How to Build an Ecommerce Brand in 2025 (FROM 0-$100M) with Oren John

Summary

Sweat Equity by Marketing Examined
Episode: How to Build an Ecommerce Brand in 2025 (FROM 0-$100M) with Oren John
Release Date: December 10, 2024

---

Introduction

In this insightful episode of Sweat Equity by Marketing Examined, hosts Alex Garcia and Brian Blum engage in a compelling discussion with Oren John, a seasoned entrepreneur and creator behind the streetwear brand Valuable Studios. The conversation delves deep into the strategies and tools essential for building a successful ecommerce brand in 2025, scaling from the ground up to $100 million in revenue.

Identifying Product Opportunities

One of the critical starting points for any ecommerce venture is identifying the right product opportunities. Oren John emphasizes the paramount importance of product-market fit, stating:

“There is absolutely nothing more important, whether it's audience, your marketing skill set, whatever, than product market fit.”
[01:00]

Key Points:

• Product-Market Fit: Oren highlights that even with excellent marketing skills, without a competitive product in terms of price, quality, or functionality, scaling becomes challenging.
• Diverse Product Range: Valuable Studios tests multiple SKUs ranging from car mats and dice to apparel and accessories, allowing for empirical assessment of what resonates with the market.
• Aesthetic Alignment: Beyond functionality, aligning products with a specific aesthetic, such as Western and Southern American nostalgia, helps in carving out a unique brand identity.

Sampling and Validation Strategies

Oren shares his approach to product sampling and validation, crucial for iterating and refining product offerings:

“I am sampling tons of stuff, sampling at least 10 to 15 things a month.”
[04:48]

Strategies Discussed:

• Extensive Sampling: Leveraging existing relationships with factories to sample a wide range of products without incurring additional costs.
• Trade Shows as Testing Grounds: Participating in events like ComplexCon to gauge real-time consumer reactions and receive immediate feedback.
• Documenting Feedback: Oren meticulously records compliments and feedback to inform product launches and iterations.

World Building and Content Strategy

Building a strong brand goes beyond products; it's about creating a compelling world that customers can immerse themselves in. Oren discusses the importance of world building in brand strategy:

“I think this first tranche that we had, I did one shoot. I was trying to make this profitable throughout the entire time.”
[19:16]

Key Insights:

• Conceptual Through Lines: Establishing consistent themes or elements (e.g., cars, heist-related storylines) across all branding and content to reinforce the brand's identity.
• Episodic Content: Treating the brand like a TV show with different seasons and story arcs to maintain audience engagement and anticipation.
• Collaboration and Community: Partnering with car clubs and other communities to enhance shareability and embed the brand within existing social structures.

Balancing Ecommerce and Retail

Transitioning from online sales to retail distribution involves nuanced strategies. Oren elaborates on the relationship-building necessary for retail success:

“You need the relationships with the buyers which happen one of two ways... either you have those relationships somehow through something previous or you hit them up, or they hit you up.”
[13:11]

Discussion Points:

• Line Sheets and Buying Shows: Presenting a comprehensive line sheet at fashion weeks or buying conventions to facilitate bulk orders from retailers.
• Co-Marketing Efforts: Collaborating with retailers on marketing initiatives to ensure product visibility and sales within physical stores.
• Cash Flow Management: Navigating the financial aspects of retail partnerships, including net terms and inventory turnover.

Emerging Trends for 2025

Looking ahead, Oren identifies several key trends that brands should monitor to stay ahead in the ecommerce landscape:

1. Brands Going Wider: Expanding product lines to cater to existing customer bases, akin to how larger brands diversify.
2. Shift from Minimalism to Maximalism: Responding to the evolving consumer preference for more intricate and rich product designs.
3. Streaming and Interactive Content: Embracing live streaming as a means to build community and provide real-time engagement.
4. Collaborations and Partnerships: Leveraging partnerships between brands to enhance world building and broaden audience reach.
5. Localized Content: Focusing on hyper-local content to build strong, regional brand presences.

“I also think that partnerships with other brands are going to be very underrated.”
[33:30]

Content Creation and YouTube Strategy

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around content strategy, particularly leveraging YouTube for brand growth:

“Once I start having nicer production, nicer setup, it worked.”
[43:41]

Strategies Highlighted:

• Consistent Content Formats: Developing repeatable video formats such as playbook breakdowns, collection showcases, and tactical marketing tips to maintain viewer interest.
• Quality Production: Investing in higher production values to enhance content appeal and credibility.
• YouTube as a Diversified Platform: Utilizing YouTube not just for short-form content but as a platform for in-depth brand narratives and tutorials.
• SEO and Discoverability: Taking advantage of YouTube's SEO capabilities to attract a targeted audience interested in marketing and branding.

Cut30 Workshops and Community Building

Oren introduces Cut30, a workshop designed to help creators and brands refine their content and marketing strategies:

“We were like saying, here's how you find your niche, here's how you find your genre, here's how you think about it.”
[60:53]

Features of Cut30:

• Structured Learning: Providing participants with frameworks and formulas for content creation and brand building.
• Accountability Mechanisms: Encouraging consistency and niche specialization among attendees to drive content success.
• Community Feedback: Utilizing collaborative platforms for peer feedback and improvement, enhancing the learning experience.

Monetization and Scaling Challenges

As brands scale, monetization becomes a complex challenge. Oren reflects on the difficulties of maintaining authenticity while pursuing growth:

“If I grow to 700k, it's like, yeah, I am better off like giving you three email campaign types than trying to make stuff that appeals to 700,000 people.”
[44:41]

Key Considerations:

• Sustainable Growth: Balancing rapid expansion with the ability to serve a growing customer base effectively.
• Diversified Revenue Streams: Exploring multiple income avenues beyond product sales, such as workshops, consulting, and content monetization.
• Authentic Engagement: Ensuring that growth strategies do not compromise the brand’s authenticity and core values.

Conclusion

This episode offers a comprehensive roadmap for aspiring ecommerce entrepreneurs aiming to build and scale their brands in the coming years. Oren John provides invaluable insights into product development, market validation, content strategy, and the intricate balance between online and retail growth. By emphasizing the importance of world building, consistent and high-quality content, and strategic partnerships, listeners gain a nuanced understanding of what it takes to elevate an ecommerce brand from zero to $100 million.

Notable Quotes:

• Oren John:
  “There is absolutely nothing more important, whether it's audience, your marketing skill set, whatever, than product market fit.”
  [01:00]

• Oren John:
  “I am sampling tons of stuff, sampling at least 10 to 15 things a month.”
  [04:48]

• Oren John:
  “I think this first tranche that we had, I did one shoot. I was trying to make this profitable throughout the entire time.”
  [19:16]

• Oren John:
  “You need the relationships with the buyers which happen one of two ways... either you have those relationships somehow through something previous or you hit them up, or they hit you up.”
  [13:11]

• Oren John:
  “Once I start having nicer production, nicer setup, it worked.”
  [43:41]

• Oren John:
  “If I grow to 700k, it's like, yeah, I am better off like giving you three email campaign types than trying to make stuff that appeals to 700,000 people.”
  [44:41]

---

This episode serves as a treasure trove of strategies and reflections for anyone looking to navigate the complex world of ecommerce branding, offering both foundational principles and forward-thinking trends to watch in 2025.

Transcript

[A]

Well, cool. Welcome back, dude.

[B]

Glad to be here. It's been a minute.

[C]

Crazy that it was a year. A year ago today. You were on the pod. Yeah. For the first time. For the first time.

[B]

It's crazy. And since then, the glow up for everybody has been tremendous.

[A]

It has, it has. And we were hearing some more about your story, which we're going to get into. Super excited to talk about Valuable, you know, your new streetwear brand, then also your growth as a creator on YouTube. Yeah, seems like.

[C]

Or in general, like. Yeah, I mean, he's getting flown. He's here now because of a workshop, you know.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

This time we're doing.

[C]

We're just kind of spitting games.

[B]

We got New Year's Eve in Barcelona. You know what I mean? Off the influence.

[A]

Yeah. That's crazy.

[C]

Somebody's got to buy these G Wagons.

[B]

Yes, exactly.

[C]

Somebody's got to pay for these G Wagons.

[A]

So big thing that we want to go over on the episode today is all the tools that people need to build a strong E commerce business in 2025. And obviously you're building one right now with valuable studios, streetwear brands. So talk a little bit about identifying product opportunities to start, because that's probably where a lot of people think, oh, I don't even know what I want to sell.

[B]

Yeah. There is absolutely nothing more important, whether it's audience, your marketing skill set, whatever, than product market fit. Right. And I've learned that the hard way over the years as a marketing executive inside all these different companies, because sometimes, no matter how good you are, if your product can't compete against the price point or quality of something else, or if there has some kind of, like, defect or just doesn't have it, there's only so much you can do. Right. And so for what I'm putting together now, I have the luxury of having resources, of having time, of not being in a rush. So I get to do everything the way I want to, which most people don't have. That's been an interesting scenario. Right. So I've put out this brand where I put out a lot of products, all the. All of which I think have some potential. And then I get to kind of see what actually has growth and then lean into it. And that's been the approach that I've been taking.

[A]

Yeah. And then so to that point, you put out a lot of skus. And so in case the audience doesn't know, we're talking about, like, car mats all the way through dice that hang through the mirror all the way to like, nice shirts, jackets, stuff like that. Shoes.

[B]

Yeah, shoes, bags. We. I put out a lot of stuff.

[A]

Yeah. So what is it? What is your a. When you're gauging an opportunity, whether it's to go into shoes, whether it's to go into T shirts, like, what are you looking at as a really strong opportunity?

[B]

Yeah. So I'm looking at it in two things. There's a product opportunity, and there's an aesthetic opportunity when you're selling something that doesn't have a core function. Right. So ideally, number one, you're solving some sort of user problem. Right. You're saying, like, he's got a cadence in front of him where he's saying, okay, I need an electrolyte drink that tastes good, that has no sugar, or whatever it is. You're trying to solve something a user is dealing with. And so I only have, like, one or two items that are really solving a user problem. Right.

[C]

Which ones are those?

