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

Summary

My First Million – "7 People Making $5M–$10M From Weird Hobbies"

Podcast: My First Million
Hosts: Sam Parr & Guest Billy (Venture Partner at Slow)
Date: September 5, 2025
Episode Focus: Exploring creators turning niche hobbies into multimillion-dollar businesses

Episode Overview

This episode dives into the “creator middle class”—people making $5M to $10M in annual revenue by leveraging niche hobbies or interests, often with surprisingly small audiences. Sam Parr welcomes Billy, a venture partner at Slow (and previously The Chernin Group), to analyze how these creators build passionate audiences, monetize with DTC (Direct-to-Consumer) products, and scale small “hobby” businesses into large, durable companies. The discussion features vivid case studies: woodworkers, car detailers, ranchers, and even paint-mixing TikTok stars, offering insight into what makes a creator “lovable,” spotting trends, and building systems that scale.

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1. The Blueprint of the Creator Middle Class

Timestamps: 00:42–06:45

• Lovable & Relatable Creators:
  • Creators succeed when their audience genuinely loves them.
  • Love comes from relatability—when the creator feels like a buddy or mentor, not a remote celebrity.
  • “Those creators are the most interesting that can build durable businesses.” – Billy (02:11)
• Aspirational vs. Quirky:
  • Some creators (e.g., Doug Demuro) win by being relatable nerds, while others (Emma Chamberlain) are more aspirational.
  • Both can work, but quirks and authenticity often make for more durable audiences.

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2. Case Studies: Niche Creators to Multi-Million Businesses

A. Doug DeMuro – Cars & Bids

Timestamps: 03:48–06:45

• Started as a schlubby car review YouTuber, now hosts a leading car auction platform.
• “He sold about $450 million worth of vehicles and then he takes a take rate off that.” – Billy (03:58)
• Business scaled beyond Doug’s own audience—people use his auction platform even if they don’t know him as a creator.

B. Jonathan Katz Moses – Woodworking Tools

Timestamps: 07:49–10:56

• Woodworker with polished but infrequent YouTube content (600k subs).
• Focuses on woodworking tips and tools; started own line (KM Tools).
• “He’s doing around $6 million in revenue now from...his tool site.” – Billy (09:24)
• Took investment from Slow to scale further; hopes to reach nine figures in the next decade.

C. Five Marys (Mary Heffern) – Ranching & Meat

Timestamps: 16:09–22:59

• Restaurateur turned ranch owner; transparent about building an ethical, family-run cattle and meat business.
• Grew from Instagram storytelling to subscription boxes, courses for women entrepreneurs, and multiple product lines (e.g., beef tallow, whiskey, cookbooks).
• “She started looking at ranches and ended up buying a ranch...Now has 600 acres...a large scaled business from 400,000 followers.” – Billy (16:11)
• Highly authentic content—just iPhone videos, not highly produced.

D. Jocko Willink – Tactical Apparel & Energy Drinks

Timestamps: 24:04–26:56

• Ex-Navy SEAL with a large podcast and a clear leadership ethos.
• Parlayed audience trust into “Echelon” leadership courses, Jocko Fuel (energy drinks now in big-box stores), and tactical apparel.
• “Jocko, like, speaks to a lot of people...and he did pretty well with that business, and he continues to do well with that business.” – Billy (24:53)
• Multiple “shots on goal,” sometimes discarding “fine” businesses if something else takes off.

E. Larry “AmmoNYC” & Detail Geek – Car Detailing

Timestamps: 30:40–34:36

• Larry details celebrity cars, sells branded cleaning products.
• “Any car enthusiast who has a proper collection knows Larry and uses his products.” – Billy (31:19)
• Detail Geek does similar work but focuses on “real world” cars and simpler production—refuses to scale up fast or take outside money, choosing lifestyle.

F. Tonester Paints

Timestamps: 36:40–38:48

• Started making casual TikToks about mixing paint at Sherwin Williams, got fired, started his own paint brand via TikTok (now 2.3m followers).
• “He starts making TikToks while he’s working at Sherwin Williams...he launches his own paint brand...just a camera on a paint can and he sticks the drills in.” – Sam/Billy (37:25–37:59)

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3. What Makes Niche Businesses Scale?

Timestamps: 10:56–15:09 & 38:53–41:45

• Backable Creator-Founders: Must have both the willingness to persist and real expertise in niche.
• Audience Trust & Authenticity:
  • “Building audience trust for years” is key (40:08).
  • Launching products too soon without audience trust risks quick flameout.
• Repeatable Patterns:
  1. Build content around genuine interests
  2. Cultivate a very engaged, loyal niche audience
  3. Launch a product that directly solves problems for this audience
  4. Be hands-on with operations, recruiting trusted help only once you have clear traction
• Platform Doesn’t Matter as Much:
  • Both high- and low-production content can succeed
  • Some succeed with just an iPhone; others in sophisticated studios

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4. The Role of Operations & Focus

Timestamps: 22:10–22:59

• Scaling operations in physical products (like ranching or apparel) requires real, often challenging, logistical chops.
• Many creators split focus (multiple products), but prioritization and hiring operators are crucial.
• “My answer to your focus is prioritization...she needs to make sure she has operators in place.” – Billy (22:31)

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5. How Do You Find Operators or Partners?

Timestamps: 27:22–29:51

• Attracting strong operational partners is a signal you're a founder, not just a creator.
• Date before you marry: test partners on small projects before bringing them fully on board.
• “I think entrepreneurs have to be able to...attract people to hire.” – Billy (28:04)

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6. Choosing the Right Niche & Business Models

Timestamps: 41:45–44:04

• Start with Passion-Based Niches with a natural bottom-of-funnel (you can imagine a “product” that audience would want).
• “If you’re building content, you have to be keeping in mind...what am I going to move people to?” – Billy (44:19)
• Steer away from pure entertainment if your goal is product revenue; pick “enthusiast” or “how-to” categories where trust translates to purchases.

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7. Hot Categories & Emerging Trends

Timestamps: 49:23–55:00

• Everyday Carry (EDC): Knives, wallets, watches, pens—huge, passionate audiences but few creator-led brands.
• Fountain Pens: Potential for a niche “Hodinkee for pens.”
• Chess: Massive global audience for products and content.
• Second Amendment (2A)/Tactical Gear: Big, loyal communities despite advertising hurdles.
• Jiu Jitsu/BJJ: Two-sided marketplaces for courses, apparel, equipment (e.g., BJJ Fanatics).
• “Those are the kind of things when we see those, we’re like, whoa…chess creators...jiu jitsu...passionate...” – Billy (51:26)
• RC Planes/Engineering “Hacker” Kids: Young creators building educational kits (see Project Air, Hacksmith).

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8. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “He’s just kind of a...I don’t know...he’s like a car nerd. But even among car nerds, many of them are more...they dress affluent...he does not care.” – Sam, on Doug DeMuro (04:54)
• “She’s got a butchery, she does shipping...FDA-approved slaughterhouse and a very large scaled business from 400,000 followers.” – Billy, on Five Marys (16:11)
• “Jocko Fuel. That probably crushes. He probably makes $100 million a year in revenue off that.” – Sam (26:13–26:17)
• “A lot of these middle class creators, I think, have the ability to be venture-style businesses with the right founder and the right hires.” – Billy (33:45)
• “She just shoots everything on her iPhone...it’s just Mary doing her thing...and you can tell that right away.” – Billy (34:53)
• “Shots on goal...maybe that thing becomes the thing that is venture scale...the beautiful thing about all these creators...” – Billy (22:10)
• “If you’re building your audience, build them into something that you can, like, transact into and you can add value to them...” – Billy (46:11)

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9. Picks & Predictions: Who’s Next?

Timestamps: 56:45–67:05

Each host gives three creators they’d “draft” to join—future stars of the “creator middle class”:

• Epic Gardening (Kevin) and Cars and Bids (Doug DeMuro): scaled DTC in gardening and car auctions.
• Sarah McAllister (Go Clean Co): The “queen of clean,” poised to launch her own cleaning product line.
• Gohar Khan: Ex-Minecraft YouTuber, MIT grad, now building SAT/prep business “Next Admit” for high school students.
• Honorable Mentions: Iron Snail (menswear content, launching own apparel); Project Air (RC/hacker DIY kits); Remy RC Planes (building giant model planes, backed by Tyler Perry); Hacksmith (engineering YouTubers, $7M Kickstarter for a multi-tool).

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10. Takeaways & Best Practices (The "Workout Plan")

Timestamps: 41:45–44:04

• Double down content on genuine passions/hobbies—niche beats mainstream.
• Build audience trust over time before launching products.
• Solve a need for your audience (tools, kits, seeds, classes, etc.).
• Be intentional about your “bottom of funnel”—know what you’ll eventually sell.
• Authentic, consistent content matters more than production value.
• Date (test) partners before you marry (fully commit).
• Accept some criticism and tough skin—haters come with the territory.

