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- [00:00]
A
He's back. Part two. We called him the side hustle king last time, which, by the way, pretty sick nickname we gave you.
- [00:07]
B
Pretty good.
- [00:07]
A
You're welcome.
- [00:08]
B
I don't know anything about anything other than business ideas, so let's go. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it. Like, no days off on a road. Let's travel never.
- [00:21]
A
First episode did almost a million downloads across all the platforms. And when you get a million downloads across all the platforms, that's the best way to get back. Invited for part two. So we got to do part two. I want to cue, like, the Chicago Bulls, 96 Bulls intro music for you because you came on, you had a legendary first performance. Do you feel the pressure of following up right now?
- [00:42]
B
No pressure. You kidding me?
- [00:44]
A
And the reason people love your business ideas is because you have that girl next door energy. You have that relatable. I could do that. That seems. That seems in my wheelhouse. I could get to 15,000amonth. I get to 10,000amonth off that. That doesn't seem too hard. And I love that. Sam loves that. We all love that. So if you've been. If you're one of the listeners who is looking for that kind of relatable, achievable side hustle idea. Not that these are all easy. I don't mean easy. I just mean, like, it's not rocket science. Those are the types of ideas you got. Chris, welcome back to the pod.
- [01:23]
B
Thank you for having me, man.
- [01:25]
C
So I wasn't on that. I was off that day, and I get messages from people trying to use me as the middleman to get to you or Sean asking to do the driving range thing.
- [01:35]
A
Yeah, the golf thing. Okay. The golf thing got out of hand. We'll talk about that later.
- [01:38]
B
All right. It's a banger.
- [01:40]
A
So, Chris, let's start. You brought some ideas. We're going to bring in some. We're going to riff off these. We're going to react to these. So where do you want to start? Give me. Let's start with the banger. Give me. Give me one of the best businesses that you've seen that you think, wow, anybody could do that. Somebody else could do that.
- [01:56]
B
Yeah. You want to go porch pumpkins?
- [01:58]
A
Okay, so explain the idea, and then let's talk about it.
- [02:01]
B
All right, so I'm on Instagram. I see this woman decorating porches with pumpkins. I thought, that's genius. That's brilliant. It's just all Visual. It sells really well on short form video. So I reached out to her, we spoke, learned about her business. She's doing seven figures a year across three months. It could be seasonal. People want her to decorate her porch for Christmas, Thanksgiving flowers in the spring, but she doesn't want to. She just wants to do pumpkins. And so over the last couple years I've learned of other people doing, you know, quarterly flower delivery like front porch flower decorations, Christmas decorations, Christmas lights. This could be a year round business that starts with porch pumpkins.
- [02:40]
A
Who, who is the lady? Can you say? Let's give her a shout out.
- [02:42]
B
Heather Torres. Heather Torres.
- [02:44]
C
Sean, is this the same person that we've, we talked about?
- [02:46]
A
We did talk about this once before, but there's actually a little twist to it now. So originally and we, we can pull up if you're on YouTube, you'll see that, you see what this means. So what does porch pumpkins means? Basically during fall Halloween season, people want their house to look festive. They hire this lady and she comes over with like, you know, like throw pillow. Overload of pumpkins. And we'll just decorate the front of your house. Cool. You pay her. How much does it cost roughly for like a.
- [03:13]
B
Well, I am a package, so 500 to 1500 and she's there for like an hour.
- [03:19]
A
You hired, you did this, you Porsche pumpkin.
- [03:21]
B
My wife saw it and she's like I need that in my life.
- [03:24]
A
And. Okay, and was it her who came or was it like a minion?
- [03:28]
B
She hasn't come yet. My, our week is like two weeks from now and it won't be her. It'll be someone from her team.
- [03:33]
A
Okay, amazing. So someone for her team comes out, they put Porsche and give me, give us a sense of how well she's doing. What do you know about the business? This one woman in Dallas who started this.
- [03:43]
B
Yeah, she's doing between 1300 and 2000 orders per year. Average order size is $800 1200. Call it a thousand bucks.
- [03:53]
A
Okay, so that's something like a million and a half to 2 million in revenue. And what's her cost? So she's got an inventory of pumpkins?
- [04:03]
B
Yeah, it, it's about a. 20% COGS.
- [04:06]
A
20% COGS, that's the labor and the like. And the pumpkins which she reuses, I'm sure she takes, she takes it away after what, how long does it last?
- [04:14]
B
Well, she charges extra to take them away so people don't know what to do with them. So that's an upsell.
- [04:20]
A
Okay. So, okay, so you can pay to have them removed. It's basically the Christmas lights business. But she's just done it. Not on Christmas lights. It's actually much easier. You don't have to like scale the roof and. And, you know, do all this dangerous stuff. Okay, amazing. And so, you know, this woman might be clearing a million dollars a year doing this. Do you know the origin story of this? Like, how did she start doing this? Did she stumble into it? Was she like a stay at home mom? What's her story?
- [04:44]
B
Yeah, she's just a mom. She did it for herself. She posted it on Instagram and her friends freaked out. She wasn't trying to start a business, so she started doing it as a favor and then she monetized it.
- [04:54]
A
Okay, amazing. And so you. Well, one thing that wasn't there last time we talked about this. Now, Sam, if you scroll down to the middle of the page, it's one on one business coaching for your pumpkin business. And she's got.
- [05:06]
C
No way.
- [05:07]
A
She's got the boss lady pose. She owns a 45 degree angle with her arms crossed, which I think is also the pose I had for this podcast cover art. They put her in the boss lady pose and she's selling one on one coaching now. So you get two sessions an hour each for $5,000. So YouTube can become a pumpkinpreneur.
- [05:27]
B
There you go. And she owns the trademark, so people can't start businesses with porches or pumpkins in the name without talking to her first.
- [05:35]
A
Interesting.
- [05:35]
C
No way. What? Say. Say her. I. I'm looking at your Instagram. What's her Instagram again?
- [05:41]
B
Yeah, it's. It's just porch pumpkins. One word.
- [05:43]
C
Oh my God.
- [05:45]
A
43, 000 followers now.
- [05:47]
C
Is this now more successful look? So on her, like linked, like her link off thing, she's linking to your video that you did with her.
- [05:54]
B
Oh, I didn't even know that. That's funny.
- [05:56]
C
Yeah. Do you have any association with her other than you just she's cool.
- [05:59]
B
Nothing. No, she's just awesome.
- [06:01]
C
And so is this coaching thing doing better than her actual main thing?
- [06:05]
B
I don't know. I haven't talked to her about it. But she also started a fajita business during the same season as porch pumpkins. She's got like two retail locations where she cooks fajitas. To go only. And she's crushing it at that.
- [06:18]
A
To go fajitas.
- [06:20]
B
Fajitas. Yeah. All right.
- [06:22]
A
Questionable decision on that one. Okay, so. So what would you do? Let's say you're you live in Sam. What's like some middle of nowhere place like me? Wherever.
- [06:31]
C
You're from Kansas City, Missouri.
- [06:32]
A
All right, you're from Kansas. You're in Kansas City, Missouri, and you're a stay at home mom. You're entrepreneurial. You got that itch. What are you doing? How are you getting this business off the ground, Chris?
- [06:43]
B
I'm gonna go buy pumpkins for retail at the grocery store. I'm gonna like, basically, sorry, Heather, but I'm going to copy Heather's design based on what I see on Instagram. The same colors in the same places, the same sizes. I'm going to film a time lapse just using my iPhone and I'm going to post it to all the local mom groups, buy, sell groups, Facebook, Instagram, everywhere, and then just watch the comments come in and start doing it for people in the comments.
- [07:06]
A
By the way, not to be dismissive, so really just me showing my own lack of skill. But you say design, Doug. It's a pile of pumpkins, dude. Is this a design?
- [07:16]
B
Apparently there's something to it.
- [07:17]
A
I hear there's something flower arrangement.
- [07:20]
B
Like, where does the hay bale go? Where does the hay bell go?
- [07:24]
C
If you gave Sean a pumpkin patch in an empty porch, it would look nothing.
- [07:29]
A
Dude, I will do this as a challenge. Okay? Blind torch pumpkin, my own porch. And I'm gonna post it just to see how I do with my own.
- [07:39]
C
There's some.
- [07:40]
A
It's a pile of pumpkins.
- [07:41]
C
No, there's. There's a little, like, you're drinking her Kool Aid.
- [07:45]
A
She's got you all under her spell. All right, so, Crystal, you're gonna go buy a retail. You're not worried about your margins, you know, on that front, you're gonna make an Instagram account. You're gonna name it something. Not porch pumpkins, because she's got the trademark for that. So what do you. Patio pumpkins. What are we talking?
- [07:59]
B
Sure. Patio gourds.
- [08:03]
A
Okay, and now how do you go. How do you go get customers? Cause that's the hard part of any business.
- [08:08]
B
Yeah. I mean, you post five to 10 organic videos, you see which one pops off the most, then you push paid ad spend behind it to people in your zip code.
- [08:18]
A
Okay, so you're going to post organic content just as testing you're creative, and then you're going to run paid on this.
- [08:23]
B
Yep.
- [08:24]
A
Yeah, because you're. You're basically selling a $501,000 ticket item.
- [08:28]
B
Yep.
- [08:29]
A
So you have, you, you have a lot. You have a lot of Room to work with, to even acquire customers for, you know. Yeah, 50. 50 bucks. 100 bucks.