[B]

The shoe bag is one where, like, that's a thing that, like, is a part of people's lives. So I have a shoe bag that is, like, it's like 30 bucks. It's canvas. But I think a lot of us have noticed this where if I'm going to work, I'm going to go to the gym after, and I'm like, do I put my shoes inside this duffel? Am I bringing a separate thing? It's just like an easy bag that will fit in your existing bag, or you can carry and put on a hook. Same thing. When you go into luggage, you're like, I don't know. You put that shit in a plastic bag, right? People have it laces. I was like, cool. This is a little solvable problem a lot of people deal with. I'm going to try it with this sku. That's probably the only thing I'm making that, like, has a user component to it. But if you're not doing that, you basically have your product options and you have your aesthetic. And so I chose for this first drop, and it's not where the brand was going to go entirely. I was like, I do think this Western, Southern America nostalgia aesthetic is underserved because a lot of brands do it unauthentically. They have no idea about anything surrounding Southern culture or American culture. They just put a cowboy on some shit. Whereas I have some deeper ties to it than that. And then I was saying, hey, I think there's some certain products that tie into that that would do really well. Like things in the car mat space, like shirts that I could wear and feel that their aesthetic, it's a little more fashionable than something just standard. So I think that combination of aesthetic and product is super important. And you have a wide variety of aesthetics to choose from. You have everything from minimalist stuff to maximalist stuff to western to opium, to any one of these different things we see out there in the world. Kawaii Ultra pink, coquette, whatever it might end up being. I think that's how you can kind of evaluate is, is there something in this aesthetic space? What products are in there? And how do I make the products good enough that people actually want them?

[C]

And.

[B]

And then you have all your marketing stuff in addition to it.

[C]

One thing I'm curious about is how. Because assuming. And I've had enough conversations with you, I'm sure there's a ton of products you want to launch in a first collection. How do you start testing products and be like, this is going to be part of the first collection? Or in general? Because I was hanging out with the CEO of Blenders, right? And we went to breakfast, and he's wearing these frames, but they're not blender. And I look on the website, they're not on blenders. And I'm like, the whole time I'm thinking, okay, this guy's definitely wearing somebody else's shades, like a different brand. A few months later, I'm on a call with him. He's like, okay, like, we're releasing those shades that you saw me in Austin with. I was like, oh, okay. Like, I thought you were wearing a completely different brand. He's like, no, like, I'll wear. I'll. I'll test, test and sample things for, like, two to three months and see how many compliments I'm getting on that thing and then decide to launch. He's like. And I'm literally, like, getting data points on every single compliment, putting in my notes app, and then that is how I'm gonna launch it. How do you go about testing?

[B]

Yeah, so. So I am sampling tons of stuff, sampling at least 10 to 15 things a month. And here's where the benefit of what I'm doing with this brand and the background I have is different than where your average econ person is, because I also have a service, basically, where I do merchandising and product design for brands. So I did that. That Vermont drop that you guys have seen where we design bags and things like that. I do a bunch of those. Some of them are public, some of them aren't. And so brands will either be like, our merchandise is terrible. Let me help you. Or, hey, we want to do a drop collection. Or, hey, we have a line, we need, like, a standout or viral item, and I will go, like, solve that problem for them. So I get to kind of have. Have two at a time. Like, the Vermont duffel bag was so nice because I was working on a duffel bag. I'd already gone in pretty deep and been like, all right, Now I'm like, hey, I can adapt this to a client project, but that sample base you have becomes your ability to move and operate. And so then it's really a matter of resources, right? I can sample a lot more things because I do a lot of business with the factories, so my sampling is free or accredited towards orders. If you're new to that, you're paying for each of those samples that comes up. But how.

[A]

How far ahead are you in samples, would you say?

[B]

Well, so that's where this kind of comes up, where if you have a concept for your brand, you want to be multiple seasons ahead. So I work on a women's wear. Wear brand. I think we've talked about where we are in 2026, right. And where we're prepping to now. We may change some things as we go to production on things that are going to happen in 2025, but we're trying to be three seasons ahead. Right, and that's like your ideal goal, but for a new brand, for instance, I don't know what people like from the brand yet. We're developing that. And so I'm sampling lots and lots of things to again, see that same response. When I wear it as a tight. When I post on the Internet, do I get a bunch of comments on it? You know, when I show it to some people, like, what do they think? Even when I was at ComplexCon, I had a booth of all the stuff I have available and the booth of all the stuff that's coming. And there was a couple things where everyone was like, when can I get it? When can I get it? I'm running it. And I think trade shows is a great way to evaluate it. I could not be a bigger fan of what happened at ComplexCon, where I literally got to the minute feedback of people that didn't know me at all as a creator buying shit because they were like, this is tight, or being like, when can I get that? And there's a couple things that they just ignored that were on that rack. And I'm like, all right, I can move away from that.

[C]

So something like ComplexCon. Are you putting out things that are gonna be coming out in the future and seeing how people react to it?

[B]

I had half the booth was my stuff that's available and half the Booth was what, 20 samples, which is something that, like, everyone's always afraid of getting copied, right? That's the hard part about putting your things out there. I already know I'm going to get copied. It kind of is what it is. Like, I would rather get the feedback. And you even. You'll see that now. Like, some of the content I'm putting out in the Valuable feed is I'm literally being like, here's a 20, 25 sample number one. Here's 2025 sample number two, seeing what the response is. And I'm going to make. So I think the sampling process and documenting that is a really useful tool. Documenting in content to be able to get that level of validation because you can literally tell from contents. Or in my case, like, hey, sign up to get the drop for this, like, how much interest you're going to have.

[C]

Marcus does that with Minton, New York. I don't know if you guys ever had like minted minutes, but he's like, two. Two years before the actual shoe came out. With Saucony, he was talking about, like the vision for it, what he wanted to do. What do you want to do with the shoe? Collab, how it's going to look. And so for like two years, it was like building all this hype and anticipation for it and kind of like getting people's feedback and then tweaking based off the feedback and doing that for.

[B]

Two years, you want to have the most stuff. Like, I have all these ideas. I have all the stuff I want to do, especially now, right? So I put out a bunch of products. Some of them are like, oh, this is going to work. But then you're like, oh, I have this inventory. There's this timing, there's this resources, there's this money where you go, like, I might not be able to act on that for X amount of months. And these ideas stack up and these boards stack up and the samples stack up. And then when you start to get velocity, you start acting on all of them. And then you have the opposite problems. This is what brands have when all of a sudden you're crushing it and you don't have enough ideas. That's where stuff starts getting repetitive. And then Louis Vuitton calls or whatever and they're like, come in. You're like, oh, shit, now I'm really out all My ideas. But if they call you and you still have a big backlog, all of a sudden your collection with them goes really well, and then you're moving in a certain direction and, like, that's what you get into. But I would be. Especially if you have the resources to, like, sample as many things as you can, validate as many ideas as you can. Like, I was on the phone with a creator. We all. We all know before this about an interiors product. I'm validating. I'm doing another guy you've had in this pod. Like, we're working on a women's bag. We're always just validating ideas. They may not make a name.

[C]

I want to know who it is. Yeah, I remember we could beep it out.

[B]

May never come to fruition. But we're going to do the design. We'll invest the money into it. And I think it's like, as an entrepreneur, you have to be in that. Like, I'm always in that frame of, like, what's the experiment I can do for under 1500 bucks that I can validate.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

How much are you investing in, like, these samples and to be able to.

[B]

Bring so some of these. Like, for instance, like, when we're in general, like, overall. So for the fashion stuff, I'm designing the majority of it. Like, I. Maybe if I'm getting some graphic help or whatever, like a couple hundred bucks. Not much. Again, the sampling is free because I order so much. I'm going to order a bunch of that back. Maybe a hard thing isn't. But for things like a really nice women's bag where I don't have a factory that will. That will do that for me and. Or like an interior product and there's development. I'm trying to do it for like 1500. Right. Where I'm getting an industrial designer to help me. I'm getting a tech pack person to really put something good together. I'm paying a couple hundred bucks for a really nice sample of something to figure something out. Like, that's a good amount to put into it. And then if. If you go. Need to go do it a few times, like, maybe it's a couple thousand bucks.

[C]

So if you want to make that for my back, it's going to cost you 1500 to like, you know.

[B]

So let's actually just break that down. Exactly. So basically, so if you want to get a really good tech pack designer to do that, who, like, knows what they're doing, let's say that's 600 bucks. Probably be a Reasonable amount to get a good bag designer to go make a tech pack for you. Another graphics package for things like the interior, another couple hundred bucks. Let's say it's like a thousand. And yeah, then if you're sampling that of the factory, like maybe that's 200 or so. So yeah, I think you're in about that range to make something nice like that.

[A]

Pretty affordable, no, super affordable.

[B]

And again, I was the mind state, I like to tell people every you need to be in constantly is if you're going to buy a nice version of a thing, are you going to go buy that thing from Gucci or whoever or do you want to just go make your own? It's going to cost the same thing as the luxury version of that.

[A]

Yeah, that's a great point.

[B]

And then you have an idea validated what are some.

[A]

So you know, a lot of this stuff that you're describing is because you have a lot of leverage, right? You have the ability to post something on your story or that's because of your audience or you have the relationship with factory, like what are some sort of maybe product demand testing things that someone who doesn't have that leverage can.

[B]

So people need to go. You can either go wide like I'm going because gangs I have the luxury of doing it, or you go one by one. Right? And so one by one is the best way to do something. You get one sample, do one thing, document that process set up and really it's, it's like have a TikTok dedicated to it where you're being like, this is my sample, this is my tech pack. And again, people don't want to share their ideas. Your ideas are going to get taken anyway. Share it, share it, share it. Judge what that is. Get the hundred of it. I encourage almost everyone to get 100 of something like that you believe in. Not something whack, not something simple, not a T shirt with something basic on it. Like a great, great example is that Creative Department hat, that blue hat that you guys saw. Like. Yeah, it's one idea.

[C]

Mega viral.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And you would have known it.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

And it's like cool, we probably got a hundred to start. It's a great design. It's very similar to a bunch of other stuff. There's brands like Return of the have used Creative Department forever, similar blue forever, but like not in the hat. It's like going with something familiar and, and like validate it. And then now, okay, this actually went more viral than expected. Now I'm ordering 300 a drop, 500 drop. I'm building a brand out around it. Like that's a perfect example of like do it. Post a bunch of photography of the sample, post a bunch of video of the sample. And what most people don't do is they don't post enough. They'll post like, oh, I did this once or twice or whatever like that. But if you don't have a following like every single part of the stage, post five, ten times, you know, like I don't post enough about it.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

One thing that I think that's shifted lately with brand building and like starting a brand because we do want to give people game on. Okay. If you are starting a brand in 2025, here's something to look at. I think something that's shifted big time was 2017, you're launching a brand and social was the last thing that you were thinking about. And now it's the first thing that you were thinking about when you're building valuable is that are you thinking through that same lens of looking at it kind of through this like this mood board of I want to develop products that are going to fit this mood board because people want have this aspirational life that they want to live that then fits this mood board.