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11. Final Thoughts

Timestamps: 69:05–69:40

Creators at every level can build “weird” niches into multi-million dollar businesses if they’re authentic, obsessed with their topic, and know how to serve their audience with relevant products. In the era of the “creator middle class,” all it takes is a passion, a phone, persistence, and a system—or as Sam puts it, it's about “putting your all in it, like, no days off.”

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Useful for Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In

• Learn how “niche” can be a superpower in the creator economy.
• See real, actionable case studies of creators making serious money—without MrBeast-style audiences.
• Discover which categories are primed for “middle class” creator businesses and what tools, mindsets, and business models help these businesses succeed.

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For those contemplating their “weird hobby” or niche: “You don’t need investors to start a company...but what you do need is systems that actually work.” – Sam (06:45)

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Transcript

[Sam Parr]

Listen up.

[Billy]

The old playbook is slowing you down.

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[Sam Parr]

I'm not saying, like, I'm above this.

[Billy]

No one's above this. This is cool. These guys just sold $7 million in multi tools in like a week. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to put my all in it. Like, no days off road, let's travel.

[Sam Parr]

Never look. So in order for a creator business to work, the creator needs to be loved. What makes a creator lovable? Like, what attributes do they have? Where you see it and you're like, that person has it and people will buy because of them.

[Billy]

Finding creators that have, like, real love from their communities is the. Is the whole thing right? Because those are the most durable audiences that will kind of go. It makes them not cancelable it. They. People feel like they are the. Their buddies, their friends. So I think, like, what makes them loved is you feel like you're watching a version of yourself doing it. You know when you're. If you're a woodworker and you watch Jonathan Cat's Moses, you're like, oh, this guy's just like me, and he's teaching me. I'm learning. And it's like a buddy who's walking me into my favorite hobby, my favorite niche.

[Sam Parr]

So they have to be relatable, I think.

[Billy]

So Relatable is a good way to put it, I think. You know, it often feels like your big sister or your big brother too, where you're like, okay, they're teaching me, you know, like, you like motorcycles, right? Like, they're a pain in the ass to, like, maintain, to deal with, to find the right routes, to find the right routes on road, to find the right routes off road. But I got three or four guys that I can call and say, hey, I'm going to the Pacific Northwest. Where do I go? What do I need to pack? Like, what am I missing? Like, walk me through that trip you took and they give me the tools that I need to kind of get where I want to go. And I feel like those creators are the most interesting that can build durable businesses.

[Sam Parr]

And now you're a partner at slow, is that right?

[Billy]

Yeah, I'm a venture partner at slow. I've been here for about a year and before that I was at the Chernin Group.

[Sam Parr]

Man, Chernin. I've hung out with those guys a bit. They. Yes, they're. They're.

[Billy]

I saw your. I saw your podcast with Kevin, which was great.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, we've had Kevin on. I'm friends with Doug Demoro.

[Billy]

Doug, I found that. I found that.

[Sam Parr]

That was you.

[Billy]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sam Parr]

Your guys's insight back in like 14, 15 and 16, which it seems so obvious now, it was like we're going to take creators and we're going to make them into billion dollar companies. And like, Obviously we know Mr. Beast does that now, but what a lot of people don't realize is that Chern was early on this, for one. And number two, they've had so many successes that are niche communities. So for example, there's the. What's the meat guy?

[Billy]

Meat eater. That's Steve Vernella.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, meat eater. And then there was like probably eight or nine or ten more. We had Kevin on from Epic Gardening. And so like, you've built these like really big businesses. And that's what we're going to talk about today, particularly the creator, middle class. Because there's like, yeah, yeah, there's like these. The Mr. Beasts of the world. But there's so many people out there that are making 10, 20, $50 million a year and they have like 800 or 400,000 followers in a very niche community, like meat smoking or something like that.

[Billy]

Right.

[Sam Parr]

One of my favorite creators is Doug Demoro. Doug Demoro does these car reviews. He turned it into cars and bids, which I have no idea how big they are, but I think it's quite a large business.

[Billy]

I'll tell you, since Doug started, He sold about $450 million worth of vehicles. And then he takes a take rate off that.

[Sam Parr]

Oh my God. So this guy Doug does these like reviews where he will review an SUV or like a $2 million Ferrari.

[Billy]

Anything that's an enthusiast car.

[Sam Parr]

Yes. And what's interesting about Doug is I don't know how he did it, but I have a feeling it was just him. Probably actually not even with an iPhone when he first started. Literally like a camcorder, like a traditional one. And he looks schleppy, like he has like a dirty T shirt that, that.

[Billy]

Usually often two T shirts on top.

[Sam Parr]

Of each other that fit horribly together. So like his undershirt is popping out from his. And he's usually wearing cargo shorts without a belt. So it like it's like falling down. And he wears high white socks and like he's just kind of a. I don't know. I don't know like what, what category is, but like someone.

[Billy]

He's like a car nerd. He's a car nerd.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah. But even amongst car nerds, many of them are more like they dress affluent because they want to fit in. He does not care about that at all. And he gives these amazing reviews and so one, that's the relatable thing. But then you have these on this. On the other end you have like the Emma Chamberlain where young women, I think aspire to be her because she is cool and has character and all that stuff. Is there something in there about a creator of like wanting to be aspirational versus quirky?

[Billy]

I think it depends on the audience. Right. Like Doug's audience loves him because he has the best information about every car. Like, like his videos that are 10 minutes, 8 minutes, 12 minutes long, top to front, everything you want to know about that car, which is generally like a couple things like what do I want to drive, what do I think is cool? And sometimes it's purchase decision. Right. So Doug gives you everything you need to kind of learn about that rig. And he's like totally unassuming and fun. I'm not as familiar with Emma. I know she's like very loved, but yeah, aspirational. You want to be her when you grow up. You think she's cool. You love her access, you like her take on things. I think for the enthusiast categories, I think those pop the hardest, which is to say Doug is driving a two sided marketplace that has real scale and can scale without having to put goo in a bottles or get distribution from stores or launch a physical location. He is like building a venture scale business. And a lot of people who come to cars and biz now didn't even know who Doug was. It's built the scale where they're just like, oh, this is like, this is a great place to transact. I don't even, I didn't even get here through the top of funnel from Doug.

[Sam Parr]

All right, so a lot of people will talk about how you need a million dollars and three years of experience to start a business. Nonsense. If you've listened to at least one episode on this podcast, you know, that is completely not true. My last company, the Hustle, we grew it to something like 17 or 18 million dollars in revenue. I started it with like $300. My current company, Hampton, does over 10 million in revenue. Started it with actually no money. Maybe $29 or something like that. Nothing. And so you don't actually need investors to start a company. You don't need a fancy business plan, but what you do need is systems that actually work. And so my old company, the Hustle, they put together five proven business models that you could start right now, today, with under $1,000 that if you do it correctly, it can make money this week. You can get it right now. You can scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Now back to the show. So can I ask you about some of these middle class creators? Because this is pretty interesting. You mentioned one of them and I looked him up. This guy's insane. Who's Jonathan Katz? Moses.

[Billy]

Jonathan Katz Moses. So Jonathan Katz Moses is a woodworker. He started a website called KM Tools. It's tips and tricks on the right tool for the right job, essentially. And then he was like, oh, well, here's this tool you can use to work with this buzzsaw. And here's this tool you can use to work with that. And then sold out, sold out, sold out. And then kept developing his own tools.

[Sam Parr]

Let me tell you what I see when I go to his YouTube page, because it's pretty incredible. So he just looks like a just guy. He's just doing woodworking stuff. But what's crazy is he only has, I mean, and this is like big, but this is like, you know, pretty girl next door, like attainable. He only has 600,000 subscribers.

[Billy]

That's right.

[Sam Parr]

Which I think almost anyone dedicates four years to virtually any niche, and they spend 20 hours a week on it. I think they can get to 600,000 subscribers. So he only has 600,000 subscribers. And each of. And he only is outputting like one video a month. Like, not even a lot of. Not even a lot of videos. And they, and they look great. They look like really highly produced videos. They're not like, they're, they're, they're, they're polished. But his, his quantity is not through the roof. And the views aren't even through the roof.

[Billy]

No. Well, the cool thing about it is it's, it's, first of all, it's evergreen content. So, like, what he did, like, how often he published is important to kind of continue to, to provide content for the community and build his audience and get to scale. And I think, like, taking investment, he will be able to do more of that.

[Sam Parr]

He raised money.

[Billy]

Yeah. At slow, we invested 2 million into Jonathan's business.

[Sam Parr]

And how big is it now?

[Billy]

The investment is very recent. He's doing around 6 million in revenue now from like, strictly from his tool site. And he's grown substantially year over year.

[Sam Parr]

And when you and made the investment, what was your upside? Like, what did you, what do you expect in five years? How big of a business will this be?

[Billy]

Yeah, I mean, we play a little longer than five years because we're early stage. So, you know, I think whatever.

[Sam Parr]

I don't know.

[Billy]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we, we'd love to see Jonathan get to 100, $200 million in revenue in the next 10 years.

[Sam Parr]

That's crazy.

[Billy]

Yeah.