- [08:36]
B
Yeah. And then you can worry about wholesale pricing and going to a farm or whatever like this. Just unnecessary friction if you do that up front.
- [08:43]
A
Okay.
- [08:45]
C
You said that she was going to do something that prevents this from being just a October thing. Is that the course?
- [08:50]
B
No, she could. Other people are. She doesn't want to. She's got kids. She's like, this is her busy season, and she doesn't want to work in on this business during the other seasons.
- [08:59]
A
She got kids, she got fajitas. Dude, she's got her hand.
- [09:02]
C
And how. What do you think her take home is? What's your guess?
- [09:05]
B
I would guess 40 to 50 net. That's a guess.
- [09:08]
C
Do you think she's. She's working her ass off for two months out of the year, and then she's like. She's like in deployment mode. Like, she's like, I'm getting up at 5:00am, getting home at 11:00pm and just grinding her ass off for two months and make $600,000.
- [09:22]
B
Yeah.
- [09:22]
A
Yeah, dude. So we have a. A lady that, you know, like, if you took my family's, like, you know, life expenses, it'd be like, oh, whatever. Rent, utilities, you know, insurance. And then not that far down the list, you'd be like, who is the balloon queen? And that would be this lady that my wife needs to hire for every kid's birthday, for every, you know, special occasion that we were throwing.
- [09:50]
C
You're like her patron, you know, you're like the. You're like the king of Italy. And this is like, you know, Michelangelo. And you're keeping her afloat because the world needs more balloon art.
- [09:59]
A
She shows up and I'm just like, oh, 1200 doll.
- [10:03]
C
Just you.
- [10:03]
A
You knocked on my door and $1200 just left my bank account. Because this woman is going to make a beautiful balloon arch and a backdrop that we need, I guess, for every part. We need. We need for every party. Okay. And so I got three kids. We're spending like seven grand a year, ten grand a year on balloon arches. She. She's the. She's the porch pumpkins of my neighborhood, basically. And one thing I've noticed with this is that you can kind of set a norm in any area. So, like, Christmas lights is one of these things where like, there's almost like a visible peer pressure and visible, invisible peer pressure, right? Like, the more houses on our block that do something, we feel like we gotta do something.
- [10:45]
C
I think I read about this in like a Peter Thiel tweet. It's called Mimetic desire. Yeah. To have balloon decorations.
- [10:52]
B
Keeping up with the Joneses.
- [10:53]
A
It's so memetic, bro. Is so memetic right now. And my life is so memetic. And so you've got kids, birthdays, you got graduations, all this stuff where people are doing stuff on their front lawn to kind of like if it's your special day, you wake up and you go outside and it's like, oh, you guys did the thing for me. And so I think there's almost like a porch, pumpkins, like birthday skew and a graduation skew that she could create, which is basically just like, yo, we dress up your lawn so that you know, you have this moment, your family did something for you, and everybody knows it's your special day today. And so I think you're right, Chris, that this is not that. That the sort of fall Halloween season is really like not where this thing is limited to. It might still be, you know, 40% of revenue, but it's not. Doesn't need to be 100% of revenue.
- [11:38]
C
But how cool is it that. So my, my mother in law is like this. She has a pillow company and she's killing it. She pays herself a lot of money. And I'm like, smithy, you know, how much, how much are you, how much are you spending on ads? And she's like, well, I spend like $100 a month. And I'm like, what's that turn into? And she tells me, you know, a thousand or something. And I'm like, okay, so why aren't you spending more? And she's like, well, because I work three days a week and I'm happy. And I'm like, but, but, but. And that's kind of what this lady is. She's the same thing where you kind of have your lane and you're happy. So it sounds like she's winning.
- [12:09]
A
Yeah.
- [12:10]
C
For the rest of us, about the.
- [12:12]
A
The banker and the fisherman.
- [12:13]
C
Yeah.
- [12:14]
A
And I was like, yo, this banker's onto something. That was my takeaway from that story. Hey, real quick, if you like this episode of Chris and you want more, he's actually agreed to give away his entire database of 200 business ideas, just like the ones he's talking about on this podcast. And he's giving it away for free. So if you just go to the QR code that's on the screen or the link in the description below, you can get his database of ideas. And these are like his blueprints for companies that he thinks can work. And this guy's done it before. He's built a bunch of businesses that are successful. So go ahead, take advantage of this resource. And now back to this episode. All right, Chris, give us another one. What's another idea you think? Cool, small, niche, cash flow type business.
- [12:55]
B
Yeah. So I'm going to take what you just said about like, mimetic desire, keeping up with the Joneses, and it goes perfectly into this next one. So we, we just got a sport court, and I think sport courts are the next pools.
- [13:07]
A
Okay, explain what a sport court is.
- [13:09]
B
Sport court is a multi purpose slab of concrete that you can put tiles down on or you can paint lines on it and do pickle ball, volleyball, soccer, basketball. You can do multiple sports on the same thing, right?
- [13:21]
A
It's a thing you put like in your backyard concrete. And then they have this like, almost like, what do you call that? Like kind of the, the mesh looking rubber thing on top.
- [13:29]
B
They're just like tiles. Sport court tiles.
- [13:31]
A
Yeah. Like, so then you could play like any kind of sport, you know, on. On top of that. So you turn your backyard into some fun. Okay, go on.
- [13:37]
B
Yeah, yeah. So like three, five years ago, during COVID everyone was getting pools out here. They're all getting pools. And pools were like 75 grand there. Now they're 150. But now it's all about sport courts if you want to keep up with the Joneses. And I'm. I'm trying to keep up with the Joneses too. So we just got a sport court this year. And I got a bunch of quotes and half of the companies wouldn't even call me back. The ones that did, they were just dudes like me. They look like me. Rap truck. And I was like, I know you're not going to be putting this sport court in. You're just subbing it all out. You're just a dirty marketer like I am. And so they would call me.
- [14:12]
C
Like, how did they respond to that?
- [14:14]
B
I wouldn't tell that them to their faces. I just, I only go on podcasts and say that about them. So they would quote me. Now we're talking a 30 by 70 foot sport court, which is good enough for half court basketball and pickleball. Okay. That's what I got. It's what I wanted. Were charging me 50 to 60 grand. Okay, I can't do that. I can't do that. So I start getting quotes from subcontractors going on Facebook, marketplace, looking for a concrete guy. A painter, fencing guy. Because you want to fence it in so the ball doesn't fly everywhere. And long story short, I got quotes to do all of it. It's in my backyard right now for about 30 grand.
- [14:52]
A
Half.
- [14:53]
B
Right. So then I started thinking, huh? Okay, there's a business here. I already have the subs. They're all affordable. So what I'm, I'm doing is took my tree trimming company and my operating partner and we're pivoting. We're going away from trees with a $1,000 average order value and we're going full time sport court.
- [15:11]
C
Oh my gosh. What's it called?
- [15:13]
B
Well, there's no website for it. It's not like you need a name. Though I do have a cute name. I got the domain name. There's just nothing on it. It's called Backyard Funhouse because we're selling the dream. We're not selling sport courts. We're selling, you want the backyard that all your kids, friends want to come to. We're selling the dream. So you start with the sport court, get your foot in the door, then you go putting green, then you go pool, then you go fire pit, outdoor kitchen, and pretty soon they spend 200 grand.
- [15:38]
A
What you're doing is you're taking the business model of pool installation, which is a popular business model, and you're basically saying, look, that's a pretty saturated market probably now. Any place that's kind of pool weather friendly, they're going to be multiple pool installers and, and, and, and builders in that area. But you're noticing this trend where some people are like, hey, instead of the pool or in addition to the pool, we want our backyard to be fun in a different way. Maybe, maybe for us, the right market, the right thing is pickleball or basketball or, or whatever, soccer. And you're like, okay, whatever that pool market is, there's going to be this new market where there's not established players. And I can come in and basically do that in my town. And then, you know, anybody can do that really in their town. That the right way to summarize this idea.
- [16:25]
B
If you look at Google Trends, if you look at the keyword tool, the search searches are exploding for this and the supply is not keeping up with demand.
- [16:32]
A
Yeah, I've, I've seen this a bunch because I was house hunting and saw a bunch of these and I had the same. It's funny, you were like, you're selling the dream. Because I saw it, I was like, oh. So me and my wife are going to. We're just going to play pickleball. Have we ever played pickleball together? No, but obviously we'll start. Obviously that'll be the new us. And then my kids and their, their friends will come over and it'll be so cool. And it's like this, like, almost like this. It became a wow factor for certain houses that we were looking at. They were trying to sell that as, as a bit of the, the, the, the X factor for that home. So I kind of believe this. We also, Sam, we have some friends, Sieva and Xavier, who have a, a business called Enduring Ventures, where they buy businesses. And one of the businesses they bought is a pool construction business. Sam, have you, have you looked into ever. You've heard them talk about how great of a business this was for them?
- [17:21]
C
Yeah, I mean, the one in Arizona.
- [17:22]
A
Yeah, they have a business in Arizona. I think it's called Dolphin pool. So if you're in Arizona, go get a dolphin pool. And it's just been this steady compound. I think it's like a 20, $30 million a year pool business that just serves that one geography. And it's a very, you know, it's a profitable business. I think it's cash flowing. Let's call. I mean, I don't know the specifics, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was 4 to 5 million dollars a year of free cash flow generated from, from this pool business. And then obviously, you know, and, and they're able to just serve. And that's just one market. Right? So like, I think the sport court alternative to pools, it's got. Got some legs, dude.