[B]

I wasn't. But I've adjusted some things since I was thinking more for retail. So I have a retail background of being like, how can I design a collection I think is going to move inside some of the shops and things I have relationships with and how can I build a aesthetic and a back one that will allow me to go to retail where you're going to get way more scale on this than E Comm, at least in my opinion. So I was thinking of it more like that. So I actually made a more non social optimized collection than if I was thinking social first. Now as I go into I want to create things that are a little more like it's like a balance, right? Where like what is that thing that's going to capture attention that then people go by the more basic things is how I think everyone should be doing their drop, right? Like what is the viral item that anchors the collection? And then people go by the basics is how kind of everyone should be thinking. But I do think that like people are starting to get a little bit afraid of creators launching brands that are unique, right. They're like, okay, it's another hoodie and fleece, another kind of whatever. But also that like we only can have so many building in public so you need to Have a social strategy, but it needs to be interesting, different, better, community oriented. Right. And one of the reasons I really leaned into the car item of it is I knew about have relationships with a bunch of car clubs on social things like that where I'm like, all right, it's an easy collab pipeline to be able to say, hey, we're actually building something that has some inherent community into it. We can do some shareability around that. You kind of act on it, but you need one of those ideas where there's that extra community element of it to stand out versus like building in public isn't enough anymore.

[A]

Can you talk about that behind the scenes process of getting a clothing brand into retail?

[B]

Yeah, for sure. You are ahead, right? So basically they're buying now for fall next year. You know, like it all this is a little bit different. But you need the relationships with the buyers which happen one of two ways. Either you have those relationships somehow through something previous or you hit them up, or they hit you up. Or you're at these shows and that's whether that's a Paris Fashion Week or like a magic convention. There are buying shows where buyers are at, they're there to discover brands. And then you have a line sheet where basically you'll have a sheet of all of your products is what you're going to release. Your sizing the pricing, the materials, examples, and they will go through that line sheet and they'll kind of like place orders accordingly for those seasons ahead. But then once you're actually there, there's the process of like, okay, is it going to sell because you're going to have to co market it. Sometimes they have their own traction. Sometimes it will sell naturally because of their foot traffic. Other times there's expectations that you're going to market themselves, but you have to go pay for the stuff to get made. They're all going to want net 60, et cetera on the back end. So you are floating money essentially to make something created to then get it into the store and have the store sell it to. Then you get paid back, but you're going to move way more inventory than you have. So an ideal brand is a balance between the two where you're getting some cash flow from E commerce, you're able to use that, you're able to leverage some relationships, have terms with your factories, et cetera, to be able to kind of sell through into retail. But also, you know, you have levers you can pull to help push those retail sales. And what's nice is if you Have a lot of traction online. That's a good ability to show that to a retail buyer.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And be like, hey, guess what? A lot. Here's everyone saying that they would love to be able to try this on before they buy it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Why can't we do that with you? Nordstrom.

[A]

It's been fascinating. I went into Nordstrom to get a suit and I was blown away by the brands that were actually on the racks because everything was Elwood Wax, London. Like all these different brands that are digitally native.

[B]

They're savvy. The buyers are savvy.

[A]

The buyers are very savvy. They know where the demand actually is coming from. But to your point, it's probably a lot easier for someone to not buy online versus when you're there. It's like, oh, it's tangible. You just tried it on. It look good. Okay, let's get out of here.

[B]

Well, so you can make that all the things in the back of your head, you can quantify some of those of like, oh, I have to turn this or whatever. What kind of suit you buy, brother?

[A]

Huh?

[B]

What kind of suit you get?

[A]

Italian.

[B]

Like a Brioni.

[A]

Yeah, Bruno.

[B]

I won't lie though.

[C]

I was blown away by North Strip's lineup last time I was there. It was like All Saints. It was.

[A]

No, they have, they have a stylist.

[C]

Out there because they, they are in.

[B]

That same zone of like. So like everyone talks about E Comm all the time. Retail is still a sales, sales giant and they know they have to adapt. They need to give things that consumers want. And then also, you know, I buy.

[C]

That promotion when I'm at retail. I buy. I mean, you went shopping with me, you know.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[C]

Everything we walked into.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Was just like, ah, yeah, yeah. And actually he's pointing the back going, good purchase. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

He makes some good choices. But yeah, you feel, you almost feel bad sometimes when you don't buy something. You don't have that same experience leaving a website.

[A]

Right, exactly.

[B]

And so I think people should build with that in mind or have like kind of like the savvy to do it. And it's just hunting down those relationships and there's people that are trying to solve that. Like Pietra has something in their back end now where they have like a thousands of buyer contacts that you can like you get as part of the platform. And so then they'll. And they have like that's some pre scripted emails that are inside of it. Like they're trying to help bridge that gap.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think there's going to be a lot more of that. But you still be able to drive the sales that walk in there, right? Yeah, that's. I think whether that's having that brand awareness, doing events like, you'll see when you go into like higher end fashion, like we look at like, like Maxfield's or H. Lorenzo or like a patron of the new, like, like the higher end, like menswear boutiques, like when brands launch in there, they're putting out like they're putting big displays in the windows, they're throwing events. It's costing them a bunch of money to activate inside of that. I saw them both represent when they did like Herods and Selfridges. You put money into build out and merchandising there as well. So it's an investment either way.

[C]

Yeah. What do you think? If. Okay, if I'm thinking for valuables versus kind of look at these events that you do versus social, would you rather have a video get like 5 million views on valuables page to push product or would you rather be like the emerging brand at something like ComplexCon?

[B]

I would rather. Well, here's the thing is when you get the views, people that are kind of in your algorithm and in your world for a bit, whereas I had all these people at compostcon, that bottle of the shit that I may never see again. And so I like to be able to validate things and see what new consumers look like. But like, man, when you get those 5 million views and you got a pixel and you have the ability to advertise to it, there's a lot of power. So I think I would, I would rather have that. But it's interesting because like I'm not shooting for virality in the content on that page yet because like I haven't determined like product market fit. Like, I'm like, now I have some pretty good ideas. I have like two of the, two of the categories I'm in where I'm like, okay, I'm gonna be able to do this at a larger scale with a slightly different product. And then it's like that's when you want to start throwing it out there. And in the meantime it's like more brand building than it is shooting for virality. But again I have the luxury to be able to do that. This is why I really enjoyed this process is like, I am, I'm doing things the way I think that they should be done and being like, cool. I'm building for a three year or four year window down the Road. Whereas a lot of people want that rapid validation of I'm selling out these drops as soon as possible, which is not super realistic.

[A]

Yeah. So as a Bootstrap founder, like, can you talk a little bit about that maybe 8020 strategy, you're thinking with valuables content, because you mentioned you're not trying to sell, sell, sell, or you're trying to create more lifestyle aesthetic content versus going viral.

[B]

Like, how's that kind of habit? Well, I think it's again, it's about the fit. Right. Where I have a certain set of products that I'm using to validate whether these concepts have bigger potential and I want to sell those products currently. I want this product to be. I want this brand to be profitable the whole time, which it is. Like every order is profitable. I want to be able to scale meta ads. I'm seeing with that, like, okay, I'm at one level now. It needs to get to a level bigger than that. But in the meantime, if I keep shooting for viral level content, I'm going to get a bunch of people that come in. I'm not going to really have the product to serve them right. And so instead I want, especially with this, one of the core decisions I have is am I going to stay in this aesthetic world I have, or am I going to have multiple aesthetic worlds? Something I'm trying to decide on. And so right now I'm really working. Like, you don't see content that's outside of this core Americana aesthetic. I'm trying to see how big it can go very naturally within that, making good content, but not shooting for virality every video. And if that starts to build a nice base, then I'll probably live in that world for a long time.

[A]

It seems like the theme, the world building theme vibe is where a lot of streetwear brands are right now. Shoots about blank. They're doing these, like either Lake Cuomo shoot or Drew will do a reawakening shoot. And it's like very Christian themed. Like, are you not thinking about going?

[B]

That's exactly. So on my next. So this first tranche that we had, I did one shoot. I was trying to make this profitable throughout the entire time. And so I did this one shoot. I've now made enough sales and basically I went through Complex Con where we made money, and to Black Friday where we made money, where now I'm investing in a bunch more, several more shoots. So we just did a shoot Monday and the follow up is tomorrow where it's like a Grand Theft Auto theme shoot. My Whole kind of world building here is heist related and I've got a storyline underneath it. So we're shooting everything. So the photographer's shooting it all. Like it's the FPV of the video game. Like you're up slightly behind the characters and stuff and then they're all in the shirts and whatever. And we have like a little video game ui and so it's like we're doing a shoot like that, we're doing another shoot where we have like a vintage Ferrari and like a bunch of things coming out there. So I'm doing multiple shoots to that exact point. But I wasn't like, I didn't want to come out the gate and spend five figures doing a bunch of these shoots and then like not have the sales to support it. Like I'm trying to do that organically and not and not kind of blow it out. But that's going to be like we're doing three shoots in that style here before the end of the year that are going to kind of trickle out through the beginning of next year. And then that's where I decide, am I going to continue in this aesthetic world or am I going to kind of like bridge into another aesthetic world? But that's where I think like brands need to be living, breathing things. You can have your super concrete vision, but if it's not selling, having the ability to move through X and Y is going to be interesting. And right now I'm starting to see is I actually think there's going to be more. I will have more fiscal success focusing on like some of the things I've done. Doing more like basic versions, like less aesthetic driven versions would sell more to my audience. But then I'm curious, does that give me more brand resonance over time? And this is the things you kind of have to think about as a creator. Like how much are you tapping your audience versus how much are you finding something that's going to move on its own? And I, because my content isn't always going to be about brand building, really want to find stuff that's going to move on its own.

[C]

Something I want to rewind a little bit to world building. Because the way that brands have brands brand books, I think it's going to shift like in the next few years too. You're gonna have like world building books again. There's going to be a big shift of, especially when you're working with all these outside outsourced agencies. A lot of the outsourced agencies don't care about the world Building. They're trying to hit numbers or they.

