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- [00:03]
A
Like if I gave you two entrepreneurs, the same entrepreneur, and one version of that entrepreneur was focused on product and the other one was focused on media and content, who's richer in five years?
- [00:14]
B
Oh, my gosh. The media one for sure. No doubt. Absolutely.
- [00:17]
A
Why?
- [00:19]
B
If you're successful in media, you have two paths for monetization. So if you're successful in media, you can literally monetize yourself. Your voice, your appearance. Appearance, your. Your brand authority as you. Right. You can literally endorse a brand and someone will pay you. So that's the influencer model. The thing about it is, is, like, if you were to develop a product in the background, weirdly enough, like, a lot of products actually don't do really well from influencers who make those products. And I think it has to do with the focusing, the attention and the love that is given. Right. So like prime, you know, it went super high. It's still very. It's out there, right? But like, do you remember Feastables?
- [00:57]
A
Yeah.
- [00:57]
B
So really it was like everywhere and then nowhere. And then it's kind of like on the way out also, by the way, one company does almost all of those deals, so there's this one company that does almost all of the major productization for all the actual influencers, like the big ones. And so to answer your question, though, directly, it's like if you were to develop a product and you have the best product in the world, but nobody knows about it, nobody can buy it. So if you have the best marketing in the world and you have this huge following, even if the product's so. So there's a good chance that even a small percentage of people will buy that product.
- [01:27]
A
It's fascinating because, like, I also see a lot of people get greedy. Like prime was blowing up value is stupid. And I don't think they sold.
- [01:35]
B
I don't know.
- [01:35]
A
I think they held on because there's like this feast and famine kind of world, especially in cpg, like the consumer product, good space, things get hot and they fade out really fast. But I think some, some influencers, at least in my experience with, with watching them from afar, is they think it's just going to be up into the right, because it starts up into the right. But in reality, it's really easy to go from zero to a thousand. It's really hard to go from a thousand to a million, I would say,
- [01:59]
B
just from being in that space for so long. Somebody whose contracts are developed in a way that you. You are not the owner anymore and maybe you're the Face and maybe you're like locked in almost like as if you're like selling your company, you're kind of doing like a, like a, like a earn out. Like an earn out?
- [02:14]
A
Yeah.
- [02:14]
B
In essence, like your product is an earn out from the beginning and so you're just hoping to hit a certain milestones. Um, I haven't done any myself, but like through the grapevine, through the people that we've worked with or whatever, like that's what we seen. We, we've seen that they're not, they almost treat them like brand deals. And in brand deals in general, they're usually one and dones. And to explain this further if I have time.
- [02:36]
A
Yeah.
- [02:37]
B
So the way that this works and, and this is gonna, I'm gonna explain this. So just this is gonna get real ultra, like how this, how does this shit work, right? So in the creator space, let's say you build a hundred thousand followers to a million followers, right? And you're like, I'm Johnny and I do sports. And you, I who follow me and they do sports and now I'm going to do brand deals for sports related stuff. Okay. Those, all those brand deals come through just a handful of like let's call them top 10 marketing agencies. Those top 10 marketing agencies are the ones that are connected to the top, let's call it Fortune 5000. Where the real money is, right? They have real money to spend on digital ad spends, super bowl spots, everything. Marketing everywhere, right? Digital is just a sliver of it. So the way it works is, is that those big marketing companies have built initiatives probably in Q, like four into one. And they're saying cool company X. We call it a football company, right? They sell actual footballs, say, hey, this year we want to get super extreme. And that's our brand initiative is we want to highlight like this product is like super extreme. So they go and find super extreme sports people, right? And then that idea is baked into this concept that we need to go out and find those people that are going to deliver that messaging next year. They're onto a different brand initiative.
- [03:54]
A
I see.
- [03:55]
B
So they don't necessarily come back to you because they're onto a new thing. It may be at that point beauty influencers. Because for whatever reason that brand now is trying to appeal to this subsect over here. So the name of the game then is to not necessarily try to go upstream and say like hey Fortune 500 or like hey Chipotle, I have a really cool idea. Chipotle goes cool, talk to our brand Agency and the brand just goes, that's really nice. But we're not doing that because we already came up with the initiative. You don't have access to that upstream decision making process. And so in a lot of ways I'm going to bring it back to prime. Is that like a lot of times those, those products are treated like brand deals. Which is not a pump and dump, but it's like a pump and. See where it goes.
- [04:36]
A
Yeah.
- [04:36]
B
And then like sweet. It's, it's still going, but like we don't. It's not my brand for life because my brand for life is actually the thing that I'm monetizing, which is me.
- [04:45]
A
Yeah. But it's like, it's like these businesses do deals with influencers. It's like a business of launching businesses. So they're not trying to launch and sell, they're trying to just constantly launch and just generate revenue and ultimately they're just going to keep launching new products, new opportunities.
- [04:59]
B
Yeah.
- [04:59]
A
So what makes Mr. Beast, Mr. Beast, like what did he do different?
- [05:03]
B
So Mr. B's I would say is like a really interesting like person. So in every industry there always has to be a number one, right? There has to be a Michael Jordan. And I think in the early days of YouTube. So I started, by the way, when I was. So I went to Yale University at the very, very end of my college career. I went to five different schools and at the very end I went to Yale for economics and video production. And it was my TA there that got involved in this thing called YouTube. Right. And we were all like, I don't even know what this is. There was, there was Vimeo and there was YouTube and we were using it to actually post like rollerblading videos, to host them. We weren't necessarily using it for like any kind of brand building any kind of kind of stuff. So he did that and he went ultra viral, Right. His video was a, it was a Michael Jackson medley. He was a music producer and this video went ultra viral and he got invited to come on Ellen and Oprah. Like think about how wild that is that like he got invited on tv. Cause his video got like a couple million views, right? That's like very commonplace now. So in the very beginning, Gen 1 YouTubers were doing something they were really passionate about and they were creating to create and they were. There was no monetization, there was no industry at all whatsoever. There was no real driver to make yourself a business. Right. They were just doing it because they loved it. Okay. So in that Time frame, that first gen, they got a lot of followers really quickly because there were less producers than there were consumers. And so they got a lot of subscribers. Like, I remember, like, the first video I posted, I got like 16,000 subscribers of A1 video. So it's like, you can see how those mechanics, like, that's kind of hard to replicate because that was a very specific time and place. So what happened over time is, is that people saw YouTube then as an industry, a platform, a thing to elevate themselves. Mr. Beast was in that generation, probably second or third, where he saw YouTube as a place to become a YouTuber. So it was a thing now. So he ultra dialed in on the mechanics of how to go viral and what was created, like, what was clicking, what was getting it to work. And his brand basically was driven by views. So he realized, like, that shock value, big thing, I'm going to fill my house with pennies. I'm going to, like, you know, buy some Lamborghinis for people. Like, that was working. So his brand was built based off of what the viewers wanted. And that shock value just kept going bigger and bigger. I like the last video I ever watched about, I think he was like, he bought a train and he, like, let it go into a big, giant hole. It was just like, crazy. I was like, what am I watching? Like, this is so crazy now. Like, far we've come. Yeah. So someone like Mr. Beast, I don't think he didn't develop his brand from the beginning thinking, like, I'm gonna drive trains into holes like that. He thought, I'm gonna get views. And so as Mr. Beast grew into basically the Michael Jordan of YouTube, then all these brand deals started coming in because that's what was happening in the same timeframe. And so I think the products that he creates and all those other things that they're putting out there, they're doing it just like any other business person. I mean, you know, I can't speak, I don't know them personally, but, like, maybe they're very passionate about lunchable knockoffs. I don't know, but I assume as such that they're doing another thing to monetize another path.
- [08:17]
A
Yeah. My guess is, like, they saw their core audience is that sixth grader to eighth grader that still wants a lunchable. Yeah. And they're like, but they watch us, they love us. So if I talk about my lunchable, they'll consume my lunchable. No different than the kid watching basketball wants Jordans.
- [08:32]
B
Correct.
- [08:32]
A
And so they're just like, let's go into this space. So you get into this YouTubing space. Like, not really with this understanding or idea that this could be a career or calling.
- [08:42]
B
Yeah. To give like a full context on this, like, how I actually got involved. It is so a lot of times, by the way, my least favorite saying ever is I fell into it. I'm always like, nah, dude, there's like, no way. Like, there's always choices and there's orchestration and the best stories are the ones that are actually engineered. Like, I get amped on the engineering stories because I'm like, I want to know how you did it. I don't want to know that it was actually dumb luck, you know, and then. Or it's just the story is actually really, like complicated or maybe even nefarious. And they're like, yeah, I just like, fell into this. I'm like, no way, dude. Like you had a rich uncle or like something, you know, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah. So the way this actually worked was this. I was in college, right? Actually, we're going to go back a little bit further. I loved biology. I just thought it was so cool. And I was like a senior in high school and I didn't know which way to go. I was like, you know, there's so much pressure. Got to choose the college, whatever. At the same time, I always wanted to be a professional stunt rollerblader, like X Game style.
- [09:41]
A
Rollerblading.