- [18:01]
B
I mean, I'm already generating leads for it. Like, this isn't just hypothetical.
- [18:05]
C
Okay, where, where are the leads coming from? Facebook.
- [18:08]
B
I mean, where do all leads come from? Sam? It's all meta. It's all meta, right? That's where we all get our leads from.
- [18:14]
A
I don't know, but where do leads come from? Facebook.
- [18:17]
B
There's only one place. Short form video. 15 seconds. Selling the dream.
- [18:21]
C
You're a sassy little.
- [18:26]
B
You're making me blush. You're making me blush.
- [18:30]
C
All right, what's another one?
- [18:31]
A
Well, wait, Sam, I want your grades for these first two.
- [18:35]
C
I love the pumpkin.
- [18:36]
A
Lady horse. Pumpkins on the Sam scale. What is it?
- [18:39]
C
Yeah. So for a very particular type of demographic, who wants that lifestyle? I honestly think that's a 9 out of 10.
- [18:45]
A
Okay.
- [18:45]
C
For sports court, I think that's a 3 out of 10. I don't want to work with subcontractors. Like I don't want to deal with people who are hungover. Well, how's that been? Where? How's that been? Like working with slander?
- [18:55]
B
I'll tell you, working, I use.
- [18:57]
C
I do landscaping. I can tell you. I could. I know what they're like, you know what I'm saying? Like there's going to be pill bottles all over the place.
- [19:05]
B
You just got to work through some bad ones to find some good ones. Just like employees. Right?
- [19:10]
C
Well, there's like different ratios of like how many got to work through. Yeah, it's like, are we talking about.
- [19:14]
A
Company is a bougie ass company called Hampton. Ok? He doesn't know the first thing about this. He's got a different, different brand of pill bottle for them.
- [19:23]
B
To quote Harrison Ford, Sam, that's what the money's for. Okay? That's, that's what $30,000 net profit per job is for. Is for dealing with annoying subcontracts that show up with meth in their system.
- [19:35]
A
So you got a nine, you got a three. Hit us with your next one, Chris.
- [19:38]
B
All right, so right next to my sport court, we put an in ground trampoline. Okay, why in grand trampoline? Because our trampoline blows over into the neighbor's yard every two years like clockwork. And I've.
- [19:49]
C
Dude, you're a great dad. You got everything.
- [19:52]
B
We're working on it. We want to be the backyard funhouse. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So we put in this in ground trampoline. Sam, I want you to guess what it costs to put this thing in.
- [20:01]
C
3 grand.
- [20:02]
B
10 grand.
- [20:04]
C
Yikes.
- [20:04]
A
Okay.
- [20:04]
B
10 grand.
- [20:05]
C
Really?
- [20:06]
B
Yeah. 44,500 for the trampoline itself from a Shopify store that I found from Facebook ads. Right. Of course. And then five grand for the digging. For digging it out. And so this dude with an excavator that he didn't even own, he just rented it, shows up with another dude, they spend four hours digging it out, putting down some weed barrier, and they walk out of there with five grand. So I reach out.
- [20:29]
C
His dads are keeping the economy afloat.
- [20:31]
B
Telling you, telling you. So I start talking to him on the job site and I'm like, where are you getting all your jobs? And he's like, from this E Commerce brand. They like, they, they can't sell trampolines unless they have someone to dig them out for them. And he does. Which the e Commerce. It's trampolines.com, believe it or not. So no, I believe it. But they can only sell trampolines that are in ground if they have someone to dig them out. And there's not like the guys that own excavators are too busy digging pools. They have no interest in trampolines. So you don't need to go buy $100,000 backhoe. You rent one. When you get a job, you dig the sucker out and you get paid five grand.
- [21:07]
A
Sorry, I kind of zoned out. Cause I thought this might be the same idea as Sport Court, but actually sounds like this is what you're saying, that trampolines.com gets demand and they sell the trampoline, but they don't want to go do the backyard dig and you can get the leads from them. Is that the way you were saying this?
- [21:24]
B
Yeah.
- [21:25]
A
And how does the get the leads from. Is it like you're saying like you got to know a guy who knows a guy and go get do some biz dev with them or there's like a portal you sign up for, you say yeah.
- [21:35]
B
And I reached out and they're like, yeah, we don't even have our paid ads turned on right now because we can't sell. Like we don't have enough people digging these things out for us, dude.
- [21:43]
C
Trampolines.com by the way, is owned by someone who's part of the tribe. A Mormon or he went to byu. You guys do all the, all the best stuff.
- [21:51]
B
What can I say?
- [21:52]
C
Brad Mills owns trampolines.com. that's a, that sounds like a pretty fun job.
- [21:57]
B
I mean, you can't drink, you can't smoke, you install trampolines.
- [22:00]
A
Yeah, so they have this map on the thing where they got certified installers and premier installers and all these different areas. And then you basically, if you're on trampolines.com, you get a quote from the installer and then they do all the work.
- [22:12]
B
Yeah, something like that. Yeah.
- [22:14]
A
So you're saying become an installer.
- [22:16]
B
Yeah. Or just like, like we have an excavator guy for our tree trimming business and we talked to him about other jobs that he does and he gets paid five grand to dig out pools and it takes him a day, just him, you know, playing with controls.
- [22:31]
C
This guy's listening and he's like, he's so what the hell, Chris?
- [22:35]
A
My four year old son's dream job. I can't let him hear this podcast.
- [22:38]
B
My, my overall point is like high ticket home service in general, in a strong economy, there is way more demand than supply in any of these little backyard. Businesses.
- [22:48]
A
Okay. I like this backyard business theme. You've given us a bunch of those. Let's do a non backyard business. So you wrote something in our notes document.
- [22:56]
C
I'm going to give it a four. That one's a four, man. I don't want to dig holes. I don't want to dig holes.
- [23:02]
A
I think you do want to dig holes. A hobby you would actually have.
- [23:06]
C
Yeah. On my time.
- [23:08]
A
I don't want to get paid to do it. That ruins the fun. Sacred art.
- [23:11]
C
Yeah. Don't meet your heroes.
- [23:13]
A
All right, so you have this sentence on here that I don't understand, but it's provocative. It says, what starts in Dubai will make its way to America. What does that mean?
- [23:24]
B
So I've been there twice and they just live 10 years in the future. They experiment with all this stuff. They're very entrepreneurial. And a lot of the stuff they experiment with never takes off. But if you see it in Dubai for like one to three years, it's probably coming out west and we can get ahead of the trend.
- [23:39]
A
What were examples of other things that like kind of Dubai was early into that, then propagated. Do you know of any others?
- [23:46]
B
Dubai chocolate, for one. You familiar with that?
- [23:49]
A
No. What is Dubai?
- [23:50]
C
Dude, it's all the rage right now. And I've been getting it. I. I've, I've fallen victim. I've eaten so much like chocolate pistachio right now.
- [23:56]
A
Thing I don't know about. What is this? What's different about Dubai?
- [23:58]
C
Oh, my gosh, I have no idea.
- [23:59]
B
But it's just like a chocolate bar stuffed with like pistachios that looks cool on Instagram.
- [24:05]
C
You know how like three years ago the theme was pineapple. And like last year it was like, I think it was like pear. Like there's always like a theme in food and in like wrapping paper and like the two big categories, the America's two largest exports. And right now, for some reason, it's pistachio flavored chocolate. And if you go to like a bougie yogurt or ice cream place, you get yogurt or ice cream with pistachios like crushed up and chocolate on it. And honestly, it's amazing. It's great. So I'm all, I'm on board the hype train.
- [24:43]
B
Well, they got whole mall kiosks selling just Dubai chocolate now. Like, it's a whole industry. Will it be around in two years? I don't know. I don't care. Right, right. But another thing, perfume vending machines started in Dubai now they're everywhere.
- [24:57]
C
Okay, and what's this one that you're referring to? This manicure thing?
- [25:01]
B
Yeah, I mean they're in airports, in Dubai and like outside of nightclubs, and you just stick your hand in there and it gives you a manicure.
- [25:08]
A
So it's a little, it looks like a printer almost. So it's like you basically put your hand in the robot printer and you get a manicure. Is it cheaper? Is it faster? What's the like kind of core edge that this has over, you know, going to like a nails traditional nail salon?
- [25:26]
B
Yeah, it's like a one third the price and a lot faster.
- [25:31]
C
All right, that's interesting.
- [25:33]
A
By the way, speaking of, have you guys seen Risbot?
- [25:36]
C
What's that? Does it chat you up? What's a Rizbot?
- [25:40]
A
All right, so you've seen like Tesla's like humanoid robot. Sam, I think you invested in figure. You know, people like the next big thing is basically these artificial intelligence super cutting edge robots. Well, somebody made Risbot and it's going super viral on TikTok right now. So what does robot does? Basically like runs up to a human and the run is hilarious that the robot does. And then it'll like stop in front of a girl and then it'll put out its hand to like kiss their hand. And then it'll like from its audio, from its speakers, it'll start playing romantic music. And this person in public, this woman is just like, what's happening right now?
- [26:21]
C
What's the outcome of this? The owner is like sick.
- [26:24]
A
I have no idea.
- [26:25]
C
My robot just.