[Sam Parr]

Is he going to enjoy his life while he's doing that? Because it looks like he had a pretty good life before taking your money.

[Billy]

He, he loves. He wants to build a massive business. I mean, we're not reaching out to creators and saying, hey, you look like you have a really nice lifestyle business making 10 million bucks a year. Do you want to go like, we're. He reached out to us, you know, he's like, I want to build a business of scale. You know, he, he needs more inventory, he needs more product designers. He sells out all the time. So he, he wants to get to scale. Like, he love, he loves what he's doing.

[Sam Parr]

This is a great one. And what's. When you, when you're, when you're doing research, like, if you're this guy Jonathan or someone listening and you have like a, like, woodworking is a niche, huge niche, but niche nonetheless. Is there, like math between how you decide how big it can get or do you just look at like, comparables? Are you like, well, there's this one woodworking ecom store that already does this much revenue. I think it can be that big.

[Billy]

That's a good question. I mean, I think it's a little bit of both where we say team and theme. Right. So it's like, can we invest in. Is Jonathan backable? Does he have the hunger? Is he a founder or is he just a content creator? And then does he have the hunger to build something big? So it's early stage. We're betting on Jonathan right now. We can't bet on Jonathan if he wants to. It's funny. He said a funny quote. He goes, you know, they have no control. I could build ballet Shoes, if I wanted. Now we have to look at the category that he's in and make sure we feel like it can be. It can get to scale. So, yeah, we do a little. Once we get deeper down and figure out that this guy's great, he's going to figure something out. He's going to take a lot of different shots on goal until he does. Which we've seen with lots of great creators who they're like, okay, I tried this business and I tried that business and didn't work. And they're going to keep going. Jonathan feels like the kind of guy who's going to keep going no matter what. And then, yeah, we've looked, we looked at woodworking. Like, are there other businesses in his. In his genre that are making tools that are at 50, 100, $200 million in revenue? And we look at that and we compare them and we say, hey, listen, this is a. This is good signal.

[Sam Parr]

Can I actually walk through that? Because I am curious because, like, if I have a passion or if I'm a listener and I have a passion for something and I'm like, does this have legs? Or maybe it doesn't quite have legs, but if I just change it a little bit, like, the trajectory might be a lot different, but still within the passion of what I want to make content wise.

[Billy]

Yeah.

[Sam Parr]

So, like, all right, so if you're doing woodworking, where would I start to research to give me faith that this can be a $50 million a year company?

[Billy]

Right. Okay, so that's a really good question. So the, the really interesting thing about backing creators that are in passion categories is they have real expertise in the area that they're in, which is to say, because Jonathan's creating content in woodworking, he knows all the other woodworkers, he knows all the tool companies, he knows everybody in that area. And we kind of trust them to understand their own white space. So these creators that we're backing and the creators that, like, I think have the best opportunity are the ones that are so deep in a niche that they've been working in for five, 10 years, they're like, oh, they identify the white space. It's not for us. Like, we're here to say, hey, we want to match capital with creators and who are founders who want to build something scaled, and we rely on them. You know, Doug Demiro. Right back to Doug. Like, Doug's been in the car game both on the editorial side and creating content, meeting all the manufacturers he knows when he, you know, there's four or five other auction platforms that are available to people who are buying cars. Doug's like, this is the one we need to build and this is why.

[Sam Parr]

But when you're, when you're trying to justify that, surely you're, you're thinking like, okay, I feel like with some degree of certainty the best case scenario is it's going to be a billion dollar company in 10 years, something like that. And so what I'm curious about though is let's say that like, let's say that I'm interested in architecture but also like art history. Let's say that I'm like, you know, a 28 year old person. I hate my job. I'm sort of interested in art history and architecture, but I want to build something sustainable and like potentially one like the route that I pick with my content. I would imagine there's some type of equation where it's like, I guess it would be the size of the audience multiplied by the gross profit per item sold multiplied by the quantity that they will buy. Do you guys have anything like that?

[Billy]

I think it's a little bit more creative than math, which is to say we can't be experts in every niche category and say, hey, this is how this is going to pan out. I mean you have a sense of like, hey, these are, these are, I mean, like, look, Kevin, Kevin's in the seed business. Like seeds don't seem like they're very, you know, like you, they're very inexpensive but at scale, like it's a massive business. I think we look for categories where they're, they're high spend, where people are passionate about them and that the founder really understands the category and is telling us where they think the white space is more than us saying, oh, here's a math, here's math to solve that problem.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, that's funny. I mean I, my, my last company was the Hustle and like Jesse or Chernin came to me and they're like, oh, maybe you can be one of these. I don't even think they had like a word for it, but they were recruiting me to become. It was very light recruitment, but it was like a, let's see if there's a fit. Maybe we could invest in you and you'd be one of these creator led businesses. And I was like, yeah, I didn't even have faith that it could become that. Like, I didn't know, you know what I mean? I definitely didn't believe it. What?

[Billy]

Yeah, Chernon was really interesting because, you know, we at Chernon, it Was, it was different at kind of a growth stage because you post investment, you can spend so much, so much more time with the businesses that you can early stage, you know, there's a willingness to roll up your sleeves and like help, help build it out. Like, there's a lot of work we put into those companies. Post investment at churn in that earlier stage, we kind of are betting on the founder to figure it out.

[Sam Parr]

I think every man who's above like 35 years old has a dream to do what this next creator is doing, which is owning a ranch and selling meat. What is.

[Billy]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Parr]

What is five Marys?

[Billy]

Well, five Marys is rad. So it's. It was started by a woman named Mary Heffern and her, her husband Brian as well. But Mary's like, Mary's the big driver of it. And Brian would agree with that as well. She started as a restaurateur in the bay and couldn't find like ethically sourced meats in the way that she really wanted at scale that she wanted for her, for her restaurants. So she started looking at ranches and she ended up buying a ranch. She's like super entrepreneurial. Get up and go badass. She found this ranch kind of in the Mount Shasta area, this area called Fort Jones, which is near the like California Oregon border. And she bought a ranch and started raising her own cattle there. She now has 600 acres, 600k of cattle. She's got a butchery, she does shipping. She has a, you know, like a FDA approved slaughterhouse. And she's built a very large scaled business from 400, 400,000 followers on her Instagram channel.

[Sam Parr]

And what was her original content like what got the first 10,000 followers?

[Billy]

It was all her moving to this ranch and building out this ranch life. So she tells stories about herself, her family. She's got four daughters that are all rad, that are all cowgirls. Obviously they didn't start that way when they were, when they were little, but they're now kind of like 16, 14, 15, 13, like in that area. They're all ropers. They like compete, so they're always going around. But it's like ranch life. Caring about the food, caring about the people who you work with building out business. Also just a very strong female entrepreneur vibe. She like taught courses to other women who were building businesses. Actually, the Ballerina Farms woman took her course and then launched Ballerina Farms.

[Sam Parr]

Ballerina Farms, that's another similar.

[Billy]

Yeah, Ballerina Farms has a lot, has a little bit more controversy around It. But the woman's name, who I forget right now, lives in Utah. Her husband and her bought a ranch. And it's like, very well shot. It's very beautiful, and it's a little bit more composed than Mary's content. Mary's content is a little bit more like. If you look at Mary's content right now, you're like, literally watching her build a house. Her and her husband and her kids are going out and, like, grabbing rocks and putting from the land and putting them on the hearth, and she's building them out. She's feeding cows.

[Sam Parr]

So was she successful before she bought the ranch?

[Billy]

No. She had like, three or four restaurants in San Francisco. Yeah, she was like. She's been. She's a. I mean, as you know, with restaurants, they're not, like, they can be doing great, but they're not. They're not like, you can't. It's hard to retire off them until you get to real scale. So she was a proprietor. I think of her as a proprietor. That's the category I would put her in. She had restaurants, she was serving great food. She had a good life, but it wasn't what she wanted. So she went out to the farm instead of. She saw an opportunity to, like, build a ranch that had ethically sourced meats and raise cattle and tell the story while she was doing it. It's like, so deeply authentic.

[Sam Parr]

It's. It's basically like. I think I saw. I forget the director's name. Guy something.

[Billy]

Guy Ritchie.

[Sam Parr]

Guy Ritchie. And he was telling this story that always stuck with me. I think I heard it when I was a little bit younger, and it always stuck with me. But it was basically like, when I try to live my life, he's like, I am a director, and I want my life to be a movie. And I'm the director of my own movie. I'm the director of my own life. And I hear, like, what she's doing or I see what Mary's doing. And to me, it's like social media makes it so much easier and attainable to say, I'm gonna do something epic and I'm gonna bring people along the way. And that is why it's going to be so epic, because they're going to support me. And this is so awesome. So how big of a company does she have? And she's. And it's just selling beef?

[Billy]

Well, she does a lot of things, so she sells subscription boxes of beef. She also sells these. She. She's done these courses, like I mentioned. She sells Whiskey and cookbooks. She actually doubled down recently on a tallow product line. So she, you know, because she processes her own meat and has. She has, like, tons of tallow and has been making it, you know, sparingly.

