← The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner
The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner
6 Businesses You Can Start With Almost No Money⏐Ep. #290
00:44:14
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- [00:00]
A
I think your audience loves ways to make 100 or $200,000 a year hustling. You only need 20 clients, make a 10,000 a piece off of them to do really well. And you can just nights and weekends.
- [00:11]
B
Yeah, well. And AI could tell you exactly what to say.
- [00:13]
A
AI audits are a business every single one of your listeners should start. There's very little competition. People don't understand AI Business owners are hungry for guidance. You're seeing that the future of openclaw is this is the next operating system. You have Windows, you have the cloud became the next operating system and then mobile became the next operating paradigm. I think you're seeing that OpenClaw is going to be the next operating system. That's why Interesting OpenAI bought it. They're turning into a foundation. It is the next Linux. The future is people are going to be buying fully deployable AI agents to operate on your behalf and they're going to feel like employees. Just they'll be running on OpenCloud.
- [00:54]
B
One of my fan favorite episodes was my episode with my friend Michael Gurdley. He's an idea machine. Episode 181 back from June 11, 2025. Back then we talked about a bunch of cool business ideas and today we did even more of it in a better way because Michael sent me about 30 business ideas beforehand. I sent out the ideas to my newsletter. I said vote on the ones you want to learn about the most. They did. And so we're only talking about the best business ideas that you guys want to hear about. One of these ideas was so good, I literally started prompting in my favorite vibe coding app as we were talking about it to build this idea. So you're going to love it. Enjoy. Okay, what about claudebot Persona Exchange?
- [01:34]
A
Cloudbot Persona Exchange? So I think, well, it's now openclaw. I guess since I wrote this idea, it's now openclaw. But I think that you're seeing that openclaw, the future of openclaw is this is the next operating system, right? Like you have Windows, you have, you have returned to dos. Then you have the cloud became the next operating system and then mobile became the next operating system paradigm. I think you're seeing that OpenClaw is going to be the next operating system. That's why Interesting OpenAI bought it like they're turning into a foundation. It is the next Linux, right? In my opinion. And the beautiful thing about it is I think that you and I are going to be buying Personas offline online created by creators, right to where somebody who says I want a marketing manager, it's like, okay, I'm going to buy the marketing manager Persona from Chris. He knows what he's doing about this stuff. There's an entrepreneur Persona, there's a sales rep Persona. So I think somebody could extrapolate from today, right where, where OpenClaw is and just say, look, the future is people are going to be buying fully deployable like AI agents to operate on your behalf and they're going to feel like employees. Just they'll be running on openclaw.
- [02:43]
B
Man, I love this a lot. So do you think it would be like a SaaS play for recurring revenue or a one time fee and then the buyer just has to pay the token costs or something?
- [02:53]
A
I think it will look like software does where I think there will be some free where versions of those where you like it's open source, but then I think there'll be closed source versions as well. Where you go and you're like, you know, the equivalent of whoever is the salesforce of the future. Right. Actually sells you a closed source salesforce. Then you pay them per month or you might pay an all upfront license kind of like you do with software. But I think it'll be a dichotomy that way you'll have the open source and I think it'll be closed source versions.
- [03:18]
B
Yeah. So let's say I, I'm a business owner and I want to start using cold emails to grow my business. I would go to this marketplace, cloud bot marketplace, whatever it is, and you know, filter for cold email, filter for marketing, filter for cold email. Oh, okay. This one's 30 bucks a month and it uses instantly and mailchimp and yada. Like you could see the tech stack of it, right? Maybe see like the approximate token costs. And then like me personally, Chris could be like, you know, I'm going to sell my own version of this because my cold emailing is special or unique for X, Y or Z reason. And then maybe people could filter and see mine in there. Like, you know, I want to buy Chris's because I like his marketing methods. Is that kind of what you're saying?
- [03:58]
A
Yeah, 100. Yeah. And then, and then the cool thing is if you're the exchange, you basically become the ebay of these things. Right? And you become the place that takes a cut on all this kind of stuff. You're the up, you're the upwork for claudebot Personas. Right? That's. And that's, that's the even more exciting vision Rather than just making the actual Personas is like you actually become the middleman on all of them. In the place where you go get em, you sit in the middle, all that kind of stuff.
- [04:22]
B
Well, as of right now, let's see. Hold on. Open openclaw exchange.com is taken. Open Claw Marketplace.
- [04:35]
A
Oh, you got to go with openclaw Bay. Is that taken?
- [04:38]
B
Well, there it is. Let's see. OpenCloud. That's taken. I feel like we need a pun in here. Like, open closet.
- [04:46]
A
Open closet set.
- [04:50]
B
No, that's even. That's taken. Wow, there are weirdos out there. This is a good idea. I like how you shifted how I'm looking at this as the next operating system. That's. That's an interesting framework. Right? Okay, now, along those same lines, AI replicas of famous geniuses. This could be the same business.
- [05:09]
A
Think master class, okay? You know, people, Masterclass is like a huge business.
- [05:12]
B
Yeah.
- [05:13]
A
Like, it's like a half billion dollar business where people pay to get taught by Oprah. Right.
- [05:18]
B
Gordon Ramsay.
