← The GaryVee Audio Experience
The GaryVee Audio Experience
How Creators Can Turn Virality Into Revenue with Stan | GaryVee x John Hu
01:31:43
Loading summary
Transcript276 lines
- [00:00]
A
Podcast nation. Before I get you into today's podcast, big announcement. As you probably heard at this point, because I had John from Stan on the show, I am an investor advisor to an incredible startup called Stan. Stan Store. I'm sending you right now to GaryVee.com GaryVee.com Stan, go check this out. We've done a GaryVee Stan store challenge, which actually has a weekly call with me. This is built for everyone who's been affected, honestly by my overall content. The tech stack, all these features, and the minimal costs per month that Stan Store has built is really the tool that was needed for this world that I envisioned when I wrote Crush it, when I wrote Crushing It. And this overall thing I'm thinking a lot about lately, which is the individual empire, right? This creator entrepreneur slash entrepreneur creator economy that I think is gonna eat up the oxygen. Very honestly, the thing that so many of you want in your life and the reason so many of you are not there yet, is you've got the strategy for me. You've got the ambition within yourself, but you don't have the tools for you to fully maximize it. And I believe you can find that at Stan Store. Stan Store. But specifically, I want you to sign up for it through my challenge because I want to get access with you. And plus, there's a bunch of cool things. So if you want to go see those cool things, go to garyvee.com Stan S T A N Now to the podcast. This is the GaryVee audio experience. The guest I have today is a young gentleman. I don't know how much of a gentleman, but we'll figure it out. For now, a young man for sure. At least that I've gotten to know over the last half a year and has built a really interesting company in a place that I have a lot of passion for. This is an unusual1 Because AJ and I have spent a lot of time with John over the last several months and have really gotten involved in this business. And when we first met, John said, I really want to help you buy the jets. Which is really interesting because I don't know if I've heard that more than people saying hello to me in real life. So that part never really registers for me. It sets up people's ambition. A lot of times, people use it as a lever to try to capture my attention, but that wasn't what was interesting. What was interesting is what transpired over the course of the combo is. And I said this to him at the time, I said, huh, this could happen and it's really interesting and I want to really set this up. It's also catching me at a time where I really don't want to over promise and under deliver. But at the same token, I want to get involved in more businesses in a way that I can impact them. Because the scale of the 15 years of trying to build out VaynerX and my brand is in a place where those opportunities exist. Here's where it gets really exciting for me and why I'm setting it up this way. A stunning percentage of my audience should use this service. And as you can imagine for all of you, if that's true, that wasn't like, oh, that's why I wanna get involved. Cause I can get so much of my audience. There's a stunning percentage of my audience here needs to wear underwear. Right? Like, doesn't mean like, oh, let me go be a get very deeply involved in a startup and own a meaningful percentage and go and sell all that underwear. What excited me is that a meaningful percentage of my audience needs to use Stan like that. It has been built this stack and I'm going to let John get a lot of the floor over this podcast at a cost structure that feels incredibly obvious to me. And as we kept digging and then more importantly, you know, when I look behind myself, if you're listening and especially if you're a follower, you know, I always point to my stock certificates about Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr. I try to make this very clear to people. All three of those companies were not a deck and an idea. I did not angel invest in those companies. They were further along and they were obvious. And I think there's an element to Stan in that category as well. This is not John meeting me and being like, hey Gary, I grew up on your content. I'm this well educated kid and I have this very good idea and I've like. And I would meet now that I'd gotten to know him, I would have met him and I would have been like, oh, this kid's fucking got that thing in the stomach. But you know, to be frank, over the course of 15 years that kid has lost plenty of times too. As much as the kids I make fun of that are Ivy League, he's both. But you know, like, anyway, the company's far along, which allows me to understand how many people are already getting benefit from it. And this is like the most fun part. The Gary Vee brand, the Vayner X machine where me and AJ are in our careers, the infrastructure, Victoria, like all the things that are happening in my world are culminating. And I guess it's a big opening rant to say. Even though I started this podcast with making it potentially obvious that Stan is an anomaly, I actually think Stan, in a lot of ways for my next 20 years, could be the pre. You. This is very important to me, and I want to put a lot of effort and oomph behind trying to help John and some of the other great people that are getting involved in this business to build a meaningful business. Because if I can prove it to myself, then I can learn from this next 36 to 48 months and what impact I and the VaynerX machine and the broader Garyvee ecosystem can do to this business. It'll give me the confidence to. To do it again and again. I'm making this podcast for my entire audience. There's a lot of you that are in different parts of your career where you feel like you can create opportunity for yourself because of what you've already built. I thoughtfully, at some point, not day one, I don't want to rewrite history, but somewhere pretty early on, I realized Vayner X can be the operating system to everything I do for the rest of my life. Gary Vee can be the operating system, the personal brand for everything. This is the most meaningful attempt I'm gonna take at that. And so I'm really excited. I wanted to be very like, that was really fun for me to do. I don't do a lot of content like this. That was really fun. I think that sets up the rest of this conversation. And I'm sure all of you are, like, very tired of me ranting on one breath right now and are probably curious to get to know John a little bit and understand why I feel this way. What's going on? What is Stan? And that's where you are, my friend.
- [06:25]
B
Lovely. Well, Gary, what I'd summarize for your audience is the mission of SAN is really simple, is to empower anyone to work for themselves. And literally what that is, because you're saying a significant portion of your audience could benefit from san, I wholeheartedly believe that is SAN is everything you need to start a business. It's the simplest and easiest way. So whether you need a website, you need to host a course, you need to host a community, charge a subscription charge for a service, build your online business. Stan does all of that for just $29 per month. And the reason why we exist is because I started out on this journey inspired by you way back in the Day just a kid posting on TikTok really cringy dance videos and realized that I loved it.
- [07:04]
A
Are you good at dancing?
- [07:06]
B
I'm awful at dancing.
- [07:07]
A
Okay, got it.
- [07:07]
B
But it doesn't matter because it's about trying and getting past your emotional insecurities.
- [07:10]
A
But did you do the dance videos cause you thought that would get you viral? Because we were in that era.
- [07:14]
B
Exactly. It was like peak Covid where we were all locked in doom scrolling TikTok. But I was dancing specifically with an intention which was once again, it's a Gary Vmatcher of give, give, give. I was watching all these folks create content. I was like, what's some sort of value I could add in this world? And for me, that was my story. As immigrant kid, single mom, grew up in the south, did all the things where.
- [07:35]
A
I don't remember that.
- [07:36]
B
North Carolina.
- [07:37]
A
North Carolina. What town?
- [07:38]
B
Charlotte. Just north of Charlotte. Right. So.
- [07:40]
A
But not Charlotte. Greater Charlotte.
- [07:41]
B
Greater Charlotte Suburbs.
- [07:43]
A
What's the name of. I want to give this.
- [07:44]
B
Cornelius, North Carolina.
- [07:45]
A
Yeah. I want to give it a big. I mean, somebody right now just yelled.
- [07:48]
B
Really?
- [07:48]
A
Yeah. Cause somebody's listening from there. They're walking their dog, like, yo, what's up? You know, like, yeah, let's go to Pride.
- [07:54]
B
Yeah.
- [07:54]
A
By the way, can we make. Can this also be an important moment in human society? Can we no longer talk about the big city? Like, when people are like, I'm from Buffalo. I'm like, no, you're not. Because first of all, fuck Buffalo. I hate the Bills. But you're like, from 12 minutes outside of Buffalo in some random name town. And we need to start giving these little tiny towns more love. So that was a good moment for me. I'm glad we had that moment. Keep going.
- [08:17]
B
Well, shout out. Cornelius, North Carolina.
- [08:19]
A
Cornelius. Stand the up, Cornelius.
- [08:21]
B
Stand the fuck up. 704. But. But I grew up in a place where, like, we didn't have much. And very candidly, by the way, I apologize.
- [08:27]
A
I don't want to do this. I want to give you a lot of room. But I'm definitely clipping that and running it against the town.
- [08:32]
B
Heck, yeah.
- [08:33]
A
I really like back to, like, targeted ads. We're running that. So I love that.
- [08:37]
B
Well, I mean, I grew up in a place like, if you know anything about corneos or Charlotte, North Carolina, at the time in the early 2000s, like, no one looked like me. Right. And so the reason that that matters in the story is just because we're all in society, told to fit in in some way. And so for me, as an Asian American kid in the south, everything in my life, whether it was my mom culturally and the pressures we had there to perform or just broader society, like to fit in and quote, unquote, be accepted, you had to do a certain path, right? So I went to undergrad. I took on student loans. I then thought I was the biggest shot ever. I was here in New York because I cold called my own job at Goldman Sachs in investment banking, like, from nothing. Point being is, I thought I had made it right? I had done the path. And admittedly, hopefully not too many people here are in finance at a 12 to 12 job in finance right now. But you get there, you think you're hot shit, and you realize, especially Goldman, yes.
- [09:22]
A
You're like on the fucking Yankees. You're on like, you know, like, you know, that's like big, big stuff especially. And by the way, when I just heard that, I'm like, makes sense. Because the Goldman kids that really become the ones that run the whole shit are not the ones that, that are like the Excel, like the math. They're always the kid that cold called their way in and probably didn't belong there. And that's why kudos to Goldman and other places. They know that they need 5% of the people that are just burning down the place to get in. And they kiss a lot of frogs. I do the same thing, like, for all the people that have worked out for me, for every drock or Andy or all the huckster kids that walked in or random Tweet or whatever, 80% are actually disasters. I always make fun of my team because when I'm like, hey, I met this kid outside. You have to interview him, like, literally outside, they're always like, what the fuck? And then I'm like, fuck you, motherfucker. I met you outside too. Like, they forget where they came from anyway, keep going.
- [10:18]
B
I love that. Well, I was that kid, right? And I thought I had made it. Cause you're brash and you're young. You're like, oh, I'm a hotshot at Goldman. You get there and you realize a lot of people that you work for are above you. You don't really want their life, right? They're working 24 7. They're not close to their family. In fact, they're yelling at their spouse on the phone right next to you, and you're like, what? I'm just trying to get edits on a deck. All that to be said is I'd done the conventional path, and that's the context in which I started consuming your content, it was the depths of COVID and I was doom scrolling and I was like, I don't want to go back to corporate. So this creator economy thing is really interesting.
- [10:49]
A
So in Covid, real quick, just for context, you were still at Goldman.
- [10:52]
B
I was at Stanford Business School at the time.
- [10:54]
A
Got it.
- [10:54]
B
So I had gone off because I'd done the golden path. I was like, oh, at Goldman. Like, oh, I'm not. I'm so miserable. I just need a better job. So I want to do even better job. Job at a top VC firm in sf. That was like the dream, right? And then I went for San Francisco. That is like the, like my mom's American immigrant dream manifest.