[Sam Parr]

This lady's awesome. They do camps. They do cowboy camp where you could, like, go and.

[Billy]

Yeah, yeah. I think it's a small part of her business, but it's definitely like, she brings. She brings people on. It's. It's a heavy lift. She does it, like, seasonally, but she brings people in and kind of teaches them with the idea that people can learn what it's like to live a ranch life and come out there kind of in a dude ranchy kind of way. But she'll make you roll up your sleeves and do stuff for sure. How.

[Sam Parr]

How big is this business? Is 5 Mary's Ranch.

[Billy]

I mean, so as far as, like, all of these businesses that I'm talking about, like, as an investor, I talk to all these folks, and I can't, like, some of them if it's publicly disclo. I'd be happy to share that. But the way I would frame this business is that it is, like, it has the ability to achieve venture scale.

[Sam Parr]

And I would say the threshold of venture scale is probably 100 million in revenue. Right?

[Billy]

It can do it.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah. Yeah, man. It's awesome.

[Billy]

Also, the coolest thing about Mary is like, you know, the meat. The meat business is great, and I think she will always do it. And it's. But this tallow line that she launched is something that can scale even more. Like, I don't know how much you've seen about what's going on with beef tallow. People using it for their skin and care. It's very popular. And she does it right there on her farm. She make. She makes it. They built a place to process it, and they do it right there on the farm. And that's another line of business. And that brings me to another topic with all these guys is they have opportunity to take lots of shots on goal. It's like, okay, I built out this meat business. How much scale can it get to? Can I exit it? Do I want to exit it? And you get to a certain place there, and then you say, okay, well, what else can I offer my audience that is totally organic to who I am? They will totally buy because it's something that they want. And maybe that thing becomes the thing that is venture scale. Or maybe she tries something else that becomes venture scale. But the beautiful thing about all these creators in this Kind of creator middle class that we're talking about is like it's not just one business that they.

[Sam Parr]

Can start, but two things I'm gonna push back on two things that I want you to prove me wrong. Number one, focus. Like nine out of ten times. One of the reasons nine out of ten times a lack of focus is what kills a company. Like, it's. It's more often than not, it's better to do one thing incredibly well than to do a bunch of things, because it's just hard to pull off a bunch of things.

[Billy]

Great.

[Sam Parr]

The second thing is operations is very challenging, particularly for a ranch. I mean, just like a software company is pretty easy. You're just behind a screen and there's no capex for a ranch. That's really hard. Who is operating her business and how on earth do you find all these wonderful operators and also balance creating content? Because I do this podcast two times a week and then I also have a company and it's quite challenging and that's probably a lot easier than running a ranch.

[Billy]

Great. Running a ranch is very hard. And she will tell you and you can watch and you can see. So I agree with that. So when I think of focus, I think of. My answer to your focus is prioritization, which is to say she's gotten the ranch to a place and now she decides if she wants to double down on another line of business. And then she needs to make sure that she has operators in place that can. That she has enough time to try and build out that next line of business and. Or bring in another person or two to operate and help launch that next line of business. So she's got a ranch. Then she's got to make sure she has enough time, energy, either with the people who are supporting her ranch or somebody to help her with the tallow line. So it's about prioritization and then building it out. I agree with you, but you look at somebody like. Can I like if you look at somebody like Jocko Willink.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah.

[Billy]

Are you familiar with Jocko?

[Sam Parr]

I. What I know about him is he was a former seal. Yeah, Badass, looks like a seal, looks like a GI Joe and has a podcast, but I don't know much about his products.

[Billy]

Yeah. So. So that. That's another example of like how you get to scale where you're trying shots on goal and thinking about prioritization. So Jocko, like you said, he's got a massive podcast. You agree he looks like a GI Joe and you're right that he. That he is an ex Seal, and he's also very, like, taking pictures of his watch at 4am when he's starting his workout. And he's a big jujitsu guy. He's also a very intentional father and talks about how to raise your kid, you know, kind of, you know, not glued to screens and, you know, with. With intentionality, things like that. So Jocko, like, speaks to a lot of people and he has a great. A course called Echelon, which he teaches to Fortune 500 CEOs and people and the, the general public can. Can kind of apply and be part of those as well. And he did pretty well with that business, and he continues to do well with that business.

[Sam Parr]

Echelon is like. So he dropped. I'm looking at the website. It's corporate, so I imagine, like, if I had a guess, it's six figures. And he comes and talks and then like three of his team will drop in and help you with some leadership issues and within your business.

[Billy]

That's right. That's right. I think it's at more scale than that. But yes, I mean, he does, He. He does big conferences with like, multiple, like Fortune 500 CEOs, and he's very well respected in that. In that world.

[Sam Parr]

Cool.

[Billy]

In the leadership. In the leadership. He talks a lot in his podcast and in books about how to be a great leader and how to like, you know, manage up and manage down. And he's. He's pretty prolific in that. In that sense. And then he launched a tactical apparel brand, starting with boots and moving into clothes which are like, you know, your American made kind of workout slash military guy clothes, which I would have to.

[Sam Parr]

Imagine that would be one of the harder businesses actually to run. That's a very hard business because returns and. Yeah, returns and sizes and that would be hard.

[Billy]

Yeah, supply chain and yeah, it's. It's hard. Right? And so he took those shots on goal, right? He saw a place where he thought he can move his audience. Really interesting. Then he launched Jocko Fuel.

[Sam Parr]

What's that protein like?

[Billy]

It's like a pre workout, post workout, during workout, energy drink kind of grouping of drinks.

[Sam Parr]

Dude, that probably crushes.

[Billy]

It crushes.

[Sam Parr]

He probably makes $100 million a year in revenue off that.

[Billy]

Crushes, you know, and then. And then Chris Pratt joined in because, you know, Chris Pratt is very military friendly and likes Jocko and like, all that kind of stuff. And that thing is like, you know, it's in Walmart, it's in GNCs, it's like, you know, And Walmart really likes to support those, like, military founders. And like, you know, it's a, it's a product that people like and people really trust him because he has, you know, like a, like, like they would a huberman because, you know, he's, he's, he's such a specimen. And he talks about working out and training and people really do that. So these are all places that he totally has permission to be in. And so you could say, okay, well, the focus is why one of them is not working better. Or you, like, try something, you launch it, it does fine.

[Sam Parr]

But what do you do with the fine thing? Like as someone running his clothing company?

[Billy]

Yeah, I mean, that's, I think that's what you do with the fine thing is you say, okay, this thing is like doing fine. Let's get, let's make sure somebody's running it. And I'm sure somebody's running it. He, he, he's a prolific content creator. So I'm sure he has partners and operators that are running these things. You know, being a leadership guy and being in the military, I'm sure his network is vast when it comes to, like, getting great operators and knowing how to work with them and communicate with them. I mean, he's a proper entrepreneur.

[Sam Parr]

You know what's funny is I, I guess I am a creator, which I don't have anything wrong with that, with that title, but I didn't seek out to become that. I previously started a business and I was mildly okay at running a company. I'm pretty good at hiring, but I was mildly okay at doing the work myself. And I would say I'm mildly okay at being a creator, but finding operators is still hard for me and like, working with them as a partner is quite challenging. How do you find a partner if, like, let's say that you're listening to this and let's say that you have 20 or 30,000 followers and you're like, something is here, but I don't know when to get help. And how do you decide when and how?

[Billy]

Yeah, I mean, I think entrepreneurs have to be able to. That is kind of one of the telltale signs if they're a founder, that they know how to hire and that they can attract people to hire. Which is to say, if you're a creator who like, does general comedy and, or just general entertainment, and you decide, okay, I want to start coffee or I want to start goo in a bottle, I think attracting a operator is going to be very hard because they're going to say, okay, well, is this person really going to put the time into it? Are they really behind it? Is our audience really going to believe it? Like, is their audience really going to move when they say move? And you have to have a real value proposition for an operator to want to come on board and work with you. So I think if you have sound principles in what you want to build and why you can find a good operator. Like, part of that is the test of at least what we invest in. We invest in a creator that is a founder that can attract talent to run their businesses. So where do you go to find them? I mean, first you got to decide what your special sauce is and where you need support. And I've heard you talk about many times, like, where are places that you need support? And you need to be very clear about that. And you need to, you need to like, make sure that you're attracting talent that's going to like, cover the 180 degrees. Also, you don't have to, you can kind of date before you marry, which is to say work on some projects with them. You know, work on, like, say, hey, I want to build this out, I want to try this out. Make sure you're, you're putting enough capital into it so you have money to pay an operator and that you have a plan for it. So I think it's really important to. We, we look for, we look for folks that you need that, that can attract that kind of talent. Listen up. The old playbook is slowing you down.

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[Sam Parr]

Can I ask you about like, maybe one or you tell me one or two more of these interesting folks because I love hearing about this. But then also after that, I'm going to ask you about if you're starting from scratch, like, which niches or categories do you like?

[Billy]

Well, I love. Okay, so there's, there's a couple creators that are really interesting in the auto care space. There's this great guy named Larry. He Has a company called Ammo nyc. And Larry does detailing of like celebrity cars.