[B]

Don'T know the lore.

[C]

Yeah, exactly. And that is. And that is a problem. And so I think there's going to be a big shift to like having your world building book. But for a brand that wants to start doing that, where do you start with something like that?

[B]

Yeah, I think starting with some concepts or through lines. Right. So one thing we were doing when we were briefing, I was doing these big, these gel blaster campaigns two holidays ago. And one thing we were doing is we were doing a lot of video game recreation stuff. So we did like, we had creators that were, they were doing like NPC style videos and they were doing things like that. And we were basically like made like a little kit of like, effects where it was like, cool. A couple of these sound effects, a couple of these, like when it hits, like there's a little target and kind of match the UI in the app, kind of have like these. Like, that was one concept, it was not the. We were running a bunch of other concepts. But we're like, all right, we can apply our brand kit. We can give creators this like, little toolkit that's very natural with the product. And all of a sudden we're like starting to like, have this look and feel. And I think it's just like determining what, what you have that's that like unique through line. Right. Like, so for instance, if I was like, hey, every single shoot needs to have a car, no matter what. You're in a car, you're on a car, you're around a car. It's like, how can you choose those one or two through lines that are like omnipresent through anything that you do that like actually makes sense for your brand and just, and just continue it.

[C]

Something we're working with Jocko Fuel. So like Jocko and Jocko Willock. And one of the things that we're doing now working on is essentially their world building, right?

[A]

And World Building 2004, Afghanistan.

[C]

And so one of the things that we're starting with is, and this is something you and I have talked about a lot is like, what is that overarching narrative? Like, what is the thing that. How the world describes you?

[B]

Right.

[C]

And then the next layer is then looking at Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 as seasons and then kind of building like the different worlds within each season.

[B]

Yeah. And I did. And so I think this, the world building exercise, like the brand is TV show exercise, to your point, is like the best exercise to start with, where you Go. Who are all of our characters? What are all of our sets, our locations that we can film at? Who are our enemies? Like what. Who are we competing against? Do we want to call them out or not? Who are our friendlies? And then what are our. Then what's our calendar? And like, what are the events we can build that around, then fill in all the gaps? Like, that's 100% how people should be thinking about it. And then now I think brands be taking it a step further and be thinking episodic. And like, I'm looking as, like, I have a small brand that is a extension of my creator stuff that helps me sell other things as well. But if I'm a bigger brand looking at this, I'm looking at like, how am I replicating television both in how I think about my social strategy and what series am I bringing to the table, right? Like, if I'm a fitness brand or I am a any kind of brand, I'm like, how do I go back to old MTV and be like, what is my version of next? What is my version of, like, any of these reality shows? Any of these shows on HGTV or Discovery Channel? Like, that is where I feel like a bunch of the creators things are winning is like, am I must see TV 8pm every Sunday? Or when I'm scrolling by in a feed, is someone like, oh, this is a familiar format to me. I know what's going to happen and I can follow it along. Like, TV is like the way to think about it.

[C]

That's. That was like when we were on that call with Midday Squares and he was like, the way we think about our social content, it was like for like a cut 30 live, they were like, we're a mix of Keeping up with the Kardashians, Shark Tank and what was the other one?

[B]

Elon Musk or something.

[C]

Yeah, and like Elon Musk from like, how, like how hard we hit the audience with specific facts.

[A]

Like visionary CEO.

[C]

Yeah, exactly. But all of their content, when they would filter their content where they shoot something, it would basically be like, was this like, Keeping up with the Kardashian Shark Tank? And did it give like, Elon Musk vibes? If not, they dish it? If yes, they kept it and published it, which I thought was super.

[A]

And they also did a great job of like picking out that enemy, you know, 100. Like, I think when you just mentioned that the enemies and our friendlies. I think that's really important too, because you need drama. Well, you need like differentiation, right? I Think that's the biggest problem with a lot of brands that we see at least is like, there's so many hydration packets out there right now. And it's like you need to find like, who is the hydration pack. Like, all the hydration packets are saying that everyone else has bad ingredients. That's almost become tired now. So like, your differentiation can't actually be that you're just saying we have the best ingredients. It's like, do you have a TV show? Do you have a loyal audience? Like, stuff like that?

[B]

Yeah. What are you creating a really. Because differentiation can be entertainment, but then entertainment that needs all the tropes of traditional entertainment. But luckily we have decades of history of that to pull from, which is why I think savvy people are doing.

[C]

We're working with a hydration brand. And their positioning in that same way was like, everybody's launching a hydration brand. Everyone's lost in a sachet. They're larger. So they've been around four or five years. But what they've done is they made their enemy water. Right? And basically their tagline is like, make water better. But the reason is. And the reason they're making it their enemy is because like, if I buy a bottled water, I just said like three times.

[A]

I just think and make water great again.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Y.

[A]

Like, damn. Still hits. If we want to get tropes, they're.

[C]

Not in the U.S. so like, even better. But the reason that they're doing it. So like if you under. And he educated me on this, but it was like, if you look at water, you look at a water bottle and you look at the water that's in inside of it, it's stripped of all of its minerals, it's stripped of all its electrolytes, it's stripped of everything that makes it something that actually hydrates you. And so therefore regular water doesn't hydrate you. And so they're making like bottled water and the regular water that we carry around the enemy. And then they're like the thing coming in to attack that enemy, but then build off on the back end, which I think is like the right thing.

[B]

Having any positioning that is not average is good positioning. Right. You have a lifestyle positioning. You're like kind of liquid death style positioning. You can have your position against where like someone on the market is terrible and we are an alternative. Or you can have like a. Like a. That's almost a like a value driven positioning there.

[A]

Well, you talk about in your content a lot the death of Blanding and Kind of like rise of maximalism.

[B]

Yeah. Cool. So it used to be like blending so like minimalist design where it was like we're going to put a pastel color and we're going to put a simple logo was a response to all of these big corporate brands. Didn't really care about anybody who had these like logos and identities that had been around forever. And so it was like, hey, here's a new alternative that's newer and younger and isn't from this big bad corporation. Here's this pastel thing. And that worked. That was a great position against of the time. But then that became those brands that ended up having their own sets of issues and problems. Right. And so then positioning against that I think goes back to like what do people actually want? And people want things that are intrinsically like interesting to them and, and things that are rich. Like we are not as people, I think drawn so much to simplicity and to kind of like that straightforward look. And so there's both a timely response to that happening right now and there's just like a. It makes sense for people to want things that are more interesting.

[A]

Yeah. I mean ultimately pendulums swing and so you just need to be able to time where the pendulum is going.

[B]

And we are in that era now. Right. Everything is interesting first versus minimal.

[A]

Yeah. Whereas it used to be kind of convenience focused like minimal.

[B]

And then in five years it may come around again.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I think a big thing with that especially is going to be this rise of sort of like AI generated creative. I think a lot of people are going to get very sick of that and that's going to ultimately make things simpler again. Yeah, yeah. And it's going to be like this, this prioritization of human created stuff. But we're about to go through like three years where AI creative is just.

[B]

I think we're also very limited as to like what can be a macro level trend now. Because like even in the age of that minimalism, like the ability for Casper and away and like all these companies to have like just wide appeals like it. You can't have a movement like that anymore. Now it's much more of like every trend happening all the time at once and finding your exact audience for it, which I think is good for entrepreneurs because it gives you. There's way more smaller companies can make enough money to succeed, but then it gives you way less of these like big swings that are going to make people really rich.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's kind of a good segue for something. I wanted to ask you about, which is like, what are some trends that you're monitoring going into 2025?

[B]

That's a good question.

[A]

If you want to like pause.

[B]

I am. So these existing brands, brands going wide versus deeper is one. So for instance, we all like brands are entering into. A lot of brands are entering into hydration. A lot of existing brands are adding hydration segments to their brands because they see the data supporting it. And this is like a very traditional retail play from bigger, like bigger brands, right where you say, all right, cool, I'm Kellogg's, I sell in a wide variety of units. But now you're seeing everybody from like Ridge added luggage, simple, modern people launch their own electrolyte, seeing all this kind of go wider. Because I think what you're seeing is a lot of these companies that are very E comm focused or even just Internet marketing first are kind of saying, hey, new customer acquisition is actually getting harder for us now. It's getting more costly, but we can sell more things to our existing customer base, which makes sense. But I think we're going to see a lot more because I think we've only seen the good poster children of it. Even Graza. Graza now not just has olive oil, they have granola, they have chips. And you could have, you could see a whole canon of brands under that things. After that, I think we're going to.

[A]

See, you know, anyone who has a.

[B]

Good customer base is going to want to be doing that and like thinking about that product development versus saying how do I go deeper and deeper, deeper into it? Which is ties back to that, like, do you have a brand that succeeds because of the product or do you have a brand that can actually go a little farther out and give people the ability to experiment into it? Not every brand has that.

[C]

All right, marketers, we know you love the tldr, so let's get right to the point. Here are five things you can get done faster with wix Studio. Number one, you could scale content with dynamic pages and reusable assets. Then number two, you can integrate with Meta's conversion API, Zapier, Google Ads and more in just a few seconds. Then number three, which is a given and this is a B test where you can create them in days, not weeks with their intuitive design tools. Then number four, you could connect to tracking and analytical tools like SEMrush and GA4 in seconds and manage all of your client social media from one dashboard. If you're ready for more, then go to Wix Studio.com again. That's Wix Studio.com. another one I think is emerging is vlogs. They're back. And yeah, and I think what's leading it though is the fitness space. Kind of like the streetwear space where nearly any founder who's in the fitness or streetwear space has a like behind the scenes.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Brand series. I think you're going to see a lot more different brands. Like you. You look at the next emerging Graza. I think you'll see that from that kind of brand.