- [05:19]
A
Gordon Ramsay teaches you how to make hamburgers. Okay. But anyway, so back to master class, which is a ridiculously good business, right? It's a info products business. You have. They go sign exclusive things with Mike Krzyzewski, Oprah, whoever, and you take the class from them. Right. Great. Business. Right. And then it's a subscription business. So you're paying 59, 99amonth, all you can eat, all this kind of stuff. You take these courses from these folks who, by the way, are so removed as billionaires from you and me that you have no business taking a class from these people. Don't worry about that part. But imagine instead of masterclass, where you just sat there and did a, did a class for this person. Somebody has gone through and trained LLMs on everything that certain people have written so you could go in and you're paying $99 a month for this, like, master mentor product. But instead of taking a course from Oprah, you're sitting down and having a conversation with Steve Jobs about your product idea. Or you're sitting down and getting coached on physics from Albert Einstein. Right. Or you're talking about how to become a better driver with, like, Mario Andretti. And like, you go and train these things and tell him you are this person and have a conversation with people. That's the idea.
- [06:31]
B
I love that idea. I feel like maybe this is too hokey or unrealistic, but if you were to combine this, like, with the new hologram technology where you can, like, have an Actual sit down, in person conversation, trained on millions of words of their data, their content, about something very relevant to you. Like, what if it were trained on you and them? Like, basically you take. So I'm in the process of moving from chatgpt to Claude, right? And so I. You can go into ChatGPT, you just go to settings, data export. It's been four days, my data still hasn't exported because there's so much in there. Right. But imagine if you take all that. Now, of course, you have context window limitations, but those, those will be gone at some point. And you upload them. You take all the Albert Einstein stuff, you upload it, and you just have this conversation with a person that knows everything about something and also everything about you. How valuable would that be?
- [07:24]
A
I love this idea. That's really good.
- [07:26]
B
Good one.
- [07:26]
A
That's a good one. Albert Einstein looked at everything about your life and here's what he thinks you should do.
- [07:31]
B
Yeah, you're a squirrel.
- [07:33]
A
You should start taking a pipe. He thinks you should just give up.
- [07:38]
B
You're nowhere near as good as he was.
- [07:40]
A
Oh, man. Anyway, that was it. That was the whole idea. I was like, oh, man, you know, it'd be awesome if you could talk to pay 99amonth and talk to Steve Jobs. Like, who needs to go to Intro and talk to mentors there, not just go straight to Steve.
- [07:52]
B
$99 a month. Well, I mean, what if you even. Like, what if it was. It was built on Tom Brady and you're a high school quarterback and your buddy takes a video of you throwing the football and Tom's like, no, listen, you really got to move your elbow out a little bit, you know? Like, how many people would pay for that? There's no end to that.
- [08:09]
A
Totally. Well, I was going to make a Tom Brady joke like, oh, you should divorce your wife and she'll get married and have a kid with some other guy.
- [08:15]
B
Hey, you should choose football over family. That. That football looks a little too inflated. Have you thought of, you know, taking some air out of that?
- [08:25]
A
That's really good. Okay, what do you want to do next?
- [08:27]
B
Let's go. Metro section.
- [08:29]
A
So, I. I don't know, how old are you now?
- [08:32]
B
39.
- [08:33]
A
39. So you're old enough to remember an era where, where newspapers were still something. Right? Like when you were 12, newspapers were still something because I, you know, I kind of, in my mind, dated around 2005. Like, very few. Like, it was beautiful. Like, the Metro section actually used to have reporters hanging around city Hall. They would Actually go in and do real reporting, investigative reporting. They're writing one or two stories a week, so they could actually, like, really report on things. They would get quotes from people. And if you go look at, like, local coverage now in most markets, like here in San Antonio, there's none. Like, there's like, five people working at our local newspaper covering San Antonio. Like, it's basically. And our newspaper doesn't even get printed here. It gets printed in Houston. Like, if you want to get a paper newspaper, it gets shipped in overnight from Houston. So that's how, like, things have fallen. And to me, like, I would love to pay for and subscribe to a website that actually, like, has that kind of real, like, the information. You're familiar with that site, but imagine it's covering your city and really covering stuff. So, you know, the cool thing is, is I think small businesses are desperate to market to smart people who are wanting to subscribe to something like that. And if you kind of do the math, it doesn't have to get that, like, big for this thing to get really profitable. Once you kind of put ads in, the whole thing, if you're charging people $20 a month, which is relatively cheap compared to some other newspapers, I mean, people pay $50 a month for. For the Bloomberg magazine, you know, I think it's just. To me, I wish this existed. I'm just the wrong person to execute on it because the last thing I want to own is, like, a newspaper. But, yeah, that's it.
- [10:04]
B
Well, I think they're coming back. When we travel as a family and we go to a hotel or something and they have free newspapers, my kids will just tear them up, like, literally and figuratively.
- [10:13]
A
They'll.
- [10:13]
B
They'll read them, they'll open them. Like, it's physical. And I. I just think that. That that's coming back in a big way. Do you think the play is, like, too, you know. So I went down some rabbit hole on newspapers.com, a coup. I don't remember what I was doing, but I searched up my own name in Florida, where I grew up. And I found all these Florida Today articles about myself as a wrestler at Astronaut high school in 2003 and 4 and 5 and 2005, the year that newspapers died, right? And it was like, Chris Kerner beat Muhammad D. Reese of Titusville High School. And it was like, I can't believe they published that. Like, who cares? But at the same time, like, they published it because people did care about that stuff, right? There were buyers, there was demand. And it's understandable that it went away, but I think it's going to come back. Like, I would love to know that the Chick Fil A down the road for me is getting a new drive thru lane. I think that's cool. You know, I want to know that the new diner was started by a local high school graduate. Like, I think that's cool stuff.