- [09:42]
B
Rollerblading. Not skateboarding, but rollerblading. So in the 90s when I grew up, that was the coolest thing ever. Yeah, no one cared about scooters. Scooters weren't even around yet. People liked bikes, but that wasn't very accessible. Like BMX and skateboarding had totally fallen off a cliff. Like, no one cared. My generation was all in on rollerblading, so I was too young to go where the industry was, which was California, Southern California. So I did it in Ohio as like a teenager and then kind of lost some steam because there's winters in Ohio, of course. So it's like, it's a very seasonal thing. So when I finally was done with wrestling, right, I was a wrestler and I was like, I took that very seriously. When I was done with that, I was kind of looking for a new thing and I went to Miami of Ohio my freshman year. Studied biology. But I, like, still was looking for, like, to fill that void of what the wrestling was, right. So we had academics working on the career path. But, like, what else am I doing with my time? And so There was a skate park in this little town where Miami of Ohio is, and I picked up a pair of skates and I started skating again. And I was like, dude, I love this. And I kept doing, like, more and more skating. And little quick snippet is that I took a trip with my father, who was a teacher around the world in 79 days. In between the time that I graduated high school and when I started college. So I literally went around the world. And that perspective changed my whole life. Because what it showed me was that America is this, like, little bubble where people actually follow the rules and it's wild. And I couldn't figure it out for a long time. I had, like, PTSD that everyone was going to run the stoplights or like, stop. They're gonna steal stuff. It was like, so crazy to see the rest of the world. But when I came back, I felt like in many ways I had what people describe when they're first generation immigrants. They see America and they see it as a. Oh, my gosh, this is like bumper bowling. You're gonna hit a pin. The worst thing that can happen in America, right, is you essentially get fed by the government, housed by the government, and that's your life. That's the worst. That's the bottom. And. And if you're even a criminal and you get caught, you go to a safe place. Of course it's dangerous in jail, right. But you go to a safe place where they feed you.
- [11:54]
A
Yeah, okay. And have a roof over your head, air conditioning, heating.
- [11:57]
B
This is like middle grade, like rest of the world, right? So when I came back to America, not to go on a tangible. I came back, I was like, so amped. I was like, I can do anything in the world. I can do whatever I want. Sky's the limit, whatever. So. And I, I, long term was thinking medicine. That's what I was going to do with the biology degree. But the skating thing was really baked in my brain. So when I. I remember telling my parents, look, I think I want to transfer schools. And they were like, oh. They were like, you're going to come to Ohio State. Which is like two hours back towards where I grew up. And I was like, nah. I was like, I think a little further out. My mom was like, oh, iu like Indiana University. And I was like, a little further. And she was like, what? And I was like, I want to move to the farthest place away. San Diego, California. It's like, I think it's like 3,300 miles from Ohio. Someone's Going to have to fact check me on that. But it's far. Okay? 2800, something like that. Three days driving. Like, it's. It's a long way away. And I'm 18 years old. My mom's like, well, how are you going to do that? And I was like, I had no plan at all whatsoever. So I thought about it a long time and I said, all right, like, I'm doing this to get a better college degree. I'd worked out a plan. My parents are going to pay for my first year. So I said, hey, like, if we stop payment now, like, I can transfer and I can use those funds. I'm going to go to this. I'm going to go to this, like, smaller school, and I'm going to go to community college, and I'm going to work, and then I'm going to transfer to ucsd. That's my plan. They. They love this idea. They were like, are you sure? And I was absolutely. And it was totally false. I totally was moving for skating. So I go out there and I learned that there's no, like, blueprint for this industry. It's not like. So, for example, I want to be a house flipper. There's, like, plethora of books. There's so much material. I want to be a YouTuber. Lots of resources. I want to be a pro skater. Zero. It's just like, okay, cool. Like, good luck, dude. And so I had to figure out, how do I get myself in magazines? How do I get myself in videos? How do I get on tv? How do you do this shit? And so it was actually, unbeknownst to me, it was the first lesson in personal branding. I was like, how does one do this? And what I learned was, it's a social industry. It requires you, like, being friends with the right people, getting sponsorship. How do you do that? You show yourself. How do you do that? You go to competitions, you get known any way that you can, right? So it's friends with the right people somehow getting any little traction that you can that can then be built into more traction. How do you do that? You win a regional contest, you get a little tiny sponsorship. You leverage your tiny sponsorship to get a little bigger sponsorship. That sponsorship has an ad in a magazine. Now I'm in a magazine. Then you can say, hey, why don't you do an editorial about me? So I did that in San Diego for two years, and in the very end, I actually did turn pro. So I worked the system all the way up, and I actually turned pro. Through this series called ASA Aggressive Skating association and took seventh in the North American championship. Turned pro, signed a contract with Team Rollerblade usa and I was pro. And I was like, oh my God, I made it. I'm living my dream. And literally up until that point, I had made no plans. After that, like zero. Like, I was like my whole life was predicated on turning pro and that was it. So in my mind I was gonna like turn pro, make a lot of money, and then, I don't know, so, something else. And so after I turned pro, I had actually gone and San Diego Mesa College had kind of gone to the end of that trail. Like you can only go to community college so long. And I was like, I don't know what to do from here. So I actually transferred back to Ohio State. So. So this is college number three now. And so I was like, okay, when I say back, I'm from Columbus, Ohio. So I moved back and I was like, oh my God, I'm lost. I'm not skating anymore. Really. Cause like I kind of left the industry in the sense of. I kind of peaked, won a lot of competitions, was in the mood like in the films and stuff. And so I was like, all right, well, now what? And so I took on a new challenge of like pre med. So it's time to get serious. I'm actually going to a four year school now. I did the thing I wanted to do, now I'm going to do this next thing. So I became like pre med Nick and like really went deep. So I worked in the anatomy and physiology department. I was a. I did research in organic chemistry. I ended up graduating with a 3, 9 2. So I took it ultra seriously. Took the MCAT was gonna go in that timeframe though. I learned I was kind of so. So about actual medicine. Right. And so in the very, very end story for a totally different time, but I snuck into this leadership academy. I faked my name. My name was Patrick McCardell and I. Patrick what? McArdle.
- [16:31]
A
You just came up with that?
- [16:33]
B
It was. It was like. It's a really long story, but essentially I was. It was not my fraternity, but I wanted to go to this place in Cabo San Lucas. And so I flew down there with. On a plane ticket with, but not getting accepted. And so a guy had missed the entrance to the actual like getting in. He had missed his flight. And so the name tag said Patrick McCardell, but nobody knew who anyone was because it was a national convention. And so I took the name tag and I paid everybody at the OSU chapter in liquor and said, hey, don't tell anyone. And so then I got to stay and go to this leadership academy for a week. And in that timeframe, I got to meet, for the first time in my life, I met entrepreneurs. I'd never met an entrepreneur other than my father, of which I always respected him the most. Right. He was always the alpha number one, but he kept saying, going to medicine. And I was like, I don't know. And so I met entrepreneurs for the first time. And I, from this distance, me to you. I met someone who is worth $100 million. And I was like, how'd you do it? Like, how did you do it, bro? And we started sharing our sort of our life, what we wanted to do, and I kind of laid out my plan that I'd sort of, like, built in college. And I said, well, the plan is I. I want to get in the media. I want to leverage that media to be an entrepreneur, and then eventually want to get into politics. That's what I want to do. And he was like, sweet. Where does medicine fit into that? He said, you're pre med, right? And I was like, oh, I don't actually know. And he's like, if you just scrape that part out, he's like, you'll do fine. And so I'd never met anyone that was worth a hundred million dollars.
- [18:11]
A
I thought, he knows what he's doing.
- [18:13]
B
I might as well take his advice. So I came back from this leadership academy all jazzed, right? Rah, rah, rah. I have this plan. I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to go into media because I loved rollerblading, and I learned how to do personal branding when there was no Internet. So I was like, there was Internet, but there's no video on the Internet. And I was like, all right. Like, this is going to be awesome. And my parents kibosh that they hated that plan. And the truth is that I didn't really have it mapped out enough that when they asked me, they really squeezed me. What do you mean, entertainment? What does this mean to you? And I was like, I didn't know anything else. And so I was, like, acting. And they, like, melted. They were like, no bad idea. Like, no. Like, you're pre med. You're so close. Like, no, dude, you're gonna see this through, and you're gonna become a doctor. So in my scramble, I was like, I gotta fix this. I gotta, like, you know, just for context, when you're of that Age, and you go from zero all the way up to 18. Your parents are really leading your whole knowledge of your life. Some people that's not the case. They go to the ns, they get a job, whatever. They go in the military. But, like, my experience at point is, like, I was really taking my parents. Like, they were successful. I'm really taking what they're telling me as the word of truth is coming from them. So when they don't like this plan, I am like, I gotta find a new one. So I started looking at Ivy League schools, master's programs in entrepreneurship, and I found Yale and Yale, because I was like, this will convince them.
- [19:40]
A
Yeah.
- [19:40]
B
And I was really, truly, like, I was looking for their approval, Right. I needed their approval, their graces, so that I could, like, move on, so that I could figure out that this was the right path because they were my consultants in my life. And so I found Silver Scholars Program at Yale University. I went and I took a couple classes, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I was like, this is amazing. You're teaching people how to do business. I was like, this is shocking. I was like, this is for me. I actually tried to do it at Ohio State, but I was too late in the game. I couldn't switch the colleges or whatever. And so I said, well, I'm doing this. Like, I'm going to go to the master's program. And so I said, well, there's no better way to get in the master's program than to go and get some credits as an undergrad. So I found out that there's a summer school program at Yale University. And I was like, I'm going to go. And so I applied and I got in, I sold my car, and I took those funds, and I went for economics the first year, and then the second year, I went back for acting for film and video production. That's when I met the guy who became the YouTuber. And so I already had a little bit of a background already in personal branding. So it's not like I came to the table, I want to be a YouTuber. I actually came to the table saying, I actually want to work in entertainment. I didn't know what that meant, though. So when I started in, like, YouTube, landish, right? It's available, right? It's 2010, roughly speaking. So we just went through the financial crisis. There's no jobs anywhere. I'd actually had auditioned from my local CW station to be an anchor, and they, like, kind of were like, you have the job, but Then you don't have the job and the finances is bad. So like we're actually taking it away from you. So like I actually wanted to start in tv. That's really where I wanted to start. But there were no opportunities in 2010 for newbies because the industry was melting. Right. And when the finance industry was melting, marketing was melting, everything was just going away. I actually had like an intern for like a radio station and they literally pulled the plug on me. The radio station literally went away. Like, they're like, there is no radio station.