- [11:10]
A
100%.
- [11:11]
B
Point being I'd done all, like, I did all the stamps of approval.
- [11:13]
A
Like, did she have a Stanford sticker on her car?
- [11:15]
B
I mean, truly. She's still so upset at me to this day for not graduating.
- [11:19]
A
Yeah, of course.
- [11:19]
B
I'm like, mom, I got in. That's the thing that matters.
- [11:21]
A
You're like, mom, Stan's like a real company. She's like, I don't give a fuck you.
- [11:24]
B
She doesn't understand what I do, but she's like, I want you to get that grad school degree. But it was in that moment, I was like, what kind of value could I add to this world? And so I started making cheesy dance videos. But in the context of career coaching, specifically, how do you, as an underrepresented kid, get your first dream job? Because that was just my story, right?
- [11:41]
A
It was real to you.
- [11:43]
B
Yes.
- [11:43]
A
And you knew that there was a lot of kids that looked like you or in cultures similar, Indian, Eastern European, whatever it would be, that were feeling that same pressure. And that fucking. On a bad day, 50% of them were dying inside.
- [11:57]
B
Yes.
- [11:57]
A
I always say, like, for the doctor, lawyer, engineer crew, India, Asia, Eastern Europe, like that, where it's Nigeria, that real culture on a good day can only be 50% that are actually like, oh, I love this. I love being a doctor. I love being a lawyer, which is amazing. But on a good day, it's 50%. Which means literally 50% of the people that are being pressured in that immigrant culture that puts that on a pedestal. Cause there's different immigrant cultures that are more entrepreneurial or more, you know, into music and the arts. But the cultures that really push the lawyer, doctor, engineer thing, you know, Ivy League school, that whole thing. 50% of those fucking kids are dying inside.
- [12:36]
B
Yeah. And we're seeing them now take an alternative path because of Stan. Right. Because we're all realizing and this is what you've been preaching like almost 15 years too early. You've just been on the trend since 2010. And even earlier is like we're all realizing there's a different path because there's optionality. Yes.
- [12:50]
A
What I understood in 2000 when I wrote Crush it, what I understood was like this Internet thing creates actual optionality.
- [12:57]
B
Yes.
- [12:58]
A
No Internet. Forget about AI and social media, no Internet, no options. It created unlimited inventory in a real estate term. It created unlimited real estate to build.
- [13:11]
B
Yes.
- [13:12]
A
Unlimited.
- [13:13]
B
Yes.
- [13:14]
A
And that changed everything.
- [13:15]
B
Yes. And so that's the context in which I found myself which was like I was making content about how to get your first dream job which was just like I got thousands of comments basically saying dude, this is so helpful. I got my first like networking out of this. I like got over my fear to cold email whatever it was. And so I sat there and I was like okay, how do I turn this into a full time income so I could do this for a living? Because like I got to work for myself, I got to be creative which was crazy for me as an immigrant kid.
- [13:38]
A
Did you think about going forward full pledge personal brand or did you realize that that had limited value in a medium term, maybe long. Long term if you play my kind of game. But like did you understand? No. No. I have to build a SaaS something that has more intrinsic value.
- [13:53]
B
I was a techie at heart and so I knew I wanted to build something more scalable than myself. I also knew that I wanted to build more impact rather than just my personal brand. But I recognized at the time that the distribution mechanism the to get out there and get your brand out there is to build your own personal brand first.
- [14:08]
A
Yeah. I would say real quick cause it's an important point and I wanna. It's not a counter to your point but it's an. And I just want everyone to know that like I'm on the record that I believe Gandhi and Martin Luther King had a lot of impact. And so I think facts, you're right. I think it's really. And I think this goes to like us and obviously we like our circles crossover but knowing that what absolutely I bought and it's fun to. Cause I haven't said this to you yet. The whole I'm gonna help you buy the jets. I'm like brother, jets are like 20 billion and I don't have that much of Stan. So if you're gonna build a $13 trillion business. Like Mazel Tov, and we might be able to get there. What absolutely I did believe, though, was that you understood what the thank you Economy and Crush it were. It's really funny. You look at anything in your life. I always. You know, it's kind of like a music artist. Like usually the first album's the punchline. Like if you really look at. Right. Sequels. And like if you really look at a creative person, you have your. I had my whole life to write Crush it. I had 24 months to write the thank youk Economy after that. Right. It's like. I think that what was very clear to me was when I think about Crush it plus thank youk Economy and what that means to people. I did believe. What. Why you and I are sitting here right now and I've met a lot of people, obviously in my career. I did believe it was in your stomach. The combination of Crush it and thank youk Economy.
- [15:34]
B
Yeah.
- [15:35]
A
I think you're very articulate. And like, even when you communicate to me, I'm like, I don't think you're doing it on purpose. I can feel when you're subconsciously talking to me on things you think I will like. And that doesn't bother me. Cause I actually think it comes from a very good place. But. But I get much more excited about the reason we're here, which is I think you. You know, I always say this. Humans are animals. And we forget that. Just like animals, you can smell your own. For anybody who has a dog. Have you ever seen a dog walk by another dog? It's like a different game. It's like their own. We have that too. And we don't talk about that enough. In my time with you, the. Your inherent DNA, forget about you being affected by consuming my content or anyone else in you, is the combination of Crush it and the thank you Economy. And that's why I'm here.
- [16:30]
B
Cool.
- [16:31]
A
Straight up.
- [16:31]
B
I love that. I wouldn't advise that investing thesis to most people, but combined with the data, I'm like, wow, that's cool.
- [16:39]
A
Yeah. And so I guess where I'm going is like, self awareness, everyone. This goes to like, who he is. But that's why I wanted to just jump in, building something scalable. And impact comes absolutely in the form of Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg or whoever. And it also comes in the form of, you know, Gandhi and mlk. And I think the biggest game for all of you, especially if you all go down this Stan Journey. It was funny when he rattled off I was listening when he rattled off all those things. I was like, I wonder what someone's listening right now is like, fuck, I need website, any mail or I need serial. You know, like that Swiss army knife that Stan creates that you've done, especially at the cost structure. That's what excites me because it's actually, we're getting to the punchline here. Everybody who's listening needs something. None of them are the same and the combos are not the same. Right. The entrepreneur that's listening right now is like winning on their website or doesn't even believe in website. And that's very easy to not believe in it. I always laugh when people be like, Gary, you don't believe in website. Like, have you ever seen my website? But I very much believe in website. And by the way, with SEO going to chatbots, shit's about to get very interesting in that world. But nonetheless, I think that people being self aware, are they a John or a Gary right now, if they're listening, right, it's okay to go all in on personal brands, okay to go all in on technology. And I think to the opening rant, I think people are gonna get blended all the way in. Right? So keep going.
- [18:04]
B
Yeah. I mean, in that you just alluded to why Stan has been so successful so far. It's like my immigrant roots manifest as a price point, which is I grew up going to Costco with my mom and like, man, I fucking love like a bulk deal and lots of toilet paper. But point being is, you know, I studied computer science back in the day as a kid. I was like a very mediocre programmer. But I started trying to MacGyver together like a website that was like $30 a month and then a course hosting platform that would charge you like $200 for like courses and then community for my community and subscription. And then I needed to send invoices and I was spending like 4, $400 a month just to get started, which is just completely inaccessible for anyone. And so I was like, fuck it. I know how to like, I can just build all of this in like a couple of months. And so I did. That was the first version of Stan was I built it for my own account. And I was like, why are we charging for bits in a cloud?
- [18:51]
A
Did you, when you said you were building for yourself, did you know that this, when you started building it, you knew this was the thing you wanted to build?
- [18:57]
B
Yes.
- [18:58]
A
Okay, got it.
- [18:59]
B
I knew it.
- [18:59]
A
Did you name it Right away I.
- [19:01]
B
Was thinking, I thought about the name for a couple weeks and I just immediately thought Stan. Right. Because why I love the name Stan is because it stands for super fan.
- [19:08]
A
Right.
- [19:08]
B
It's the original Eminem song. Now Gen Z has co opted the term. And so Stan is like how we want to show up for all of our entrepreneurs and creators. It's like we want to be your super fan and support you through the journey.
- [19:18]
A
By the way, if you're 16 and you've never listened to the song, which is like, actually much more real than a lot of us in this room would like to admit that a lot of kids have not listened to this yet, you really need to listen to it. It is one of the most creative songs of all time. I really believe that.
- [19:32]
B
Wow.
- [19:32]
A
I really. That song, really, this was long before I even had an audience or ever. It was just like the voice changeover has always been my favorite when hip hop has done that. And the way he does it in that song, I think is just like, legendary.
- [19:45]
B
Yeah, then you get the term and the legacy of it. But, yeah, essentially, I knew so deeply in my heart that this was a pain point I had and therefore would be helpful for. For everyone else. Because I knew that on a, like, a macro basis, everyone was just gonna. The feelings that I was having doing that job, the creativity, the, like, inspiration I was feeling, I just knew that, like, this was the manifestation of, like, Maza's hierarchy of needs. Right. If I could figure out how to pay my bills, I was already generating community, I was already generating belonging, I was already generating meaning. And I was gonna generate financial freedom through this as well. And so I just knew in my heart of hearts that, like, number one, I desperately need this service because I. I wasn't gonna pay $500 a month and more importantly, waste hours trying to figure out all these different clunky softwares when I knew I could build something way simpler for way cheaper. And I knew that millions of other people one day would wanna use this. And so that's how Stan got started. And, you know, now we're helping 75,000 creators make over $300 million, which is crazy to think about. Like, we'll be at a billion soon, just with how things are going exponentially. And it's just been really, really cool to see, like, all the stories of people like me.
- [20:45]
A
Let's actually go into that chapter of this podcast. Let's go into for. For instance.
- [20:49]
B
Sure.
- [20:49]
A
I think the best way a lot of people learn is in this format. So we're setting this up for instance, sure. Give me success stories that you're seeing on the platform, either specifically or knowing that there's six pharmacists doing X. Tell me the story of like, so you're a farm, so let's play rapid fire. For instance. For instance, if you're listening right now, and you are, for instance, I can.
- [21:13]
B
Prove to you whatever your background is and whatever you look for, like where have you come from, I can guarantee you have a success story on Stan. So I'll just rattle off a bunch. I talked to this kid once, 18 years old, if you're a young kid. His name's Stone Frederickson. He emailed me before at 17, because he couldn't set up a Stan account because he wasn't legally allowed to set up a stripe bank account. And as soon as he turned 18, in two months off of TikTok, he made $100,000, has not had to go to college, decided to full on pursue entrepreneurship. Another one that I absolutely love.
- [21:41]
A
Obviously you know that in the macro, do you know what he actually sells?