- [26:26]
A
I was gonna read you the views on their last 10 videos. 37 million, 15 million. 8 million. 19 million. 18 million.
- [26:32]
C
My robot just seduced a lady.
- [26:36]
A
It's just this funny, lovable robot that wears a little like cowboy hat and he runs around like trying to like spit game at people. It's, it's amazing. It's just this amazing viral thing that's happening. Like I think that what's going to happen here is that you're going to have like before you have the humanoid robots that can like do warehouse work and like assemble cars on the assembly line, you're gonna have basically like pet robot. You're gonna have just like a goofy robot that's kind of fun and like a little party trick that you can make like, that doesn't have. It has like you know, 1/100th of the functionality, but can make, you know, $100 million, you know, off of an idea like that.
- [27:12]
C
Dude, do you Guys want to see a sick robot? I have nothing to do with this company. I just think it's cool. Go to maticrobots.com so is that the new Roomba thing I see? Okay, yeah. Let me tell you the story. I met this guy and I just thought his robot looked awesome. So I started DMing him and I got one. And it's basically like a twelve or eleven hundred dollar Roomba, but it vacuums and it mops your house. But there's a bunch of like really like nifty features on there. And this is only like cool if you're into gadgets. But it looks, you know how Roomba like, you'll hear it like bumping into shit because that's how it like tells. If it's like. It like uses cameras and it maps out your house, but it has all these tiny features. Like when I got it and I turned it on, the battery was fully charged and it said, hello, Par family. I'm here to clean for you. Like it like, it like was like, yeah, like these little tiny features. But the guy who started this company, he's been working on this for eight years and he raised a bunch of money and he's just like been in the lab now for eight or nine years. And after eight or nine years of tinkering, his goal was to build the perfect Roomba. And he has it. I think after like nine years of working on this and it's finally for sale. And I thought it was really cool.
- [28:23]
A
Chris, what do you think?
- [28:25]
B
I'm thinking of how I could monetize it.
- [28:27]
C
Well, by selling a $1,200 vacuum.
- [28:29]
A
I think that's how I can.
- [28:32]
B
Yeah, I would go to cleaning businesses and rent it out to them for a hundred bucks a month. And they show up to a house to clean it and they could just hit play. Then they could do everything else. Save an hour on every clean.
- [28:42]
A
Could imagine if you hired a cleaner and they showed up and then they just put their Roomba down, push play, and walk away. Or they just sit on their phone for like two hours, be amazing.
- [28:52]
B
Listen up.
- [28:52]
A
The old playbook is slowing you down. I broke the funnel. Loop marketing fixes it. It's a new era for marketers. AI is capturing search traffic. Channels are fragmented and generating leads feels less predictable than ever before. HubSpot's loop marketing playbook will guide you through this unprecedented disruption. It's the system your marketing teams should use to move faster, connect deeper, and grow smarter. The modern growth playbook for the AI era built By HubSpot, designed for today's marketer. Get the Loop marketing playbook@HubSpot.com loop marketing to find out more and leave your competition behind. All right, back to the pod. What other ideas you got?
- [29:32]
B
This is a Sam idea.
- [29:34]
A
Is this the one that says dollhouses for men, parentheses Sam will love it.
- [29:37]
B
Yeah, that's the one. Yeah.
- [29:39]
A
What's this idea?
- [29:40]
B
Should we watch it?
- [29:41]
A
Yeah, let's watch. Let's watch the video.
- [29:43]
B
Freaking guy right here. He's tapping into a billion dollar market that nobody is serving right now. Ask yourself real quick, what's the male version of dollhouses? Day three of genius business ideas. Follow for more. There isn't one. And that's the opportunity. Men are builders. We want to create with our hands, but nobody's selling us the materials to build miniature homes and structures like this. Look how many views this thing has. There's your demand. Grown men would pay serious money for high quality miniature building kits, myself included. I'm calling this the guy Dollhouse market. Full business plan here.
- [30:12]
C
Yeah, I'm sold. So it's basically. All right. So we're watching this video. It's bas. It's exactly how it sounds. You are literally building a home, like, framing it with, like, the drywall and everything else. And this guy is crazy. He's using a proper nail gun. And you're building a very real life replica of a house I'm in. This sounds awesome. I spend my time doing this with engines. Like, when. When my wife's pregnant. We, like, you know, you can't, like, do too much. You got to, like, kind of sit around a lot. We got into Legos, and now we like to build, like, replica V8 engines. It's very nerdy thing, but it's kind of like what we like to do instead of watching tv. This seems so much better. I would love to build a house. Is this a company that's making this, or is this.
- [30:51]
B
I don't think so. I think this guy just did it.
- [30:53]
A
Wow. Yeah, you're right, because this is basically like, you know, people who love to play, you know, flight simulator, and it's like, oh, you're playing a video game. They're like, this is not a video game. Like, I'm flying this plane right now for real. It's like, it is so realistic that it, like, moves into another category. And it seems like that's what this is. Right? So, like, instead of, like, Lego or, like, oversimplification, this is almost like just miniature complexity. So it's like no, this is like as real as the real deal, but just on a small scale. We don't have to actually do all the like the true work. And so it's like this, like escape. It's. This is this whole new category basically. Does this video have a lot of. When this guy posted this does have a lot of like organic traction. Like people like, I want this.
- [31:38]
B
Oh yeah. And that video that you just watched of mine got like 20 million views. Like there's demand for this.
- [31:44]
A
Yeah, that's cool. So you would basically just create these as kits and then the sales process is just to do this over and over again. Like you just make content of you building more and more elaborate, you know, elaborate or funny or like, hey, I'm gonna like make the house from Full House. So it's like, yeah, that's the TikTok content.
- [32:03]
B
It could be a subscription too.
- [32:05]
A
Yeah, just buy the kit and. And make the thing like be it. Yeah, be a man, but kind of not for real.
- [32:10]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [32:13]
A
It'S called be a man. Kinda.
- [32:17]
C
Yeah. This is pretty cool. There's a store near my house, it's called tiny dollhouse.com and you walk in and it is tiny dollhouses, but it is the most meticulously made dolls and dollhouses that I have ever seen. So for example, instead of a dollhouse, they'll have like a, a store, a replica store. And like the little bags of LA potato chips are like hand painted or like, you know, like the Reese's peanut butter cups that you can buy at the counter. And like each human being or doll is like a perfect like reenactment of like whatever period it's supposed to be a replica of. And as everyone listening, it's one of the things where you like like, oh, it's so weird. You're into that. Whatever. Everyone who sees this is like, this is amazing. This is so cool. I get it now. I'm not going to buy my daughter a $3,000 dollhouse.
- [33:06]
B
But you'd buy one for yourself.
- [33:07]
C
But I'd buy one for myself.
- [33:12]
A
I earned the money. This is crazy. I mean, do the police just like, oh, there's a murder. Oh, let's just stop by the tiny dollhouse. Because those are the creeps who are definitely behind all these murders.
- [33:25]
C
Yeah, like if you walk in, you automatically join a watch list.
- [33:29]
A
Yeah, you should. We're not saying you did it, but.
- [33:33]
C
We'Re saying there's a problem about. Yeah, that's the point of a watch list. Which is you haven't yet. But maybe you will. And you definitely sign one of those when you walk in.
- [33:47]
A
Okay. I like this business. This one sam, you got to give it a strong score on the SAM scale.
- [33:52]
C
So I think I would give it an 7 or 8. It's these. This is hard. Have you guys ever put together a complicated Lego set? It's amazing how they think of all this stuff. Doing the directions for something like this is so freaking hard. But I do think you could spend. You could charge a thousand dollars plus for it. So, yeah, it's pretty cool.
- [34:10]
A
Yeah, I like. Because, you know, the hardest part of any business is how are you going to get customers? I think that's unless you're doing a hard tech startup where it's like, we're going to try to create a robot or a machine that does something that no machine has ever done before. Like, that's one class of business where the hard part is, can you make science fiction a reality? For most businesses, the hard part is great. How am I going to get customers? And I think the sort of amateur approach is always like, ooh, this product is cool. I think I would like to make and sell that product. And it's like, cool, you know, that most of your life, 90% of your life, is gonna be spent just doing the marketing to try to get customers for the thing. And what I like about this is that you can work backwards from the content that would go viral. Like, this is content that would go viral repeatedly. And that will be your sales engine to sell your kits. Is this a huge business? No. But could you basically have, you know, three SKUs and charge, you know, $1,000 per each one of these kits and just get this, like, hobbyist market that people. Other people have, you know, sort of ignored or overlooked? Yeah, I definitely think you could do that. I think. And you could do it with just viral content.
- [35:18]
B
I mean, really, any of these ideas you could film yourself doing and sell. Right. Digging out in ground pools, porch pumpkins.
- [35:24]
C
What would you do for this? Gubdeals.com.
- [35:28]
B
So there are these liquidation marketplaces where you can buy Costco returns and everything that the TSA confiscates, you can buy for, like, pennies on the dollar.
- [35:36]
A
Well, Chris, you wrote good headlines. You should start with the headline. So the headline here you wrote was, how to make $1,000 a day selling TSA liquidation items.
- [35:45]
B
Yeah.
- [35:45]
A
Okay, you have my attention. So tell me more.