- [21:34]
A
They were gone.
- [21:35]
B
Yeah, it had gone away.
- [21:37]
A
Yeah.
- [21:37]
B
And so my goal was little like fun fact. My fraternity brother's brother in law was Kevin James. Like the actor.
- [21:45]
A
Yeah.
- [21:46]
B
And so we were so gung ho and we're gonna work in entertainment that while we were at Ohio State, we took our like our, our, when I say like our Christmas break and we went out to go visit and stay with Kevin James for a week. And we were just like, what, what is entertainment? Like we want to see it, right? And so we kind of, you know, we weren't like on set or whatever, like with him filming, but we got invited to set. So we got to be like background actors and we got to go through crafty and we got to like be in his trailer and see the whole thing. And so we really started to see like, what is entertainment? Like, what is this stuff? And when I saw it for. Saw it with my own eyes, I was like, I can do this. There's no doubt that I can do this. Like, it's not very mysterious anymore. But coming from Ohio, right, this rust belt place where there is no entertainment, it was very mysterious. It was like, that's over there, I'm over here. And they're doing stuff that I don't know what. It felt very big and very scary. And so I went to Yale on the last summer, right. When I was graduating. And there's a couple opportunities on the table, nothing worth really mentioning. And. And I just didn't really pursue some of those like locally that were like entertainment related but really small. And what happened is the following summer, the kids at Yale that I built a relationship with asked me to come back to work on a feature film. That was basically a opportunity that they had created from a web series that they had parallel path on that same YouTube channel. So Kurt Schneider, Kurt Hugo Schneider, the YouTuber, right. Millions and millions, tens of millions of subscribers. He had a, like a musical web series at the same time that he was doing just covers and all sorts of other stuff because he was really a music producer making content. And so this like series then turned into a feature film. It got funding for a feature film. So they said, hey, Nick, why don't you come back? You're responsible, you're ambitious, like, come back to Yale the following summer and we're going to make a movie. Well, I had never done anything like this. And so they said, we'll room and board. Like you get room and board, you'll get this like little tiny fee. It was like 3,600 bucks for an entire summer, which was crazy to think about. Like, that's nothing. And I jumped on it. I was like, absolutely, let's do this. So I became the van driver and the behind the scenes filmer. So like kind of like a host or like a pseudo vlogger, you could say. Almost in a way. Like my job was the document, the producing of this film. And I had like one little tiny role in it too. Like a one liner. But really what I was trying to do is I was trying to be an actor, right? Because like, that's what I was thought was the methodology to like get to where I wanted to go. So after doing that, I learned how to shoot, I learned how to line edit, right, Because I was in the editing bays and I learned how to do production. Like, I was actually like, I was semi grip. I was the only one that could drive sticks. So I drove this big giant box truck. It was very stressful driving through New York up to New Haven. And so I had this background. The end of that feature film. I now that you know a little bit of the story, right? I was so, like, so stubborn, I guess is probably the best word. I was like, I'm not gonna be defeated and go back to Ohio. Because if I go back to Ohio and I say, hey, mom and dad, like, it didn't really work out. Like, it's gonna be like, you were right and I was wrong and now I gotta get a job or whatever that means. And so I was like, no, dude, I'm gonna. I don't care. Like, I will go on. I didn't even think about food stamps. Actually, that wasn't even an option in my mind. Like, now that I know what I know, I probably could have done that. But like, I was like, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this. Like, I'm gonna figure out however I can. So I asked everybody on set. I was like, guys, I was like, I don't wanna go back to Ohio. Is there any opportunity the lead actress of that indie film was Allison Williams. So Allison Williams is the daughter of Brian Williams, who at the time was the lead anchor of NBC, the Today show. And so she goes, I probably have some opportunities. Like, let me just reach out to some people. First of all, she said, you could be my dad's cameraman. And I was like, totally not qualified for that. I was like, out. I can't do that. Nope, not happening. She's like, you can work for this hedge fund. And I was like, sounds cool, but, like, I've kind of come this far for entertainment. Or she goes, you could work for college humor. She was at the time dating the owner, Ricky Van Veen. And I was like, that would be so amazing. This is a production job with, like, real budgets. I could do the same kind of production work. I could get in, I could move to New York City. Like, this is my in. And so I take the train down. I like, interview. And they're, you know, interviewing a PA is like, interviewing, like, it's the lowest role ever.
- [26:29]
A
Do you have a pulse? Are you a human? Okay, can you show up on time? You got the job.
- [26:34]
B
Literally. Can you show up? Can you move a stand? Do you know how to drive? Are you not a drug addict? Like, you know, so they see how ambitious I am, they're like, absolutely. But it's freelance. There are no full time PA positions. Like, you know, we'll bring you on as much as you can. We can. So I have nowhere to live, right? I have nowhere to go. So I was like, okay. So I reach out to my fraternity brother who's going to law school at Brooklyn Law School. And when I say that I lived on his floor, I mean, like, like his actual floor. Like, not his couch, not his guest bedroom. He was living in, like, a one room space, and the couch had a bunch of stuff on it, and it was a love seat. And it was kind of like what he was using as kind of like where his books were and shit. And so. And I couldn't fit on it. So I slept on like a two ply, like, soft blanket and then kind of like a doggy blanket. And I did that for 30, almost like 30, 30 to 45 days, where he gave me his key card and I would go in and out, and I had to sneak in and out because you were allowed to have, like, people literally staying in your dorm. And and so I did that. And I worked promotions, so I had learned at Ohio State the side gigs for, like, when you hand out coupons, like, you can hand out coupons. You go on Craigslist, and you would apply to these experiential marketing things. They'd be like, yeah, like, we're running, like, a pets, you know, dot com thing. You're going to hand out, like, 35% off or whatever. Or, like, dress up in a chicken costume and, like, spin the sign, like, whatever, right? Like, I didn't care. I was down to make the money, like, whatever. So I did that and collected just enough cash to go around and actually find my own place. So I started going on Craigslist, and I found a place on the Upper east side. And I remember, like, the guy was, like, doing interviews, right, for roommates. And we were starting to chat. He was like, we were chatting, whatever. And he had a little koozie, and it said Reagan 88. And I was like, hey. I was like, that's a pretty sick koozie, right? And he was like, yeah. And I was like, yeah. And I was like, we're gonna be friends. Like, it's gonna work. And so we instantly became friends. And he was. I can't remember, like, what his role was at his college, but he was also an entrepreneur. We had the same sort of political sort of mindset as far as, like, we got it, you know what I mean? And we were like, this is gonna work. And so I then had an apartment. I had a freelance job and enough basically to, like, patchwork it to work. In those three years, I did everything that one could do, just like how I did with rollerblading. I did it. I did it. Like, I was just like, the micro wins to the macro wins. And what does that mean? It's like, I would go on Craigslist and I would look for student films. Junior thesis films actually had budgets, but they could never pay their actors. But it would give you a reel. So I would do, like, NYU junior thesis roles in order to, like, build a reel so that I could audition for commercial jobs. And then I did enough of that that I actually got, like, paying stuff. And then I got an agent. And then eventually I started doing hosting stuff that I was doing for free. And then eventually I got an agent for hosting. And so things started, like, spinning up. And I was working the entertainment industry. Like, I was actually in it now. What happened was this. I didn't have enough money to do YouTube, right? It was. It was very costly in the beginning. I had to hire a video production person, right? I had to hire an editor. We're talking like, 500 bucks to a thousand bucks. Like, Per video. Like, dude, I was making like 30 $500, like a month, right? So there was not a lot of, like, room to do this. And I also didn't really know what I was going to do anyways. I thought I did, like, YouTube skating stuff for a while. There's a little bit of traction, but wasn't a big market. So I really let my original YouTube channel, which was about skating, kind of die in those three years because it just wasn't active on it at all whatsoever. And so I remember watching one of my friends from Yale who is also like. They're all like kind of musical theater and like, singing people. And I remember watching one of my friends, he was on a national Nissan commercial doing one of his YouTube videos. And I was like, I picked the wrong path. Like, I went the more secure traditional media path because of my experience with Kevin James. And I was like, this YouTube thing's probably not going to work. And, like, maybe I'll test the waters. I was like, this is the way to go. Three years in, I was like, oh, shit, I need to, like, go this way. Because I was watching all those OG original YouTube people crushing it. They were making more money in one deal than I was making in a year. And I was like, I gotta fucking pivot. I gotta get out of here. So I was like, back to the drawing board. And so this is early days. You couldn't. There was no video on Instagram yet, right? It was just really bad photos. And so I made a very crass prediction. I said, in the future, no one will care about anything that you've done in traditional media. They will only care about your social media following. This was like, so new age. This was like tinfoil hat kind of shit. Like, people were like, no, dude. Like, the industry has, like, ways of, like, controlling you. And so I said, no. Like, I really believe in new media. Like, I think new media is going to be the new thing. And, like, you're following will follow you around and, like, that'll be your brand equity. And so I said, all right, well, that's what I believe in. I better make a move. I'm going to. I'm going to do it. So what was that move? I said, I'm going to go on reality tv, people. How are you gonna do that? And I was like, well, dude, I've been doing commercial auditions and I've been doing, like, this entertainment stuff. Like, I, like, have a good idea what they want because I'm working in non, non scripted media a lot. And so I auditioned right out of the hole for all these different reality TV shows. Like, some of them were, like, romance related. Like, one of them was, like, a precursor to, like, Love Island. One of them was the Bachelor Pad. It was a competition reality show that, like, never went anywhere. Like, it did two seasons. And I remember I got on these shows. Like, they were like, the casting directors were like, you're. You're in, bro. Like, you've done it. So I went and told my agent. I was like, hey, I'm on this show. And he was like, no, don't do it. And I was like, why? And he was like, if you do reality tv, that's romantic related. He goes, you get pigeonholed and you can't get out of it. So I said, oh, shit. Which one do you do? I'm already cast. They're gonna show up at my apartment in, like, literally, like, like two hours. They're like, the crew's gonna come and film my intro video. And he was like, oh, dude, that sucks. And he was like, you should do a competition reality show. And I was like, like, what? And he was like, big Brother or, you know, the Amazing Race, something of that nature. And I was like, all right, cool. Like, that's all right, cool. So then I auditioned for Big Brother just the same way everyone else does, right through the Internet. Like, literally, like, I just did a normal video. And then I went from the first casting round to the second casting around a third to literally on the show is. The only silver bullet I really ever did in media was getting on Big Brother. And I did it literally with the plan of gaining enough momentum within that space to build my social media following, to create a YouTube channel in order to hockey stick it up, to build my own brand. And so I was like, dude, I'm on Big Brother. My plan is working. This is so amazing. I was so jazzed. And then I got voted out second.