[Sam Parr]

Wow. Larry has 2.3 million subscribers on YouTube and all he's doing is cleaning cars and making videos about it.

[Billy]

He details cars.

[Sam Parr]

Sorry, yeah, that was, that was the caveman version of that. I'm looking at his video and first of all, there's like a $4 million acid martin that he cleans. But then there's also going to be like a car that's been in a barn.

[Billy]

Like a barn.

[Sam Parr]

And that's going to take like a week, right?

[Billy]

Yeah, yeah. So he, yeah. So Larry has a robust business cleaning celebrity cars that either are going to auction or they just have a badass collection and they're going to be taking it to, you know, a car show or they're going to be, you know, going on, going on a, a trip that's with all the like hot, hot car owners. And he really gets in there and like really understands the cars and has built products with his own mixtures and built his own brushes and towels and everything, all D to C. And he uses the top of funnel, which is the car content of detailing these cars, which is like kind of car porn for people. And any car enthusiast who has like a proper collection knows Larry and uses his products.

[Sam Parr]

Dude, I would watch these videos like on silent. Like this would be like just played the background of my living room on Apple TV for like, you know, eight hours while I'm just hanging out a day. Just.

[Billy]

Larry's awesome. Check out this other guy. Detail Geek. So this is the other side of, of Larry.

[Sam Parr]

Oh my God. This guy has almost 4 million subscribers. So what's he, what's he do? Like more low end stuff.

[Billy]

He just like, he is somewhere in, I want to say like the Dakotas or the Midwest. I don't know, I don't, I can't.

[Sam Parr]

Remember exactly somewhere where they drive lots of pickup trucks that get dirty.

[Billy]

That's right. It looks like the cars have been for like four weeks on a hunting trip in the mud where he's like getting out shotgun shells and he does these 20 minute long videos that get insane views. And he too launched his own products called Detail Geek. Really, really interesting guy. I've tried to talk to him many times. I talked to him once. He's very happy with his lifestyle business. He does not want to engage with people who invest in these things and help scale these things. He's like, I like my family, I like my life and I make good money. And Bob's your uncle and he doesn't need it. And you know, Larry's a little bit more in the sexy world, but this, but, but the detail geek does not care.

[Sam Parr]

This guy's awesome. What's your. What's your. You probably can't say. It's a stupid question for me to even ask, but this company definitely does more than 10 million in revenue, I would think.

[Billy]

Here's what I'll say. All of these middle class creators, I think have the ability to be venture style businesses with the right, with the right founder and the right hires. So which is to say direct to consumer businesses who kind of somebody came up with an idea like Casper or, or, or glasses that you can buy over the Internet or shoes that are different. Like they were kind of built in a brand boardroom. And somebody said, okay, well I have a new product, right, that I think the audience wants and then I'm gonna go build a brand and then I'm gonna go build an audience and I'm gonn money, bunch of money to, to build consumers. These kind of middle class brands have gotten to a place where they're like, I already have the audience. I know product, mar market fit. I'm ready to, I'm ready to go. And then it's the right fuel to the fire. Determines whether they're going to get to.

[Sam Parr]

Venture scale or not when they're starting is it just oftentimes them with an iPhone and them editing it either on their phone or on their computer. And how, how big have you seen them get it with just doing it in that sort of scrappy hustler way.

[Billy]

Great. That's a great camera. So Mary, back to Mary, she just shoots everything on her iPhone. Like that's it. You know, she's, she's on Instagram, she shoots everything on her iPhone. It goes on her reels. Like, you know, it's just her making the content. So that's one, that's one version of it. So if the question is from your audience, can I get started without a big setup? The answer is yes. You know, like yes. And obviously depends on the genre you're in and the stories that you're telling. You know, Mary's telling a story about her life. She's relatable like you, you want to know where your meat comes from. It's Mary. It comes from there. It's not highly produced, beautiful. You know, it's just Mary doing her thing. And Mary's rad and her kids are rad and her husband's rad. And you can tell that right Away. Larry started with a small setup and now he's got a four bay or a three bay garage in his spot in Connecticut that's all lit. And he's got a guy who shoots it with him and he still does it all himself, but it's just two guys.

[Sam Parr]

Two guys with two. With almost 3 million subscribers, basically.

[Billy]

Yeah. I mean, he's got more people that work in the business, but yeah, it's like two or three guys. But it's like a beautiful studio slash detail spot. It's all well lit. He's very intentional about the look and feel. And that makes sense for like these high end cars, right? Like it's like for high end cars and people who are like very wealthy who have, you know, multimillion dollar car collections who are watching this kind of video. Like you want to, like you don't want to just shoot it on an iPhone. You want it to look beautiful. Because Larry cares about what one side of the car looks like before and one side of the car looks like after. And you got to. You got to really show that. So you need equipment and you need light and you can't just shoot it, you know, in the front, you know, in the front driveway. There's one more really funny story that I think you. You would like. There's this guy named Tonester.

[Sam Parr]

Oh, I like that. Who's Tonestar?

[Billy]

Yeah, yeah, Tony. I don't really know. I don't want to butcher his last name.

[Sam Parr]

He better. He better be some Italian guy with the name of Tonester.

[Billy]

So he was working at Sherman Williams making like, you know, like as like an entry level job making blantons for paints.

[Sam Parr]

Oh, tone. Like paint tone. I thought it was like Tony from the garage with like slick back hair.

[Billy]

It's like a little bit. It's like a little bit of that. He's not like a slick old guy like that. He's like, he's an interesting cat and he's done a great job. So he starts making TikToks while he's working at Sherman Williams, while he's blending paint, just kind of like talking about paint blends and just kind of posting TikToks casually. And he starts to blow up. And then he gets fired from Sherman Williams because he's using their office for TikTok.

[Sam Parr]

Oh, they blew that one.

[Billy]

Which is like, duh, right? So he launched his own paint brand.

[Sam Parr]

Oh my God.

[Billy]

Tonester Paints. And it's like running a clown card into a bank. Other than he's not a clown. He's really smart and he's done a really great job. And he. If you look at his TikTok, you know, he's got north of a million followers and he's has like a.

[Sam Parr]

No dude. On TikTok, he's got 2.3. And on YouTube he's got a million. And I'm almost positive that all the videos, it's literally just a camera on a paint can and he sticks the drills in there and he mixes it. That's all it is.

[Billy]

That's right. And so that's where it's kind of like back to your story where you can just start and then if you hit the right audience, you can really build it out. But I think the ones that are. And we'll see how he does. He's doing great now and he's a smart business guy and he's figuring it out. And is that a venture scale business? Like, is he gonna have his own Sherman Williams? Is it gonna get to a hundred million dollars a year? He could. It depends on execution at that point. I think that the ones that I look at and the things that we wanna invest in at slow and the things that I think have a better shot to get to. Venture scale businesses are the ones that have been building audience trust for years, that are known for that specific niche and they have a really strong community and they are creators that are entrepreneurs.

[Sam Parr]

How long are they typically creating content before they launch a product?

[Billy]

They could do it on their first one or they could do it after four or five years. You know, Jonathan Katz, Moses, the woodworker, you know, he. He launched a product very soon after and kind of his story was about launching the product, a lot of it. But he, he did a lot of videos about woodworking and tips and tricks and people were following him around for a while. So I don't think. I think it just depends on your niche and your audience. Like, I think, like, you really have to be a trusted voice of authority in your niche. You know, like, you have to. People really trust Jocko. You know, people really trust Atiya. People really trust Huberman. People really trust Mary.

[Sam Parr]

But I'll push back a little bit on that because. Okay, so Jocko was a veteran. So, like, he knows about being tough, which is like kind of his thing. Peter Attia is a doctor, so he knows about health. But like, this guy worked at Sherwin Williams.

[Billy]

I agree. That's why it's like, who knows?

[Sam Parr]

It's not like you need a PhD. You know, I think like, like they're not to discredit them. But like, I bet you I could spend one year learning how to clean cars and I, And I can like make at least interesting enough content and then maybe after a little while longer, like formulate a product. You know what I mean? It's not like I need to. I don't need to spend eight years of schooling to do this.

[Billy]

Totally make. Totally. I agree with your point exactly. Which is to say Tonester is a wolsey because he hasn't spent like, for me, somebody who has spent years and years and is a trust. So back to your architecture. Architecture idea or your art, your. Your artist idea. Like somebody who has built five or six years of trust and authenticity with this, an audience, and scaled it. They have more permission to launch paint. And then you think that you. You feel better about their understanding of both the industry and product market. Fit feedback from their audience, what their lane is, what they can sell. Like, you feel better about investing in somebody who's been in it for a long time versus somebody who is like, okay, for a couple years they've been creating content. So Toneser is like a big. We'll see. I think he's great and he's smart and he's gonna do something. But somebody like Larry. Yeah, I think you could start a detail channel and like grow it, but Larry's been doing this for 10 years. And when it comes to getting distribution in other, you know, it's like getting to scale like the Chemical guys did, which, you know, they took an $800 million check and they were. They had shops, they had locations, they scaled into all the different auto specialty shops and Home Depot and everywhere like that comes from years and years being involved in the industry and really understanding the white space and really understanding your audience that people who kind of just get started, like, you know, Mary's been at it for six, seven years and built that trust. So I think the ones that build the trust and understand the community, like, they really have an opportunity to scale in a way that somebody who's just getting started is like a. Let's see.