- [35:48]
B
Yeah, so, I mean, you go through the TSA and they take your pocket knife and then they give it to this website. It Sounds like a nonprofit. It's not a nonprofit. It just has the word govern it. It's very much a dot com. And they sell this crap, and then you're in the liquidation game. You buy pallets worth of crap, and then you split it up and sell it on Facebook.
- [36:06]
A
So if I go to govdeals.com, this is where you go buy the stuff, Right? So what should I click? You go by category here, or I'll.
- [36:14]
B
Tell you what to do. Yeah, so the other website that does this is bstock, bstock.com. they have, like, a contract with Costco to sell their return to the government.
- [36:23]
A
By the way, who is, like, gov deals? Who the heck's making this? And how do they get the inventory?
- [36:27]
B
Some freaking dude that has a friend at the government. I have no idea. Bucket. The. The. The alpha here is setting filters for your local area and finding things that are too big, too expensive to ship, right? Like old police cars or something.
- [36:44]
C
And I've been on this website, by the way, to try and buy a school bus, a Humvee. I wanted to buy. Like, you could buy, like, military equipment. Yeah, I've definitely been on this site.
- [36:56]
A
Okay, so I'm looking near me, and let's see, I got a. I got a refrigerator, a vaccine refrigerator, an electric scooter. What am I looking for? What's the. What are the needles in the haystack that I really want here, Chris?
- [37:11]
B
Well, what you should do and can do is build an agent, right? Like just vibe code. An agent that finds items for sale according to your filters, right? Like, let's say under $3,000 within 100 miles of your zip code. And then it just posts them all for sale on Facebook Marketplace at a set markup. Call it like, 80%. And so you just list all these things on Facebook Marketplace and whatever. Just starts taking off, getting a ton of hits and inquiries. Then you actually go spend the money to buy the thing.
- [37:40]
A
Gotcha. Okay. Okay. So you're just gonna relist all of these things and then. Yeah, and then basically ship on demand. Buy on. You know, you sort of drop ship the government confiscated items.
- [37:51]
B
Yep.
- [37:52]
C
Dude, this is fantastic. I'm looking at B Stock. B Stock.com has raised $80 million from a PE firm, and they do something like $200 million a year in sales. I want to, like. I'm going to shop on this. I love. I love, like, going on ebay and looking for stuff. This is really cool.
- [38:06]
A
There's a 2020 McLaren for $150,000.
- [38:09]
C
Sam right now on B stock or on gov deals.
- [38:12]
A
On gov deals?
- [38:13]
C
Dude. If it's on gov deals that means it was like repossessed or like you crime. Yeah, it's got a good story to it.
- [38:19]
A
Yeah look GTA 6 is not out yet. This is the closest thing you can get to it.
- [38:23]
C
Have you guys heard of 260samples.com no.
- [38:28]
A
What is that?
- [38:29]
C
So 260samplesale.com so basically do you guys know how like TJ Maxx the like.
- [38:34]
A
Tagline says iyky if you know, you know. I don't know. In fact I don't know. Should I just leave the site?
- [38:42]
C
Is that the headline? That's obnoxious. So, so 260 sample sales. So in I think it's in Miami, New York and LA. And so you know how TJ Maxx what they do is they convince like Nike or whatever to give them last year's stuff, the stuff that didn't, didn't, didn't sell and they don't want to put in their store because they don't want to like look bad. Whatever. These guys do this but with typically nicer brands, not like significantly nicer but nicer stuff. So like Todd Snyder, I've seen them do it with Buck Mason. I think you know brands where like something might cost two to three hundred dollars for a sweater. These guys do it all over New York City and what they do is they rent out a vacant space and it's very bare bones. It's just racks of clothes, like portable racks of clothes and you walk in and things are dirt cheap and it's amazing. And every time I see a 260 sale they have these pop ups. You sign up to get alerted and then they do a pop up for a week at a time. The there's, the line is out the door. It's crazy. They are getting, they are doing so much volume. The demand is huge. I thought Sean, you actually told me about 260 sale.
- [39:51]
A
So is it like significantly cheaper?
- [39:52]
C
Basically significantly cheaper, yeah. Like, like 10% of the price. So a $300 item will literally be 30 bucks.
- [39:59]
A
And it looks like they're kind of doing a membership model right? So like you pay is it, you pay to be a member and then because of that you're going to get to shop early.
- [40:06]
C
I think you get early shopping access. But it is really cool. I've bought so much stuff from these places and it's, it's great. It's great. It's like one of these businesses where you had No, I had no idea that this existed, but it makes sense.
- [40:19]
A
Like, where do you, what have you bought? Because every picture on this website is like a very extreme looking piece of fashion.
- [40:25]
C
Just like nothing crazy. Like, like boxers, cargo shorts from Todd Snyder. Like, like. And I. And what happened was I, I fall victim. Oh, this said it was $300, but right now it's $15. I have to get this. That's like, that's like, that's like the energy.
- [40:46]
A
I'm leaving money on the table.
- [40:48]
C
Yeah, but I love 260 sale.
- [40:52]
A
Let's do another one. What's a, what's another fun one do you have?
- [40:55]
B
How about this? Mobile fuel delivery. You see this one?
- [41:00]
A
I've never seen this. No mobile fuel delivery. What is this?
- [41:02]
B
So people are paying to not have to go to the gas station anymore. And the churn is next to zero. People get addicted to it. The guy just kind of. You have an app, you set up an appointment, he'll come top off your tank. You pay a markup on the gas and then you pay a monthly subscription fee. His, I think his lifetime value or his revenue per year per customer is $5,000 and his lifetime value is super high.
- [41:28]
C
That's insane.
- [41:29]
A
So this is a doordash for gas?
- [41:32]
B
Pretty much, yeah.
- [41:33]
C
You know how people, when they get, they get an electric car and they're like, oh, it's so great not to go to the gas station. I hate that. How often are you supposed to get like a, like a, like a Diet Pepsi to Slim Jim, do you know what I mean? Like I, I need to go to the gas station.
- [41:45]
B
Same. I, I feel guilty when I pull up to the gas station in my Tesla. Like everyone's judging me.
- [41:51]
A
But so how. By the way, one of the comments on this video is Dubai has this. Oh, so it might be another business. So what? How much more expensive is the gas? Like, so if I, let's say it's $100 normally for me to fill up my tank, what would it be with something like this?
- [42:06]
B
So he'll take the average price of all the gas stations within like a 5 mile radius of the customer's house and mark it up like 20%.
- [42:14]
A
All right, what, what about this like novelty ice cream thing? Because my kids go nuts for the ice cream truck whenever it comes around and I just can't believe he doesn't come around more often. Like it's like a once a month thing. I'm like, dog, we buy, we all buy every time you're here. Like, why are you just not here more often. Where do you go? I just come here every day. Like, at the park. Basically, as soon as the ice cream truck pulls up, every single kid goes and gets an ice cream. And the truck literally looks like it's nostalgic. Like, the idea of an ice cream truck is nostalgic, but also the truck actually looks like it's from 1988 also. And, like, the menu does too. And so I'm just looking at it, thinking, like, this is nostalgic, but actually it's just old, which is not what you want. So, Chris, what's your ice cream idea?
- [42:58]
B
So this is like a three or $400 machine, and it's basically like a frozen cylinder that you pour flavored cream over melted ice cream, and then it scrapes it off, and you put it in a little container, and it's ice cream. It's viralable. Very visual ice cream that sells itself. You can do it on a busy street corner or farmer's markets. You prove out the demand in, like, an affordable way, and then you scale from there.
- [43:21]
A
It looks like a stack of, like, hay or something.
- [43:24]
B
Yeah.
- [43:24]
C
So on your. On your Instagram, I'm. I'm just reading the TikTok. It just says that you're doing. Are you saying, like, a different idea every day? Because on here, it says you're on day 57, and apparently someone makes fun of you because the top quote was, does the ice cream taste good? I don't know, and I don't care.
- [43:44]
B
That's just a hack to get more people to follow me.
- [43:46]
C
I mean, which is what?
- [43:49]
B
Just say this is day 57. Because then they follow like, oh, I want to see day 58, but there's no date.
- [43:54]
A
Did you ask?
- [43:55]
B
That's the big secret.
- [43:55]
A
There's no day doing this for, like, two years.
- [43:57]
B
Come on.
- [44:01]
C
Wait, really? So this isn't actually day 57? You just made it up?
- [44:04]
B
Well, I mean, I post three ideas a day, and my editor will add day whatever to any of them. I don't. We. There's no rhyme or reason. It just helps. It works. Spughazi. Come on, what do you want?
- [44:17]
C
It could be day 57.
- [44:19]
A
It could be you've posted all these ideas, and, you know, you find something that somebody's doing, you're like, oh, genius, this could be a thing. Boom. Genius, this could be a thing. What's kind of like if you step back, you have a takeaway from this whole thing. Maybe the takeaway is about the types of ideas. Maybe the takeaway is what you've seen in the comments or people's reaction or maybe the takeaway is in, you know, the action. You've seen some people take off these, like, what are the actual lessons you've had now after posting? I don't know how many, you know, hundreds. Hundreds of these videos.
- [44:53]
B
People are very creative in coming up with excuses and reasons why they won't do something. Right. Very creative. If you look at my comments, some of the most commented things are, yeah, what about insurance? What about liability? You buy insurance. That's what insurance is for. Oh, this is so good. Why don't you do it? Why don't you? I have like 13 businesses. I can't. I can't do all of them. I'm sorry for giving you an idea. People. Like, we will. If we were as creative at. At actually starting and executing on things as we are, of coming up with excuses why it wouldn't work, like, we'd all be millionaires by now.