- [33:56]
A
Oh, no. Why do you think you got voted out?
- [34:00]
B
So it's like, it's actually a little more complex than what meets the eye. I thought I was in an Olympic sport. I thought I was playing a game. And if you look at the fine print of any reality TV show that's like that. So Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, all of those shows, those are legally shows that are considered game shows. And a game show is, if you get the right answer, you. You win the money. Right. Legally binding.
- [34:26]
A
Yeah.
- [34:27]
B
Reality TV competition. Reality TV is not competition. Reality TV is reality tv. So the producers can literally do whatever they want. And so if you're like, I won. And they're just like, no, you didn't. And you're not on the show anymore. Then you're not. And that's it. You don't win. And so what I didn't realize is, like, when I was on the show, I was so stubborn about being, like, doing it my way. And I was like, no, like, I've played the field, and, like, I'm. I'm gonna get you out. And the producers were like, are you sure you want to do that? Like, are you sure? Like, wouldn't it be better if you went for the other person? And I was like, nope, my brain is set. I'm gonna get this person out. I've already collected the votes. Well, sure enough, guess who was out.
- [35:07]
A
Producer said, you're out.
- [35:09]
B
So essentially, it's like, I learned that not only do you gotta play the internal game, you got to play the macro game. Yeah. You know, in that scenario, God, they are the producers. And I was not listening. That's probably an analogy for life in general, but, like, I literally was not listening. And I got ousted. And so I. But what happened in my case, which may never happen again in reality TV history ever, is that there was a romantic interest on someone in the show, but I was outside of the house. So the way Big Brother works is the first five, when they go home, they're not a part of the show anymore. They just go home. You're just out in the wild. So there was a member of the show who was talking about me constantly, but I was outside of the house. So as the opportunist that I am, I was like, well, I'm not just gonna, like, do nothing. I'm gonna get on social media. I'm gonna pump this as hard as I can. Cause this is what I wanted to do. So I started a kickstarter to kickstart my YouTube channel. Cause that's what I wanted to do. This is the whole reason for doing this. And sure enough, she had talked enough, like, had brought my name up enough throughout that entire season that I'd gotten cut back in, that it was almost as if I was a part of the whole season. So I got so much airtime for free, like, millions of dollars of airtime for free. And so in that timeframe, I'm pumping my numbers. I'm all in on being. I'm riding the wave right now. So, like, I'm like, I'm talking about Big brother on my YouTube channel. I'm. I'm talking about it on. On Twitter, Like, I'm doing everything I can. I'm going to all the little parties and stuff and really pumping those numbers. So when. When Big Brother comes to an end, that also comes to an end, right? Like, that is a show that is totally predicated on people talking about that. The economy of the show is the show. So I was like, all right, well, now I gotta pivot. And so I built, like, enough of a social media following that I was like, that's enough for me to hold on to, right? Like, I'm climbing a wall. Like, it's enough for me to grip. And so it was like, I don't know, 30,000 followers on Instagram, like 60,000 on Twitter, which is really way bigger at the time. YouTube, maybe like 26, 27,000, something like that. And so I was like, all right, well, I got to start all over. So instead of staying in New York, the opportunity now had really moved to LA. That's where all the YouTubers were, right? This is 20. This is 2013 now. This is 2013. And so I make this leap. I leave my, like, kind of, like, normal employer, which is Volkswagen. I was doing, like, these longer sort of freelance gigs with them. It was very scary. I, like, was, like, weird. I got, like, very addicted to that, even though it was, like, bad for me, like, and I was always intended to leave it. I, like, it's kind of like, what's that? Stockholm syndrome, right? It was like I got addicted to this, like, slow, easy money. Yeah. So I said, well, I did all this, so I'm not going to just stop. So I jumped ship. I moved all the way out to la. I had some raise some capital. I actually had managed to raise enough money that we did a tour from New York to la. So the move was a production, actually. We'd recorded the whole thing. We'd hit up all these different Big Brother people. We were doing, like, episodes with them along the way to, like, milk the last little milk teat dry. You know what I mean? And so we got all that out of it. And when I finally got to la, I was like, okay, well, now I gotta kind of rethink this. Like, I can't do Big Brother forever, and I don't want to be a Big Brother person. Like, I want to move on from this. I want to create a new brand. And so I did what I had learned up until then, which was, you do testing, right? You don't just. You don't go gung ho. You say, hey, I'm gonna put a bunch of stuff out there and I'm see what works. So my original, original YouTube channel was I did a sketch comedy show because from my time at college humor, I did a red carpet interview show because I was doing that in New York. And then I did a show about science because I had new science. I had studied so intently at school and I really knew science so well that had so much and had nowhere to put it. So I was like, let me just see how this goes. Crystal clear, the results. It was like 100 views, 80 views, 1200 views. It was so obvious. It was like science, do science. So then I did, which is very interesting because this is very similar to what I do now. I started to study other people. Well, hey, if I'm going to choose science, I got to figure out who's doing science well now. And so I started looking at all these science channels and it was the vlogbrothers at the time. It was the king of random. It was Vsauce. He's like, people probably don't even know about anymore because it was so generational that timeframe. But they were doing green screen explainer videos. And I was like, sweet, that's what I'm gonna do. And at the time there was this thing called the YouTube Space LA. It was like a studio. Early days YouTube, everybody thought YouTube was gonna become just like TV. Like there was gonna be like studio space and like studio model. We've kind of all learned that that is actually not the case. We don't need high production quality. We actually need very low production quality to see more authentic. But in the beginning days, they actually allowed you, if you had over a certain amount of subscribers, you would have access to this multi million dollar facility called the YouTube space LA. And you could take out as much equipment as you want and you could have access to a real studio and editing base all for free, like $0. So I was like, I became like a parasite. I was like, sweet, like I am going to move in like a hermit crab. And I did like, I moved to Santa Monica and this was like 20 minutes down the street. And I had just enough funding from that Kickstarter to boot my channel moving forward. So that's the actual original. Original beginning to the actual YouTube channel.
- [41:08]
A
Would you say you got lucky?
- [41:10]
B
No. Well, I'll say this. Luck is such an interesting word. So Luck is an interesting word because it has the connotation of. It's a positive connotation. So when we don't have good luck, when we don't have good chance Right. It's called bad luck. Right. Or misfortune. But when it works in our favor, where all of a sudden we're like, it's luck. And I'm like, what? Like, there's so many times where it doesn't work out, right? It doesn't work. That the one that it works. You're like, dude, it was. It was in the ether, bro. And I'm like, no way. Like, there was like 99 failures. One is actually the outlier that it won. My theology behind that is, is that if you try enough times, right. If you do enough chances, eventually, and you learning from those chances, it's just a systematic formula. Right. Like, if you're learning, you're pivoting, you're getting closer and closer and closer to the one time that you can pierce through the armor. Right. And so it's like, just got to learn where that part of the armor is. So, yeah, you're going to take a lot of shots. You got to figure out where the weakest chink in the armor is. And so, no, I honestly don't believe it was luck. Was there a good fortune? Chance for sure. Right. Like me getting on Big Brother. Like, amazing. Like, crazy that it happened first time around. Crazy that we met a few people that were highly invested into our Kickstarter and it wasn't like a ton of people. It was like two or three people paid for, like 90% of it. And so very lucky to have that. Right. But if we didn't have that, we would have pushed harder to still get the same thing.
- [42:47]
A
Yeah.
- [42:47]
B
So to shore it up. No, because we tried so many things that didn't work out.
- [42:53]
A
Yeah. And that's. It's funny you say that because like my dad growing up used to always say, luck is when preparation meets opportunity, you must first be prepared, then the opportunity presents itself. But what he never really said but he meant was most of the time, the opportunity presents itself and you won't choose to walk through the door.