- [11:08]
A
Yeah, there's. Yeah. And there are people. I put this on Twitter, by the way, and like some, some newspaper guys were just like, you're an idiot. You don't know what you're talking about. This already exists. And I looked at their stuff and they were not happy that I didn't really like it because there wasn't a level of dep. Depth of the reporting. It was a lot of like, hey, we're copy pasting press releases. Which is fine. But like, that's not, you know, that's not what I'm looking. I want something more thoughtful that's actually like digging in and telling stories and yeah. Doing actual reporting. And maybe that's just an era gone by, but I agree with you. Like, we're seeing the swind pendulums swinging back and all this stuff. Are you. Have you noticed or seen the stats on like the rise of actual cigarette smoking that's happening?
- [11:48]
B
No. What?
- [11:49]
A
Yeah, Gen Z, Gen Z, Gen Alpha are smoking cigarettes.
- [11:54]
B
Gosh, that's coming back. I thought that was.
- [11:56]
A
Yeah.
- [11:57]
B
Dying forever.
- [11:58]
A
So watch. So go watch like Apple TV or like any sort of media. You will see cigarettes smoking like crazy compared to where it used to be. Like you used to. Not cigarette smoke. Now Landman folks are smoking cigarettes, putting on heaters right on the tv. It's coming back.
- [12:14]
B
That's wild. So when you talk about like depth to journalism, do you follow the Texas Monthly? Yeah, like, so I think what you're talking about is like what they do, except on a more local level than just the state of Texas. You know, 40 million people is not very local. But I just read an article from them a couple weeks ago about this guy that has a business that spearfishes invasive species in like the San Marcos river. And then they have a big fish cook off that's free that anyone in the city can come to and it talks about his business and like, like they're shooting these random arm or catfish and it went. I'm like, this is awesome. I love this stuff. And it would be even more awesome or more relevant to me if it was like in my local area. But it takes work for sure. But I think with AI, like, it's like. I think a big problem with this is, like, it was hard to make this profitable from 2005 to 2025 because of the Internet. Like, it just didn't make sense to keep printing stuff when people were clicking stuff instead. But with AI, like, you could do a lot of that investigative research and journalism in an automated way. So, like, let's say 20 years ago, you need one journalist to cover, like, a. Two deep stories a week. That same journalist might be able to cover 20 a week with the help of AI and deep research and all that stuff.
- [13:33]
A
So. Yeah, well, I mean, that fact. Yeah, I think the other part of it that's really tough is reporting. Like, they used to call them gum shoes because they were out and they got gum on their shoes all the time because they were out walking around in all these places to make stuff happen. And. And a couple of my buddies were former metro reporters here in San Antonio, and both now work for the government. But, like, when they were doing their job, they were in City hall all the time. They had. They were getting phone calls late at night, like, you know, and it's. It's not Woodward and Bernstein, you know, so to speak, with Deep Throat, you know, being the source and all that kind of stuff, but it was closer to that, right? There was so much of. It was relationship built. And you would see when there was turnover in these sections, when a reporter would leave and some new person would come in, it was just like. Like, they're missing all the nuance and they're missing the relationships, and it changed everything. So it's hard. And I. I understand, you know, understand the difficulty in kind of reproducing what. What I'm looking for here.
- [14:28]
B
Yeah, yeah, I love it. All right, so this is kind of along the same lines. X Magazine.
- [14:33]
A
Well, Sean Puri does this a bit, and it turns out, like you individually, there's probably 10 tweets you really want to read on Twitter, and Twitter is going through over and over again different iterations on how to show you those 10 while keeping you engaged just enough to not leave the platform. Right? That's what. That's what they're doing. They want to. They want to maximize dwell time. Right. The amount of time you dwell on the app. What I love is Sean sends out an email once a week or so, and he gives you the five tweets that excited him the most. And it feels like, I would love to open up Twitter every day, and there's some account that has gone on there and Said, here's the five things that happened yesterday in the world of SMB, Twitter, financial Twitter, smart Twitter that you missed. And you should definitely check these things out. And here's the three of them that went viral that you should ignore. Like, don't look at those, but just focus on these five things. And I think the cool thing is if somebody wanted to do this as like a side hustle, they do pay enough for creators now who are reposting this kind of stuff and quote tweeting it that you could get enough views to pay you, you know, a couple thousand dollars a month. It's a good side hustle for somebody. I just wish somebody would do it, like go through and make me a magazine every single day and I'll just follow your account and I'll just read the five things and then I'll leave the app and I'll go into the next thing. So that's what I want.
- [15:46]
B
Yeah, yeah, I love that. No, I, I came across a guy on Instagram that is doing something very similar. He, he's mailing out a physical magazine to his followers every month with just stuff that he finds cool on the Internet. And like I actually ordered one and then I ordered one a week later to see the difference in the order numbers to like gauge what his volume is. And I don't remember what it was, but it was a lot. It was in the hundreds in like a one week time span. Did you see that tweet about the guy who made a spiral notebook full of printed pictures of YouTube thumbnails for his kid?
- [16:22]
A
No.