- [21:44]
B
He was specifically teaching boomers how to do social media. Smart, right? So he would change.
- [21:50]
A
Great timing because I think one thing I kept saying at vaynermedia in post Covid, by the way, I have to say it now, this is sad. This is a big, big shout out to how fucked up Fortune 500 marketing companies are. The biggest brands in the world, like the biggest ones, like the ones, you know, like Toyota, like, you know, Coca Cola. Literally, if you're the head of marketing for those companies, you don't realize that there are 50 and 60 year olds dominating TikTok consumption. And then you come to Boehner and we have a meeting and we're like, hey, TikTok. And they're like, I don't know, our target audience is really 55. And let's say it's this person is the cliche, 42 to 60 year old marketer. I'm like, are you on it? Yes. I'm like, and this is where I always kill them. I'm like, are your parents on it? And they're like, yeah, my dad's addicted to it. I'm like, your dad's 82. And so that kid really crushed it because there's so many boomers on TikTok, yet a lot of people don't see it.
- [22:45]
B
Yep. Yeah, you get it. And so then in that sense, I'll give you a completely different side of the spectrum. Selena Camarillo, I think she's in her mid-30s. She's also a North Carolina native. You know what she does? She makes content online about homesteading. Specifically, she started a digital product on how do you bake sourdough bread. Makes sense if you want to guess how much money she's made.
- [23:05]
A
Well, knowing Mona, my wife's obsession with sourdough bread. And now I'm gonna have to ask you, like, which wheat and yeast and all that stuff, but, oh, an absolute ton. Because it's crushing. This topic is crushing. I'm gonna go with 800,000.
- [23:20]
B
Very, very, very close. She's in the mid six figures. Her username is ilkmaidfarm. For anyone who wants to look her up on Instagram. That is a completely random niche out there, right? I think of, like, we have bread baking. We have someone who does crochet. Crocheting specifically, who just started Stan this past month and we were speaking to her, and she's made almost 10k already.
- [23:38]
A
AJ, it's so funny. Like, you must be laughing, right? Like, the reason I'm going to AJ right now, literally, when I wrote. I wrote crush it in 08. It came out in 09. You cannot. You could actually do this right now. You can go back and go click the one star reviews on Crush it on Amazon and sort by oldest. When this book came out and I said, people are gonna make money. Go ahead. Wasn't like honey farming one, like bees and honey. Like you very niche.
- [24:08]
B
Like, you were just.
- [24:08]
A
Yeah, my thesis then was, everyone is gonna make $100,000 a year talking about, you know, smurf it up. I mean, my talk that changed my career. I'm like, if you love Smurfs, smurf it up. I believe someone right now listening. And this is why I'm so addicted to your tool. It is not lost on anyone anymore that whether it's YouTube or TikTok or something else, like, you literally can get millions of views about Smurfs. What is lost is this is probably the money shot of this entire podcast. So almost everybody right now has a uncomfortably high percentage likelihood of going viral if they post every day. This is a profound. We're gonna get into something very important of why the interest graph, not the social graph, is impacting why we're having this conversation about Stan. Almost. I'm gonna go nice and slow. Almost everyone who's listening, if you post something random every day, I'm talking about very random. Like you have something stuck in your teeth. You grab a toothpick. You're now on this. I'm gonna post something random. Actually, I might Create a challenge right now called the 370. 65 day a year random post challenge where you have to post something random every day. Every day on TikTok and Instagram. I'll just stay there, but YouTube shorts, please. Facebook, please. But just knowing how those two algos work, especially TikTok, that if you post something random similar to. And this is gonna hit with my audience when I just decided to post that I fuck with blueberries and nobody can eat them like me. And it became my most viewed post. Almost all of you actually know what I'm saying. You may not do it, you're scared to do it, but you kind of know it's true. Because all of us have consumed so much content on complete randomness. I'm aware that most of you are not creative enough yet to wake up every day and just do something random. But I'm telling you, I'm talking about which shampoo you've used for 14 years in a row, why you stubbed your toe today. Just random. I believe that if you do that and I get this DM a thousand times a month. Gary, I just had my first viral post. What do I do? How do I make money? Right, Gary, I just got a post. I normally get 50 views. I just got a post that got 2 million. How do I make money now? I believe the answer is being in front with a Stan like situation where you're prepared for the moment.
- [26:35]
B
Correct.
- [26:36]
A
So like, if. Let's play it out. I'm gonna. This is why I'm excited that we've allocated a lot of time for this podcast. I'm gonna go like, I don't feel rushed, which is what fucks me up on podcasts. You're a person and you take this challenge that we're making up on the spot right now. By the way, John and I have been thinking about a hundred different things to do. And like, literally this is improv cliche. Like yesterday do bit a little. This is like really smart and I'm getting excited in real time. You were gonna post something random every day. Now you have to have a stand store because you have to act quick. Let me explain what happens in real life. You post about pumpkin picking, it hits, it gets 3 million views. You're gonna see it, you're gonna know something's happening. If you're already set up with infrastructure when people land on your account and you have a URL in your profile to send them somewhere. And you're gonna have to help me here, John, because I'm far along on your product, but not far. I'm gonna paint a picture. Tell me how right I am or what they would have to do. Play tennis with me here as Wimbledon's going on. I'm Gary. I'm inspired by Gary right now. Just like the flip challenge of 2017. I'm taking the 365 day random post challenge. I post about pumpkin picking. I've got a stand store, I've got the pieces in place. This is where I need you in a little bit so that I can do what Gary's about to say, which is it goes viral and then I can run quickly to my standstack and have prepared like let me tell you how my brain would work. A $9 a month newsletter or offering or course on how to do a monthly activity with your children. Right? Because my brain would go to. Okay, everyone's obsessed with this pumpkin picking thing I did. That's cool. If I go now and spend two hours while this is going viral in real time to get my shit together and I can capture subscriptions, I can do this. Now you have to be back to self awareness. You have to realize, do you actually have 12 ideas to actually sell people? Because you can maybe get them to sign up during this virality? I'll be right and you'll be very happy with me, but you won't retain them. If the November and December idea is shit, they're gonna unsubscribe and not pay you anymore. But there's something that I see where everybody's going viral now. All of them have no idea what to do with it. They start going into how do I get brand deals? How do I get this? What I saw in your product and what I think is real is this tech infrastructure. These tools can allow them to monetize even that viral post if they move in real time.
- [29:10]
B
Thoughts correct the caveats I would give you. If you're worried about worksmithing, if you're worried about random posts like what should I post really randomly? The first thing I tell you is find your ikigai, which is that Venn diagram the center between what you're really passionate about, what you could talk about for free for the rest of your life, and then also what you're really good at. Because in this context the pumpkin picking you picked out the larger theme. So for example, we actually literally have probably a couple dozen different parents who've crossed over 10k just teaching other parents about how to like for example, live a phone free life with your kids.
- [29:41]
A
10K total 10k a month.
- [29:43]
B
I want to get your content at least 10k total.
- [29:45]
A
Perfect. By the way, this is where I'm jumping in. Cause the other thesis I had with Crush, it was like okay, like you can laugh at me and make fun of me. This is what I was talking about with the one star. But hey, asking you American, by the way, you gotta remember what time it was. In 2008, the economy had collapsed. 2009, the economy collapsed. VaynerMedia was built on all of AJ. Smart kids that lost job offerings during that spring.
- [30:08]
B
Yeah.
- [30:08]
A
From jobs they got no longer job available. And so we just were able to have like a lot of his smart friends start with us and jam. Marcus, the guy who runs Vaynermedia international, who's been AJ's friend since first grade. 100,000 million percent of the economy did not collapse in 2009. Would have never worked here. He lost his finance job. He's like, I'll intern for the. They were just fucking kids. Like we'll hang out and post social behind. You know the, the thing that I said a lot is. And that's why I wanna double click on this. Cause again a lot of you are listening and you're like eh, I can't. Right? I cannot stop being a lawyer. I'm gonna keep listening to Gary and John. I know what Gary's core thesis is. Sounds like there's a tool now here that might be. Can extend Gary's story and make this even more real than Gary talks about. Which is why I'm here. But I can't. Cause I make 380. And here's the big punchline. I make 380 in salary and I'm living a 4, 420 life. Everybody has a house too big. Everybody has stuff they don't need. Here's what I want everybody to hear and I'll let you jump back in. For a lot of people listening, the 10K. The reason I just jumped in and I'm ranting. I just want to ask everybody how many people here who are listening right now if you made an extra 10k in the year. I'm not even talking a month. That that can be deployed against either debt or for a nicer vacation with the family this December than you would have. More Ritz Carlton, less Holiday Inn. No diss on Holiday Inn. It's a place where I stayed.
- [31:42]
B
I grew up doing great. I grew up Days Inn.
- [31:45]
A
By the way, Holiday Inn was the first place I stayed when we went to Disney with me, my mom and sister. I'm passionate about that, bro. And everyone's posting anyway, so why not make 17,000 more? That's why I'm so excited about what you've got.
- [32:01]
B
Yeah.
- [32:01]
A
Because I know what I'm telling people. But There is a second part. The monetization.
- [32:05]
B
Yes.
- [32:07]
A
99.9999-9999% of people are not going to become Mr. Beast. Where the monetization comes from, the pennies on the views on the big platforms. 1% of the people listening now are going to get to be a big enough creator that brand deals actually come in.
- [32:21]
B
Yes.
- [32:22]
A
99% can build a tech stack.
- [32:24]
B
They need to build their own $29.
- [32:26]
A
That can make them between 7 and 70,000 in a year.
- [32:30]
B
Yeah. And the caveat I'd actually give you.
- [32:31]
A
That'S the punchline of the company.
- [32:32]
B
The caveat I give you as well on the lawyer accountant piece is I would actually argue many of the lawyers and accountants and dentists who use our platform to drive leads via, let's say LinkedIn for example, are probably clearing in many, in many cases more with the client revenue they're booking through their stand store.
- [32:48]
A
I got it. So you're taking a little bit of a different tweak. We're now talking about a completely different.
- [32:52]
B
Audience, which is actually both audiences are working.
- [32:54]
A
Right. Don't leave your job and become the head of pumpkin picking. You're saying use the tech stack that we've done to take what you're already doing and accelerate it.
- [33:02]
B
That's correct. You can take both angles. So either some people think of entrepreneurship, especially online, that you have to go 0 to 1, you have to fully quit your job, what have you. No. You can either see this as a side hustle and say you're a mom or a parent, what have you, and you're busy. You can do this a couple hours a week and start to teach other parents how you stay sane or the fun activities you take your kids on and make 10k in a year. Or you can be a lawyer who's full time focused on running your own law firm or being a partner in a different law firm. You should still be, no matter what, you should still be building your personal brand because you just talked about all the companies in 08 that went down. Like everyone here knows that the macro environment right now and all the institutions are toppling. Do you want to be beholden to a 9 to 5 and someone else deciding your fate or do you want to alter also be co investing in yourself in a way where what I know to be true is the people who are building their own personal brand, their own personal platform are going to be more resilient over time.