- [43:08]
B
Correct.
- [43:09]
A
You chose to walk through a lot of doors that most people wouldn't have. Like sleeping on a floor with a dog mattress. Challenging the status quo of your parents saying, no, you're going pre med, stay in pre med. You know, like doing all the things you did, you created the luck. Like, luck is created. It's. It's manufactured. But the other thing I'll say is so often in life when we look backward, we don't talk about or share the failures. Like, you gave me your highlight reel.
- [43:36]
B
Yeah.
- [43:36]
A
You know, like, there's A couple little road bumps, but that was the highlight reel. Now, if I said, okay, Nick, now tell me that whole story, but only talk about the bad times. There are so many times that you probably don't even consciously remember of, like, where's the next meal going to come from? I don't have rent money. What's going to happen? And so when we hear stories like yours, we oftentimes get so focused on studying the result, not studying the rise. And you too don't even recognize the rise. I mean, you recognize it and appreciate it. But there's so many moments that I bet if I challenged you on, you'd be like, oh, dude, I remember when I ran out of gas and literally I had no money and I had to steal gas or you'd have some crazy story that wouldn't be top of mind. But what I find most fascinating about your entire story is your desire to go a mile deep in learning. Like, when you went to San Diego to skate, you didn't just go and hang out, you went a mile deep in learning the industry and came out of there an expert in branding. When you went to Kevin James's studio for the summer or whatever it was, you didn't just go there to chill and hang out with an actor. You went there to go a mile deep in the industry and learn it. When you did the next opportunity, like, you always hyper focus on the knowledge. Was that something you were born with or was that something your parents ingrained in you?
- [44:48]
B
Man, that is a great question. So people talk about this all the time, right? Adhd, right? Like, and they're like, oh, like, here's some pills.
- [44:58]
A
You're bad, you're bad.
- [45:01]
B
So if you actually look at the primal. What is ADHD or ADD in general, right? It's the ability to hyper focus. This is what kept the species alive. So thank you, by the way, for like, for keeping everyone alive for the last 10,000, 100,000 years. Like, the hunters, right? The gatherers, of course, too, had to be hyper focused, right, to pick the right berry. The hunters had to be ultra focused to actually get the animal that they're trying to get. And then of course, the people that are keeping the village safe, right, like, they got to be warriors. And so all those things required. Exactly. That they actually perform very well in chaos, right? And so when the house is on fire, I'm very strangely calm, right? I'm like, oh, like, this is great. I'm here now. This is sweet. Our brain can function optimally. And so to answer your Question. My parents were both teachers, so they both very much craved knowledge themselves. Looking back now and knowing my dad and, like, finding a lot of his, like, like, journals and books and stuff, when I cleaned out a lot of the rental property that I. That I flipped, that I eventually renovated, all of the stuff that he owned that he passed on to me, um, I learned that he was very similar to me in that regard. So he craved knowledge. He loved it. My mom craved knowledge. She got her master's in teaching. My dad got his master's in teaching. He had, like, so many books. Was a huge World War II fan, right? Like, always wanting to learn, learn, learn, learn, but was also very adhd, right? So I think in a way it's kind of like, how do you get the color purple? Right? It's like you get red and you get blue and you get the color purple. So I think there's a combination here which is you must love learning, right. If you are truly ignorant in the sense of you don't want to learn, then craving knowledge is. It's not very desirable, right? So being ultra focused on something may actually get you in trouble, but if you're ultra focused on wanting to learn and figure out how to do something, then, yeah, that's kind of like the purple, right? Like, that's that sweet spot on that Venn diagram that allows you then to make use of. Of that. So I would say it's kind of both like nature and nurture in the sense that parents really push education. And I very much went in that direction, but also became ultra hyper focused by innate ability.
- [47:24]
A
Yeah. And what's interesting is you probably learn more from your parents by watching than them telling you. Like, you probably picked up this desire and this passion to learn by watching how they live their life, not by them telling you, I'm reading a book, I'm reading a book, I'm reading a book. So now, as a parent yourself, how are you ingraining that in your children?
- [47:42]
B
Man, that's. That is. We, like, literally just talked about this the other day, so. And I would say that's true. So my dad. So my dad was born in Cleveland, very poor. So his dad was born in 1900 and had him when he was 40, and then he had me when he was 40. So there was like, really long span of, like, u hos's, right. And like, only two generations. Right. To. To span that amount of time. And he grew up with no mom. Right. I don't know the full story, but essentially, like, she just was not around. And he learned very early on that it was like life wasn't just gonna give it, you know, it wasn't just gonna show up and give it to him. He was gonna have to go out and do what he had to do. So in very many similar ways, like he worked in a salt mine, he was a dishwasher. And then he like, kind of worked his way up. Well, when he got into education, he realized that there was, like, more in education. So he was a teacher, but he really got into administration. So he became like a high school principal. And he was in the military as well. So that, like helped him, you know, do sort of this administration work. But then he saw that there was another path too, which was real estate. So he, when he was, you know, probably in his, like 30s, he started to buy properties at the Ohio State campus. And that was actually my job as a kid. So my dad was a landlord. Not one of these, like, super fancy. I own like a bajillion units, like what's his face, 10x guy. Yeah, we weren't flying around in private jets. It was like I was doing like, I was like scraping like paint, you know, with like a, with a heat gun. I was like cleaning grease off of stoves and like putting three tab shingle on. Like, we were the workers. Like, we did it. And so there was a lot of, like, learning how to do like a lot of stuff like that. Like, how do you cut wood, how do you lay down lvp, how do you use all these tools? Like, how do you actually do all that stuff? The reason I'm telling you that is because those skills transpired into my YouTube content. So what happened eventually, and I'm going to bring this back to how I'm using, putting this like, knowledge into my kids now, is that I would have never known how to do that without that observational knowledge of watching. But also kind of being forced, actually. Of course, by the way, just for absolute clarity, I hated it. As a child, I used to tell my parents all the time, I am never doing this. I am never working in real estate. I am never, ever going to paint a house. Like, I'm going to go get a cushy, like, finance job or whatever. I don't even know what I was talking about, right? But like, I was like, I'm not doing this. Ironically, I now own all of those units and we did flip them all. I ended up actually working back on them, not actually doing the swinging of the hammer, but I did, did end up doing that kind of skill for my YouTube channel for 12 years. So in that time frame, when green screen ran out of juice, right? And there's all these cycles of, not necessarily trends, but viewer patterns, and there's a long stream where green screen worked really well. But then eventually people wanted to see science in action. And so this was the rise of what we call practical science. And so this was like the try guys. Mark Robert, like, household name now, right? The king of random. He unfortunately passed away, was a big inspiration for me. They. They were doing things that were like, we're going to show you how to make, you know, a potato launcher, right? And so that was, like, when I saw that and that started getting views, I thought, oh, my gosh. Like, I actually know how to, like, build stuff. Like, I could build stuff because I know how to use tools. So in my Santa Monica apartment with, like, a little tiny cubicle, like, space, I was setting out horses, and I was, like, building stuff, like, in my car slot, essentially. Like, I'd pull my car out and I would build stuff. And the neighbors, like, hated it, right? Because it's, like, tightly compact Santa Monica. And we were building, like, stuff that we were going to make YouTube videos about. And so I learned a lot of those really, really crucial, crucial lessons of how to do that kind of work very, very, very early on with my parents. So that has always, in my deepest subset of my psyche, has always been like, you need to know how to do the basics. And it's not that I, like, want my children to put down their own carpet if they so choose awesome. Or, you know, lathe or whatever, like, and build, like, the railing. Like, it's great if they do that. But I. They need to understand. And what I want to teach them is that this world is built on these skills, right? And I don't want them to ever feel like where they get so far up this triangle of knowledge that they feel that they can't do something that's down here because they don't have the knowledge or skill set to do it. So I want to build that with them as they grow up. So, like, the other day I was splitting wood, and my daughter had walked out, and I was like, splitting wood's pretty dangerous, right? Or whatever. And. But then I was like, this is kind of like a perfect opportunity to be like, here's how you split wood. And so she's only three, right? Even three at the time. But, like, I picked her up and I, like, put her little hand, like, on the little thing, and we put the wood in place. And I put a little, like, safety glasses on. And, like, I showed her, like, this is where the hydraulic thing comes out. And it, like, it split the wood and it, like, clicked. And then she picked up the two pieces of wood, and then she put them on, like, the firewood rack. And I was like, it worked. You know what I mean? Like, we did it, like, yeah. And so that, to me, I think, you know, as I get older, of course this strategy is probably going to change. I'm probably going to push more, like, history and this kind of stuff. But the control that I do have, it'll be a lot of. I'm going to show you how to do these very core, basic things. There was. Very recently, there was a book. I'm going to totally fudge a name. I can't think of it, but it was. Basically, it was a book. It came from a guy who's a friend of mine who wrote a book about. He was like. He was like, in AI, like, pre AI. He left. He moved to Idaho to become a trapper, and he moved out to the middle of nowhere, Idaho, and he learned all these skills all over again. And he wrote a whole other book about learning. It's called the Trade Gap. And he learned that these are such crucial, crucial necessities because you can't innovate if you don't know how it's done. So, like, the whole idea is, like, you need to learn how these things are done so that you have a general understanding so that you never get caught not being able to fix a leaky toilet. And then if you want to create an AI model for how to do that, then you know how leaky toilet actually works.
- [54:23]
A
Yeah.
- [54:24]
B
So that's. That's what I want to do.