[Sam Parr]

So you can use a little bit of me as an example, but just the, Just the audience, anyone who's listening and has a passion. But like, I've sort of thought, like, oh, it might be interesting to do YouTube or Instagram a little bit more. It might be interesting to get into this creator space. What's the lessons that I should learn from these people on the repeatable process? Like, what's the best practices that I should take away? Like I know that this is part art, where it's just like, if you have an it factor, it just kind of can work. But surely there's some type of workout plan where if I lift this amount of weight and eat this amount of food, then I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be at least in the 90th. You're gonna be able to do it for two years versus everyone else. So, like, what are the. What's like the. The lift weights and eat and eat lots of protein kind of checklist version of this?

[Billy]

Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, a couple things that come to mind, and I'll. And I'll. We can decide together if it's a complete answer or not. I think for you personally and for. Or to take you as an example, like, I think you double down on the stuff that's really interesting to you and stuff that you want to talk about and bring people and you can build an audience around your journey. Right? So you're doing a lot of that now, which is like, business building. You're interested in entrepreneurs, you're interested in, like, what's going on in the business world, and that'll drive into. You can decide if that's going to work in the bottom of the funnel where you can go beyond being a creator every day. So, for example, like, you like motorcycles, you are sober, you have a family, and you are interested in, like, intentionally raising your kids and being a husband. I would think through the things that are your passion hobbies and that bring you the most joy. And I would double down on creating for those things with keeping in mind it doesn't have to be day one, but pretty soon that you have to be thinking about creating content, building an audience, establishing yourself as a voice of authority in something that there is a bottom of the funnel.

[Sam Parr]

Bottom of the funnel, meaning a product that I could eventually sell.

[Billy]

Yes. Kevin sells raised farm beds and seeds. Doug sells cars. Jonathan the woodworker sells tools. The detailer sells chemicals. The tonester guy sells paint. Mary sells meat. You know, on and on and on.

[Sam Parr]

Do you think it's safe to say that any content niche can come up with a product or service that can sell? Or should you think first, like, what could I sell? And then let me think of which content falls within that category of something I'd be willing to dedicate 10 years to, to creating that content around?

[Billy]

Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think you don't want to, you know, like, it's really hard to sell products if you're just funny, right, you know, dude, those, those people.

[Sam Parr]

Like I was telling you about my Mormon buddies, the LA New York crowd might laugh at them like, oh these, like, they might like, you know, be high brow and laugh at these people, the funny New York like or LA actor, comedian crew who I know who makes content, they're broke, they don't sell anything.

[Billy]

That's right. I think you can build a big audience that doesn't transact and you should be careful about that. And I think if you're in a niche passion category that you like, learn and love, you will eventually figure out what the white space is and you can build a product or a service that works there and I can give you more examples of people who are doing that. But I think if you're building content, you have to be keeping in mind what's the bottom of the funnel? Like what am I moving, what am I going to move people to? But I think you start by building a voice of authority in an area. Like you can't, even if you have a large scaled audience in, you know, in an in an area doesn't mean that you can move product. Like you have to learn how to do it. Like the, the people that we've been talking about today like have learned how to move product and learn how to build product and learn supply chain and hiring and you know, subscription and blogs and how to keep their audience from churning and how to, you know, keep things in stock. Like you're an entrepreneur, you gotta, you gotta know how to, you gotta know how to build a business. And that is to say also like there are two kinds of business. I mean there's lots of kinds of businesses, but two, there's like lifestyle business where it's like, hey, I can make a million dollars a year doing this or I can make half a million dollars a year doing this and, or I can make $2 million a year doing this. And that's just fine with me. The problem with that is, is from Varian deals and Adsense and like selling like merch and a couple little things here and there. The problem is, is once you stop like your revenue goes away.

[Sam Parr]

You're just a freelancer.

[Billy]

Yeah, exactly. You've built something that you can't exit and for some people that's okay and like it's not like a what's better or what's worse, but like if you're going to spend five years building your audience, build them into something that you can like transact into and you can add value. To them by cool new tools or like great ethically sourced meat or like cool color tones for your bedroom or, you know, anything that kind of like adds value to your audience.

[Sam Parr]

Is there a medium or a platform that matters to. So you've, we've talked about TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Those are all video. One thing that I've predicted, I wrote this, I did it, we did a podcast on this where I'm like, there hasn't been like a billion dollar Twitter creator, but I think there will be and there might be actually some now. I said this like three or four years ago. Do you think that it has to be video and audio or video. And we know podcasting works too, so video and audio.

[Billy]

I think video and audio are the. Are the examples that I've seen where people have been able to build kind of like lifestyle +/venture scale businesses. I think the audio is a great way to connect with your audience like consistently and you can really like own the relationship and build like a cadence of trust with them. It's a very intimate platform where if you love something, you listen to it weekly. I think video is the same way. And building an ecosystem around the video first platforms is for me, it has more signal.

[HubSpot Ad Host]

All right, instead of a commercial break, I'm going to tell you a quick little story. So a few years ago, I got really into crypto.

[Sam Parr]

Bitcoin, Ethereum.

[HubSpot Ad Host]

I was all about it and I wanted to be at the center of the action. I didn't want just want to buy the coins. I actually wanted to be, you know, on the edge. I wanted to be a part of the community that was actually building this thing. And look, I'm not a genius. I don't know how to build a blockchain. But I did realize that I could create a newsletter that would keep people up to date on what was going on in the world of crypto. That's what I had wanted. I wanted to know what's new, what's interesting, what should I pay attention to. And I had friends that had sold their newsletter. Companies like Sam had built the Hustle, Austin had built Morning Brew, and they had sold their newsletters for tens of millions of dollars. So I thought, how hard could it be? I launched a newsletter called the Milk Road. It was a daily crypto newsletter. And it grew like wildfire. We grew it from zero to over quarter million subscribers in a year. Partly because the content was good, but partly because people were crazy about crypto. And that was a good time to be doing this. But the reality is that we wouldn't have been able to do that and build that business that we ended up selling a year later for millions of dollars had we not had Beehive. Beehive was the reason we could do it in a year because if we didn't have that, we would have had to build all sorts of custom stuff or pay expensive consultants to do things or use five different tools and try to stitch them together. Beehive just did it all for us. It is the best way to start and grow a newsletter and email. Newsletters are this little secret of the business world because they're free to send, they're free to grow and you could build this incredible relationship between you and the readers. So check it out. Beehive is actually offering 30% off your first three months if you use the code MFM30. So go to beehive.com and then use the code MFM30 to get the deal.

[Billy]

Today.

[HubSpot Ad Host]

There's a link in the description.

[Sam Parr]

I was going to ask you what niches you think like someone should exploit. You said that was you. You gave me the energy. That was hard to answer. But I'm going to. So I'm going to like tease you up.

[Billy]

Push me.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, I'm definitely going to push you but we're going to ease.

[Billy]

Push me, push me.

[Sam Parr]

Listen. Yeah, yeah. So I'm sure that you have a list of like creators that have one to 5,000 people and you see them and you're like oh, they got something here. And who is on that list? Is there anyone like that or a category like that?

[Billy]

I'm going to preface this by saying a lot of the companies that we've talked about here are very dude focused and so I want to also say that there's lots of categories that, that I'm, I'm still, I'm learning and getting better at and. But one is everyday Carry I think is a really interesting category.

[Sam Parr]

Everyday carry being handguns or does that include like mace and knives and everything?

[Billy]

I think like knives. I mean obviously we've seen what's going on with Ridge Wallet. But like a creator that owns that like what you keep, what you keep in your, in your, in your pocket every day. So yeah, knife, wallet, watch, keychain, pens, writing tables. There's, there's some creators out there that do it. There's a really cool scaled company that sells knives called Blade hq. It's also a, a company that's in, that's in Utah and they started creating content because they couldn't advertise because they were selling what is considered by the Internet weapons. And I think the. The every. The everyday carry creator, there are some of them that are really kind of popping up. They haven't. Some of them haven't reached the scale.

[Sam Parr]

You know what? I. I completely agree with that. And if I was listening to this. So I think that there can be a Hodinkee. So Hodinkee was a watch blog that.

[Billy]

Eventually I was on the board of Hodinkee. We invested in a churn, and I don't know.

[Sam Parr]

It did. The outcome wasn't as expected. But that doesn't.

[Billy]

That's right.

[Sam Parr]

But I don't think that meant the business itself was bad. I don't know anything about the company, but if I had to guess, maybe it was like. Like they just grew too fast or something like that. And you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there should be a Hodinkee for fountain pens or a Hodinkee for fancy pens.