- [33:50]
A
Of course. Insurance policy.
- [33:51]
B
Exactly. And so that's the whole point of Stan is like we're going to meet you wherever you are, whether you're a dentist or an accountant trying to drive leads for your business. Stan has so many of those people generating hundreds or thousands of leads a year. Just like posting about accounting or tax law like on TikTok. You'd be surprised. There's whole niches because you're going to find your business owners there. Or it's someone who once again is a parent or someone who's doing crochet or someone who's doing fitness and teaching. Specifically the niche of people over 60. Like we have someone named Eddie Abbey who's made over a million and a half teaching 60 year olds how to stay fit. Like it's insane.
- [34:21]
A
No, I mean it's like it's the biggest thesis I have. In fact a lot of your examples are so in pocket to what I think people know the reason I'm bringing up pumpkin patch picking and a toothpick. Like I really want people to understand this like what's going to absolutely happen. So again back to crush it. Cause this is where the tie in is the fitness person, the teaching finance like boomers learning social media like that's all lived the thesis. I think there's a. I'm telling you I believe this. I think there's another gear coming which is like just complete outer space. Like here's one that's got me fascinated. Do you know how many people love mowing their lawn?
- [35:03]
B
Oh, it's like a total like turn off your brain activity. It's great.
- [35:07]
A
It's like it's like So I love garage saling. I think it's pretty well documented while I'm in doing the thing that I love the most. That's super weird because I garage sale on early Saturday mornings. Every time I drive by somebody who I can tell is really enjoying mowing their. You have to understand if you told me that I had to mow mow my lawn right now like this Saturday or choose death by like poisonous hornets slowly. I'm definitely choosing the poisonous hornets. Like I could not want to do something less which is what all this comes from. Which is like knowing somebody who's listening right now. And this is why I want to really milk this. Who's obsessed with mowing their lawn. It's impossible for me to believe that Most people see $50,000 a year of income on that truth. I love mowing my lawn with a beer so much and listening to fucking Van Halen. Oh my God, that truth. Back to passion, right? Literally. It's called cash in on your passion. The thesis is the cross section of what you. You will never work hard enough if you don't like it to actually compete with the whole world. The reason I believe you have to love it is you just can't work hard enough if you're doing it for the money. The reason people quit crypto trading and then cannabis selling and then real estate is they keep chasing the thing the money's in, but they don't like it. And you're competing against people that love the living shit out of it. And they're working 19 hours a day and you're working 19 minutes. I do not believe anyone right now. John, who's obsessed with mowing their lawn on Saturdays for three hours, checking out from their nine to five. They hate that. Checking out from their family. And I don't want to hear from them even Saturday morning. This is their place. I don't believe that dude. Cliche. Plenty of ladies I'm sure live that life as well. I don't think that person is like, this is a $50,000 a year revenue business for me and my family. I do believe the combination of which where social media is where random posts from people who have no followers that can get 8 million views with a tech stack that allows them to have a URL in that TikTok or Instagram when it goes viral that allows them to capture revenue. I don't believe anyone knows that to be true.
- [37:25]
B
Yeah, not enough people.
- [37:28]
A
Forget about not enough people. I think fitness look, you know this web 1.0 had fucking people selling courses before social media. I believe that people know. Probably most people listening right now have a friend, acquaintance, relative, who is a fitness trainer. Virtually and selling courses or virtually. They know that to be true.
- [37:48]
B
Yes.
- [37:49]
A
I do not believe that anybody who's listening right now realizes that their obsession with making puzzles, you know, puzzle pieces, that this Friday night they're gonna get a glass of wine with their high school friend who's gonna come over. This is their ritual and they were gonna literally open a fresh box and they were gonna work on this fucking puzzle of a fucking forest. And they're more excited than ever to get the little corner piece. Cause they're like, alright, here we go. I don't believe those two ladies at 37 years old who have two kids each who this Friday night is their life. Where they pop that bottle of wine, shit on their husbands and kids with each other and do that fucking puzzle. Cuz they met at camp when they were nine and they did puzzles together. I don't believe those two ladies are sitting there and saying, you know what? As they talk about being concerned about finances, or as your point earlier, one of them says, I think my husband's about to lose his job because of AI. I don't believe those two ladies sit there and say, you know what if we just take out our phone right now and film whatever the fuck, you know, like random. This is where I'm going. Not crush. It was purposeful. I'm going into the random economy. But passion.
- [39:06]
B
Yes.
- [39:07]
A
I don't think they think that one video they film that they post on a TikTok that then gets 13 million views for some unknown reason and they listen to this podcast and put in the work. And this is why I love this. This was my obsession. The $29 a month. To me you can. Most people, almost every person listening can take the risk of paying for it for even 4 months without it being ROI positive for it to be there. If they're posting every day for this moment. So that when they hit and they have a puzzle guide or how you start a puzzle club and it's eight bucks a month or whatever, you're gonna have to teach me a little bit here. I don't think that's real yet. Yeah, east where I'm going, like when I was saying fitness people, good news, you don't need to go to the gym and only have nine clients. Make content and post in 2008 on your email newsletter and use Google AdWords. That was that version. Where I'm going in this talk is I think we're in the pre dawn of something very different actually. Maybe the manifestation of when I said smurf it up or if you love alf. Like I feel like I was early ish because it was. You had to be so remarkable. And really aj, you remember this? You know what my point back then was? It was adsense. John, I don't know if you know this, actually I'm backtracking here a little bit. The reason I believed in what I was saying was back in 2008, pre social media being scaled, people had websites and you would throw Google Adsense on it.
- [40:38]
B
Remember I had that bape website?
- [40:39]
A
Yeah, AJ had a bape. You know Bape, the clothing brand. AJ had a bape website. He would post bape Content, you would put the code from Google, AdWords, AdSense. So it means ads showed up on your site and you were making what, like a thousand bucks a month in college? 1,000 bucks a month back then, prorated with inflation. Plus there wasn't all the ad revenue in digital marketing at. There's that.
- [41:03]
B
Yeah. God, I love a site of sales.
- [41:06]
A
A month on it. I just really believe that people would love to spend. And back to AJ's point of he spent 10 minutes a month on it to make a thousand. Like, again, 90% of people need to make another thousand dollars a month.
- [41:18]
B
Yeah.
- [41:19]
A
I think we get very confused of what's happening in real life. And socials confuse people even more. You just consume the 1% of 1% stuff. And you forget that 99% of the people listening right now to this podcast really need. Forget about want. I want $1,000 a month more. Why not? Why wouldn't I? I don't need it. Yeah, a stunning percentage need it. This goes to the point and I'm gonna finish this off this rant and we'll move. I think the random to the adjustment, I think the way even you and I even walking into this room is like, okay, passion and knowledge, right? Or skill. And there's a Venn diagram, right? Like, you're 90% passionate about dentistry. You're just, okay. But if you understand this or the other way, right. You actually don't love it. Back to what a lot of people are living, you don't love it, but you're actually good at it. Right? I think we understood that first, Stan. I'm saying something very different. I'm saying if you go with all the things of your life, like, this is almost like 3.0 version of this. First it was like, what are you gonna do for a job? Then this whole thesis was, what's your passion? News alert. You might be able to turn your passion into profit. That was like, what, 15 years ago? Starting to get more real. I'm now saying something even further, and it probably touches a little bit on reality TV DNA. Let me explain where I'm about to go. I'm saying if you post something every day that is just happening in your everyday, like, you guys leave right now and you just think that the hot dog stand is funny. Like, I don't think people are triggered or framed up to think, like, I'm gonna make a piece of content today that is just my life, but not the life I want to project. Everyone thinks that now I'm a fashionista. I'm a right? No, no, just like very random. If I have a tech infrastructure, I can decide if I want to take advantage of all that attention because we're fully in the attention economy. While I'm getting these 4 million views about hot dog stands again, I'm just gonna use you two. If you happen to be a person that is interested in travel and you know you're getting the hot dog stand views from New York right now, you can decide if you're. This is why I'm trying to teach right now. Huh? I'm gonna do a city guide for three bucks a month subscription. The fact that you can go from posting this is why I'm getting so hyped. Because I love speed. I post the hot dog stand. Cause I just left Gary's office and I'm buying into this ridiculous concept. So I'm just going to try it. Gets views. I already did the stand part and I can go into my stand and now refigure it.
- [43:54]
B
Yes.
- [43:54]
A
Put the overlay like just a couple minutes. Yeah. And how about an hour? You got three hours actually to like really set it up nicely that I have a $4 a month city guide and that 13 million views literally leads to $900 a month recurring revenue revenue for you. And it'll decline if you're not good. 900 from the viral. 750 people drop off. I don't know. There's something there there.
- [44:19]
B
Yeah. Well, I think the best prepoint I can give anyone in their heads right now if they're still incredulous is one thing I realized about all of this is we all out there have one niche form of content we love consuming. So for someone out there, it's mowing lawns. For me it's like this one really specific nerdy game called Runescape from back in the day that I just like watch. I still to this day it's like me and 3, 300,000 other kids from like the 2000s. But we all have that one random thing that for some reason just lights us the fuck up and we're super passionate about. And that's the thing.
- [44:47]
A
And most people have many. Like as you were talking, I can see AJ over your shoulder. And I was like, what's AJ's oh, deep cut wrestling tribute. Like his feed has got like. We know a lot about wrestling, but this is like he's been. He's like. I was older so I knew more. But now I think he's out flanking me because he's watching all this shit and he's like, hey, repo man who was his first manager in Calgary. I'm like, ah, I don't know, you know, like, you know, like. But AJ also has golf and AJ also has the jets and Knicks. And aj, like, you know, the reality is we don't have one. And I think that actually leads a little bit to what I'm saying right now. Right? So you're saying Rune and that's a little bit more crushy. Like Ultima Online. I know was for you. So like let's say AJ was listening, lived an alternative life. Super buying in. I'm saying, hey aj. Yes, Ultima Online. But if you're listening to Gary Vee in 2009 and 10, it's Ultima Online. Cause you had to build a website. You gotta make content adsense. What I'm saying here right now, improv. By the way, this is like I've literally not thought of any of this in all the time we've been thinking. But it's just coming to me in the moment is, hey aj. Ultima Online and golf and wrestling and the jets and the Knicks and crypto and AI and then AJ because you're signing up for the three 365 day challenge when Ally makes cause she's a great cook. Something you never had before. Like fucking chicken pot pie. And the video is like literally. Cause you're now, you know, being. By the way, everyone, this is all about discipline. Either you're signing up for doing 365 posts or you're not. Either you set up 3 hours of Stan store to do this 365 before you even start or you're not.