[B]

I think you're going to see more of. I think, I actually think that. I think it's tons happening right now. I think you're going to be right in this next year and everyone's going to be copying that and I think it's going to hit saturation point. I think what the next piece of this is going to be is similar to what the streamers do where it's like this big weekend, this big 30 day thing. You're going to see all these brands adopting like the streamer mentality of like, hey, we brought all these influencers here for the, you know, like the Graza olive oil games and everyone's doing X and Y. They're going to try and make these like spectacle events to have like a live component. They're being clipped on social and. And they're going to be copying from streamers is definitely that wave. I also think that we're going to see there's brands, a brand called I'm Gia. It's a womenswear brand where like all the majority of their models now, not majority but a good chunk of them are influencers. Like people lead their campaigns. I think it's going to be like social following first for how people book that for savvy brands and like tying those in the campaigns.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

There's another one that we're just see. Wait. I'm surprised we haven't seen more of that. I think the core people argue against it like, oh, they can't act, they don't actually know how to model and it's like cool. We actually need to create campaigns that work with that. That's something G has done very well where like the awkwardness of those people compared to the other models is almost like kind of funny and like part of it.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I think another one's going to be like challenges. So we talked about this on the pod a few weeks ago, but like Bandit Running partnered with Asics and they did a 16 week training program. Right. And they put this challenge where it was virtual and in person. But like that whole 16 week span you're working with Bandit running on PR and for your marathon, it's like there's this affinity building aspect versus just having a run club. And so I think you're going to see a transition from like okay, we have run clubs but now we have like these clubs or challenges or competitions that we're doing as a brand and bringing our customer base into. I think that's going to be another.

[B]

So brands are basically replacing all these institutions of, of our lives for better or for worse. They're replacing news media. Right. Like right now like brands are putting out content about oh, this recipe or this whatever are better than going and getting recipe content from Google 1000% as a bad user experience. Currently it's going to be the same thing with guides and, and travel content as well. I think that's going to be an area that brands begin to dominate above traditional.

[A]

Why couldn't Bandit give like the best runs of New York City?

[B]

Exactly. And I think and they probably do like, you know, like that's like it's one of those things where like it may even exist. And so I think they're going to kind of own a bunch of that. And so this, they're taking over media and then they're also taking over this desire for in person experiences and these things that like the decline of club culture and all these things are now being replaced by. That's happening in retail experiences. Right. There's all these clubs popping up in coffee shops that is being owned by a brand experience now. And so I think we're going to see. And that's where like brands we have this thought process of like oh, someone trying to sell us stuff. I actually think like we're going to see brands become much more than that because there's going to be brands that do that and there's going to be brands that do that with all this other added value we have Banda being an excellent example. Perfection there.

[A]

Yeah. Like how can your brand cure the loneliness epidemic?

[B]

Yeah, well, I think. And that's when you really look at it like all these other institutions, like traditional media institutions have very little use in the current world. And so anything that's currently being served by that is going to kind of go away. And then anything where you're any other institution, whether that is social clubs or anything where they have a hard time retaining user affinity and where there's brands where experts retain that user affinity, I think there's going to be some level of detraction from and it really just comes down to what relationships people are willing to have with brands and how they consider them. Because there's always going to be this, like, they're trying to sell me something in the back of your head. But at some point, I think that's going to fade away a bit.

[C]

I think the other part that that's going to be interesting in 2025 is I think partnerships with other brands are going to be very underrated. The reason I think that is it's going to be the best way of doing world building, right? Like when you're world building, there's like always like five to 10 brands that you're obsessed with. Now what happens when your two favorite brands collab and they do something and now you're part of both. And so like an example is like Cadence and Bandit, you know, for the New York City Marathon, they did all sorts of different events together and they brought the Cadence Crew to the Bandit Crew and the Bandit Crew to the Cadence Crew. And you're seeing a lot of this lately where even again, you look at Bandit, they have all of these different partnerships with their memberships of like 10 different brands that they kind of collab with that if you're part of Bandit's membership, you also get discounts and all sorts of different perks. These. All these different brands. And I think there's like a move there where you can really, really scale that. And it's an underrated. Especially if you're doing something where it's just like a run club or you're doing like these small events, but you're getting 300 people to all of a sudden be introduced to your brand and like really be able to affinity build there. I think it's super underrated.

[B]

Collaboration is still one of the. It's funny. So I've been doing a bunch of like workshops with brands and a lot of them are basically a lot people are saying, hey, we have, we're big on social, or we're creators who are big on social. How do we maintain being on top? Right? That's what you're doing after this. Okay, I'm really doing one of these after this. But. And, but one of the topics I bring up a lot there is like one of the advantages you have if you are an existing creator with an audience, viewer, existing brand with an audience is that ability to collaborate, right? Because you start to look at like my phone is now full. Other creators who are large, right? All these group chats, all these other. You begin to have that same thing with Brands, you begin to know these other brands to stand out. Collaboration content works, whether that's skits, like I've done skits with, you know, like Zach Kravitz and you know, like Ashwin and them, like a bunch of these. We'll probably cut a skit after, you know, like it's just like you start, you start to build outside of, you know, like the normal content people expect. And that's something that other people can't do. Smaller brand can't go, say this person with a million followers, we're going to go collab on it doesn't make that same sense if you do. There's probably a fiscal component, but I think that's something that all these people have as creators or brands is doing a lot of that, both in real world in terms of content, in terms of whatever allows them to stay ahead of the curve of people that are kind of coming up on their heels. And so I agree, but it has to be like not, oh, we did a collab T shirt anymore. It's exactly what you mentioned. Like, hey, we're doing all this run prep and training or we're launching some big challenge or we're doing all these experiences that drive value to people, but we're doing it together.

[A]

Did you see the Roka Huberman glasses?

[B]

I did, yeah.

[A]

Where he put out those blue light blockers. I mean that was probably as good of a creator product collab as you could do.

[B]

I agree. And I think now we're seeing these. Be more intelligent, right? And look, and look. The biggest thing that I think is going to be kind of come to a head in this next year is really complicated for all of us is just like the over consumption conversation. Because it's happening, people are still doing it. There's, I think there has to be a turning point where people are like, how much stuff am I getting? How much things do I need? Where does that go? And I don't know where that ends.

[A]

We're seeing the rise of the knowledge creator. You know, it's like someone like Huberman is replacing your traditional primary care doctor almost in terms of where you're getting your information. And so when he's telling you that you need to buy these glasses and that he's personally using them, he's like addressing objections in all of his content on the story. Like, it's really interesting how that can move product. When I didn't know what Roka was before I saw this, but now I looked into it.

[C]

You had no idea that.

[A]

No. And they're an Austin based brand. I had no idea. But then you kind of dig into it deeper and they're, you know, high performance athletes, like all this sort of stuff. But they probably just unlocked this massive amount of people who are almost optimizer adjacent. You know, I feel like the Huberman husband gang is like very like one foot in, one foot out on trying to commit to being better about themselves. And so that's the perfect product for it. It's like, oh dude, yeah, Blue light really does mess me up. Like, let me just try these things.

[B]

To all these new things that like weren't in the budget that we didn't know we need but now we really desperately need and we're having. That's happening absolutely constantly. And I think the dollars out there in America right now like are there and supported. Maybe that continues forever. But I am really curious what that like, I think brands who want to take advantage of that, I think things like swaps, like clothing swaps, being like, hey, this is a meetup just for guys to wear xl, like that's fire. And then you all bring your stuff and like, you know, swap things out.

[A]

A bunch of big dudes.

[B]

Yeah, just a bunch of videos, same thing. But like I do that across any size. Right. Or any lifestyle or any whatever. It's like, hey, there's this ability to say we still want those experiences, we want to have new things, we want to bring X and Y. But like maybe we're not consuming something new to do it. I think there's rooms for a brand to operate in that space because now you see so many people reselling. Like arc'teryx was one of the first people to really do resell and have the ability to buy used stuff. Ralph Lauren has a whole segment of it now. And you're starting to see, okay, brands are going to embrace the ability to get secondhand on their platforms but also we're going to see facilitation of swapping of experiences. Because I just wonder how long that consumerism at that level can continue.

[A]

You should hit like an urban cowboy.

[B]

Meetup after seeing how a cowboys con went. But even just like, hey, even when you do one of those car meetups and you have a swap air grant or you have some level of X and Y, there's so much opportunity. Yeah, it's all just time and resources.

[C]

I think it's. There's the content piece too where similar to what you were saying about like you're able to team up with Zach, you're able to team up with Jordan and them. But this works really well for small brands as well to be able to do these collabs and really piggyback off of five different accounts and kind of grow together. And I hate to like bring it up as an example. Like you see Raw Dog Run Club, like if you took the model that they were doing as a brand and you partner with three, four brands where it's like these four bros that they're all going to help build each other, you can replicate that with four small little brands that you are trying to build. All incongruence.

[B]

That's an amazing point. Is that you should be doing that whatever level you're at. If you have a thousand followers, you find 5 of the people with a thousand followers, you're brand again. Like just. You should not be waiting until you're X size. You should be acting on whatever size that you are at.

[A]

Well, and it's crazy how much of that content can get localized. I think I see the same kind of Austin creators all the time, even though I don't follow any of them.

[B]

It's just forced and localized is the trend. Right. Hidden gems and all. That's the other thing I think we're looking at what happens in the next year. I think brands are going to get ultra localized. You're going like, what geographies really matter to me. How do we provide? And you see this with their shoots, right? Where they have stores in London and Portugal and a few other places and they're making. They have accounts for those stores. They're making localized content to that that has mass appeal. But like there is. I think that any brand would be silly not to be tapping into these local newsletter accounts and networks that are happening. And then be really think of what are our top markets and like, how do we have some kind of presence with the way content moves there. And also if you're a creator, if my content started falling off right now and was going terrible, I would completely pivot to just Southern California content because I know I would just be in people's feeds forever. You'd be a local celebrity in LA in perpetuity and then build back up. Right. That content works kind of almost no matter what.

[A]

Sounds like both the worst and best life of all time.

[B]

Exactly. You have to like, it's question what you want, but like it's it. But we know right now would work. You know, like local celebrity is the easiest thing for a creator to do. I think at this point is to be like, why do you go back? Because the Way the algorithms are.

[A]

Yeah, the platforms know that people are.

[B]

Really in demand and people like to consume it because everyone always blames the algorithm. The algorithm wants to show people. That algorithm wants to show people what they like to consume. Guess what? I have the same experience in the oc. I get all this OC content, but I watch it for a little bit longer because I'm like, oh shit, that's a taco place I might want to check out. That's a museum I might want to go to. It's familiar and it's also useful to you. And so I think that people always will have that inherent like, oh, things around me again. It's replacing these traditional media experiences and no longer matter. I'm not browsing Yelp, looking at what the 10 best restaurants, but if I see amazing looking video of a taco and someone's like, check out the four best taco places in beach, say less. And so I do think that that opportunity for across everything, coffee shops, museums, retail, whatever is there in basically any region. Because guess what? In Bozeman or in Arkansas or wherever we end up being, there is just as much people that want to know what they can go try and do two towns over than there is anywhere else.