- [54:26]
A
Do you think it's more important to know how it's done, or is it more important to actually be willing to do it?
- [54:31]
B
I think do it. So. And here's why I've thought about this a lot. I think all knowledge is actually emotional. This is kind of a weird take, but the reason why is because humans are our messaging system. So we're just going to do an analogy to a computer program. A computer program's messaging system is zeros and ones, Right? That is literally the language of a processor. And so then you have, like, processing computer parts and then the screen and yada, yada, yada. It's like you can. It's analogous to the human system. The human system operates off of, obviously, DNA, Right. But the messaging system is hormonal. Right? It is all off of these chemicals, these chemical messengers. And so when you have something that sticks in your brain, right, I could read literally a whole book and there's tons of studies about this, about like, what percent actually sticks versus when you do something and there's an emotional impact, whether it's any embarrassment, it's failure, it's winning, it's excitement, whatever, right, that sticks. So what that tells me is, is that as biological beings, right, as we evolve, right, the way to make something stick is to have an emotional response to the thing that you did. And if you do that, then it's going to stick and it's going to be a life lesson forever. Like, you never forget when something like, was painful, right. Don't touch the hot stove. Don't invest into some shit without ever, like, looking at it. It was painful. That sticks. And so I obviously don't want to torture my kids, but I want to have those lessons be emotional because I know that they will stick.
- [56:12]
A
Yeah, it's. It's like with our children. I have six year old, four year old, one year old, and you're similar age, not too far off.
- [56:17]
B
Yeah.
- [56:18]
A
So many of the parents that were around spend their whole day trying to put their kids in a bubble. Yeah, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that, do that. I'm like, do you know how many times they just heard the word no in like literally an hour? And all of it was you raising your voice and freaking out. So what do you think they're gonna hear in their life when they get to be 18, 19, 20? Like, oh, my God, there's mom. No, no, no. So either they're gonna do one of two things. They're gonna go into a shell and lock themselves in their room, or they're going to revolt against the system. And God, I hope hopefully not, but they end up in drugs and alcohol doing the wrong things. So with our kids, I'm always like, sure, climb on the counter. Like, yeah, hey. Like, hey, dude, I want to climb on the counter. But, like, do what you want to do. And like, even some people will see us. Like, our kid will fall off the bike or something will happen. I'll be like, hey, dude, you're good. And like, just like, aren't you gonna rush over there? Aren't you gonna run over there? I'm like, well, yep, running over there tells them, oh, my God, that was so bad. And what are they gonna do? They're Gonna start crying.
- [57:12]
B
Yeah.
- [57:12]
A
And so we, like, literally see that with our children, and compared to some other people we spend time with, our kid falls and we look. We're like, good. Yep, good. Their kid falls like, oh, my God, are you okay? Dust you off. Let me brush you off. What happens? The kid immediately starts crying.
- [57:23]
B
Yeah.
- [57:23]
A
And so I think also, as we become adults, we have to be aware of some of that programming that was given to us, but we also have to be aware of what programming we're giving to ourselves. I think what you just said is so brilliant, which is like, you have to be willing to do the thing, and oftentimes you're not willing to because of some emotional attachment from a different point of your life.
- [57:43]
B
Yeah.
- [57:44]
A
And so what your dad gave you was this emotional stickiness of, like, you hate this thing, but you're gonna do it anyways because I told you so. Which taught you the tools, but also showed you, even when I hated doing it, I did it. And there was a reward on the other side. Like, I'm sure when you hated painting, once it was done, dad said, good job. Like, you still probably smile. Like, maybe you said, like, I hate this. I'm never coming back. But inside you were like, yeah, that's pretty cool. Like, that's pretty cool. And so you taught yourself, like, when you do hard things or when you do things you're unwilling to do, there is magic on the other side of that.
- [58:18]
B
I. Absolutely. The one thing. And I will say this, he definitely rewarded us. And so there was. There was the emotional reward of, like, doing a good job. Absolutely. The one thing I will say with what you talked about, about, like, passing down, like, the buzzword now is trauma, Right. It's like, trauma, trauma, trauma.
- [58:37]
A
Big T or little T?
- [58:38]
B
Oh, I know.
- [58:39]
A
That's the new. That's.
- [58:40]
B
I didn't even know there was a difference.
- [58:41]
A
That's the new thing is like, oh, that's a big T. Trauma. No, that's a little T. Geez.
- [58:45]
B
Well, now I'm learning something.
- [58:46]
A
I was like, no, that's an all D trauma, which is drama. Like, it's not trauma, but. Yes. Go ahead, go ahead.
- [58:52]
B
So the trauma part of it is like, it's. Again, it's kind of getting back to those, like, the word choice of, like, luck versus chance and how we're looking at it. Trauma is interesting because not everything is going to be negative, right. We've. We remember the negative ones. Right. And the reason why is because as humans, as the computer program that we are, it would make sense. Right. If think about this as we were evolving. Okay. Imagine if it was 50, 50. We only remember the good ones and the negative ones. 50amount of time. Right. We would take a lot more chance.
- [59:23]
A
Yes.
- [59:24]
B
We would literally be like, well, you know, the saber tooth. Like, you know, like it almost got me, but like, maybe not this time. And then it would get your ass.
- [59:31]
A
Right.
- [59:31]
B
And if that were the case, then those genes would fall out of the gene pool very quickly. So over time, our survival mechanism has always made us very conservative in action. Right. We are designed be the way that we are is to be very precautious so we don't die. Right. And so for that reason, the, the negative. Right. We remember the negative more. Don't touch the porcupine. You know, don't say this to mom and dad or whatever. And so in a way, I feel like if you just understand that your brain is already predisposed to the negatives like that, then in my mind I'm kind of like, yeah, dude, like that's just your computer program. Yeah. So you're gonna, you're gonna catalog more of these. 80, 20, 90, 10. I don't know. But that's just the way it's gonna be. Yeah. So I'm not gonna try to ultra curate literally only bliss.
- [60:19]
A
Yeah.
- [60:20]
B
Because to keep you alive, the formula apparently is 90, 10, 80, 20, whatever. I don't want you to walk in the middle of the street because, you know, I want you to remember how painful it was when I pulled you back and you cried and it was scary. Right. Because that's going to keep you alive. Literally.
- [60:34]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Gobundance is a community of over 800 high performers, entrepreneurs and investors with a combined net worth of over $5.7 billion. But look, it's not just about the money. We're about building lives of abundance. If you're ready for a tribe that challenges you to achieve a higher standard for yourself, visit gobundance.com tribe that's G O b u n d a n c e.com tribe to apply today. But it's also doing it in a way that doesn't kill a soul or a spirit. Yeah, of course there's, there's like, you know, beating the spirit out of somebody by like hyper controlling them.
- [61:19]
B
Yeah.
- [61:19]
A
And then there's like, hey, it's my job as a parent to keep you safe, so I'm going to protect you. But it's also my job as a parent to let you fail. Like, I think one of the greatest gifts my parents ever gave me was they're like, if you think that's a good idea, go for it. We're going to tell you not to do that. And then when it goes terrible and the cops are at the house, we're going to have a hard conversation. And I was like, oh, okay. That's why they said, don't shoot off fireworks at that house. Like, I didn't really understand. We were in a drought and there was a burn, man. And, like, the house could have burned down. Like, cool. Like, they were probably right. And, like, when I rode my bike up to the house and saw a police officer there, it wasn't good. Like, I was nervous. But I think, like, you have to give people enough rope, like, especially as kids, not to hang themselves, but to get really close. Like, yeah, at times in life. And I think when I listen to your story and I see what you're doing now, you've gotten very comfortable with taking calculated risks. Calculated bets. Is again, that something you had to learn over time? Is that something you've had to dial back as you started to achieve success, have your own family, have children? Or is that something you're just very comfortable with and you know when to take risks?
- [62:21]
B
I'm going to explain this and a story, okay? So I'm going to like, continue on from where we left off to. To answer this question because it'll be so apparent to answer this. So there was a point in YouTube, right? 16 by 9 normal YouTube, right? Things had gone on for a very long time where we had lived in 16 by 9 universe. And we pretty much thought that that was going to be it, right? And it was really hard to get traction in YouTube. I mean, I was grinding away for maybe like five or six years and I wasn't really seeing a lot of return. And I started to learn in my, like, literal six year. Now, this is the crazy part. This is the truth of it. I always knew what to do, but I was stubborn to myself. And I tell those people and sometimes it lands totally, like, maybe miss, like, they don't understand what I'm saying. So I'll explain it, right? I will say when you're doing YouTube content or you're doing any kind of content, right? And you're doing social media, People get addicted to their ideas and they want to prove that their ideas are correct more than they are wanting to actually have success in that space. It sounds so crazy. And you're like, no one would do that. Of course they want views. And I'm like, no, I See it all the time. People are like, I have an idea and I'm going to prove to you that it was a good idea. And I'm going to make this video and it's going to go viral. And then I will be the creative genius, and then you will all bow down to me, and then I will create a new niche, and I. All of my genius ideas are gonna be the best, and then everyone's gonna love me. That is literally not how it fucking works at all whatsoever. It is the absolute inverse of that. And the reason why is this. And we can go, I'll tell you exactly how it works, but not like, we can go deep on that here in a bit. But, like, the way it actually works is this, is that when someone has success in a space, right, no matter what it is, and you want to riff on that success, that doesn't mean that you carbon copy them. And the reason why you can't carbon copy is because if I had the exact same thing, I'm gonna use cars, right? Let's say I was like, I'm gonna create a new car company. Cool. What's it called? Volks Baggin. Like, cool. And it's gonna look just like the Jetta and be just like the Passat and just like the Tiguan. It's gonna be an identical thing and be like, what's your value add? And it's like, well. Well, there is none. It's just that that one works. So I'm gonna do it. And they're like, well, there's no value add. Like, the customer base would just go in what they already know. They already know Volkswagen. So they're going to stick with that, right? Same thing in the creator space. It's like, hey, you see what works? But what can you do? Understanding that to make it better, to make it your own personal story, that's a new take on it, you have to add value to the thing that already worked. You can't literally just replicate because replication won't get you anywhere. So I, at a certain point, got so frustrated with myself five years deep, that I said, I know the answer internally. I'm just gonna start doing it. And that was to copy other creators. So there's this guy named Mark Rober. He's huge, right?