- [16:23]
B
He was like, with all The Brain Rot YouTube videos and thumbnails out there that are just manipulating my kids. I took some very thoughtful YouTube videos, I printed the thumbnails with a QR code and, and I put it in a three ring binder and my kid just flips through it and then they can scan the one video that they want to watch.
- [16:39]
A
That's adorable.
- [16:40]
B
Yeah, I thought that was cool.
- [16:41]
A
Have you seen, have you seen how. I guess it's, it's not that quiet. But people are so sick of the retention optimized stuff for kids these days that people are starting to bring out 80s and 90s TV that's not optimized. So rot kids brains. Yeah. Millennial parents are starting to do this.
- [16:56]
B
That's a good idea. Like what, what types of shows?
- [16:59]
A
I don't know, what, you know, SpongeBob, whatever was big back in the day or you know, whatever. What was the show with Steve where he like talked to the kids on pbs.
- [17:10]
B
Blues Clues.
- [17:10]
A
Blues Clues, yeah, like that kind of stuff.
- [17:12]
B
Did you know you can build a six figure business with only a 10,000 person email list? I just talked to the founder of Beehive and he told me that there are people with 10 to 15,000 subscribers making more than newsletters that are 10 times that size. Here's how. Well, this one design newsletter with around 15,000 subs doesn't just sell ads. They run two week online cohorts four times a year that generates six figures. And on top of that they're charging companies 20 to $30,000 to get in front of their audience. And that's on one small focus list. This is not about going viral anymore. It's about owning a niche and monetizing it correctly. And Beehive gives you exactly the tools to do just that. Like surveys to understand exactly who your readers are or a built in recommendation network to grow automatically. Paid subscriptions, digital products, sponsorship tools, and you keep 100% of the revenue. You don't need a massive audience to run a successful business. You need the right system. So move your email list over today and try out beehive with 30% off for 30 days with code CHRIS30. Because this might be the simplest, highest leverage business that you can build right now. Just go to beehive.comchris to learn more. That's B E hiiv.comchris.
- [18:30]
A
can I give you one of the. One of the bad ideas?
- [18:32]
B
Yes, let's hear it.
- [18:34]
A
Let me. Okay, there were. So I went out on Twitter and I asked for people's worst ideas because I needed to get ready for today's podcast. So there were two of them. And I'm going to put both of these up for you and you tell me which one you think was the actual bad idea or which one I
- [18:47]
B
think is actually a good idea.
- [18:49]
A
Okay. Okay, the first one is somebody make french fries or tater tots with ketchup already injected inside of them. So they're like basically gushers. But French fries, I hate ketchup. One. So that's number one. Number two is an LLM and it's called Gronk. It's an LLM that only talks like Rob Gronkowski, former tight end for the New York Patriots or for the New England Patriots. Which of these ideas do you did. Did you think that I thought was a good idea? Which would you think is a bad idea?
- [19:20]
B
Well, man, that's actually hard. That's really hard. I was gonna. My gut take was I thought you thought the French fry idea was good and the Gronk one was bad. But now I'm second guessing it and I kind of want to reverse that, so I'm just gonna hedge my bets.
- [19:35]
A
I think they're both great ideas. It's a trick.
- [19:37]
B
I guess I was right.
- [19:39]
A
They're great ideas. I mean, how cool would it be? You're like, hey, Gronk, please revise this. He's like, me. Revive me. Revised letter. Be right back, bro.
- [19:50]
B
I mean the, the ketchup one. That is interesting if you liked ketchup. I don't like ketchup.
- [19:55]
A
But how do you not like ketchup?
- [19:56]
B
I just don't.
- [19:57]
A
I don't know.
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B
I can't describe.
- [19:58]
A
Have you ever. Did you ever read Malcolm Gladwell's stuff about. I think it was maybe Blink or something? He talked about ketchup versus mustard.
- [20:05]
B
No.
- [20:06]
A
So he asked, why is there only one flavor of ketchup, but there's like 4,000 flavors of mustard? And the reality was that ketchup actually combines all of the, like, the five tastes, right? Sweet, sour, salt, umami, all that kind of stuff. Whatever the last one is, it actually combines them in a perfect way that they all kind of harmonize together. And if you change any one of them, ketchup doesn't taste right. So that's why, like, people are pretty religious about their type of ketchup is like they. Because they all harmonize perfect. And that's why you have like one major type of ketchup. But then you look at, you look at mustard, and mustard actually works because it's mostly just like salt and sour and you can combine those in multiple different combinations. And they still taste right.
- [20:51]
B
Yeah. What about whataburger, though? Spicy ketchup. They would like a word here.
- [20:54]
A
Well, that's so, I mean, anyway, I was about to mansplain. You know, spice is not actually a
- [20:59]
B
taste, but you win.
- [21:01]
A
But it's. But it's not mansplaining if you're talking to another guy.
- [21:04]
B
That's true.
- [21:04]
A
That's the.
- [21:05]
B
That's true. I found that. I found the tweet. Speaking of Gronk, I asked Grok to find the tweet for me. So this is what it is. For those that are only listening. Made an analog YouTube book for my kids so she can choose what she wants from pre approved list without being exposed to a thumbnail. Hellscape also automatically cuts her off after X scans. So if you look at this video, Rory's YouTube feed, Songs for a Little Christmas Movie. I Don't think that's a terrible idea.
- [21:34]
A
It's super cute.
- [21:35]
B
What do we think?