[A]

Yeah, there was the guy who would always do the how much do you pay in rent in New York City? And can I go to your place? And I've started to see that is Austin. Huh?

[C]

There's a version of it in Austin.

[A]

There's like three Austin guys doing it now and they're all popping. It's so automatic. If you live in any place, you could do that in Tampa.

[B]

And you get it because. And like, and where it gets is like you can do well in your local area. Then you also get the voyeur content of like, oh, I'm thinking of moving to Austin, or I'm interested in this other place or I live in across the globe and they're interested in it. And these are all formats. That's why I encourage people so much to be like, that's a TV format. It's just in short form. It's like, what can you do? Everyone will go jump on the next one that happens. But I'm like literally go like, go through the programming of what MTV did in, in any given year.

[A]

That's like MTV Cribs for your local mitt. You know, like, it's just the ability to go look at like a $4,000 apartment and be like, wow, that looks like, like terrible. You're like, you're overpaying.

[B]

Amen.

[C]

I think the other move too is, and we've talked about this a good amount of. If you could go to YouTube and replicate a lot of the formats that are on working, working on YouTube and looking at the category, like either different categories or similar categories, look at the titles and understand the format and then just replicate it. For social. We had this guy, Date Night Kitchen. So Jake from Date Night Kitchen, he looked at YouTube and was like, okay, people are doing a 50 cookie versus a 50 cent cookie. And then he comes and he makes the 45 second version of that for social and he grows to. It was like two or three hundred thousand followers in a month.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[C]

And all he did was replicate.

[B]

It's crazy how many YouTube creators I meet now that don't do the short form version of whatever it is they're doing. Which I understand for some regards. But like, I completely agree. It's a great alpha.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And YouTube is so. I don't want to say it's easy, but like there is so much opportunity, especially for SEO. Like I don't like, I look at marketing content like I can rank for basically anything. You know, like in putting a video out that doesn't even get many views and you're like, all right, like I'm smaller, 30,000 subs and you're looking at like expert content on there in any niche has like such a ripe opportunity.

[C]

Let's dive into YouTube because that's something that you've been focusing on this year, right? Like I would say you've still owned short form, but you.

[B]

I was not concentrating on growing on short form. I changed my strategy on short form. I was usually really focused on growth and I stopped making the videos that were growing my account huge because it was not the people that I want.

[C]

To have stuff like the product first brand like those, those kinds of.

[B]

Exactly like where I was like, hey, I really. I'm going to be better for sponsors and better for the things I want to do and better for the brand I have. If I have. If I grow from 300 to 400k, which is roughly what I'll do this year, then grow to 700k because it's just gonna be a bunch of people and that's not. Yeah, I, I am better off like giving you three email campaign types. You should try for your brand than trying to make stuff that appeals to 700000 people. There are not 700 000. I have 600000 followers. There are not 700,000 people in the world that are actually interested in the real content I'm making every day. So I dialed that back and then YouTube was the. Was the focus because I was like, hey, this is actually a completely different network, a completely different thing, completely different experience. And I want to be able to have. And in case TikTok went away, I was like, cool, I want to be in there.

[C]

And so you had kind of an inflection point. I feel like with TikTok or with. With YouTube, where you were kind of like 4 to 7,000 subs, and then from 7,000 to what you are now, 30,000 subs has grown a lot faster. What were the things that kind of shifted there?

[B]

Yeah, I think all the things that you would. All things you'd expect. I didn't really understand. I wasn't sure what people would want. I didn't really understand YouTube. Whatever. Once you start to get the, oh, here's the flow of the script, here's the packaging that people like, okay, now I'm just going to repeat these. Similar to short form, right? My short form is several ideas repeated where it's like, all right, cool. I have a collection video where I show a number of things. I have a tactic video where I walk through X or Y A versus video where you compare two things, things. And I kind of just need to find those formats for YouTube. And now that I have them, where I have, like, how to do X in X minutes, you know, or like, here's a category of all these things that are happening. Or here's a aesthetic video where I show how to do this concept or whatever, an art direction video. It's like, now I have those things and I can repeat them, and that's the core. And I repeat those. And basically I'm trying to experiment once a week and then repeat something that works once a week. And it grew much faster. But even also, I mean, like, all. All the things they tell you about YouTube, like, matter. Like, once I started having nicer production, nicer setup, it worked.

[C]

It worked.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, even now I'm about to redo, like, my thumbnail style and it will work, but I. YouTube's gonna be great. I don't see any issue growing massive on there. I don't think. I don't think it's gonna be hard.

[A]

What's your goal with YouTube?

[B]

That is a good question. My goal overall, I wanna be the biggest marketing and branding creator. Like, period. Like, I wanna. Where Seth Godin was for a previous generation, I wanna be for our current generation. Like across all platforms, I'm a decent way towards it. I think it will take years to get it, but I wanna be on every platform that way. And partially because that is a whole business and opportunity in its own right, partially because the creators and things out there right now are not very good. I feel like I'm giving actual genuine, useful information as opposed to like being purely salesy. But then last, because it's that validation for every single business you ever want to do. Right. The valuable business isn't one business, it's like four businesses. The amount of SKUs I have, right. It's just me validating those ideas and some of them will stay under that business. Maybe that's just experimental, but like the ones that are getting some fit, like I'm telling because of the audience, that I'm gonna either spin that off into its own thing, keep it light under valuable, or just note that and be like, all right, if I want to work on this project or that project, this entrepreneur. And like that is like, that's the dream, right? For someone that's super experimental, it's like cool. Like you know, we want to do a drink, we want to do whatever is just have that audience to be able to like to validate it with.

[A]

Yeah. It's kind of like you're kind of trying to become like a modern day mogul with like different.

[B]

Yeah. When media is now the center of that and just being able to move. I also realized too, like I don't have the aspirations a lot of people are like, I need to make my 20 mil and da da da. Like I don't really have that same monetary aspiration. Like money's great and it will come, but I also have the. I want to have a really interesting life where I get to do things exactly as I want to and pivot how I want to and like, and this is so much of a vehicle to be able to do that and then make money from so many different ways from it. Where it's like, all right, cool if I can't. If there's a brand that's not interested in being a part of that experience, can I sell something on the help be that part of that experience? Like where does that bridge and. Or does the content itself pay for it? And so really as I look at like what does the next 10 or 15 years of my life look like post having to have a job? It's like, how do I have a genuinely interesting experience and then share as much of that as possible to help keep that experience? Going like, like I'm able to do things I never would have imagined I'd be able to do. Right.

[C]

I'm in the same boat. And I've thought about this a lot lately where I think I rather have. And may this sound stupid, but like I rather have 5 million followers right now than $5 million in the bank. Because with 5 million followers I can test anything that I want to test and like then go all in on that thing. But if I had 5 million followers, yes, I can buy and I could try to do these things. But it's. There's something so different about getting that market validation with an audience like that, that you can move so fast and you could try things so fast and then go all in. And I think then obviously it gets you to that road. But I've been thinking about that a lot.

[A]

It took you three months of being an agency. Gotta hate money, huh?

[B]

Yeah, well. Yeah, well, agency money is the worst.

[A]

Money you're already out.

[B]

There's. We have also just been so programmed like entrepreneurially to be like this big exit this thing. You want this, you know, this, this X or Y. And you had really been to really think about like, what is it? But also I just look at, man, the educational. We are preparing especially creative people and for their lives like so badly. Right. There is no roadmap for that. The way jobs are, aren't quite working. Everything is shifting so fast. And I think like really showing people like giving them a better view of life. It's either like how to become a billionaire from $4 an hour. Right. Like that's like the one angle that you're seeing on, on the videos here. Right. Like there's like literally a video that came out.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, you're either kind of getting in that or you're getting in these, like in, you know, these like high level. You're learning about philosophy for the first time. Right. There's not just that, but there's very little like practical, like here's how to have a like robust multiple stream of income, like interesting life that prepares you for adversity. Like no one's teaching that because it's.

[A]

Really difficult, I think to reach scale with that type of content. I mean generally the most like the most generic stuff is going to reach the broadest audience.

[B]

And I think that's where the broad audience is, I think is a, is a fallacy in that. Like, I don't know. So I'm at 30,000 subs here. If I get to 100,000 subs I've got a good chunk of marketing people that are on the Internet or on YouTube or consuming. You probably got. The majority of them have been interacting or at least have seen it and said, I'm in on this guy or I'm out on this guy. And then it's like. But also your value per CPM of that versus anything else is like, cool. If I get a million views to fitness people, that is worth a fraction of getting 100,000 views to people that actually have the purchase power on SaaS. And so I think there's a lot of this to kind of look at too, because I've been caught in that. Right. The view thing gets in your head. It's ego. And I would much rather. Now I am much prouder of the fact that I can get 30,000 views putting out an extremely tactical video about email marketing than I am that I could get a million views. Making fun of brands.

[A]

Now that you're kind of in this new zone, I would say what's kind of something you wish you knew when you were looking at opportunities before? How are you evaluating new opportunities?

[B]

Yeah, so I guess agency stuff I feel like is a trap. Trading time for money is just really, really hard, right?

[A]

It is.

[B]

And it's easy, though, because it's like, it's there, you feel good, you can complete it. It's not intangible, you can plan it. So there's a lot of those benefits in your head. So I would have, like, I was trying, I was doing some of that stuff. I would have cut all that earlier for sure. And then also just like focusing on the things that you feel best about. Like, I guess it's one of those where I always feel like every time I provide, I have value, I get all this value back exponentially. And you can't describe it, you're always afraid of it because you're like, oh, how does this actually make even make sense? But I think I would just be leaning in more into the things I really enjoy about it. But yeah, it's a complicated question.

[A]

Yeah, I guess in the interest of the audience, who's probably looking at a bunch of different opportunities, people might want to go into content agency. Do you view certain things? Maybe YouTube versus Instagram? You're obviously investing a lot into YouTube versus Instagram as a channel after Instagram. Exactly. So. And we talked a little bit about streaming. Are there different blue ocean opportunities out there that you're looking at that people should be thinking about?