- [65:12]
A
He just did the. The free solo dude climbing the skyscraper. He was like the interviewer guy.
- [65:18]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he's done tons of huge stuff. Yeah, yeah. So he was still bigger at the time. He had like a million subscribers. And, like, I had like, 36,000 or 40,000 or something like that. And I said, all right, look, I got here by copying people along the way, but it really didn't move the needle. So I said, I'm gonna literally, like, just take one of his videos, right? I'm just gonna see what happens. So he had this thing called the. The liquid. It was called the. The liquid, like, hot. It was the sand hot tub or something. Like, liquid sand hot tub or whatever. And I watched that video the whole way through, and I thought, man, you know, what would make this cooler as if it were a pool? Because then you could jump in it and you could fall into actual dry sand that's getting air blown through it, and it operates like a liquid, and you could fall back into this as a whole human. And what would make it even crazier is if we're level with the ground, so it didn't look like something that you had created. It just looked like an in the ground pool. And so I. I studied the video so specifically, I, like, literally figured out, like, what bits he used. He used, like, a coal bolt, like, tipped bit. And, like, the. The bit size was very specific. And, like, I drilled all these little tiny holes in these. In this. This, like, framework of copper tubes. And I had learned how to do that soldering again from my dad, and I had put this whole thing together and had no idea if this was going to work because I had no manual. And of course, no creator is going to be like, yeah, hey, that's exactly how I did it. Please copy me. And so I put that video out there, and it was my first video that hit, like, 10 million views. And I was like, oh, my God. I. I have the code. I have the. Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, ABA select, start. I'm going to start with 30 lives. I was like, I've done it. I now understand, like, it was so clear. What is the formula? The formula is looking at what other people are doing and riffing on that success to make it your own. Now, of course, every comment was going to be like, you copied Mark Rober. And I was like, yeah, I know. And so I wrote in there, like, super inspired by Mark Rober. Like, saw the video, thought it was so cool, like, giving him props, you know? And so then I was like, I'm going to do it again, right? I need to test it to make sure that it's actually going to work. And so I did it again with elephant toothpaste. And it was like, it worked again. And I Was like, all right, third time, bro, this is it. And so I did it again with a different creator, not Mark Rober. I started to do it with King of Random and sure enough, hit. I was like, that's it. Like, this is it. I have literally learned, like, yeah, unlock the Matrix. I saw. I was near. Like, I was Neo. Like, I saw it and I was like, stopping the bullets. And so what ended up happening is I built that YouTube channel up to about 100,000 subscribers and things started moving. This was my pro rollerblading moment again, right? I was like, this is what I wanted for so long. I was getting brand deals. People started noticing me. I was working with Samsung, I was getting opportunities. I got to host another TV show. I got to work full time for the Weather Channel. I was like getting all this stuff because of all this work that I'd put into the channel. And I had like a gajillion videos on there already. Like 130 videos or something. Like, I had really done the process. And so what I started to see, though was I was like, yeah, this YouTube thing is like really going in this direction. And my niece, right, her name is Madison, got to give a shout out to Madison one day when I was back at Christmas. She goes, are you on TikTok? And I said, oh, it's like, it's not for me. I don't do dances. Because it was bought by ByteDance or musically. And it was a. It was a voiceover app. Like, you did songs and dances. And she was like, no, no, no, no, no. It's like, it's a new thing. It's. And she showed me a couple of channels that were like vlogging and it was like this scroll. And I bro, my. My frickin brain, like, went so far into space and my eyeballs went so far back into my brain, I literally saw the future. I saw 10 years into the future, bro. And I was like, this is YouTube 1.0. This is my Yale moment. And I can go back in time and I can shake like, what was that movie Interstellar, right? Where the one he goes back in time. It was like, I'm yelling at me right? Back in time. I'm like, do this. Because my number one thing was like, if I started in YouTube three years earlier than I did, I could have been mistaken.
- [69:42]
A
Mr.
- [69:42]
B
Beast. That could have been Mark Rober, right? Like, it was about time in the game. It was like you had to be an early mover. And those are the people that really leverage, like, way through that Space, but trying to play catch up. It's literally like a train. Yeah. If you jump in too early, you get hit by the train. If you wait for the train to leave, you're never catching up.
- [69:59]
A
You miss it. Yep.
- [70:00]
B
Train doors are open and it's kind of moving along. Or it's at the station. Get on. Right?
- [70:03]
A
Yeah.
- [70:04]
B
And I saw it and I was like, we are going all in. I got back to LA and I redid every single one of my YouTube videos. I did it vertical on my phone and in the first, like 15 videos, I had a video hit 37 and a half million views. And I was like, I was gaining literally followers by the millions. I was refreshing and it would be like 1.9, 2.8. And I was just like, oh, my God, we've. We're doing it.
- [70:33]
A
Yeah.
- [70:34]
B
And I. But, but again, like, because I saw YouTube 1.0 go all the way to where we are there, I was like, I'm pre monetization. So I was like, there will be no monetization for at least a year, maybe more, Right? And I remember people telling me, and this is so funny now, right? People were like, no one's ever going to monetize on TikTok. It is a Chinese app. And I was like, no, no, you don't understand. Like, they're going to do brand deals. And I was like, I was like shaking my agent and shaking people and being like, this is the new thing. And everyone was like, no, YouTube, YouTube, it's. It's the tried and true. And I could only see my agent being like, YouTube, we have TV. And I was like, it was just so crystal clear, right? So we went so hard on TikTok, and we shot up to 9 million followers across the little portfolio that we had created. And so that was on YouTube, shorts, Instagram and TikTok. And when we did that, it was four years of absolute living in a dream. Could not pick up my phone without there being a new brand deal in the mailbox. I mean, it was just because we literally had done it, we had beat the rush, right? So when the rush came and everyone tried to play catch up, you were there. At one point in time, I had more followers than Mark Rober even, right. Who was dominating on this other platform. We had more followers than like Shaquille o', Neal, you know, like, we just like, we had rushed in and we had done it. Now, as that became more saturated, those things kind of started leveling out a bit. But we had dominated that short form space. So Then we really wanted to like figure out, okay, we did it once, could we do it again? Right? We wanted to test and see, well, is this even feasible? Like, was that luck, right? Did we just get in or is it an actual test it and figure it out. So at the time, again, Snapchat was doing this thing where they were allowing people to create shows. It was called gated. And gated meant that you were, it was not like user generated content, meaning you couldn't just sign up, you had to be invited by the platform. And so they were inviting creators who had done really well on TikTok or other platforms. And this was the short form rush, right? Every other platform was like, we're gonna be the, we're gonna be like TikTok and we're gonna try to gain some of this market share. And when they did that, we said, oh man, we have like all this footage. Like we could do that. And then my buddy said, hey, you don't even need that footage. You could actually just ask other people for footage and they'll just give it to you. And I was like, that's crazy. And so we started asking other people, hey, will you give me your footage for free and we'll tag you in this video? And they said yes. And so this was the birth of compilation videos. And so we eventually, at the peak, had created 52 channels on Snapchat and we had grown to 25 million followers in that timeframe, which was like a year and a half. And what we had learned, right, number one was doesn't need to be Nick uhas I can do it without me. I. I never had a single channel on. The whole thing. The whole studio wasn't one of them. What I learned was, was that this was not a good idea platform. This wasn't even a new idea platform. This was just do the one that got the most traction. Look at the analytics, put that video at the beginning, do that for all the other videos and then continue to test new videos and just exchange the order of that compilation. The compilations were a minute and a half and that was like 17 videos playing at like 15 seconds or whatever. I don't know the math. But it was like, roughly speaking, that. And then the winning, the one that would go viral, you would use that across all the other ones. And we had different niches. So what we learned was, holy shit, it is literally a high volume testing, rotational success pathway. Is there a space for chance? Absolutely. I don't know what everyone's doing on a Tuesday at 6pm and if that hits and it hits and the algorithm picks up on it, then it picks up on it. But generally speaking, generally speaking, we know what videos are gonna work. So we can make a bucket of winners. We make it a bucket of so. So and we can make a bucket of junk. And then we can literally create these videos that are like ultra candy up front, so. So in the middle and junk on the end. And then we can basically follow the audience view retention the whole way through. In a way, it's kind of like the subprime mortgage crisis, like bundling.
- [74:52]
A
Yeah, it is a really good one. Here's a really bad one. Put them together and then hopefully this one offsets this one and it'll be good.