- [46:22]
B
Ridiculous. By the way, respect.
- [46:26]
A
But when AJ posts the chicken pot pie is yummy. Cause he's run out of, you know, he did the wrestling. Like he's right when he says this is yummy. And that's the one that decides to get 13 million views. And he's laying in bed that evening and he's like, ally, should we fucking like again? This is the family talk that people would have, hey, you're a pretty good like. And especially with AI, it's like, hey, do you just want to do like. Should we sell a recipe guide Easily.
- [46:53]
B
Sell a chicken pot pie recipe guide on that.
- [46:55]
A
No shit.
- [46:55]
B
Yeah. We have so many examples of that.
- [46:58]
A
You can. This is where I'm going. The long tail of it. You can tell you can sell spicy only chicken pot pie recipe guides for $4 a month.
- [47:10]
B
Yeah.
- [47:13]
A
It'S fucking profound. Is where I'm going.
- [47:15]
B
I think how I'm interpreting what you're saying as you go with this idea is I think you're bringing all of, in this example, all of AJ's humanity. We all have different facets of us. And the beauty of these algorithms today is y', all, you have to realize when you post a piece of content, the algorithm is literally incentivized and designed to connect you with other human beings in the world who care about that interest graph and, and the. Right. The interest graph and the beauty of our humanity. And also these algorithms is like at some point one of these will hit because it's like the right chemistry of how you talked about it and your passion, plus like you as a person and then hitting with all the other people and that niche and for everybody.
- [47:48]
A
I'm sorry to interrupt because there's that much demand on the other side, there's that much global consumption on the other side that the reason you eventually hit is there's just that much attention.
- [47:58]
B
Yes. And you can be super agile with something like stand store. It's like you don't know exactly what it is. You probably have a strong gut instinct to be clear of like what the top one to two things are that you should start with. But then let's say you finally figure out what that thing is. With Stan Store. It's super modular. You can just like literally. Literally. Oh, shit. Like chicken pot pie is hitting. Let me just like we have an internal AI system that will literally make a digital product for you. Like that's part of Standstill. Like, okay. Hey, it's called Stanley. Hey, Stanley, make me a digital product on how do I make a chicken pot pie recipe. It'll make that for you in your voice and your style and everything. It knows for me because also scraping your content too.
- [48:29]
A
Yep.
- [48:30]
B
So it's all like very easy to just quickly pivot and then like, you know, next year you're no longer chicken pot pie guy. You're the travel.
- [48:35]
A
What are most people monetizing against?
- [48:37]
B
Specifically the top two SKUs. The top two products people should be thinking about is either a digital product, so something like a course, or an ebook or a guide or a recurring community subscription.
- [48:46]
A
Let's talk about that part because I think for the first 20 minutes, for the last 20 minutes, I've been pushing everyone towards a very specific place. That first one. Educate me on the second place.
- [48:54]
B
So this is really important to think about recurring revenue. Right. So what you're going to find is like, let's say you're super passionate about chicken pot pie. Like, I'm like, wow, I grew up on Marie Calendar chicken pot pies. There's at least maybe a couple thousand other people in the world. Like, you remember the days of, like, niche Facebook groups? Like, people like, really into hand drivers was one that I was on.
- [49:11]
A
AJ which one? What was that? We had a bunch. We had a bunch on this too. This is like, the reason this is so native to me of what you're doing is this is what we were doing in 2009 in a different version at a different scale. Like, this is just a rebirth of where me and AJ were in 2009. Way bigger dozen. Facebook Flight of the Conchords. That was one. Remember that show? It was millions of people in these things. What was the funny one? There was one ridiculous one you're trying to remember. I know it. Oh. 1.2 million people in a Facebook group. When a group of people walk side by side together on a sidewalk, want to punch them in the back of the head. That was the name of the group. Say it again. When people walk side by side, like, when a group of people walk side by side one another on a sidewalk.
- [49:56]
B
I want to punch them in the.
- [49:57]
A
Back of the head. 1.2 million cans. I bought that group for $500. I DM the admin and just bought it for 500 bucks. And then I just started running affiliate ads.
- [50:05]
B
Yeah. And this is selling T shirts. That's insanely smart. That's insanely smart. That's so smart. And so Daily One to Ten.
- [50:11]
A
Of course, that's what. That's. The VaynerMedia was almost BuzzFeed.
- [50:15]
B
Yeah.
- [50:15]
A
We had a site called Daily One to Ten that we were building on the leverage of all these Facebook fan pages. And then one of our. Or all of our Facebook fan pages got converted.
- [50:24]
B
The terms of service.
- [50:25]
A
Yeah, we got fucking fucked. Fucking sucks.
- [50:28]
B
But you guys get it. And so what stands for is. I'm realizing. Yes. So our community feature, for example, is literally the new age Facebook group. So you just create your own Facebook group that you own, by the way, not Facebook. So you own the data, you own the community, all that kind of stuff. You can make it free up front just like that, and then like run affiliates through that or have an up like a tier over time that's. That's priced higher, what have you. Or you can charge up front, but you're just connecting the world of people who want to punch each other. Punch people on the sidewalk or people who love chicken pot pie. Like there's enough people, the skill people don't realize the scale. Like the hundreds of millions of people there for the percentage.
- [50:59]
A
And to remind everybody who's. I know what you are all doing right now.
- [51:02]
B
So.
- [51:02]
A
Okay, wait a minute. Let me get this straight, John. I'm going to do a thing called, like, mowing my lawn on Saturday is the greatest three hours of my life group. Right? Because that's the content I'm making. And I'm. John, you're telling me people are going to come to this URL after. And Gary, you're telling me I'm going to get one, One viral post. Cause now I'm going a different route. I'm going a different route. Everyone, just so follow me. I've decided that I'm not gonna do the random Gary challenge. I'm gonna do the lawnmower thing. That's what resonated with me. Cause I can actually post that every day, or I can film on my Saturdays enough to post seven days a week. That's what I'm gonna do. And what I'm gonna do is on my stand store, I'm gonna have a community that's gonna charge people two bucks a month to be a part of. To be in here. And what you're gonna say, everyone on the other line is like, why the fuck would I do that when I can go around social and find that and do it for free? And I'm gonna tell you that people, whether consciously or subconsciously, know that the friction associated with paying two bucks a month to be part of something will make the quality of the community way better.
- [52:04]
B
Yes, they'll actually be bought in and opted in.
- [52:06]
A
Correct. So what people don't understand is like, yes, there are free versions on social and free forums and discords, but this is coming from a discord reality. There are unlimited discords that charge. And what you know that happens when you charge is it's a different person all of a sudden. Those random people that piss you off in forums, discords and Twitter that are just trolling and hateful, they're not as inclined to pay six bucks to just fuck with you.
- [52:33]
B
That's correct.
- [52:34]
A
And having 8,000 people that pay six bucks, those fuckers really give a fuck. And I'm not joking when I say this. All of a sudden, if you're this person, you're gonna wake up in 2031 and you're gonna have Saturday Lawnmower Con, where you're literally gonna have John Deere paying you $500,000 sponsorship for literally 4,000 people around the world coming to a fucking field in the middle of nowhere, Ohio to fucking mow lawns. I believe that.
- [53:07]
B
I love it.
- [53:08]
A
You're literally gonna make 800 bucks a month. 8,000 bucks a month for people that are paying 8 bucks a month to just talk with each other about lawnmowers. And you're gonna learn your entrepreneurial thing and eventually gonna be like, fuck, what can I do on top of this? And you're gonna create a real life event. Because Comic Con had nobody show up to the first one. Do you know that Comic Con's first Comic Con was like in a hotel ballroom and had like 13 weird ass nerds.
- [53:37]
B
I had no idea.
- [53:38]
A
Yeah, that might be a hyperbole of it, but it was incredibly small. And oh by the way, of course everything that starts is incredibly small. Like that's. Do you know that Super Bowl 1 did not sell out?
- [53:50]
B
No way.
- [53:51]
A
Super Bowl 1 didn't sell every ticket in the stadium. That was only in 1967. In 1967 the NFL was so unpopular that they couldn't sell. It was actually the NFL versus the af. It was two different leagues. Joe Namath from the New York jets won Super Bowl 3 and a stunner. And it merged leagues. We'll get into that in a different time. But everything starts small. And so when I sit here and say mower Con, literally mower. And by the way, let me go a different way. You know how like some people like mow without like old school. Like you know, like, you know what I'm talking about. Like a wooden and fucking. Like no electric. Like you could get that niche. I'm gonna start a group of people that mow their lawn with not something that's powered by electricity all by hand. The reason I'm going there is that would be really good as a con. Like if you get like 8,000 people that are like five, we gotta be men of the. And this is actually so weird now. Like this is so on trend. Like real men and grounding and like we fucking don't even wear shoes cause we gotta be grounding with the earth and we use a fucking wooden and metal fucking lawnmower and we do our whole thing. Those motherfuckers, those 8,000 guys that would pay eight bucks a month to be in your group will all show up with their fuckin wooden mower and mow and you'll have a 250k sponsor. This is real shit, brother. Liver King. I know it's very controversial and all that, but it was Found liver. Like eat fucking liver. Every niche in perpetuity. Cut hair backwards, fucking eat dog food as a human only. Watch Sports between 1am and 2am and tweet about it. Wearing shirts inside out in perpetuity. That I am going to wear my shirt inside out for the rest of my life. And we all should do that. That leads to 5,000 people paying five bucks a month to talk about living different. You gotta level up, right? First it starts with the funny part that leads to the viral post. But then it leads to not living by people's standards. And then that leads to you doing big shout out to untuck it. Cause I knew that kid because he did some wine stuff. So they're like, what about that fucking. You start. I'm like, really cooking right now with gas. I know AJ knows me. We've got $100 million. I'm literally everybody. You're watching me create $100 million brand. I am gonna start wearing my shirts inside out. I'm gonna charge you five bucks a month to be part of my community on stand for people that wear shirts inside out. And then once that builds up, I'm gonna launch my inside out brand of T shirts. And it's. I literally am telling you I'm not gonna do it because I have a lot of things going on. I just told you $100 million business. That's how weird this is, man.
- [56:33]
B
It's all about just finding your people. That's just what it is. Right.
- [56:35]
A
But my argument is that every human being on earth should use Stan. Yeah, I think that's really what I'm saying. Like, everybody should use social for this reason. And everyone should have the tech stack to be prepared because. Because the viral moment right now does not monetize. Millions of people have gone viral this year already six months in and haven't made a penny from it. And it fucked with them.
- [56:57]
B
Yeah.