[B]

Yeah, I think there definitely are. Depends where you're at. One thing I do encourage is that reason I can look at agency money a certain way is I have an agency I've been an owner in for seven years and we know all the ups and downs of that business has 40 people. It's had horrible years, it's had good years. I recommend everyone have those experiences. You need to work brand side, especially with a smaller brand where you're really in the weeds and you're doing everything and your guys are trying to win and you need to work at an agency. It's like, like core life experiences and then even having your own version of one of those two things, whether it fails, however long it goes. Like, I think like before you're the age of 35, if you've done all three of those things, you are very equipped for life from there. And so I think that's one thing I do highly want to encourage. Like, I'm in a different place in my life, so I'm looking at things differently. But then in terms of like experiences going into the next year, like, it's still easier than ever to grow on short form. And especially if you have any level of unique perspective. And I think that's the place to start because like YouTube, if you don't know people that are doing YouTube and you don't have the ability to workshop with other YouTube people how to get good at YouTube, I don't think you're going to have great success and you're going to put a lot of stuff into the void and it's not going to get any views. Like, I was able to succeed on YouTube because I'm at a management firm that knows YouTube and I am able to pay people that know YouTube to help me out and I have the ability to have editors and all this stuff that like, we were able to kind of move on it. If I was started there as my first network, this would not have gone as well. Right. So I still think that short form is the way to start. TikTok especially. But then streaming is the blue ocean, right? I think streaming is when we look at five years in the future, what things are going to look like. Everyone ages 16 to 20 has a second screen on, especially boys, where they're doing anything, they're doing homework, they're watching sports, they're on a phone, whatever, there's a streamer in the background. For a large chunk of the population, I think that's actually a good workflow. It's kind of like listening to a podcast, but someone interactive. And right now those Are all kind of. Obviously there's a whole bunch of cottage industries of these but it's like gaming and it's bro stuff and it's light entertainment. But as what we've seen with doing the brand Brothers stream is like, okay, cool. We will get a bunch of like director of marketing and like serious people who are just on during their day. Like, oh, I can hop on a stream and I can ask a question or I can be a part of a conversation relevant to me. I think that second screen as streaming opportunity is absolutely massive. Both for brands, almost easier for brands because like I remember once I was talking to my friend who works at Air1. I was like, well you need to have the live cam of just the walking into the Beverly Hills erewhon like because it's just weird. And I was just like if you just had that 247 like and that was a stream, that channel will probably be yakking.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Everyone can, you know. And so brands have these because they can alternate creators, they can alternate people, they can keep streams going versus your one person you're streaming all day. It's exhausting. But I do think that that like companionship, streaming by niche for almost any niche, hey, I'm working on my car, I'm streaming it. You know, I think that is a, a big opportunity. That is there's a moat to it because it has some it challenges, it has some personality challenges. But if you were able to cross that moat again, the bigger that moat is that not everyone can do it and do it well. The more opportunity and upside you have if it is highly consumed.

[A]

Y I keep seeing a lot of these prominent podcasters are doing like Shark Tank and they'll be like having people pitch them on a podcast. And I just can't help but think, man, if someone just wanted to replicate Shark Tank on Twitch and that would be a weekly thing, it would blow up again.

[B]

Taking any of these things we just talked about to replicate for short form or for YouTube or whatever. It's the same exact thing on streaming and you're seeing it and people are doing it. Such a high level Kaiser not doing it at such a high level. They are, they are scripting and moving these things like so fast and so efficiently is actually like shockingly impressed. Impressive.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

I think the opportunity to looking at something like streaming is when you look at that blue ocean, it is so hard to be successful because it is what you said, like you have to have a good personality, you have to be good on camera and it's like why, for example, Twitter bros will are rarely ever good on Instagram. Right. They're terrible from a Twitter bro. Okay, all of us were Twitter bros, but like, we, we were all. We're all good on camera, though.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

But there's a huge selection of individuals that are never moved from Twitter 100, right? And then you get to Instagram and. And then there's a huge, huge portion of individuals that are never going to be good at getting on YouTube and doing a 10 to 12 minute, 15 minute video because for whatever reason, and then there's going to be a huge portion of those individuals that are like, I don't have the personality to be live and be able to do something. And it's like the higher you go, the more opportunities there are because there's going to be less people that are going to be able to swim in that ocean. And I think that's.

[B]

It's also an improvement scale something I think about, like, I was a. I had a personality before, like, I started making Instagram. Like, I was on Twitter. I wasn't very good at it. I was never as good as you or lan Forest or any of these people who like, really could bang stuff out on Twitter. I just, I just don't think and write the same way. But I'm much more good on video, right? And so like, I was like, okay, cool, I started this, but I am now that I did video. I was pretty bad to start, but a couple hundred in all of a sudden, like, my meetings are better, my public speaking is better, my ability to communicate is better. Now I'm doing like workshops for eight hours in front of people. I never would have done that like two years ago, Right. But because I'm doing all that, my YouTube, okay, now I'm talking for 10 to 20 minutes. I got good enough at talking and structuring those thoughts to be able to do that longer. Now I actually feel way more comfortable on streaming because it's not like I'm hanging out with my bros. It's very similar to YouTube. And it's like, I feel like you start working through that skill set. I'll never forget I was in a retail meeting when I was still working and we had to pitch. Someone was coming up with like some objections and I literally was in my head structuring how I was going to respond. Like a video I'm going to hook. We're going to do context, I'm going to do the point, and then I'm going to blow them away with something extra and Then you're like. I'm like, oh, this has actually changed how my life, how I communicate. And so I do think that's why I encourage so many people to start creating and do that again. Even if you're not huge, because there's so much opportunity there. And then you never know where it might go. Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

If you're going back to like, even some tactical things on the short form side and YouTube side, have you changed anything about how you structure your, your scripting? Because in the past I think it was like hook, bullet, point, some sort of.

[B]

Yeah, I do like so on. On YouTube. It's very. So YouTube now, which is probably a little more interesting, is like. So it's like intro, break down what's gonna happen in the video. Like, I guess you have to explain what people are about to see and then it is. And then go into a bunch of segments. Right? Because you'll see my videos that do. Well, I'm talking about like eight things, right? And so you're moving between stuff, so people go with it. And then you're hooking the things that come up. Be like, oh, and then later on I'm gonna talk about blank. You're constantly feeding in reasons to stay. So that's how I'm structuring the YouTube stuff now, which is. I mean, I'm not like some massive YouTuber, but it's working significantly better. And then on short form, I'm experimenting a lot this month and last. I was basically like, december is gonna be brutal. Anyway, I have all the sponsored content. People don't wanna hear about your business bullshit during the holidays. Right. I'm like, this is gonna be a rough month. I might as well experiment. So I'm testing velocity. Like, I'm doing two posts a day versus one. That's why you saw me post at night for the first time. I was like, I'm like doing these different times a day. I'm trying different formats. I'm doing like excerpts and edits, but I don't have a good angle as to what's gonna. I, I know is gonna work, but I know I wanna do my content differently going in, into next year. I don't wanna have it. Cause I'm looking at anyone can replicate this content. Like, we all see this. Anyone can do a marketing breakdown. Anyone can do like, they can copy those exact videos. Even now I'm doing nicer production, they can copy that style. It's just, that's just a money thing. I'm like, what can I really do? That nobody else can do is what I'm trying to think of going into next year.

[C]

And what is that?

[B]

That I don't know.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And so, like, that's where I'm really the. The Li. That's why I'm interested in the Li stuff. Like, I am researching, like, I. Right now. Like, I've. I watched all the stuff that the Faze Clan was doing when they brought their new creators in. I don't know if you guys followed this, but, like, so Faze Clan brought in, like, the next generation of Faze Clan. The guys all streamed live for 30 days. One of these kids, Jason, who's like, really tapped into, like, Asian culture on streaming, like, really blew up. And then that's when Kaisen, that one did another 30 day and blew up again. I'm like, watching how those guys do it because I feel like that's the cusp. And then really think about what content I want to make. Like, I can bang out this kind of stuff forever, but, like, what is it really? Like, where it gets me the value on short form and then how many. Like, also, like, even Velocity, like, I posted one a day, but, like, now I don't really see the reason. If I post two a week, that's probably fine.

[A]

Two a week? Yeah.

[B]

If I. If I did way less, I'd probably be all right. If I. I'm doing two a day right now, I'm like, is that better? I genuinely don't know the answer, but I want to find something that's extremely unique to me versus what I feel like I'm still making content that is replicable by others.

[C]

Yeah, I'll brainstorm a little bit on because this is something that I'm going into 2025 wanting to do because, like, on the agency side, product, service side, whatever, we working with a lot of brands and basically coming in as like this fractional head of growth or head of content and helping them launch their products, helping them launch their different social shows and whatnot. But with a lot of the brands, like, we have good relationships with them. So I'm going to start going to the actual locations, working with the brand, and then kind of record the, hey, this is us launching this show. Like, filming this show. This is us launching this product and, like, kind of doing it. I don't want to say Queer Eye, but it's kind of queer. I like where you're coming in and they have this goal and then you have to show the transformation and then you show the final product. We recorded a YouTube version because we launched it helped launch a shoe at the CrossFit Games and like it. I just got it back two, three days ago. Like, it's sick. But the hard part was it took three months to produce versus, like, the short form could have taken a week to produce.

[B]

And that look like. I feel like my vlogs drove way more growth than my other videos this year. But obviously, like, there's purpose of all, all these different things. And so you're really kind of looking at, like, what. Yeah, again, what. What are the goals? We're really trying to get out of it. The other thing I think about is, like, I've seeded a lot of content to other creators now rep and like, hey, they just as well as me. I don't want to be making the same. I don't do like, playbook breakdowns anymore because, like, you make playbook breakdowns are better than mine. So it's like, all right, so someone else is owning that. But then I'm like, do I want to go on like a shock and a tour for six months while this content's still relevant and just do as much of it as I humanly can and then, like, exit it out? It's hard because again, there's no model for any of this, especially at this level. Like, you know, there's not. There's like, I don't know, there aren't any. There aren't like, bigger creators to aspire to or look to in this niche. So then you're on top of it and you're like, shit, like, where do I look at? You know? And it's just. It's a different space. That's a really hard question. But that's why I got so ahead on content. We were talking before the pod started, like, I'm 5 youtubes and 20 short form ahead because I need until the end of this year to figure out what I'm going to do.

[C]

I. I really liked when you did the China series when they. You went to China and like, you're kind of. Yeah, you're dropping what. Because you, you know, you and people have like.

[A]

Right.

[B]

No one else has put that content out.