[Billy]

I agree that. I mean, I think those are the kind of things when we see those, we're like, whoa. You know, like chess creators. Really interesting people who play chess. Passionate, you know. That's interesting. Yeah. Fountain pens. Any of the everyday carry stuff is great. I also think 2A creators, like Second Amendment, right creators who are teaching who kind of do product reviews on different guns and different vinyl and different holsters and things like that, have a massive audience. Obviously, we've seen what happened with Black Rifle coffee, but the ones who are actually teaching about tactics and safety and different weapons and scopes and vinyl to kind of carry it, like, those have massive audiences and some of them have built scale businesses. And I think that that's an interesting category as well.

[Sam Parr]

There's a guy named I actually this is like the first time I ever said this word out loud. It's just one of those words that I. I read it and I know it, but I'm afraid so I don't know if It's Hickok or Hickok 45. I thought maybe that meant like he's in Oklahoma and he's like a redneck and he was born in 1945 and.

[Billy]

Right.

[Sam Parr]

He's this old man that. You would only understand this if you live in the south or you live in the Midwest like I am from. And we all had grandfathers like this. They like wore like. Like overalls or wrangler jeans and like a flannel shirt. And they're pretty nice and stoic. And you like being around them. Well, that's what this guy is, except his passion is like every type of gun on earth. And so he'll do like a machine gun and he'll say like oh this is a cute little machine gun, let's see what it's about. Or he'll be like a, like a revolutionary. And I don't know anything about guns but I just like watching it. But it'll be like a Revolutionary War cannon or like the type of gun in the Civil War where they like you know, put the thing down and then they load the blacks. I don't know anything about this. Or like a silencer on a gun. You're like what's that sound like? And this guy, have you ever seen this guy? He's got 8 million subscribers on YouTube.

[Billy]

No, I haven't seen.

[Sam Parr]

Oh my God. It's like look, look at T Rex Arms. He's the Bob Ross of guns is what he is. That's the best way to put it.

[Billy]

That's awesome. Yeah, there's, and there's some newer cats on the scene. Like check out this T Rex Arms. It was started by a couple brothers. One one of them's name was Lucas Botkin and he's actually since broken off from T Rex Arms. But it's like tactical second amendment content creators, massive firearms accessory business, you know, does some advertising but there's a lot of restrictions on that. Sells their own tactical gear, has a total cult like loyalty and they're running a really scaled business now. What crazy thing is is, is Lucas is part of brothers and Lucas and the brothers have split and Lucas is now starting his own thing. So I'm actually interested to see what Lucas builds on his own and if, if, if T Rex continues to grow. But that's a, that's a properly scaled business.

[Sam Parr]

All right, so everyday carry, what else?

[Billy]

I mentioned chess. I think that's interesting. People are really passionate about that. We've seen some really cool scale businesses come out of chess.

[Sam Parr]

What's a chess business? That's scaled chess.com. i mean that's a multibillion dollar company.

[Billy]

That's right. That's right. Jiu Jitsu.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, we, we know that.

[Billy]

That's a really great category. Have you seen Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Fanatics?

[Sam Parr]

I lived in Texas, man. I feel like if you, you, you like everyone did that.

[Billy]

Yeah, look, look up the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Fanatics website. This is a two sided marketplace started by a Jiu Jitsu champion and a guy who kind of did commute like continuing education. This is a Scale.

[Sam Parr]

Of course I know who this guy is. This is the famous coach, right?

[Billy]

Right. But what he does, it's a two sided marketplace. So jiu jitsu instructors can upload their videos and then people can sort through. Like I want to do, learn how to do a, you know, rear naked choke or I want to learn how to sprawl better or whatever. They can pick coaches that they like. The site can help kind of ID coaches that you might be interested in. It's total web 1.0.

[Sam Parr]

This is great.

[Billy]

And I can't say how much they're doing, but it's a, it's a good business.

[Sam Parr]

What about you being the creator?

[Billy]

No, I mean this is like the hardest thing I do. And talking, talking, like seeing myself on the Internet is like my least favorite thing. I'm very excited to talk to you. I think that's what you want to talk about is great. But man, I will never watch this because I just cannot watch myself. I cannot be excited.

[Sam Parr]

No one watches themselves. Like I've never seen MFM in my life and it's one of these things where you, you have to have tough skin. But like the, the Mormon family that I mentioned, they have a whole subreddit dedicated to mocking them. And I met them and these people.

[Billy]

Were the most nicest people in the world.

[Sam Parr]

It was the most loving family. They took us in. I felt like I barely knew them and I was their cousins. They were like the most loving family and people mocked them like crazy. And then on our pod someone will be like, you know, you, you look fatter or skinnier than I thought or you look older or young. And like we get mocked constantly.

[Billy]

Yeah, no, I think it's a very hard thing to do is like putting it out there and building their audience around things that they're really passionate about talking about. And, and yeah, I love the idea of getting involved in a creator led business. But right, right now, I really love the thesis that we have at slow. Kind of like building out, supporting them and matching capital to creators who are entrepreneurs who are really wanting to build, build things at scale.

[Sam Parr]

Let's say someone said, all right, you got to quit SLOW right now and you have to go and join. We'll give you like a draft. Like you get three, you get three picks of traders that you're like, I.

[Billy]

Wanna, oh, actual creators.

[Sam Parr]

I want to join that company and I want like a little stake in it. Are there three that you think are going to the moon? You know, we have this things called Sarah's list. Sarah's was my wife because she joined. We like, planned where she could join Airbnb at a time where she could still have a very comfy gig. Like a 40 hours. You're not totally grinding and you get a lot of salary, but your stock, it's still a 10x. You know, if there was a, if there was a, A Billy list for you and creators that you like, what would the top three or four be?

[Billy]

Oh, my God. I love what Kevin and Doug are doing at Epic Gardening and Cars and Bits. Like, those are both humans that I like and would like to work with, which, which is kind of like my most important. Which, if you asked me if I hypothetically would go and work with a creator, like, I would need to, like, love them as a human and love the category. And those are both categories I can really get behind.

[Sam Parr]

I just sold my car on Cars and Bits.

[Billy]

Oh, you did? What car?

[Sam Parr]

2020Amg E63 station wagon.

[Billy]

Nice. Were you happy with the price?

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, I got what I wanted. I hit my reserve.

[Billy]

Oh, good. Yeah, I think that's awesome. I only own old cars, so now that Doug is selling old cars as well, I can sell my scout if I, if I'm, if I'm ready to move on it. But I, I, that's great. Yeah. Yeah, it's. It's a good, it can be a really good buying experience for everybody. Okay, you should follow Sarah McAllister. Sarah McAllister has a company called Go Clean. Go right now. Sarah is just, like, the queen of clean. And people have been following her since, like, the pandemic. And she's been building. She's got a couple million subscribers on Instagram, I think 2.4. And I think she's got a real shot to build a really awesome business. So I think she's really cool.

[Sam Parr]

Wait, does she own Housework.com?

[Billy]

That'S the. That's what it is. I don't remember exactly what it is, but yeah. So she has people that love her. They dress up for her as Halloween, and she is a badass, and she is really cool, so I really like that business.

[Sam Parr]

Does she sell anything yet or is it just. It looks like she doesn't even have, like, her own product. So there is still, like, it looks like it's. She's still a predominantly a media company.

[Billy]

She mostly makes revenue through, yeah, affiliate links and brand deals and stuff like that at the moment.

[Sam Parr]

Oh, this lady's gonna kill us. That's a good one.

[Billy]

I think she's great.

[Sam Parr]

The queen of clean. That's a good one.

[Billy]

I. I don't know if that's what anybody calls her, but I, I just, I just said that.

[Sam Parr]

Dude, if this lady comes out with a laundry detergent, like, that's gonna be the greatest thing ever.

[Billy]

Forget it.

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, I really like her.

[Billy]

I also really like this creator named Gohar Khan. So when he was like 13, 14 or maybe even younger, he started making like Minecraft YouTube videos, right? And he built this massive audience and then he kind of like put it down, focused on school, got into mit. And when he was in mit, it was during COVID So he started making videos about going. Going to an Ivy, right? Like going to mit, you know, I think he has. You. You tell me. I don't have it in front of me. What does he have 6 million YouTube subscribers?

[Sam Parr]

Yeah. More. Oh, my God. I'm looking at his numbers. How so is he in his teens still?

[Billy]

So he launched this. No, no, no. He's post college and he's launched this thing called Next Admit, which helps students write college entrance exams.

[Sam Parr]

Just teaches them how to use chat GPT.

[Billy]

No, it teaches them like, teaches them how to not. Right. So he has people that like read through them who have also been into IVs. He reads through them and he basically like, you know, at, I don't know, 80 bucks a pop or something, he helps you kind of like do that. But he's also kind of gives you a lot of information about how to think about the big story you're going to tell when you want to get into college, about the thing you did in high school. And now he's starting like SAT prep courses and he just knows his audience and he knows that young first generation kid who wants to get into that Ivy, not bums like you and I were in high school. And he really has an opportunity to build a really scaled service business that really understands what kids are thinking and kids want when they're trying to get into Ivys and they're trying to get into.

[Sam Parr]

That's awesome.