- [45:29]
A
Yeah. The comment section of Instagram and TikTok on any viral video is, like, where I would send my worst enemy if I was like, you should learn. Adopt this mindset. This will serve you well. And I would just send my enemies there and one by one, they would all become incapable people who focus on the absolute wrong things. Right? On the viral videos, not on, like, you know, niche, small community videos or things with like a strong, loyal audience or whatever I'm talking about just stuff that just pops off. Okay, it's got 10 million views. This the top. You know, it's like, oh, this person made it. And it's like, well, people who've made it are ruining America. It's like, what? Like, that's your takeaway from this, like, success story is like, success is bad or, you know, whatever. Like, just the. The amount of just like poor, poor quality thinking and attitudes in the like sections, in the comment sections is pretty, pretty wild on a big video.
- [46:25]
C
Do you. Do you guys read the comments?
- [46:28]
A
I read the comments on our YouTube videos. I don't really read them to get, like, feedback, though, if that makes sense. Like, I read them and I reply to people because I'm like, oh, it's cool that you care enough to write. So I'm going to, like, I want to talk to you. That's cool. But I don't, like, look at it and think to myself, oh, I'm going to do that because that would defeat the purpose of what I'm trying to do. You know, the Rick Rubin quote, which is the, the greatest thing the Nicest thing you could do for your audience is ignore them completely. If you're a creator, you're an artist, you're trying to make something, you should make the thing you want to make and then let the chips fall where they may. That has become, like, much more the philosophy I have. If you want feedback on a specific thing, cool. You go ask certain people that you respect for that feedback. But you don't just react to what's in the comments.
- [47:20]
C
Yeah, I agree with your philosophy.
- [47:24]
A
And also, it's hard psychologically to avoid it. You mean?
- [47:29]
C
Well, you get a huge dopamine rush. So if we do something that hits and you're like, I didn't even have fun doing that, but it hit, you still get a dopamine rush and you can record something that people love and it falls flat and you're like, that doesn't feel wonderful right now, even though it felt great when I recorded it.
- [47:47]
B
I like to say, like, you can't go viral without half of everyone thinking you're an idiot. Right? It just comes with the territory or else it wouldn't go viral.
- [47:55]
A
Doesn't that seem like a pretty, like.
- [47:57]
B
Toxic game to play if you're reading the comments?
- [47:59]
A
Yeah, but not just toxic for your mentality, but, like, almost toxic in the sense of, like, you know, like, I'm a sports fan and I used to love growing up watching SportsCenter. And SportsCenter used to be a bunch of people who love sports showing you the highlights, the coolest shit that you missed, and making some jokes along the way. And then like, if you fast forward to ESPN today, it's basically like debate shows where one guy's going to say the craziest shit ever and the other guy's going to fight him. And, you know, and they're like, cool. Do you believe any of that shit you're saying? They're like, yeah, yeah. What does that have to do with. What does that have to do with this?
- [48:36]
B
You know, the key differentiator is, do you believe it? And everything I post, like, I. That's a. That's like a checkbox in my mind before I hit publish is do I actually believe what I'm saying? Sometimes I believe something that's controversial and that people think is idiotic, and I post it and it usually does well. But I'm not in the game of publishing things that are just bombastic to get. To get views if I don't believe it.
- [49:00]
A
Hey, quick message here. Because you know that feeling when you send a wire and it actually Works no friction. Well, I've used Mercury for years now, and let me tell you, it just works. And that's why I use it for not one, not two, but eight of my companies. From credit cards to invoices, I have everything in one place. There's no janky dashboard. I'm never told, Please visit a local bank branch. None of that tomfoolery. And a few months ago, I landed a big client and the first thing I did, I sent them a clean branded invoice.
- [49:25]
B
Boom.
- [49:25]
A
Deal closed. Cash in the door. That's the kind of banking experience I want, and that's why I use Mercury. So if you're running a startup and you want banking that feels like it's built in this century, well, go to mercury.com and get started in minutes. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank bank. The services are provided through Choice Financial Group column and a and Evolve bank and trust members fdic. Chris, have you done anything else cool in your businesses since the last time we talked? So you pivoted your tree trimming business. Last time we talked on here, you were like, all right, I got like a dozen businesses that are doing in total like, you know, 2 or 3 million a year in free cash flow. Has anything cool happened in your. Your portfolio?
- [50:03]
B
I'm almost ready to open my secret pickleball club that we talked about last time.
- [50:07]
A
Okay, what's been so that's been a little while. So it seemed like you were going to like open that up quick. Have you run into like real world bumps doing that?
- [50:15]
B
Yeah, I have to expand my metal building and it's really hard finding a company that wants to do that because it's a small job. There's companies that want to build metal buildings and barndominiums from the ground up. But that was the.
- [50:27]
A
What was the idea again? Like, you had a space and you had like a shed or a big, big kind of barn in your backyard.
- [50:32]
B
Yeah.
- [50:33]
A
And you called it a secret pickleball.
- [50:36]
B
Secret pickleball. Yep.
- [50:37]
A
And you were like, I'm gonna have a hundred something member or 200 members or something like that who pay me.
- [50:42]
B
What was it, 100 bucks a month?
- [50:44]
A
Yep, 100 bucks a month. And I'm gonna base and all I got to do is like basically run this kind of like no employee backyard pickleball club for people.
- [50:54]
B
Yep. And it's almost open.
- [50:56]
A
Well, Chris, I see one thing in your little I'm on your TikTok feed right here. You have. It's like kids gym equipment and I Just bought a little bit of this for my home gym because my kids always come down and wanna be in the gym with me or kind of bug me while I'm working out. They just think it's playtime and I need a thing to occupy them. And so I've bought some of this Fisher Price looking gym equipment and there's a couple of problems with it. One is kids get bored of it fairly fast. Two, it's really ugly. So you have red, yellow, green, blue, suddenly all over your gym, which is not that color. So it kind of trashes up your gym. And actually the thing that kids like is basically obstacle courses. And so I think the kids gym equipment to make is basically like a easy to set up little obstacle course or the equivalent of a few very. It comes with like a McDonald's menu of like 12 different courses you could just set up and that would occupy my kids for 30 minutes and it'd be really fun. I mean, I do this manually every day with my kids. I basically like create obstacle courses in my house. And like. Chris, have you seen the Nugget?
- [52:06]
B
No.
- [52:07]
A
Sam, do you know about the Nugget?
- [52:09]
C
Oh yeah, I'm a nugget owner.
- [52:11]
A
So yeah.
- [52:12]
B
Oh yeah. These modular. Yeah.
- [52:15]
A
So the Nugget is this incredible business where they created kids furniture, but it's not. Doesn't look like furniture. Right. Because if you, if you thought of kids furniture from first principles, as Elon would say, then you would make this. You would make something with no hard edges, no corners that they can get cut on. It would basically look like a toy, which is what the Nugget is. It's like, you know, a couple of foam kind of base pieces and then a foam triangle, foam circle, whatever. And so you get these like shapes that you can just set up as a couch when you're not using it or when you want to just sit. Or you can fold them up and create like basically a jungle gym. And moms go nuts for this thing. I don't know if you've seen like the Nugget owners, like Facebook groups. It's like 100,000 members of moms who just like love the nugget and they want the new colors of the nugget or they want like ideas and like, oh, if you buy two nuggets, you can create this in your house. Kids love the Nugget, parents love the nugget, and it's basically this like modular piece of furniture. It's like a mix of furniture and a toy. And I think like, you know, there's, there should be more of that. This business has scaled. I think their plant is, I think they started in like North Carolina or something, but they do, you know, 50, 60, 70 million a year in revenue on, on the Nugget. It's like a real like legit business. I actually, I think that estimate might be actually, actually dramatically low. Might be. It might actually be double that by now. I looked into it for the first time like a couple of years ago and, and was thinking about potentially competing with them.
- [53:41]
C
I bought one after you told me about it. It seems, it's amazing. And what do you think the revenue is now?
- [53:47]
A
Let me see. They had posted. I remember it was like 75 million a while back, but I imagine it's over. North of 100 million now would be my guess. And profitable business that was bootstrapped. No investors as far as I could find. But there was a bunch of opportunities. One, the Nugget was quite expensive and so making a lower cost nugget was one option. Two, you could always like basically like if you could do the Nugget but get into retail because they weren't in retail. And so I remember thinking like somebody should do the Costco. Like Costco basically has like knockoff versions of everything. So if you see Peloton, you walk into Costco and there's something called like, I don't even know what it's called, you know, Echelon. Echelon. It like looks exactly the same. The name fucking rhymes. And it's like this is Peloton. Cool. Like there's Oura Ring which is like the kind of like fancy fitness tracker and they're like, boom, we have the like whatever the Zora ring is. Like they, they'll have like the Costco brand partnered version of these. They Costco doesn't make it. They just find a company who's like plays at the right price points for Costco.
- [54:55]
C
Dude, that's exactly like. That's pretty much what my company also did with the scam. We just aren't going to raise any VC and I could sell for less and make more money. I mean it's the same thing. That's what Echelon did. I mean that's the difference. What's the difference? How are you guys different? Well, we didn't raise vc, therefore we can make less profit.
- [55:10]
A
Are you different spelling.
- [55:14]
C
I can't you read?