[C]

Exactly. Like, no one was putting out that content within this niche and still giving tactical aspects. Like, you can do the show, the different materials that you're going to be using, but then kind of give a little bit of game on the marketing side and the branding side and like, like intertwine those two. And I think that's super interesting versus just the ladder of.

[B]

And that's What? I've structured a lot of this next year around being able to do more of that. Like, I go to Barcelona at that, like, at the end of this year, and I'm going Premier Vision in Paris right after that. Then I go to Tokyo to look at denim. Then we're going back to China, and that's all between, like, now and May, and maybe I'll slide one or two others in there. And I'm like, all right. But then it's a question of, like, okay, well, what's, what's. What purpose does the other content serve besides, like. Yeah, and it's just. And like, really thinking about, like, what are those formats? How does that succeed? And then how does that make me stand out as a person? How do you tie in the brand? Usually hard world building questions. And even with, like, a team and management and whatnot, it's like, you know, I could spend the next 20 hours trying to work through where it is and not know if I'm getting in the right place, you know?

[C]

That's why I think it gets interesting of attaching your pillars to a purpose, which I think is underrated and doesn't get talked about enough, where it's like, each content pillar that you have has to serve an overarching purpose. And then when you have five different content pillars and you understand, okay, I'm doing these Playbooks because it drives leads for the agency. When I create my vlogs or when I create my BTS of this, it is doing xyz. And then there's the. You're attaching the purpose behind each pillar.

[B]

Alex, been on fire today. I feel like since you've been in the trenches all Black Friday, you know, you just, you're. You're on it. You got the heat.

[C]

I'm back out the last two and a half weeks, three weeks, like, because we have to do, for one, for example, people, this whole month, like, we had a cut 30 cohort going live while the Black Friday. And bro, like, we were all like, like, we have a video sharing channel that we have to go into and give feedback, bro. I swear, like, I'd feel so bad because I'm only getting into video sharing at like 12 o'clock at night.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

You know what I mean?

[A]

I mean, team members pick up the slack.

[B]

Yeah, we did it. But it was. Everyone's grinding. Yeah, it was.

[C]

It was a tough.

[B]

But I feel like we're more in it than ever. But even that's the whole thing about, like, why that feedback is valuable has been like, yeah, like, guess what? We're just getting out of the trenches.

[A]

Of like, like, well, not only that. I mean, the video feedback's gonna be like, yeah, my, my attention is already elsewhere. You know, like, we definitely hit a.

[C]

Lot more one liners with like, with feedback.

[A]

Yeah, like you're, you're already distracted.

[B]

But, but it's funny, we had way more success this time than ever. Cause we've changed up some of the curriculum and it's interesting to see like how those, if we hadn't done that this time, like this could have been a bad cut 30. But it was probably one of the best cut 30 because, because the shifts, it's.

[A]

When you say best, what are you saying you had the most students succeed?

[B]

Yeah, the most students succeed. That is the normal metric is. Is do people. Have people had one video that shows them that they can do this? That's number one. And then number two is have they actually, have they like gotten a format where they're gonna be able to continue? Yeah, and we have had more than ever.

[C]

And like the biggest shift we had was we first would give people homework within week one of like, hey, rewrite these hooks and do copy work. And then we were like, what if we just get people to ship very easy videos in week one and all of a sudden our we have a content wins channel. It was like there was seven or eight content wins within the first few days. Like, hey, my first video hit 20,000 views and they have zero followers.

[A]

What do you think? What do you think makes the most successful cut 30 student? Like, what, what is the common trend?

[C]

I say, but consistency, like you look at Hans. Hans, consistency and angle, right?

[B]

Because even the people that are popping out of this one, we have a woman who I'm super bullish on, who's 53, who's doing like how to style your outfits. Gen X mom.

[A]

Yeah, Running. Yeah.

[B]

And it's like, it's just like all day.

[C]

I sent it to my own mom and I was like, yeah.

[B]

And then we have, we have Australian sauna guy. I was like, good gold, right? Yeah. Give me Australia plus anything interesting. Right? And so then you like. And so I just, again, you just have to like, it's just, it's consistency and niche. And I'm like, if those people both posted a lot of videos and we have a bunch of other really solid creators in there. Shannon is her second time back. She's a photographer and she's like doing BTS photography stuff. Her stuff is great. And so there's. But it's like, basically, do I have a unique angle? And then am I consistent? That's like literally all it is. But the unique angle is harder than people think.

[A]

You know, it's extremely hard.

[B]

But we have. But people get it because we break everything down to a science. I think the thing that Colin and Alex and I share in common that has made this all easy is we are all the kind of people that look at anything that happens ever and go, well, if I just break this down one level and I break it down another level and bring another. Okay, now I have a formula and there's not a lot of people that think like that. And obviously you think like that too and are doing that like on the TikTok shop side, but then giving that format back to people and they go, oh, here's this map. And so we were able to say, here's how you find your niche, here's how you find your genre, here's how you think about it. And it works really well.

[C]

Well, yeah, I'm excited. I think next year is going to be crazy for cut 30. Like overall, I think it's going to.

[B]

Be, oh, I think there's an opportunity for some mainstream stuff there.

[A]

How are you all expanding it?

[B]

Well, did you see that? There's that New York Times article about like, this guy launched that influencer, a business to help make somebody an influencer. And like there's like mainstream media coverage of this stuff where we live in this very specific niche.

[A]

Just riding the moat. You're riding the wave. You think?

[B]

Well, I think we are basically still only promoting this to like, our, the base that knows us on social media. There is a moment where cut 30, like goes significantly more mainstream, which happens either if one of us becomes massively famous or if we have some other additional marketing strategy or value added channel or anything that goes on top of it, where we're doing it for just tons and tons and tons of people and people outside of this atmosphere that we work in. But I think we, after this core, really have a formula. It took 11 to really get here, but I feel comfortable that basically anyone that rolls in there can have a formula.

[C]

We give them the right tools to win. I think that the challenge we always deal with is like, for neither of us, this is our main thing. And so we'll get, we'll have a little bit of success as we push it early and then we'll have like this 2, 3 week lag where we don't push and then we look at the numbers and we're like 10 days of just intense, like, yo, I got a story, I got a tweet going out, I'm putting in the newsletter, I'm retargeting everybody that clicks. I'm doing XYZ. And then even like two days ahead, I'm like, okay, I'm hitting three emails today that I cut 30 list, like, whatever it is. And then it just takes off. And I think if we had that consistent.

[A]

Yeah, like if you actually tried to monetize it.

[B]

Well, that goes back to like, why people. You should do one thing because of exactly things like that. But we're never going to do one thing. So it is what it is.

[C]

But I think, like, we have something right now that's going to crack. We launched a seven day challenge, like a free seven day challenge where like you come in, we're going to give you the game, we're going to give you like a playbook, we're going to get you to do a little bit of homework. And that's crushing.

[A]

One thing I'm curious about is like, have you all ever looked at making the Slack Channel an ongoing paid community?

[B]

We did. It didn't really.

[A]

To get mrr.

[B]

Yeah. It didn't really stick. And I also think that there's something about the finite nature of it that really helps.

[A]

For sure. That's what a lot of people say about courses. Just when you invest the money, that's the reason you do it. And then if not, everyone says, if I give you my course, you won't take the course, you have to pay for it.

[B]

I've seen that with friends and stuff. I've added in. There's one who actually did it.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. I think it's the same thing if you gave someone the cut 30. If you just gave it to John, he's not doing it. Wait.

[B]

And also, the more, the more expensive we've charged. Every time we've raised the price, people take it way more seriously.

[A]

I told you all that, bro. The first time you let that thing out, I was like, you're probably underpriced.

[C]

It was a 299.

[B]

But we had no idea we were also making that up. Yeah. And also that first cohort was a little, you know, a lot of people blew up. But it was like we were just like making up straight.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

We'd get on like 15 minutes before.

[A]

Like, what are we talking?

[C]

What are we gonna do?

[A]

What is it? What is it now? Without this turning into a straight cupboard.

[C]

797.

[A]

Yeah, 797.

[C]

But if they use the code BFC.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, there's like literally no reason you're not 997.

[C]

I think we'll get there. Yeah, I think we'll get there. But I do think. I do think there is a move to whether it's $30 a month, $40 a month, and we get like old past cut 30 alums and get them into a slack channel and they're giving the feedback. The problem is if we had a thousand people into a slack channel, me, Oren and Colin cannot get.

[B]

Because we. Everyone's always asking before they go, they're like, are you guys actually in there? Do they. We feedback every. Everything. And so that is just. That's not a scalable thing. But it's also part of why it works.

[C]

But I wonder if, like, if we got, you know, the.

[B]

If we had a couple people to.

[C]

Do that of the world and also think.

[B]

I don't know if people really. I don't know if that's what they need. I think, but people were way more likely that people run it back all the time. I think that's a better value. Be like, all right, I'm gonna go read through this. With the new things that have come up with the changes you guys have.

[A]

Done, has anyone that's ran it back seen great success?

[B]

Yeah. So a lot of people actually where I have one now, it's like this, this woman, Shannon, who's ran this back now as a photographer, did like, okay on the first one, start making some stuff. And then now her ones off this one are like cracking. And you could tell she's like, oh, I'm getting it. I just needed another accountability thing, basically.

[C]

Well, that's a wrap.

[B]

What's up?

[C]

I appreciate you coming through, dude. It's always. It's always good when you jump on the pod. It's been a minute ever since you're not with Gel Blaster anymore, but we'll try to be.

[B]

I'm doing another one of these workshops out here, I think, in. In Jan. So I'll be back.

[A]

Nice. I'm enjoying the OR in the entrepreneur arc. It's fun.

[C]

I am too.

[B]

We'll see where it goes.

[C]

I am.

[B]

It's still. It's the. We're at foundational level here still, but we'll.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Foundational for.

[C]

For.

[A]

For you. Aspirational for men. Many.

[C]

Let's go and plug all the brands. Plug. This is. This is him. This is Oren. I wear this non stop.

[B]

Buy the things you like. So I can understand what people like. So, yeah, I can make more of it and then. Yeah, and then cut 30 co. And. But other than that, you know.

[C]

Did you plug your site? Did you plug the newsletter?

[B]

Yeah, we got Hyper. So Mail to hyperstudios us as our newsletter on brand strategy and creative strategy. But all.

[A]

I'm on YouTube. Follow me on YouTube everywhere.

[C]

All right, guys, peace.