[Billy]

So I like him a lot.

[Sam Parr]

Those are two good ones.

[Billy]

Really interesting.

[Sam Parr]

You and I. And I'll wrap up by reciprocating. I'll give you my two.

[Billy]

Okay, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, please.

[Sam Parr]

Do you have YouTube?

[Billy]

I should have made you go first, bro.

[Sam Parr]

I should have made you go while you were talking. So the first one I mentioned, this guy's got a harder path to build a business business, because clothes are harder. But it's called the Iron Snail. All right, so the Iron Snail. I started following this guy a while ago. His background is that he went to film school. And Sean and I talked about this on a previous podcast that the creators nowadays, the younger folks, when, you know, when I was. Well, still. But even when I was younger and YouTube was just getting started, it was all about being authentic, which meant like kind of scrappy and just thrown together. Now they're way more well produced. And so this guy tells you both the history of clothing. Like why, why Jamaicans are obsessed with Clark shoes. Apparently there's like some history behind that.

[Billy]

Oh yeah.

[Sam Parr]

But then he'll also do like, here's the highest quality, lowest price clothing ranked. He'll say, why are the Jap. Why do Japanese makes the best jeans on earth, right? And so he'll like break down and do these really interesting stuff. And you know what's funny is like the, the reason why he's gonna win is because you can be a woman. This is mostly men's clothes. You could be a woman. You cannot give a shit about clothing. You cannot give a shit about history. But you watch his videos because they're so well produced and because he's so funny, he's hilarious that you're engaged and you're bought in. And he is currently in the process of launching his own clothing line. And so he's like, he's documenting it. Clothing is like the hardest thing ever. So it's going to be a hard business, but. And the second one, it's Project Air. So look up Project Air. It's this young guy named James who's in the uk and it originally started out with him building model airplanes. So what started as just like a model plane turned into like an RC plane which then turned into I'm gonna build the world's fastest RC jet, or I'm gonna build the world's largest RC jet, or I'm gonna set the land speed record for an RC car. And he's even done things like I'm gonna send like a SpaceX, I'm gonna send a rocket up and I'm gonna have it land right back down, just like SpaceX does. Except I'm gonna do it like in my garage. So it's like became like hacker engineering stuff to where the stuff that he does is actually incredibly challenging math problems. Like he's a proper engineer. He's got one video where he built an RC battleship and he was like, I'm going to have them fight and sink each other. And I see this guy and I.

[Billy]

What do you think?

[Sam Parr]

His bottom of the funnel is selling RC kits. It's very similar to Mark.

[Billy]

What's Mark Rober Crunch Labs?

[Sam Parr]

Yeah, it's very similar where it's educational stuff. And if I had to guess, a large percentage of fathers like me who want my children to like, I think it's cool. But like, I don't want to build an RC plane and take it somewhere. I'm gonna look like a pedophile going and doing this. I'm gonna be weird. But if I get my kid into it, I sure, you know, like, have fun, do this. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to go like buy an RC car and take it to a school.

[Billy]

How old's your little one again?

[Sam Parr]

We got a ways to go.

[Billy]

You got a ways to go, but you're just gonna bring them along in the, in the pram? Yeah, I'll be like, dude, yeah.

[Sam Parr]

My kids just don't prop basically. So I can go to a schoolyard with a, with a really fast RC car.

[Billy]

Awesome.

[Sam Parr]

And so, and so I think there's a bottom of the funnel for that to like build like model kits.

[Billy]

I will check him out. Yeah, Robert has done it right? Like that's. I mean that business has exploded. Those guys have done a great job building out those. That subscription kits.

[Sam Parr]

And there's this entire. There's this one guy, his name's Remy I think R E M I and this would be my last one type in Remy RC plane. So check this out. This is so strange. So it's R A M I R C. He has a million followers. Tell me what the first video that you see. Can you, can you tell me what that says?

[Billy]

Remy RC Plane. World's biggest RC. 29 million views on this one. Building an Airbus.

[Sam Parr]

This guy is building a freaking Airbus. So he's building remote control airplanes that are the size of a. Of a Olympic sized pool like these. It's basically a. A plane is what he's building. And there's a really weird part about this story. So they never truly call this out. I think maybe they do occasionally.

[Billy]

Okay.

[Sam Parr]

But you're gonna see them on like an air. Like an airstrip and you're gonna see him take. Take off from a house. And you're like, does this guy. Is Remy just a rich guy with a, with a. Where? What is going on? It's Tyler Perry's house. So Tyler Perry, his hobby is he loves RC planes. And so he is this guy's patron. And so this guy Remy, I don't know if he lives there or if he just spends some time there.

[Billy]

But Tyler Perry, he just puts him in a pram and takes him to the park.

[Sam Parr]

I don't know what he does, but Tyler Perry has this massive hangar at his house. Except I bet you he has a hanger with real planes, to be honest, he's so wealthy. But, yeah, he also has one dedicated to RC planes. And you'll see he. It's so funny. Tyler makes cameos. Like, you'll see him, like, basically, I know that Tyler's paying for it because Tyler is always the one flying the plane. And so these guys, Remy will, like, build the jets and just hand it to this, like, guy who they barely talk about or mention. And it's Tyler flying the jet because they, like, don't want to wreck. You know, it probably cost 100 grand for this jet. And this guy. It's. It's such a. Oh, I guess they do call it out. So flying planes with Tyler Perry. But that's, like, basically it. Like, they barely talk about it. The fact that it's just this, like, guy. I think it's from Dubai, bro.

[Billy]

That's the.

[Sam Parr]

So cool. And so this guy has a million followers, and I think that's, like, another interesting thing. So those are my picks.

[Billy]

Yeah, that's good. This isn't a pick that, like. Anyway, you should check this one out. Have you seen Hacksmith?

[Sam Parr]

What's Hacksmith?

[Billy]

Dude, these guys just dropped something called the Smith Blade.

[Sam Parr]

Oh, these guys are gonna kill it, dude.

[Billy]

Seven. They just did $7 million on Kickstarter in, like, a week. Thirteen. Well, it says 13 days to go. I think. I think they dropped it this time last week. That's what I want to say. $7 million.

[Sam Parr]

And it's just a box cutter.

[Billy]

It's a. No, it's a multi tool. A multi school. It's like a Swiss army knife, right? It's got, like, five different kinds of knives on it. And, like, you know, a Swiss army knife is gonna have your toothpick and your tweezers and a couple different kinds of kn. Edges and blades on it. And this one is built with the kind of intention of everything that you would like. These guys also sell lightsabers. Like, you got to check out their. Their YouTube page.

[Sam Parr]

Oh, my God. And they have 15 million subscribers.

[Billy]

Yeah, they. They sell, like, lightsabers and. And. And all kinds of, like.

[Sam Parr]

What's a lightsaber? Is that just a flashlight?

[Billy]

A lightsaber? Have you seen Star Wars?

[Sam Parr]

I know what it is, but I don't know how to make one.

[Billy]

So you haven't seen. You just know about Star Wars.

[Sam Parr]

You haven't seen Star wars, like playing sports and stuff and going out.

[Billy]

I also played sports and I know. And I know what Star wars is.

[Sam Parr]

I know what it is, but I don't know how. Is it a flame?

[Billy]

It's a little. It's a mini lightsaber, bro. Check it out. I mean, they call them sabers.

[Sam Parr]

What comes out of the metal part? A piece of plastic light. But that's just a flashlight.

[Billy]

No, these are. Yeah, they're badass flashlights. You could call it that, but they're, you know, they're $150 Canadian or they're $350 or they're $500. They're like, bad. Dude.

[Sam Parr]

I just bought a 500 laser pointer the other day because apparently if I can shine it on a piece of paper, it's going to light it on fire. So I'm not saying, like, I'm above this, yo.

[Billy]

No, no, no. No one's above this. This is cool. I'm into it. I'll tell you. No one's above it. These guys just sold $7 million in multi tools in like a week.

[Sam Parr]

So our wives are still willing to have sex with us by the end of this episode. Billy, man, you're. You're cool. I'm really thankful that you came on and hopeful. Hopefully we'll stay friends, but you're the man.

[Billy]

Yeah, man. Thanks for having me on. I love what you're doing and, you know, happy hunting.

[Sam Parr]

Thank you. That's it. That's the pod.

[Billy]

I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.

[Sam Parr]

I put my all in it like.

[Billy]

My days off on a road let's.

[Sam Parr]

Travel Never looking back my friends. If you like mfm, then you're gonna like the following podcast. It's called Billion Dollar Moves. And of course it's brought to by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the number one audio destination for business professionals. Billion Dollar Moves. It's hosted by Sarah Chen Spelling. Sarah is a venture capitalist and strategist and with Billion Dollar Moves, she wants to look at unicorn founders and funders. And she looks for what she calls the unexpected leader. Many of them were underestimated long before they became huge and successful and iconic. She does it with unfiltered conversations about success, failure, fear, courage and all that great stuff. So. So again, if you like my first million, check out Billion Dollar Moves. It's brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast network again. Billion dollar moves.