- [55:15]
B
I bet I can tell you where the Nugget found all their customers from Facebook ads. Yeah, yeah, it's all Facebook ads. That's it everywhere you look is just Facebook ads.
- [55:24]
A
And, and they did have to be clear, like insane word of mouth. Like, you know, like people really love this product and will show, you know, like when we do play dates, like inevitably the parents like, oh, what is that? Right? Like we, we tell people it has some virality to it as well. It's a great product and they did a great job. But you know, there's, I think there's more opportunities like that in the kind of kids space where you make something that's like functional, that kids find fun, but like doesn't clutter up and make your house look ugly at the same time.
- [55:54]
B
Now I wonder if you could do like the, the Casper mattress version of this and build a nugget competitor that you can like shrink down to make shipping costs cheaper.
- [56:04]
C
Make it more comes, isn't it?
- [56:06]
A
Yeah, it does come like that. It comes like rolled in a thing and then you like let it expand for two days when it gets to your house. Chris, what's your favorite business of all the businesses that you own? I'm curious.
- [56:17]
B
Oh, man. Of the ones I currently own. Yeah.
- [56:21]
A
Yes.
- [56:21]
B
Oh, man.
- [56:23]
A
What's the best business? When you. The one one, you're like, oh, this.
- [56:26]
B
RV parks. I like my RV parks.
- [56:29]
A
Say more. Say more words.
- [56:31]
B
I just, I don't understand why people invest in single family or multifamily. Right. With a mobile home or an RV park, you don't maintain the units. You just maintain the infrastructure under the ground. It's a hedge against the economy. When the economy's good, the millennials and the boomers are traveling, you got short term stays. When the economy economy tanks, you got people living in your RV parks full time. So you hedge it both ways.
- [56:54]
A
What's your RV park called?
- [56:56]
B
Well, I have ownership in nine of them.
- [57:00]
A
What's like one of them?
- [57:01]
B
Moose Creek near Glacier National Park.
- [57:05]
C
Why don't you just buy more of these then?
- [57:08]
B
Well, I am.
- [57:09]
A
Okay, so I'm looking at this Moose Creek. What is Streamside?
- [57:14]
B
That's our holding company that owns all of them. We have 29.
- [57:18]
A
And then I'm looking at this, a very nice website. So when I think RV park, I thought like trailer park, but this looks like fancy thing. What am I dumb or there's just like.
- [57:31]
B
No, I've done both.
- [57:32]
A
You?
- [57:33]
B
Yeah, this is more like koa. This is for short term stays. They're near national or state parks, People stay one to three nights at a time. Trailer parks, people live there full time month to month or year to Year.
- [57:43]
A
So you went near a national park, you buy a piece of land, you get it zoned and permitted, I assume. And then basically people bring their RVs there. So you're not building mobile homes. They bring their, their RV there and they get to park it and they pay you fee to park there. That's what this is.
- [58:00]
B
Yeah, we, we don't really build. We'll expand, but we're usually buying existing parks and adding value.
- [58:06]
A
Okay, great. So that, but that's what this is. And then how do I, if I just want to come short term, stay. You have stuff sitting there that I could just go use or I have to bring, I have to bring.
- [58:15]
B
You bring your rv? Yeah.
- [58:17]
A
Okay, so there's no.
- [58:18]
C
It basically just has like a way, a way to easily change the water. It has electric hookups, and it might have a pool or like some type of like lounge that you can hang.
- [58:27]
A
Out, walk through the business of one of these. So you said you buy them, you don't build them. So you, you bought. Whether it's this one or another one. So like, how much do you buy this for?
- [58:35]
B
This one we bought for $8 million and it was doing 700, 000 a year. So like a 9% cap rate.
- [58:43]
A
Okay, so you go, you put down 2 million, 3 million. Would you put down.
- [58:47]
B
We put down 20%. So 1.6 million. We raised 40% from investors and we financed through a bank. The remainder.
- [58:57]
A
Okay, so you. Okay, so you put down 1.6. And then 40% of the 8 million you also put down as equity. So you had like less debt than typical. So you have 40% debt on this thing. You buy it. It was making what you said 700,000 of profit at the time. And then you said, we add value. So what was the play to add the value to this one?
- [59:20]
B
So this one was open five months a year, whereas it could have been open six months a year. So it opened on May 15, closed on like October 15. We opened from May 1 to October 31. Right. So we added a month of occupancy.
- [59:32]
C
Sounds pretty simple, right?
- [59:34]
A
Genius. Okay, so. And by the way, you talk to the owners and you're like, hey, guys, how come you don't do that? And they were just like, ah, we just. That's how we do things.
- [59:43]
B
Or what? No good reason.
- [59:44]
C
We're happy. We don't. Yeah, we're good.
- [59:46]
B
It makes good money. And then we bought an acre next door or two acres next door, and we expanded into it so the rents were under market. We Raised rents, we added more pad sites, we expanded the season, and now it's doing like 1.2 million a year of net profit.
- [60:03]
A
And it would be maybe still a 9 cap rate or, you know, or was that like a sign of the times?
- [60:08]
B
We bought it under market. It was probably worth an 8 cap when we bought it. So at like a 7 and a half cap, it's, it's like a, it's an 8 figure park now.
- [60:17]
A
Yeah, that's like a 15 million dollar thing now. So if you went and you sold it today, if it's stabilized and it's working well, because you did raise the rents, you add more pads, you extend the seasonality by 15% or, you know, the open window and whatever else you said you did. And so now let's say it's a $15 million thing. You go sell this, you will end up turning, you know, 1.6 of equity into something like, you know, 3.2 or maybe more because you have. Carry on the investor thing, something like that.
- [60:48]
B
Well, more because we're packaging it with 28 other parks. We. So we have $150 million worth of parks under management and then we have a portfolio worth 111 million under contract right now. So by the end of the year we'll have 260 million worth of parks under management. That way our cap rate comes way down and we could sell the whole thing for a six cap to private.
- [61:08]
C
And how do we.
- [61:09]
B
Me and my partners, I'm a co GP in this fund.
- [61:12]
C
So you have two or three.
- [61:14]
B
Three partners.
- [61:15]
A
Do you operate in this or you're just like a.
- [61:17]
B
You don't, you don't want me operating. Sean, come on.
- [61:20]
C
What value do you want?
- [61:20]
A
What do you do?
- [61:22]
B
I help with marketing and with fundraising.
- [61:25]
A
I'm an idea guy with a great personality. Somebody ever something everybody wants on board, that's, that's usually my pitch.
- [61:31]
B
Strategy, quote strategy.
- [61:33]
A
Right. Okay, so RV parks is your best business.
- [61:36]
B
Yeah, but I've been doing this for seven, seven years. So I've been doing it with this company for two, but I was doing it with a couple other partners seven years ago.
- [61:44]
C
Did you ever have a job or you're always doing your own thing?
- [61:47]
B
Always doing my own thing.
- [61:49]
C
Which of the eight things has been the biggest financial success for you?
- [61:53]
B
This will probably end up that when we exit, which will probably be within a couple years. But I've had two different E Commerce brands that were eight figure businesses. One I exited and one I did not.
- [62:06]
A
Which one did you exit?
- [62:08]
B
We sold Wholesale iPhone parts for 7 years to iPhone repair stores.
- [62:13]
A
Okay. And so if you were. If I cleaned your slate, if I took away all your businesses, gave you all your free time back. Right. You know everything you know today about the world, but I give you all your time back. What would you go really hard at if you, if I was like, hey, do something. Like you're gonna go do something now. You're starting from scratch. You know everything you need, but you gotta do one thing.
- [62:34]
B
Yeah.
- [62:34]
A
Where does your brain go? Not like, what would you do? Like specifically maybe. Because maybe you don't know that, but like, what immediately comes to mind when I ask that question?
- [62:43]
B
I would want to ride a tidal wave. And I would wanna ride what I know. And I know small business, right. Medium, large, know nothing about it. I know small business inside and out. And so the tidal wave is AI. And I would want to implement AI in small businesses for free to get my foot in the door, earn their trust, show myself as an expert, and then start charging. And I would just have a simple AI automation slash implementation agency for small to medium sized businesses.
- [63:09]
A
What do you think is an example? Like, what would be like a hero example of like small business. Here's a, here's an example of a small business and here's an example of how AI would help that small business. Like clear, no brainer, Boom. You know, like, that's the one I would kind of try to rinse and repeat.
- [63:25]
B
Yep. The simplest thing is setting up an AI voice answering agent 247 for small business owners that don't pick up the phone after hours because they're with their family. Right. It's just an AI robot. And you can plug into other, you know, software services that already offer this. You don't have to have any technical knowledge. You charge a flat monthly fee. And if there's an emergency, then it would patch the call through to the business owner. Like if it's a plumbing emergency. Otherwise it would just. It's just like a smarter voicemail system. I would start there.
- [63:56]
C
We've had a lot of people say that. I've had a couple friends do it. I know Alex Lieberman's doing it. Sean, I don't know if. Do you know Grant Wilkinson? Grant's one of my good buddies. He started this thing. I'm looking at the website now. So originally this guy, he was like, hey, I want to work on something. Do you have any ideas I could work on? And I told him like three things and all three failed miserably. And he's an engineer. And he was like, I'm just going to do this agency thing. It's called Rosedale. Rosedale AI. And like he's just doing agency work that automates a variety of tasks using AI and like customers are just begging for him to do shit for him. And there's like dozens and dozens and dozens of these services. And I'm seeing this firsthand what's going on with Grant's business. And people are just begging like they need. It's simple.