- [56:59]
A
Cause I'm on the receiving end of this, Jon. I get different modes. Like I'm the guy that literally gets emailed by strangers at scale that says, I just got 2 million views on this. What do I do, Gary? And the reason I think I've been freaking out for 40 minutes is I'm like, fuck, I didn't see this. This is right. Like if they're preempting with Stan or something like Stan. I don't even, like, fuck Stan even for a second. This is like important shit. Like, if you're ready for the moment. And I think you've built the best moat for this and the cost structure has me going crazy. Like, I feel comfortable saying, fucking do this and pay 29 bucks a month. Even if you go the whole year and nothing fucking happened. 360 bucks to be prepared for your life changing is a fucking good investment. I think we have to actually. I'm now talking to you, almost breaking the fifth wall. I think we need to actually build this out and show people what to do when the moment happens.
- [57:49]
B
Lovely.
- [57:50]
A
Because I'm improving right now. But I think we need a guide that when something goes viral, this is what have stand ready, have all this set up. This way you see where I'm going. And this is what your hour looks like in the moment you go viral. To actually capture this, we'll have to do a bunch of work on this. This, I think, takes it to a whole different planet because there's no cost of entry.
- [58:13]
B
Yeah.
- [58:13]
A
People that are listening right now that like Mike, right? Mike is not an entrepreneur. And this is a joke off of yesterday's tea with Gary Vee, where I got him this social sell and he did great and he could use the extra bucks. And this was like four weeks ago. And I was like, mike, how's it been going? He's like, hasn't sold since. I'm like, you're a fucking loser. But he's not a loser. He's just not a salesman, right? So Mike, who I adore and that's why I'm using him, is important to me. This whole rant for an hour has been about Mike. Mike isn't gonna be the person that read crush it and went, but Mike listening right now. I'm sure he's been listening. Mike absolutely represents the rest of the 7.9 billion people on earth. There's like, huh? What? And like, again, Mike, what are you into? Like, give me some other interests. Piano. Great.
- [59:03]
B
Oh, great niece.
- [59:04]
A
So Mike. Mike's thinking right now, and he's like, huh, okay, Gary, like, what else, Mike? Jersey Shore life.
- [59:11]
B
Great.
- [59:12]
A
Let's just. I apologize. Those two things. Cause I knew that one to be true. Just want to show everybody I know my employees Mike's now. Okay, so wait, what's Gary said? So I go to Stan, and obviously we got work. All of us have work to do to figure out, like this guide for people to understand. So you set it up, you're in. And 29 bucks is risk. I don't say that lightly. But again, I think we just talked about the value of 360 bucks in a year to change your whole life. So wait, Gary I'm gonna post on Tuesday about a piano thing. And on Saturday when I go see the fam, I'm gonna talk about, like, sand when it gets hot, right? Like, or like, or the Jersey Shore, what have you. Huh? Did I hear that right? I can create either a $5 a month guide to the Jersey Shore or a $5 kind of community. Pay five bucks to talk about the Jersey Shore 365 days a year. Cause the Jersey Shore's a 365 day a year thing. And you gotta prep in the spring to make sure you max. And then he realizes, like, huh. And then one post in a year gets three million. And then everyone's hitting my URL on my profile. And now I've got 39 people paying me five bucks a month. And wait a minute. Huh? Does that mean I'm getting paid 200 bucks a month to basically be talking in my stand instead of talking somewhere else randomly on the Internet? I think that's going to resonate.
- [60:29]
B
Yeah.
- [60:31]
A
You see where I'm going? That's a very different twist, I think, than what I think it's the evolution. It's funny. I have one more book I have to write and I wrote Crush it and then I wrote Crushing it. And I literally, literally this last week was like, should I write Crushed it as like the third book in this of like, what? Or Crushing it in an AI era is like Crush It Actually, my how to book series. What was that like? What's that series that's so big? What's that book series that's like super humongous and it's for everything dummy. Thank you, aj. Aj this one is the best. Is Crush it my for dummy series. Like, do I write Crush It Crushing it in the AI era? Cause I have very big thoughts about live shopping this. You know, I actually think I'm laying out the thesis of Crushing it in this new era right now in real time.
- [61:22]
B
I love it. Well, I. I think just to give everyone a really tactical guide, by the way, on how to improve the stand store. It's. It's actually as simple as you have. We'll. We'll come up, we'll give you guys a full what to do when you go viral. This, just so you guys all know, is this is how literally simple it is. So you sign up for your stand store free trial, by the way, before you even convert into having to pay $29 a month.
- [61:42]
A
That's huge.
- [61:43]
B
All you have to do.
- [61:44]
A
We should have mentioned that earlier. We probably lost half of listeners in my 30 minutes minute rant, all you.
- [61:49]
B
Have to do, let's say you go to the Jersey Shore mic and you, you go viral. Just talking about like, actually the Jersey Shore isn't like that show. It's actually, well, some of it is, but it's also really nice. And here's all my favorite restaurants, here's all my favorite hotels, and this is like my like itinerary, which by the way, there's multiple people who like monetize something like that for like nine bucks. All you literally have to do is you go to your stand store and they're basically, you see, stand that store in someone's link and buy. That's when you know they're a real entrepreneur. But all you have to do is just, you have these little blocks, like on your little link in bio website, you just add a little block that says, like, I want to create a little like Jersey Shore guy. I want to create a digital product. Then you go in, you ask Stanley to be like, hey, like, write me a Jersey Shore guide based off of this video I just posted. It'll just do that. You like, you could PDF it, you could turn it into a camera guide, whatever you want to do. What's your style? You just click upload, you press publish, you set a price and then you're literally done. Like that was like, that was literally it.
- [62:35]
A
No shit. The reason I used Mike is like, I'm being serious. This is not me razzing Mike. I'm also not a million things. Like, I don't put being an entrepreneur or salesman on a pedestal. Obviously, I'm aware it societally has gotten bigger. By the way, I'm the old man in this room. When I was growing up, being an entrepreneur or a salesman was looked down on. That was the era of stuff and like Stanford, Harvard, Goldman Sachs in 1990 was ten times more important than it was when you guys were coming up. And it's still massively important. But so when I, when I, when I joke with Mike right now, it's what I learned in my life is that I'm in a very small group of people. There are very few people on earth that are purebred entrepreneurs. That's why they are so that's why the good ones are so compensated. It's just merit. It's just the reality of the game. What I think I'm getting completely excited about right now is literally when I walked into this room five minutes ago, AKA an hour or so ago, I thought that this is so cool because the People that listen to me are built for this product. But I knew that only really? Really. Because I have so many people listening to me for parenting and entertainment. There's like, I know my audience that really 67.3% of the people that were listening right now should 100% do that. In the middle of this, I genuinely, comfortably believe that I stumbled on the fact that 100%. Like I view this podcast right now in my brain, the same way I did when I told a kid, document, don't create. And I knew it. And it became such a big part of my career. Like I did the Javits center talk where I said smurf it up. And it changed my career. If I keep. And I may or may not, back to the. The inside out shirt thing. Like, I don't know how far I'm gonna go down this path of me believing in the 365 day random challenge, the Stan infrastructure. But if I keep going, this is like four years of my content.
- [64:36]
B
Yes.
- [64:37]
A
And this will be the piece of content that I keep editing from. Cause it's the long form. Like, this is a very important combo. Jim. Again, entrepreneurs. Yes. Entrepreneur tendencies. Yes. That's how I got to 67%. I'm actually now saying everyone.
- [64:52]
B
That's correct. Everyone has something.
- [64:54]
A
Really? Everyone.
- [64:55]
B
Yeah. Truly everyone has something to give.
- [64:57]
A
I believe a lot of people are really not interesting to the market on both their passion and their skill set. This is what's an important thing. I've thought about this a lot. Cause I wrote that book. You and I agree on the passion and skillset overlay.
- [65:11]
B
Sure.
- [65:12]
A
I believe there's too much competition and there's a lot of people, even though it's their biggest passion and their biggest skill set, that is not a product market fit for real monetization. Like, real monetization.
- [65:24]
B
Sure.
- [65:24]
A
I believe this random thing I'm talking about back to what you said earlier. This is where I'm going. And this was the thesis. But I'm watching it evolve. There's a piece of content I make. I don't know if you remember this. I made a piece of content that said your niche is. Is you.
- [65:42]
B
Yes.
- [65:43]
A
You remember that.
- [65:43]
B
Sure.
- [65:44]
A
Because that's really it. It's that snowflake thing. Right. Like the only thing we really all the way have is every piece of us.
- [65:51]
B
Yes.
- [65:51]
A
I think the combo we're having of the combination of social and Stan actually allows everyone actually a fighting chance to actually monetize that truth.
- [66:01]
B
Can I give you an honest pushback and Caveat. And maybe a little cynical and jaded. I have all the data. We have all the best creators, most successful entrepreneurs using Stan. So we have all the data on, like, what works, the pushback I'd give you to really help people think about this more.
- [66:16]
A
I would argue you have the upper. You have the middle class and upper.
- [66:19]
B
Middle class, which is the tier. So Jimmy, Mr. B should go do his brand deals. But, like, the most successful entrepreneurs who, like, own their own brand, that's people like me that grew upper middle, like, you know, became upper middle class. This is the caveat I give you. And so I'm curious how you think through this. So it's very, very hard to monetize anything people don't realize. Like, you have to post consistently. I'd say you have the viral lawnmower video. I'm skeptical that you'd have recurring. When I think of real business, you have recurring revenue every single month. Your business makes revenue around this. Unless you consistently. Let's say you see the lawnmower pattern and then you double down on it.
- [66:56]
A
Yeah. And I would say that's absolutely. First of all, that's 100% right. And this is getting to the essence of this conversation. That if you're the motherfucker that really, like, if your daily random content is you and your life to your point. And I'm gonna actually agree with you if it's like, the way I'm thinking about it right now, at least. Cause that's what's so weird about this podcast. Usually when I'm doing a podcast, whether it's mine or I'm a guest, I'm only talking about things that are already formed.
- [67:22]
B
Sure.
- [67:22]
A
What's happening now is like, what I do with AJ at like 11 o' clock at night on a Friday family vacation. We're, like, bantering right now. So I'm just. I apologize. I'm gonna agree with you. Like, I'm just gonna use myself. Cause it's always the easiest thing. If I'm, like, eating my own dog food, I'm doing the challenge and today. Cause I do use a toothpick. I like using a toothpick. I think it's funny and I think it's interesting. So I use it. Right. If today that was it, and I put it on the ground, I'm like, I just use this toothpick. And honestly, big shout out toothpicks. Thank you. Fucking. They're underrated. Take away the fact that I'm an entrepreneur and probably could build a $50 million toothpick business on the back of this. To your point, and you're right, that goes viral. I decide to do a guide. Like, I'm smart enough to layer it up, and I decide to do a guide to mouth hygiene. Or I'm not just in toothpick. Your point's right. I'm not gonna be able to sustain it where it says. Now. That's what's super weird. Where you really won me over, though. Believe it or not, your product is gonna counter you.
