:58]
B
You know, it kind of put me into a little bit of a crisis where, like, I was asking that, but, like, you know, this podcast is definitely part of it. You know, I don't know about you, but I sometimes Think, like, this is, like, a podcast is not, like, impactful compared to, like, we're talking to guys who are inventing robots that are doing X, Y, and Z, or, like, who are going to the moon. But a lot of these guys were authors that I. Who's, like, whose grave I saw, and I was still inspired by them. And so I felt a little bit inspiration of that, but there was a little bit of a crisis of, like, oh, man. Like, it's important to do something like that can impact people for. For centuries.
- [50:26]
A
Pars. Thesaurus. I don't know. Just putting that out there. See. See how that lands? I feel like you're good with coming up with alternative phrases for things. So instead of saying, you know, not.
- [50:37]
B
Just because I don't know the real phrase and I can't pronounce the words, so when I mumble, it just sounds like. Did you. Did you get this feeling at Duke where it was cool to be around, like, old, like, historical things that have lasted for a long time?
- [50:48]
A
I know exactly what you mean. There is definitely a vibe and a feeling when you're at something that is not just bigger than yourself, but sort of timeless. The problem with Duke and other Southern schools that have this is like, you're like, oh, wow, who made. You know, what. What is this? It's like. Like, this is the slave wall. It's like, oh, yeah, okay, never mind. It's like, what. What's the name of this road? It's like, this is Tobacco Road. We had tobacco plantations. Like, everything is. There's, like, a sort of dark side to a lot of the history there. So that wasn't cool, but the rest of it is. In fact, I used to love going to the chat. Like, the center of Duke's campus is the chapel, and I used to go there all the time, even though I'm not religious. But just the aura, the vibe, like, the vibe of a church is kind of unmatched, to be honest. And so, yeah, I really love, really love that.
- [51:35]
B
Here's why I like Silicon Valley and why I like old stuff. It's kind of similar, which is I love thinking about things that we take for granted. So, for example, like, buildings that have been there for a long time or that are really large or even just, like, your streets or institutions like Yale. And I'm like, how did someone create something that became such an institution that we take it for granted and we don't even, like, reflect on, like, how this became a thing? And Silicon Valley is cool because it's ideally the Outcome is that you are creating something in real time that will become an institution. Like an Airbnb, like a Google, where it becomes a verb.
- [52:08]
A
Right?
- [52:08]
B
Like, I'm gonna. You know what I mean? And you get to see that happening. And I think it's really cool to be in Silicon Valley, to see the beginning of hopeful institutions in the. In the making and then also go and seeing the old stuff of, like, this is how it's done.
- [52:20]
A
So we just had Gary Tan on. Don't you think that YC should just have a campus? And it should have this sort of gothic, you know, old school, institutional vibe? And even if they're. If they're not going to do it, why wouldn't I just go create a campus, a small micro campus for YC people? Free. Free. Free room and board. So free place to live, free food. That's healthy. And all I do is just cherry pick investments from people on campus. I just get to invest in their companies. It would be. I don't even need YC to do this.
- [52:51]
B
Why.
- [52:51]
A
Why wouldn't I do this?
- [52:52]
B
There's a. Or even just a museum. Have you ever heard of the Museum of American Finance? It's this thing in New York City where it's like a mu. It's like a museum for, like, the history of finance. And frankly, it's badass. It's awesome. And just like, a place to like, go and like, physically explore all that YC has done. It is kind of interesting.
- [53:10]
A
It's just like Bill Ackman's loafers. What's inside this thing? What is the Museum of Modern? Of what? Of finance?
- [53:16]
B
Yeah, it's. It's a museum of American finance. So if you look at a photo, it's just like, it shows, like, here's what, like, the stock tickers used to look like, and people would stand here and like, trade, like in the 1800s. And then, like, then it's switched to have, like, the phones were on the floor or you do this, whatever. It, like, tells the history of it and then, like, important things related to it. But it's a museum in downtown Manhattan.
- [53:38]
A
That's cool. I like that.
- [53:40]
B
Dude, this is a fun episode.
- [53:41]
A
Yeah, that was a banger.
- [53:42]
B
All right. That's it. That's the pod. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it. Like, days off on the road let's travel Never looking back.
- [54:02]
A
Hey, Sean here. I want to take a minute to tell you a David Ogilvy story. One of the great admin, he said, remember, the consumer is not a. She's your wife. You wouldn't lie to your own wife, so don't lie to mine. And I love that. You guys, you're my family. You're like my wife. And I won't lie to you either. So I'll tell you the truth. For every company I own right now, six companies, I use Mercury for all of them. So I'm proud to partner with Mercury because I use it for all of my banking needs across my personal account, my business accounts, and anytime I start a new company, it's my first move. I go open up a Mercury account. I'm very confident in recommending it because I actually use it. I've used it for years. It is the best product on the market. So if you want to be like me and 200,000 other ambitious founders, go to mercury.com and apply in minutes. And remember, Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve bank and Trust Members. Fdic. All right, back to the episode.