- [21:36]
A
I like this idea. Oh, he made a scanner.
- [21:40]
B
Yeah, he's got his own scanner. Can't give your kid a smartphone, but that's pretty. It's pretty cool. I don't know, maybe you could monetize that somehow. Like, maybe you could do the service that. That prints, like, a book of YouTube videos for a kid.
- [21:56]
A
Yeah, No, I like it. I dig that one.
- [21:58]
B
Yeah. Like, you could just fill out a quick online form. My kids like xyz. You could go to those. You could have AI do all this. Go to those channels, find, like, the top videos that fit those genres, print them in a book. It could. It could be like a physical book with a QR code and that's it. YouTube book. YouTube, book dot com.
- [22:16]
A
There you go. That's. That is right down the middle of the fairway for Chris Corner content.
- [22:20]
B
There you go.
- [22:22]
A
All right, let me. Let me pitch you on which one of these business I think is actually the top. There's two of these that I think are actually good businesses. Somebody should do. Can I put you on these? I don't think they were on the top list, but I feel obligated because actually, like, this is a public service we're doing here. These ideas do not come cheap. I spent much time in the bathroom thinking of them. All right. There's much time spent on the toilet thinking of these. Okay, so. So basically, you know how hims and hers work, right? The company they give you, you get to talk to a quack doctor. Next thing you know, you have erectile dysfunction. Congratulations. Like our low testosterone. But the reality is there are a bazillion different skin care combinations out there, and they are all very different. And some are good for oily skin, some are good for dry skin, some are good for Caucasian folks, African Americans, like, everything in between. Right? Bald people. We need care. We need skin care, too. And there is nobody who is basically, like, gone through and figured out, okay, like, I'm going to do what hims does or hers does and consult with you to actually get the right skincare routine for you without going to an esthetician or esthetician or have you pronounce it right. So basically, like, I think people would. There's a very clear, like, skincare Instagram that you do for top of funnel, which turns into clickable content, which turns into you do a consult with somebody over the Internet for 15 minutes. Like you. They look at your skin via zoom and they give you a formula that works for you, that is prescribed exactly for your type of skin, and then sells you a subscription of this stuff and skincare. I mean, there is a reason Sahil got a skincare line.
- [23:58]
B
I want one step ahead of you. Keep talking. This is part of the bit. I'm not distracted.
- [24:03]
A
I was like, are you tweeting this? Give me this to finish it first, bro.
- [24:07]
B
This is part of it.
- [24:08]
A
So there's a reason Sahil got, you know, released, you know, skincare wine. It runs at 98% margin. It's recurring revenue. There's you know, like a lot of other things. You don't know if it's working or not. It just feels good or not. So like it's a beautiful business in terms of that kind of stuff. So yeah, hims for skincare customized for your skin. Lock in for life.
- [24:26]
B
I like that. So I think you could even use AI to do this for you where you just take a selfie and you upload it to the app and Claude or whatever just. It doesn't like tell you what you need to do. It comes up with a, a formulation of like what lotion you need. Well, it could do a couple different things. It could like give you like a routine, but then it could recommend X, Y or Z product for that routine. That could be one business, right? Where it's like, here's your prognosis, like here's your disease, here's the cure. Cool. Or if you wanted to get a little more complex and like contract with co packing companies or whatever, it could be like a one to one sch skincare product just for you. Take one picture. Like that's the whole framework, that's the whole angle is like one picture to lotion. Right. All I need is a picture of you, picture of your face and I will send you the lotion that you need right. For your skin.
- [25:16]
A
So I got you one better.
- [25:18]
B
Well, before you do that, before you do that, let me share my screen. I want to show you what I just did. So.
- [25:23]
A
Oh, did you make a. Did you tell Claude to make this app already?
- [25:26]
B
No, not to make the app, but to give me a. To give me prognosis. Yeah, I took a. I took a selfie as you were speaking. I was very rude and I said what should my skincare routine be? Nice little picture.
- [25:42]
A
Nice.
- [25:43]
B
Chris, you're in 38. You're 38 in Texas sun. I'm 39. Cleanser. It has specific brands. Vitamin C, same cleanser. There you go. Like that. Could that could be an app. I don't understand how so many people have skincare routines. Like, I'm just learning this. I'm 39 years old. I'm just learning that. Like, that's a thing. Like, why is that a thing?
- [26:03]
A
I don't know. Somebody called me James Carville on YouTube the other day. Comments. They're like, I can't believe James Carville making YouTube videos now. He's 85. Like, I have feelings. Over here.
- [26:14]
B
You pull out your phone and text your wife.
- [26:16]
A
I mean, you're recording inside, but I record outside. An interesting thing is, you see why inside we can control our lighting. Outside, you want to be videotaping in in golden hour because it softens your skin like crazy, and it's a huge difference. So when I record, like, midday, that's when I get the James Carville comments. But look, I think that I love the AI aspect of it. I think fundamentally, what somebody wants is a very attractive member of the opposite sex or the same sex, if they're into that, to tell them how they could be. I think that's what I would hire. I would hire and nines who are very gregarious to get on and be like, man, well, here's what would make all the difference for you. And then we could check it in a year after you use this, and I'll see how it's going. And you get them as subscribers for life. And then I think at the same time, an unscrupulous person. I'm not saying do this, but I think you could just, like, get different bottles and go get doves, Moisture care, the stuff you get at Walgreens, and put that in every bottle.