- [68:20]
B
He's not gonna offer anything.
- [68:22]
A
No, because it goes back to AJ earlier. Aj, I don't think, was inherently passionate about people walking side by side. I know AJ very well. I don't think he wanted to punch people that walk side by side. My point here is when I, Gary, or anybody who's listening, does the toothpick thing. If the product I'm selling on my stance store is the community and hang out with people that care about toothpicks at three bucks a month. Let me just really play it out. So now 1000 people sign up for that. I'm shitting my pants. Like, I'm literally shitting my pants. Like, I love John and Gary more than life. Cause I've now. I decided to do it for two bucks, and I'm making $2,000 a month. I'm sure you have fees, so it's not purely 2000, but whatever the fuck.
- [69:01]
B
No, it's literally just $29 a month.
- [69:02]
A
Okay, great. So I'm making $2,000 a fucking month. I'm like, I cannot believe this fucking podcast I listened to four months ago has just let. I'm making $2,000 a month. Next month it goes to 1,300. Because to your point, I didn't do that much. I didn't know what the fuck to do with it. I didn't feed the farm right. But if you made 2,000 in that, most people are gonna watch what's happening in that community. Let's just keep playing. Cause we got time. I just did this. A thousand people are paying two bucks a month, and they're literally talking about toothpicks. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on here? But I'm making 2000. I have a funny feeling from 7pm at night to midnight, I'm just reading every post and I'm probably jumping in once in a while and be like, yo, it's me. Thanks for being here. I want everyone to hear this. Cause you're gonna love where I'm about to go. If you have a Half a brain. And I'm gonna fill out your other half brain right now for you. If you're watching that, what will happen is three people will emerge. Anyone that's ever had a community in their life, on discord, on forum in the 90s, like I did about wine, knows that your community becomes the mods, right? So if you're a toothpick guy, you see this, you have no way to continue it. Going to your point. You're right. The digital product, selling the guide, no way on the toothpick, the community product you fucking built. Even though I'm not part of it. Cause it was random. If I just give it 60 days, watch how they all talk to each other and message the 13 Alphas in there. Get on zoom with them, get a good feeling for a couple of them, offer them maybe 20% of the fucking action. Or a thousand bucks, 100 bucks a month. Those mods can drive it. That's it.
- [70:45]
B
And so. But let's play out this Thesis, please. Let's every. I think I'm just so tired of get rich quick stuff. Like everything that I've realized. If you want to build something long, long term, let's say for that community, are you saying that you can just show up really randomly and share everything and then you'll figure out your product and then you should double down? Or are you saying broadly, you'll have like a catalog?
- [71:07]
A
I'll say a lot of things. I mean, to your point, like everything that has worked for me has been predicated on the concept that everyone's looking for. Get rich quick. This isn't get rich quick. This is respond to a truth quickly. The truth is 3 million people found this 13 second toothpick video interesting.
- [71:24]
B
Yeah.
- [71:25]
A
I was smart enough to listen to the Gary Vee audio experience, listened to the episode with Stan, decided, fuck it, the 360 year is worth it. Is there a yearly membership discount?
- [71:34]
B
Yeah, it's like 20% off.
- [71:35]
A
Yeah, even better. Works for my thesis. I decided under 300 bucks is a good deal for me to take the fucking risk. I'm gonna fuck with this. The Gary 2017 flip challenge worked for me. Gary's fucking TikTok thing worked for me. Fuck it. Let me try this new fucking thing.
- [71:48]
B
He's got.
- [71:50]
A
That. When you're in that place. Yes. There's gonna be people like, back to aj Cause it's fun. Golf, wrestling, the passion. You and I are fully aligned on the crush it thesis. What I'm trying to figure out in real time right now. So Bear with me. By the way, AJ will tell you this at the end of this podcast. I might completely get off this entire thesis. Cause I'm gonna play all. Cause what we're doing is playing the chess. Yeah. So I just giving you the warning like this may end with me. Like that was the stupidest shit. And I'm here happy that you guys to hear it through. But there's something that I'm trying to think through to your point. I think that there's unlimited people that would do this right now. And this is why I'm so glad we're having this convo that would have the moment and it's not get rich quick that you would actually monetize, but it would dwindle and die in an eight month period. Right.
- [72:31]
B
They didn't continue investing in it.
- [72:33]
A
Correct. And to our point. Both of our points. And the reason I'm agreeing with you is for me, Gary Vaynerchuk, it would be hard to continue to invest in the toothpaste. My counter to that was the content product is dead on arrival. To your point. Right. I'm like, that's right. The thing that got me going was the community product doesn't actually need me to be the most passionate about it. I just have to be the operator of the first hundred days to find the four people in the community. You're basically find. This is like no bullshit. What I'm saying is you're gonna find your future business part partner because you made something random that you're kind of not even that crazy about. It goes into the community product. They're the most passionate and capable and they are loving Life for making 25% of the subscription revenue to keep it going. And you started it. So you were the idea guy or gal. But the operators. You're talking about operations. There is nothing besides execution. Yeah. Ideas do not beat execution. Ideas with execution. And the best idea. But execution always gets some sort of result. Ideas. Every fucking person listening right now shoots their fucking ideas with each other over dinner and do nothing in their whole life.
- [73:45]
B
Yeah.
- [73:46]
A
What I'm saying is this is why I'm obsessed with what you're building. You have. You know, when I think of like slogans like Stan has a product for that. Yes, you have a product for this problem. I just said the toothpick thing and spent 30 minutes on. On the written product or the informational product. If I didn't know, thank God in the middle of my ranting, you brought up the community product. Cause I still have a lot to Know every T and I and Sid. If I didn't know that, I would have stopped this conversation and be like, you're right. Cause the toothpick thing as me being the content producer would not work. The community thing though, If I get 1,000 people in there at a buck a month and I spend the first 60 days to figure out who the alphas and most passionate are, DM them and set up Zoom, interview them and pick two of them. Potentially some people just do it for free. Cause they fucking love anime so much. Potentially I'm smart enough to know, like, fuck it, let me financially incentivize this person. Hey, let's just play make pretend me and you as kids. Hey, John, you're into this game more than I am. You know, Would you. I'll give you 30 cents of every dollar we make on this. Can you just continue running this as the main dog to keep this fucking feeding and going? I'll make some more content a little bit. Do you like, fuck. There's scenarios where somebody's listening who say, hey, John, do you want 80% of this? I'll just take 20%. Cause I realize I'm leaving after this. Yeah, like, this is very interesting to think about. So that's what I'm saying. I'm saying there's a viable path for an entrepreneurial tendency, even for a mic. I mean, this. I keep using Mike. I'm not razzing him, who maybe is not a businessman. If he listens to this, does it gets the Jersey Shore thing. I think for Mike, knowing Mike, he can watch that community for the first three months. Pick Rudy, who lives in fucking Seaside heights. Give him 50 cents on the dollar. It's very interesting to debate.
- [75:35]
B
So these are my thoughts to help you really submit this and finalize this and formulate it. What I agree with you on is bring your whole self very randomly. I think there's value in that. Allowing someone to figure out what is the thing that they should monetize.
- [75:47]
A
Agreed.
- [75:48]
B
Where I am more skeptical is I see your vision on how this could work with the community piece at scale. Why I am skeptical of that is, number one, if you, for example, if someone posts about their Jersey short and builds that community and is passionate about this can continue to operate grand slam correct. And so I think most people should go down that path. And you're thinking about like, how do I actually, in this state of randomness, start to just pick out ideas that people resonate with and then I'll find people who to operate those communities well.
- [76:15]
A
I'll tell you why I say that. And you're smart enough to know this. There are a lot of people on earth who started something and then handed it off to someone in whatever form. Family, business, random employee. Like, there are people who've made real money in the Internet era of being kind of a co founder from an idea standpoint. The ones that are not selfish.
- [76:38]
B
Sure.
- [76:38]
A
And real. Let's just. Again, let's say me, you and AJ were all good students, not just you two. And we were college roommates. Right? And I'm like. And I like, am in the dorm room one day and I'm like, guys, I have an idea. And let's say that idea ends up being Uber fucking. Actually, aj, let's take it to the extreme. Garrett Camp, do you know who that is?
- [76:55]
B
Yeah, of course.
- [76:56]
A
Okay, co founder, everybody. Garrett Camp is the human being. This is. I don't know how often I tell this story. It's documented in a Business Insider article. I, Gary Vaynerchuk, was in a hotel room in Paris when Garrett Camp told Travis, who is known as the face of Uber, and 11 other of us. Hey, guys, I have an idea. What do you think about the idea of an iPhone app where you can press a button and a limousine will pick you up? It's one of the most profound moments in my life. Grab that. Grab it, grab it. I want you to grab it, John, I want you to grab it. Take it to your desk, and I want you to read to the podcast. What? That framed thing. Start with a date. Start with the date.
- [77:37]
B
All right. Friday, April 8, 201111 in the morning from Jamesuber.com to ajvaynerchuk something, something, something. Mail.com. hey, AJ, I wanted to say thanks for being our first. This is fucking insane, dude. Hey, J. I wanted to say thanks for being our first ever Uber rider in New York. How was your experience?
- [77:56]
A
All right, there's more to that email, but I just to want why I just had you do that for effect is how early we were in Uber, right? Aj, my brother forever, I literally goosebumps, like when he's an old man, is like by the way, now with self driving cars. Like, well, who the fuck. Uber's gonna seem like a fucking horse with a buggy by then, but AJ is literally the first human being like this. I was literally in the room when Uber was. Now, Garrett had probably been thinking about it, but it was the first time that Garrett had articulated the idea. In fact, the company was called Uber Cab. In fact, Garrett came up with the idea. Travis got brought into it and they hired a third person to run it. Ryan Graves. Ryan Graves and Ryan Graves got that job by me retweeting Travis's job description because he had 424 Twitter followers and I had a lot more. Ryan made billions. Garrett made the most. Garrett never ran anything but the idea. So then just real quick on that. That is Uber, right? His idea. And put a couple things in place and went, I am talking about Mike. I don't think Mike, with his Jersey Shore thing that I'm saying out, is going to make billions of dollars. But do I believe that Mike on one TikTok with a Stan infrastructure around the Jersey Shore, if he decides to be as smart as Garrett and realize, let me give equity to other people who are doing things, whether he keeps 10% sure of the community that makes 5,000amonth, or he keeps 90 because his sister's willing to do it, or whatever the circumstances of real life are. And I can give you many more stories than the Uber one. And I know you know this to be true. People hand off businesses at very different stages. Some people run a pet shop for 30 years and they give the business to the manager and they let the manager have 51% and they go to 49 and they fucking sit in Florida and get a check. And the manager's thrilled because the manager was a fucking kid that dropped out of high school in an era where that was a death sentence, not like today, and is happy to send 49 cents of the dollar to the original boss. Cause he was grateful for the opportunity. Eventually he'll have resentment because at first you're happy, and then six years later you're like, wait a minute, he hasn't been around six years. Why am I still sending him a check? But do I believe that what we just talked about, which is super interesting, could lead to people who have ideas and are creative to find sustaining revenue if they're good enough to hand it off to the mods that think about how many mods in Discord and forums were the actual reason Reddit Digg, I was there. They were the actual reasons shit happened. They made no money. You know how people always make fun of, like, you know, Facebook and Twitter, like they're making all the money. But creators made money, mods made no fucking money. If mods now become business partners. Yeah, to what I'm talking about now because you can go viral and you can have this Stan tech stack and then you can put in the work the first year to find your Partners. Because what's happening in my story is I'm just replacing the human that's passionate about the Jersey Shore. And I think that's really right. How about that?