- [64:42]
A
These, you think these businesses are doing well? Like they're going gangbusters? Like these AI kind of implementer for businesses.
- [64:47]
C
It depends what you define as gangbusters. But can you make, can the owner make seven figures a year? $1 million a year? For sure. Can you get to 2 to 3, $4 million a year in revenue? For sure. Is it a lot of work? Yeah, it's a service. But if you're like, your goal is to like make money and work 40 hours a week and have a business, yeah, I think it's like there's massive demand for it. Now how does that scale beyond to be as big as, you know, maybe 100, 200, $300 million a year? I'm not sure. But like some people will figure it out. And agencies, that is a scale. People always say agencies aren't scalable. No, it's definitely scalable. You just gonna have to have a thousand employees. Like it's, it'll work, it's just gonna be really hard. But that's, that's not bad at all.
- [65:29]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's scalable. Be like pain.
- [65:34]
C
Yeah, it's.
- [65:35]
A
What is your pain tolerance? Is the question? Not is this scalable?
- [65:38]
C
But yeah, I mean, you don't have a bunch of friends that are doing this right now?
- [65:41]
A
I met a few people, but my, my understanding was that for a lot of these businesses, they don't really know how AI can help them. So you basically have to kind of go bespoke and figure out, oh, what's your problem set and how do we use AI to do this? The AI part is almost like the easy part. And then it's like, how do you get the adoption and the buy in and all of that stuff. And so I think there is definitely desire and demand to. I think everyone generally feels like, oh, I should probably be using AI to do stuff better. But when the business owner themselves is clueless about like where the AI could plug in, you need something like what Chris is talking about, which is like, hey, here's a generic Problem that I can see from the outside, that's that you see as a no brainer for you. And if, if I could find that match, I could do that specific implementation. I think beyond that's a little bit harder. The more interesting plays to me have always been, you understand where like AI is changing the game and then you basically go buy a business at a fair price today and then you're like, cool. My value add is that I'm going to use AI to drop 10 points of margin to the bottom line. I could take this from a 10% EBITDA business to a 20% EBITDA business just by doing this, right? Just by doing this one thing, I can get rid of all these people who I have doing stuff because I can automate all of that at higher accuracy, higher speed using AI. So I think the play is you go figure out what's the right type of business for that. Is it a bookkeeping business? Is it something else? And you basically go and you say, all right, I could buy this business for $25 million as an established business with a book of clients already. And I know that I have this lever of AI that the like 55, 65 year old business owner wasn't going to do. And I bought it at a fair price. But I can make this thing more valuable and I can capture 10, 20 million dollars in two years of work, you know, without the, without the hustle of scaling an agency. So I like that play of, I like that play, that version of this play much better.
- [67:41]
C
Personally, do you know anyone who's going after that now?
- [67:43]
A
There's a lot of people that I think there's like full funds that, like private equity funds that are doing this, that they're like, cool, we're going to do private equity. But typically the private equity play was like, you know, maybe we offshore things or maybe we just cut headcount or we centralize certain things. And now they're like, the play is AI. We're going to go in and we're going to add AI in these three ways. You know, kind of what Chris said, like AI on the like sales automation side, AI on operations automation and AI to just like, you know, maybe reduce headcount across the board on product or whatever. You know, maybe it's engineering something like that. And so there, you know, there's a lot of people trying to do that. I don't know how well it's going because they're not like, you know, talking a lot on Twitter about like how great it's going, you know, we'll see.
- [68:31]
C
Chris, what do you want to be where you want to be in 10 years?
- [68:34]
B
I just want to keep starting businesses, man. I just chase product, market fit, that's what I do.
- [68:41]
A
But why?
- [68:42]
B
Because I just, I'm chasing dopamine.
- [68:44]
A
Like I, that's the flavor of dopamine you like?
- [68:47]
B
Yeah, I just, my focus, my version of focus is focusing on my superpower, not on one business. And my superpower is seeing and executing on opportunities really, really fast.
- [68:58]
C
Well, don't you get worn out having to like manage or work with people who run your shit and not as good as you want them to?
- [69:07]
B
Yeah, I mean I've had like 15 different business partners and so nowadays I, I'm much more likely to, to find a business partner that takes the vast majority of the business so I could have like more slices of small pieces of pie. So there's low expectations from me and I just go into a partnership, eyes wide open, saying, hey, I'm going to be super distracted. FYI, if you think I'm going to put in 10 hours a week, it's probably going to be two. So adjust your expectations and equity accordingly. And it took me 15 years to learn that, but that's just how I prefer to do things.
- [69:39]
C
Where do you think 10 years from now, what's going to make it a huge win for you?
- [69:45]
B
It's probably going to be a SaaS business that I launch and promote with my audience with that has a big exit. That's where I see this heading.
- [69:54]
A
What kind of SaaS?
- [69:56]
B
Well, I'm, I'm building like a QuickBooks competitor right now. And I say, when I say I, I mean my brother in law who's like a 10x developer, like an AI enabled QuickBooks competitor, so maybe that'll be it, but maybe that won't even be a thing in six months. I don't know.
- [70:10]
C
Yeah, that's pretty cool. I think that's good. Like product, product audience fit for you. I would.
- [70:16]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [70:17]
A
That's a super competitive space, unfortunately.
- [70:21]
C
I know.
- [70:23]
A
So that's interesting.
- [70:25]
B
No, but listen, I, you know, I've got almost 4 million followers that like me, you know, and Most people hate QuickBooks, they hate Zero. And if it's AI enabled and it's cheaper and I use it and I talk about it, I'm not trying to beat QuickBooks or Beat Zero. I'm just trying to build a cool business that cash flows, you know, what.
- [70:46]
C
Are you going to call it?
- [70:47]
B
Lazy books Bookkeeping for people who Hate bookkeeping.
- [70:51]
C
Lazy books. That's pretty.
- [70:53]
A
I like that you start with names. You seem like a guy who starts with a name. You get the name early.
- [70:58]
B
Yeah, yeah. I start with the domain name and.
- [71:01]
A
The marketing makes it real for you. It kind of like forces clarity of thought around the product. Like, why do you think that's important?
- [71:09]
B
It's more that I start with a marketing channel right in mind and then I build an idea around that. And oftentimes the name and the brand goes hand in hand with the marketing channel. Right. I don't like building ideas and see if people will want it. You know, I want to see if they will want it and then build the idea.
- [71:27]
C
What was name number two and three?
- [71:30]
B
There was. There was none.
- [71:31]
C
I mean, Lazy Books.
- [71:33]
B
I tried Thin Books. I couldn't find that domain. Lazy Books was one where I was actually able to convince the seller to sell it to me. But I was really just thinking of like a slimmed down QuickBooks competitor that had, you know, the 20% of features you only really need, that never breaks, you know, that never disconnects from your bank account. That was the thought process there.
- [71:54]
C
You and Dharmesh, man, you're all about the domain names. Did he. Guys, did you see, Sean? He gave the country of Antigua, I think it was. Did you see what happened?
- [72:03]
A
No.
- [72:04]
C
What did he do? It was a very small article@techcrunch on techcrunch.com I saw that it said Dharmesh Shah, founder of HubSpot. I don't remember exactly, but I think it said he gave them Antigua AI and paid them $800,000 to make that their official domain name. I don't understand why he paid them to make that their official domain name, but they. Antigua AI is now the country's official domain name.
- [72:32]
B
Well, AI is actually. It stands for Antigua. Like most of their revenue is coming from. Yeah. All of those registrations.
- [72:41]
C
Yeah. And so. But I don't know why. Dharmesh is just like slowly making. Making inroads with a variety of countries starting with domain names. And before we know it, the next 20 years, he's going to have an army. This, like, is it out of. This isn't out of the realm if you know Dharmesh. Chris, hopefully you had a great time. We like having you on.
- [73:02]
B
This is a blast. Thanks, man.
- [73:03]
A
Thanks for coming, man.
- [73:04]
B
Thanks for having me.
- [73:05]
C
You're an interesting guy with interesting ideas and we appreciate you big time. You go ahead, promote it.
- [73:09]
B
Tkopod.com it's the Kerner office podcast I didn't want to talk about it, but here. I even know I had this on, but. Tkopod.com Chris, what's your shirt?
- [73:19]
A
What does your shirt say?
- [73:20]
B
It says, look at this freaking thing right here. That's my short form videos. Yeah.
- [73:27]
A
You're committed to the bit, and I appreciate that. I respect your commitment to the bit.
- [73:32]
B
Thank you.
- [73:33]
C
That's it. That's the pod. Thank you, Chris.
- [73:35]
B
I feel like I can rule the world I know I could be what I want to I put my all in it like my days off on a road let's travel never looking back.
- [73:45]
A
All right, let's take a quick break, because as you know, we are on the HubSpot podcast network, but we're not the only ones. There's other podcasts on this network too, and maybe you like them. Maybe you should check them out. One of them that I want to draw your attention to is called Nudge by Phil Agnew. And whether you're a marketer or a salesperson and you're looking for the small changes you could make, the new habits you could do, the small decisions you could make that will make a big difference, that's what that podcast is all about. Check it out. It's called Nudge, and you can get it wherever you get your podcasts.