- [27:11]
B
Yeah.
- [27:11]
A
I don't think anybody would notice. That's what I think about skincare also.
- [27:14]
B
But they'd spend the first few minutes just, like, rising you up, like, wow, you have gorgeous skin. And they're like, okay, okay. There's just a couple things you could do to make it better. Like, they will be hook, line, and sinker.
- [27:26]
A
There was a funny Reddit thing I was reading last night, and somebody asked, what's something about men that women would be incredibly surprised to hear? And the guy was like, oh, this is easy. If you're a man, a grown man, and you get a compliment about your appearance, you will remember that forever.
- [27:40]
B
100%. Or your T shirt.
- [27:42]
A
Yeah. If they say, I had a guy
- [27:43]
B
compliment my hoodie once, and it's my favorite hoodie now, if, like, an attractive
- [27:47]
A
woman says something very nice about you, like, or says you're attractive, but you'll remember for the rest of your life. Like, it's just like. And maybe. Maybe guys. I'm not a 9 or a 10 guy. Like. Like, you know, 10 out of 10. Maybe guys who are 10 out of 10 get that all the time. For somebody who's kind of, you know, you know, not. Not hairy, not hair on my head, you know, this is. This. That I remember that stuff.
- [28:07]
B
So. Yeah, it's true. I got one from your. From your list. I want to hear more about Distraction Bot.
- [28:12]
A
Yeah, look, I think. I think there's not enough negative reinforcement on the Internet. I think there's too much positive reinforcement. I think that somebody should, you know, if. You know that app for the Mac that's basically caffeine or amphetamine. Have you seen these things? Basically, it stops your Mac from ever turning off the screen or stopping or shutting down. I think somebody needs to build that. But it's just basically an LLM that watches what you're doing. It knows your. It knows what you're doing.
- [28:39]
B
Yeah.
- [28:40]
A
As you're. You tell it, hey, here's my North Star. Here's what I'm trying to do. And the moment you get off topic, it's like, hey, close TikTok. Get your ass back over there and keep writing that business plan. Like, that's. That's what Distraction Bot would do for you. Personal SaaS. $30 a month. And then I think an interesting play on it would be charge people $30 a month. But we give you all your money back if you go the whole month without getting busted. Like, if you stay good for the whole month, we give.
- [29:05]
B
This is a really good idea. This is a really, really good idea. I'm not just saying that. So here's what I'm picturing. This is maybe exactly what you're saying, but, like, I want an app on my MacBook running in the background, kind of like Loom does. When I need to make a video, I click the loom icon. I make a video. Cool. I want something like that. Or up on the top bar, I click it and I say, I'm answering emails for the next 30 minutes. That's my prompt. It's just a prompt, right? Send. The AI knows you're not leaving that mail window. You're not. Like, you literally, physically will not be able to for 30 minutes. And I can walk away and go take my dog for a walk, but it forces me to do that, just like your phone does. And this could be the same app for phone, Right? Like what you're saying. But imagine this. Like I am, I'm sending like I have to send a hundred cold emails this morning. Do not unlock my computer until I do. Right. And it won't. Why isn't that a thing?
- [29:58]
A
I don't know. Somebody needs to watch this podcast and invent it.
- [30:01]
B
I'm not, I'm gonna, I'm not exaggerating. I'm gonna go into Claude and start building this today.
- [30:06]
A
Yeah.
- [30:07]
B
Myself, I like it because it's like, I feel like Apple only came out with like permissions for, for apps to do that to your devices here recently. I don't think like it was technically possible or allowable by Apple up until the last year or two. So when you combine that kind of inflection point with AI, just knowing what you're doing and talking about, it's a no brainer.
- [30:28]
A
Yeah, I like it, dude.
- [30:30]
B
There's, there's a lot of money in productivity tools and books and like, I mean there's a lot of money in people wanting to be more productive.
- [30:38]
A
If you could, especially if you could make people feel like they're making progress, you get rich.
- [30:44]
B
Yes.
- [30:46]
A
So I did want to point out in your survey, one of my ideas was the least, was the least appealing, which was do a, do an unsolicited hostile takeover offer for buying back Twitter turning it back to the way it was. People didn't like responses.
- [31:03]
B
I think, I don't think most of my listeners have billions of dollars, much like I don't have billions of dollars.
- [31:10]
A
It's an impossibility. But I don't know. Just so many of my friends have left the platform, really smart people and never come back, that it's good to remember about the good old times. And look at the same time I was complaining there was no edit button. You know, that is, that is nostalgia for you. So this next one I think is actually a really good business that people could do just as like, it's total like Chris Corner right up the alley of somebody who wants $50,000 hustling. Maybe more, maybe 250,000. Okay, so there, there have been forever college admissions counselors who like help you get in. Hey, you're, you know, the son of a Hollywood star and you want to get into USC, but you only have a score of 4 on the SAT. They're the ones that are going to make you happen. What I am hearing and seeing more and more is college is so expensive and the number of young people is shrinking and we're not bringing in Chinese and Foreign students like we were before. Like, colleges are a lot more reasonable with working with you. But the problem is, like, it's a standard kind of NBA agent thing, right? The, the colleges make deals all the time with kids, so they have all this asymmetric information about how deep they can go. The other side is parents are doing it probably for the first time ever. Like, they don't know what they can make happen for this. And it's not financial aid like, like in the old days where you fill out the FAFSA and it's like, hey, we're going to give you like $20,000 in credit. Like, I have friends who have 17 year olds, 18 year olds, 19 year olds. Like, these parents are getting on calls with admissions and being like, okay, let's talk turkey. You want my kid? I'm starting at 70% off. Like I'm having parents, I know parents that are doing this like calling up and negotiating. Really, here's the financial aid I want if you want my kid. And there's, this is a small percentage of parents, but I think there are parents out there and I'm one of them because I don't like, I don't like conflict. I think there are parents that would pay for admissions counselors in this type situation, but it's, it's like admissions agents for kids who are desirable to go negotiate and get, get money down. I think you could easily charge parents, you know, a percentage of money saved, or you could charge them a flat fee, or you could charge them a combination of those two things. I think parents are ready to do that. We've entered that, entered that phase of stuff.