- [81:08]
B
So then the skill set to teach people is how to identify those operators.
- [81:12]
A
And set them up for success. That's a different thing. That's right. And you know what's so funny? If somebody's ultra smart listening, they're gonna literally what you just said triggered me. Cause if I was a kid listening to this podcast, cause I looked up to Gary Vee and I'm interested in John, I would be like, oh, I'm gonna start courses on how to teach to identify the operators. So everybody who's of part A about to do this with Gary Vee is gonna need me like, and I'm gonna use. It's like a real meta move, you.
- [81:36]
B
Know, that's super smart. That's super smart. I see it. I still, as you've continued to formalize that this thesis, I still, I fundamentally believe that if someone posts for 365 days for if they. If for everyone listening to this, we have all the data on who makes it. There is a singular pattern. There's just one pattern that we can correlate between everyone. It's the actual life lesson is just literally never give up. But the tactical manifestation of this is the people who post every single day, even if you're starting from zero, are the ones who actually make it.
- [82:06]
A
Correct.
- [82:07]
B
It's just your consistent commitment to driving traffic, to building an audience, learning how to market yourself and then your stands for. I promise you will make money as a downstream of that. So I fundamentally believe in this challenge from that perspective. And I like the random idea because you're just going to figure out from your own organic passions what the. And I believe you will find something that you want to commit a lot of time to. I'm more skeptical and maybe it's because I'm not wired this way. I do believe you can be the ID generator and spin stuff out with operators.
- [82:37]
A
By the way, that is the end of the entire debate to your point. I mean, notice how this whole last 20 minutes started with me saying how many people couldn't do crush it.
- [82:46]
B
True.
- [82:47]
A
All I've done is have an aha moment between where the algorithms are in social and what you've built that literally everyone can if they follow. What I just did was not saying. By the way, the first part that you said, like back to crush it. That's the better one.
- [83:02]
B
Yeah.
- [83:02]
A
Like if you're a savant about wrestling and you love it so much. Like you can make a million dollars a year or 100,000 a year being in the wrestling content, like, for damn sure. Community content, for damn sure. I'm just saying that there's a lot of people that aren't. And the fact that I just literally thought processed the jam session into how I can get the least entrepreneurial, most creative people. Do you know how many fucking artists there are, Jon?
- [83:32]
B
I think every human is an artist.
- [83:33]
A
Fair. But you know where I'm going, right? Let's go. The cliche thing, the starving artists, the amount of people living in Brooklyn right now.
- [83:40]
B
Yeah.
- [83:41]
A
That are fucking unbelievably interesting. Super creative, think different, but do not have an entrepreneurial bone in their body. You know, when we get into these political times where everyone's like, yeah, let's fuck with communism, you know, like that kind of stuff. I love looking at that. You know, I was born in communism, so I love looking at it. I'm very empathetic. I do believe separation of wealth is a real issue. Like, I think about these things, but obviously I'm fucking entrepreneur. Like, I also believe, like, the government, like, I believe in merit and the human race, but when you look, so many people fit. This is why I'm so excited about this. The people that are like, yeah, fuck it, let's shoot every billionaire in the face and let's let the government fucking take care of us are the people I'm most excited for, for what I'm talking about right now. Because they actually are way more creative than a lot of business people. And the tech is starting to catch. Like right now I'm like, holy fuck. That cliche person in Brooklyn who's like, let's move to the USSR is oftentimes the person that fucking knows the most about pickling in the world.
- [84:42]
B
Sure.
- [84:42]
A
Tattooed, sleeved out pickling. Fucking genius who literally posts about pickling and now has $9 a month people at scale and they aren't entrepreneurial. They don't know how to do that part. They know the art and the fact. Because you know this on the passion part. If they still lack complete business savvy, it's still gonna be like a slog, like, from the creative. It's gonna be a slog for them to sell a $9 a month book. Even if they're like fucking savant about. I always say this. The thousand best books ever written, nobody knows. Cause they didn't sell. Yeah, right. The fact that you have a community product that could get 10,000 picklers in there for a buck. And if she's. Or he is listening to me right now and is really picking up what I'm putting down, that when this moment happens, they just need to pick two or three minority or majority partners from the community that are driving the community that is viable in a way that I've never seen before. An hour ago.
- [85:44]
B
I think you're coming upon the thesis that I've always believed is like, everyone has something to monetize. It's just about whether or not they have the tools and also the educational path to do so. And so that's what we give through Stan, is all the tools you need for the most affordable price out there. And on top of that, then now we have Gary Vee teaching you how to actually.
- [86:02]
A
And I would tell you that everybody has something that's monetizable. Not everybody has monetizable capabilities, even with education. That's the part that I'm, like, freaking out on. You see where I'm going, brother? Yeah, that's the. Mm. That's the part that I'm like, wait a minute. This Gary camp thing is crazy. I'm dead right about this. I lived it. I literally watched Gary camp idea it and get the out. He was very lightly involved. Ryan came, and then Travis really came, and Travis did the whole thing. And Garrett, I'm sure I don't know this detail, but I'm sure Travis and Garrett had dinners and they would debate. Travis fucking built it. Yeah, Travis built it. Travis built and everything else. And, like, hitting up about, like, should we do pedicabs? And, like, he not only, you know this, I always give him creditors. I don't fight city hall. I don't have that stomach. So I could have never been the CEO of Uber. Travis, like, he did everything. Travis is Uber. Garrett made the most money. The pickle lady that I just talked about in Brooklyn, she could be the Garrett camp of her community on Stan.
- [87:00]
B
I love it.
- [87:01]
A
That blows my mind. That's why I've been talking for an hour straight on this. This is, like, crazy to me. All the other parts were obvious. This is where it could change everyone's life. That's a big deal to me because I think I can teach, and I think you could make a great tool. I really mean this. I think you could make the best sword, and I could be the best fencing teacher in the world. And I still don't believe everyone will then get decent at fencing.
- [87:27]
B
So then we'll help those People find a fencer.
- [87:31]
A
Correct. That's what's freaking me out about the community product through the lens of the content product. No, no, because I can't write about fencing through the lens of like, I made a viral piece of content about fencing. Now there's 84 people in my Stan, $3 a month fencing community. I watch it, I see Sally is like fucking posting 13 times a day. I DM her, I get on zoom with her, we talk. I'm like, Sally, do you want 50 cents of every dollar here of what I created? Sally's gonna say, say yes. Cause she's the alpha community person. Sally then takes it from 84 to 800 people and it's a nice little fucking side fun for everyone. That is replicatable for literally every human on earth. I believe that. That's crazy to me.
- [88:12]
B
I love it.
- [88:17]
A
That's fucking crazy to me. Straight up. All right, I completely derailed everything on this random idea. What have we not touched on? Given that I've been in an hour, 30 minute haze of like excitement about this. What have we not touched on, John, so far that you would like to touch on a little more for instances to help people think we've talked about your two most popular products. Can you talk about number three and four in the tech stack? Because everybody, if you're listening to me, this is the ultimate $29 Swiss army knife.
- [88:46]
B
That's correct.
- [88:47]
A
Like we just talked about the scissors and the screwdriver. But if you know Swiss army knife, there's other things I want to touch everyone in this podcast. What, what's number three and four?
- [88:56]
B
So I think I can, I think I can end it with this, which is number three and number four are booking some sort of call on your calendar. And then the number four is specifically doing a webinar which is an at scale version of that. Point being is every single medium through which you think you can convert a customer, Whether it's getting out on the phone with you and paying for a live coaching call, or doing a discovery call, or it's selling them and giving out a freebie, or selling them a low ticket digital product or a big course that's a thousand dollars, or doing a community, everything you need, you have as a Swiss army and F2 Will Stan. What I think is more important to show people is the four instances we gave. Whether it's, you know, Janessa Harris moving across the country from Hawaii to the east coast, escaping an abusive relationship by building her online coaching business through Stan and getting to move her child with her. Or it's, you know, the example of Stone I gave who was 18 years old, or it's made 100k in his first month, or it's Eddie Abbey at 65 teaching people how to stay fit. Whatever your story is and whatever your passion is, my promise to you is that nowadays there's at least one to 10 to probably a couple hundred people in your specific passion that are making real full time incomes on Stan. And so with that context being said, I fundamentally believe, believe, especially now with you involved, Gary, that like this is the new wave. I also do believe there's an arbitrage and an alpha moment, which is like at some point it's the attention economy. There's a certain amount of zero sum attention. I believe that one needs to move sooner, as in right now rather than later to actually grab that attention because there's first mover advantage to things. And so now is the time, if you've been questioning at all whether or not to do it like this, hopefully can be your sign to do that. That thing. You've seen Gary do it for a decade plus. This is what Stan's all about. And we make it as affordable as possible, as easy as possible, and we're here to support you.
- [90:42]
A
Where do people go?
- [90:43]
B
Stand out, store. That's it. Sign up for your free trial. Gary's going to be doing a lot.
- [90:48]
A
Of stuff with us, so everybody ple you can tell. So just to give clarity on the bookend, so AJ and I got involved as investors and advisors and like, and again, deeper than that, this is kind of like the first foray into this. So I'm really excited about it. So if you have any questions, hit me up about it. You can. I'm gonna figure out a way to like siphon all my inbounds to this proper people on the Stan team. That's another thing we just made up on the spot. So, John, tell me who to send things to and yeah, we're gonna hang up here now and start having a working session to figure out more things and more challenges and more stuff for the holiday season and new year. New you. I mean, I think for a lot of you, a lot of you are going to actually stumble on this podcast in November, December. I always think those last seven or eight days of the year people are like thinking about like 2,026. Am I happy about it or am I devastated about it? And so a lot of stuff to come. But John, thank you so much.
- [91:41]
B
Thank you, Gary. Let's build.