- [33:22]
B
I think you just need more education. Like how many parents know that's even a thing that's possible?
- [33:26]
A
Well, that's why they need to pay me to tell them about it.
- [33:28]
B
Right. Well, I mean, Michael, like in the age of AI, our university is going to have more or less leverage than they did before.
- [33:36]
A
Comparatively less.
- [33:38]
B
Yeah, they're going to be, I think they're going to be begging for enrollment, honestly. But they're not going to get ahead of this. They're just going to be sit fat on their, on their endowments. Right. And they're not going to be willing or anxious to drop tuition. So the way to do that is for parents to actually step out of line and say 70% off or we're going to the school down the road.
- [34:04]
A
Yeah, I'm, I'm having a ton of parents. I'm also seeing kids like go for one year to a super expensive, $80,000 a year school. And they're like, yeah, they're calling the parents and being like, this isn't worth it. I want to come home and go to state school for 12,000 a year. Like, it's, it's. I, I had coffee this morning with a couple of parents. One of them like, yep, that's what's happening.
- [34:25]
B
My kids come home, man. I think you charge a percentage of savings. I think you charge like a 2 to $3,000 deposit that is refundable. That way you can actually see who serious about it. And you don't go to bat for people that are never actually gonna follow through. But that's a great idea.
- [34:39]
A
I like that one. It's a small business. It's a small consulting thing. But it, you know, I think your audience loves ways to make a hundred or two hundred thousand dollars a year hustling. Like, you only need 20 clients, make a 10,000 a piece off of them to do really well. And you get this nights and weekends.
- [34:55]
B
Yeah, well, and AI could tell you exactly what to say. It could tell you like, it could give you precedent or case studies of other universities that are offering this really good.
- [35:04]
A
If you want to advertise it, it's really easy to kickstart it. You go buy a truck and you put a billboard on the side of the truck that says, hey, would you like to save 50% off your college tuition? Call me. I know how to do it. Free consult. And you park it across from the three richest high schools in your town. Boom.
- [35:22]
B
Yeah. Oh, man, that would be. Yeah, that would work.
- [35:26]
A
You can. There's no regulation against that. So at least here in Texas you can do that all you want.
- [35:31]
B
Yeah. All right, so what about AI audits for small business?
- [35:35]
A
So I'm actually one of the entrepreneurs in residents that I have currently is actually doing AI audits. And it was the most popular one that people said there. So I want to talk about AI audits because I think AI audits are a business every single one of your listeners should start. So basically, do you know what I mean when I say AI audit for small businesses?
- [35:53]
B
Yeah. Like, it could be a tool that like says, here's how your SEO is. Or here's like it just audits them. Not just like their financials, but any process in the business.
- [36:02]
A
Okay, so this is slightly different. So what this is is if you go talk to most small businesses outside of your. And my circle, like small business owners are like, what should my roadmap be to use AI in The near immediate medium and long.
- [36:14]
B
Okay. Auditing a business to see where AI could help improve things.
- [36:19]
A
Correct.
- [36:19]
B
Correct. Okay.
- [36:20]
A
So I do think AI will be used to do audits for businesses. I think a lot of, like, financial audits will be done that way. But this is what we're talking about, like straight up AI audits for small businesses, where at its core, doing those audits is not actually a very good business. Right. Because it's one and done. You're selling consulting. It's not that great. What? It's amazing for somebody who's in your audience to start because, number one, there's very little competition. People don't understand AI business owners are hungry for guidance. But number three is if you go start to do these audits, you start to find out what the business owners, what their problems are. And it is gateway drug for you to get into a better business around AI and opportunity for these businesses. And as we've done these, our business called Fixed Labs, F I XED Labs. If you're a small business and want an audit, let us know the EIR as he's gone in. This is like finding all of these very valuable problems that these business owners don't even know they could solve. And that's turning into a gateway drug for him to find really good businesses to be in. But you start with kind of finding a great business by being in a bad business the first time, if that makes sense. Yeah.
- [37:24]
B
Yeah. Well, I think what something like this does is it gives a business owner a dozen different reasons to pay you to fix some of these problems.
- [37:32]
A
Yeah.
- [37:32]
B
Is that the idea?
- [37:34]
A
Yeah. 100% could turn into consulting, could turn into you building something. Could turn into you building something on a consulting basis, or it could turn into you building something that they then pay you monthly for. You'll find all of these kind of problems, but you come in under the guise of giving them an audit around something they feel like they're very clueless about. They want a roadmap.
- [37:51]
B
Yeah. Do you think the bigger opportunity is to charge for the audit or to do it for free?
- [37:55]
A
Free.
- [37:55]
B
And then charge for the implementation of the fixes?
- [37:59]
A
Both. I didn't give anything away for free. This ain't a charity.
- [38:02]
B
I just want to, like, have cake and, like, eat cake too.
- [38:06]
A
No. Neither. No, I mean, if. Look, if you're doing work, you should get paid for it.
- [38:10]
B
That's.
- [38:11]
A
That's rule number one in life. Like, yeah, that's healthy.
- [38:13]
B
Well, we're so early on in this phase. Like, I. I don't think you need to do it for free. But as slash, if it gets more competitive, then you might need like a freemium. Like, you might need a vibe coded tool to very quickly and easily and cheaply audit their business and then hope to convert like half of everyone you audit onto like a more expensive retainer or something.
- [38:32]
A
And we're doing that. Like, you can use AI to write the reports, but in the end, I mean, I, I, my opinion on business is if you're going to get to a point where you feel like you need to start giving something away from free to get market share, you need to figure out how to make your product more valuable and keep charging for it. That's. That's what I would tell somebody to do.
- [38:49]
B
Yeah. No, I like it. Michael, this is amazing.
- [38:52]
A
Did I. This is good or worse than last time? I was hopefully just as excited as last time.
- [38:56]
B
I think this is better. It's always better. I don't know. I'm an optimist. I love everything.
- [38:59]
A
Oh, man. Well, your whole channel is like, you know, I do rise and falls of real companies on my channel and tell stories of them. It's kind of depressing sometimes, right? You're just like, oh, guess what happened to JCPenney? They're screwed.
- [39:13]
B
And they fell.
- [39:14]
A
So that's super fun. So that's why I look at like you or my first million, and you guys are like, okay, here's how you make a bunch of money. Isn't this so much fun? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, Webvan didn't work out well. Malls are screwed. Here's why. So I, I envy you and I, I admire what you're doing.
- [39:32]
B
Likewise, I, I find it so interesting and fascinating how you published a video. I'm assuming I'm making assumption here, so correct me if or when I'm wrong. You published a video that talked about the rise and fall of something. It did really well. And you're like, huh, that concept really works. Let's try it again. Did really well, huh? That concept really works. And then you, you seemingly built, like, your whole channel out of the rise and fall concept, which I find just incredible. Like taking a killer title slash concept and scaling it to the hilt. Is that accurate?
- [40:02]
A
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I think that's what YouTube and all the algorithms want you to do. Especially YouTube. Like YouTube wants you to niche down and be as consistent as possible. So all my videos are 10 to 22 minutes. They're almost all walk and talks. They all follow the same format. There's A. You know, and so what I think that, you know, the thing I've seen is that when people use the word algorithm, what they really mean is the audience. And that's a signal to me that what the audience wants is consistency and to meet their expectations. And if you look at your consumption of podcast or my consumption of podcast, you have that podcast that you listen to while you're mowing the lawn, and you have a different one that's going to be appropriate for another time, but they have different formula, you know, formulas and time spans and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, as me and my team talk to other people about YouTube, it's like, okay, number one, like, you have to tell narratives. That's what people want to hear. They want to hear stories, comedies, tragedies that needs to be told, you know, like a South park episode. And number two, like, you have to pick your niche and just go super deep in it. And if you look at my channel as an example of how deep the niche is, I get requests all the time from, like, do success story videos. Guess how they do.
- [41:08]
B
Yeah, no, yeah. It's not my channel.
- [41:11]
A
Yeah, I have one that's in the top 25. One that's in the top 25. Yeah.
- [41:15]
B
Huh. And, like. But the funny thing is, is there a lot of other channels that talk about success stories that do Great. Yeah. That's not your channel.
- [41:21]
A
Yeah, yeah. And it's that. I mean, there's the James Clear thing where he talks about the three check marks. Check checkboxes for great content. It's like, is it remarkable? Like, will somebody tell somebody else about it? Are you genuinely curious about it? Like, do you. Do you enjoy talking about what you do on your channel? Right. And then is it unique? Right. If you can check those three boxes that's there. And the reality is me telling success stories is not that unique. Like, everybody's doing it because people love to hear a win. And I'm just like, here, I'm the business Merchant of Death. Let me talk about.
- [41:54]
B
But you're not James Carville. You're Michael Dangurley.
- [41:57]
A
Give me another 30 years, I might catch up. But, yeah, he's like, 84. Dude. I'm 51. It hurts to hear that.
- [42:03]
B
You look great. Well, where would you prefer us to find you, Michael?
- [42:06]
A
So we're launching a quality of earnings business, which is something you do if you basically are buying a business. You hire some accountants to go in and identify that the business is not lying to you about their financials. Because if they do, you can lose all your money and your investments. It is called Bedrock. So if you are somebody that wants quality of earnings and has got to buy a business, you should call us. And if you're interested in learning more, you can go to my website, gridley.com bedrock and and sign up there, and we'll put you on the mailing list and we'll call you. Girdley.com bedrock, that's also my website, and you can find links to everything there. So I appreciate the opportunity to come in and look, I have so much fun doing this, because this is what I would be doing anyway for fun. So this is this is the only podcast I've been on this year, so I appreciate that.
- [42:48]
B
Oh, sweet. Wow. I'm honored. Thank you, Michael. Well, we'll see you next time.