- [74:58]
B
And it actually kind of worked that way. So when people would get in on the hook, then they would stay kind of for the junk. And so what we learned in this very short amount of time was this. The methodology for success on this platform is do what is working. Right. Put your own personal spin on it and high volume testing. That combination is the actual thing that always gives you the result that you want. So I tell you that story to answer this question, which was like, am I a risk taker? Am I calculator risk taker in general? And the answer is like kind of like not really actually. Like when I look at my tendencies for like how I invest, and I'm actually a very conservative, action oriented person, I want a lot of data before I like do something. I don't really put a lot of resources into stuff that I don't think is going to win. So I do like a lot of micro testing and then when I see that the data is there, then I leverage.
- [75:53]
A
Yeah, it's like calculated bets. Calculated, calculated bets.
- [75:56]
B
Yeah.
- [75:57]
A
Like, can I put in a little, see what's going to work? When it works, I will go all in and I will burn the house down to do it.
- [76:02]
B
Burn the house down.
- [76:03]
A
So where do you take all this now? Like you've done all of these things, you've built these channels, you've been on the shows, you've done it. Like, where does Nick go from here?
- [76:11]
B
So this is. Okay, so this is actually a lot of the psychology behind it. All. Right. In rollerblading, when I got to the peak of the mountain. Right. Where do you go when you peak a mountain? You go down the mountain. You don't take the helicopter and fly around?
- [76:24]
A
No, it's not nice.
- [76:26]
B
You can, but you always come down and so you climb other mountains. Right. So in the creator sphere Right. Like, I hosted a Netflix show three seasons. I hosted this show on Discovery Channel. I was, I was being hand selected to do commercials, right? I was working with Chipotle and like Arm and Hammer baking soda. And I was like, dude, we are like doing it. We are, we are living the high of it. Like college Nick was like, that's what it looks like. And then when I was doing it, I was very aware of it. I was like, I'm doing it. But then what started to happen over time is. Is. And this is a weird thing, and I can't speak for every actor, of course, but this is observational knowledge. You'll see some actors who are at the peak of their career and they'll be like, I'm so sad. And you're like, what? Like, dude, you're making millions of dollars. You're ultra famous. You have a house in the Hollywood Hills. How could you possibly be sad? And the answer is, they don't feel like what they're doing is valuable. So for that reason, they don't feel valuable. Well, at a certain point in my career, we were doing so many hundreds of millions of views right throughout the year that I was just kind of like, I don't know what value I'm giving to the universe anymore. I've hit the goal that I wanted. Right. It was very selfish goal, truthfully. It was like, I want to be famous.
- [77:45]
A
Yeah.
- [77:45]
B
And so it was like, totally predicated. The whole thing was predicated on like, I'm climbing the mountain for me. Right? And so then I did, and then when I got there, it became a little more like, okay, but like, what is this all for? You know, like, I'm spending like $30,000 on this experiment. And like, you know, it'll get like hundred thousand views or maybe not. And I was like, is that the best use of like $30,000? Like, so you start to think to yourself, where's the value in what I'm doing and how do I only get the value? And that's actually why I loved brand deals so much. I loved brand deals. I love brand deals. One, obviously, because they pay you, but like, two, because there was purpose to it.
- [78:27]
A
Yeah.
- [78:27]
B
I was like, I'm promoting a product. You're using my, my, my like, fun expertise to like, kind of make something that's not interesting and using science. And there was a whole creative blend. And I was very proud of when they would work because I was like, damn, that was like such a cool way to orient this product. And we got the special sauce And I'm going to market her, and I love it, right? So then eventually my brain started going like, couldn't I just do just the value? And I was like, well, all right, well, what is just the value? And I was like, the value is like marketing. Like, you're mar. You're a commercial thing. You're. You're doing commercials. And I was like, yeah, I would love to just do commercials. In fact, like, the part where I'm not doing commercials, I don't really feel like there's value in it anymore. And so I said, all right, like, maybe that's like, where I should go. I had this idea, right? And then Aaron Velke, another gobundance guy, went to one of his workshops and, you know, we kind of shared all this. And I shared just what I shared with you. And then, you know, people were like, well, what are you thinking? And I was like, well, you know, I have this idea that instead of me doing, you know, going from, I create the entertainment, right? And then someone notices me, and then I get to this point where I'm doing this brand deal and then I deliver the value. I was like, couldn't I just, like, go straight to the business and be like, hey, business guy, Like, I could make the content for you. That's essentially the commercial that everyone's going to care about. And they were like, yeah, you could do that. And I was like, what would that look like? And they were like, creating content for business owners. Because in essence, every single video has value now. Every single one, because you're building the brand of someone else. And I was like, I've never dabbled in this space. I don't know what this space is. Like, how do you do that? And so now that you've learned my high volume testing story, I did exactly what I did with everything else. I went out and started asking people who do this. I said, hey, like, you own a small media company. Like, how do you do this? And they kind of gave me the road map. They said, you know, this is how we found that it works. And so I said, cool, I'm going to kind of log that information. And I asked a couple other people. And now that I have a little bit of wisdom right from doing this system right, I was like, I'm going to ask five people. In fact, one of them, I'm not even going to tell them that I'm actually doing it. I'm going to be their client and they're going to tell me what they're doing. And they're Going to run through this process as if I am their client. And I never told them, right? I just did their media plan. I said, all right, now I know how to do it. And so I said, I'm gonna put my own personal spin on it, of course, right? You can't copy completely. You gotta put your own wisdom and juice into it. And so I said, all right, like I'm a creator, I've done a ton of this shit, I know exactly how to do it. I'm gonna take all this information, I'm gonna put it into essentially a plan and I'm gonna kind of jump ship on being a creator. Cause I found that as like it just wasn't delivering the dopamine for me anymore. Like, I still will do a video here and there for something I care about. But I wasn't trying to be for full time creator guy anymore. And so I said I want to go straight for the media marketing part of it. So I created this company that essentially did just that. It was like, how do you do this just for small businesses? And the answer is this. This is like the exact actual formula, right? So it's like what I learned was this. The there's three categories actually of the like YouTube space or the social media space. The first one is the creator space, which is probably the most well known, right? That's David Dobrik, that's Mr. Beast. Right? Fill in the blank. The creator that you probably know who's like doing. And their whole business model is gift, views, leverage views, brand deals, make money, or own products. Then there's a studio model which does that exact same thing, but it's a bunch of ip. And so what they do uniquely different is they have their own ad sales team. And so they kind of operate like a business, but a business of entertainment. The third one is a company. And a company is very different. A company is different because views are different. The metric for views works differently. They don't need a million views, they need qualified views because every view is a potential customer because it's going to the awareness funnel. So if you're like, I'm a pizza shop in Columbus, Ohio, my video going viral is awesome for awareness, but if you're watching this from Bangladesh, you're not
- [82:37]
A
eating the pizza, not coming anytime soon,
- [82:40]
B
so it doesn't really matter, right? So what you're really looking for is creating content that's going to put you into the awareness funnel the most to actually get a transaction. So then it all comes down to how do you algorithm hack to use terminology, words, ideas, stories, to make sure that you are in the algorithm space to find that user. And that easiest way to explain it is. Is that you are creating content to solve your potential customers problems. Yeah, that's it. So it's like if you're a cattle rancher, right, you're looking for other people who are interested in buying longhorns, then what you do is you create content about longhorns. And. And how do you do that? You do this. You create educational and entertainment content that entertains those people that they learn from. Right. And they stick around enough to realize that you're actually the specialist and authority in this space. Yeah, that's how it works for a business. Because the truth of it is, is that you would never watch somebody who was like a plumber and they were like, come down to Johnny's plumber, right? You'd watch that video one time, you go, I'm so. I do not need to be sold. So you don't make ads. What you make is you make content that is informational and educational and entertaining. When I say entertaining, I don't mean you're singing and dancing. You can. Right. If that gets views. Right. And that's good for your niche. But what you're doing is you're making it visually interesting.
- [84:02]
A
Yeah.
- [84:03]
B
That's sort of the entertaining part. And you're really, truly giving away the whole thing. You're giving away the goods. So let's say you're a plumber and you've mastered the system of how to, like, clean drains. You're going to teach people on how to clean drains.
- [84:15]
A
Yep.
- [84:16]
B
And you'd be like, whoa, why would you do that? You're giving away the secret sauce. The reason is, is because when you give away the secret sauce, it's so interesting. And people become almost like. Like, followers. Like, I want to say, like, not prophets, but like. Like biblical times. What am I trying to say?
- [84:34]
A
Like, well, it's almost like when. When you give me the secret, I feel, like, indebted to you. Like, I owe you something.
- [84:39]
B
Yes.
- [84:39]
A
Like, wait, he just told me exactly how to do that. Just like, what you did with Mark is like, he gave me a recipe, so what am I gonna do? I'm gonna honor him. I'm gonna tell everybody I copied this. This was incredible. Thank you so much. And that's the same thing that happens when they give away the secret sauce. They feel it. People that are watching feel indebted to go do business with that human.
- [84:58]
B
They do, and they build a relationship A genuine relationship. And what they see is, is they feel there is this law of reciprocity, right? Which is, hey, you gave me something that I could use. And now that I follow you, I feel like I. If you offered a product or a service, like, I would most likely be about it. Because also, too, when you give away that kind of information, you are truly the specialist. I'm convinced that you know the most. Like, if you really, truly had a Longhorns page, right? And you told me all the stuff that we talked about earlier about, like, breeding and the semen tubes, I'd be like, when I buy a longhorn, I'm probably gonna buy it from this dude.
- [85:33]
A
Yeah.
- [85:33]
B
And I'm gonna give you an example. When I first started this, right? There's a guy named Tim Gurul.
- [85:38]
A
Yeah.
- [85:38]
B
Another good Bundes guy. And I studied him very specifically because I thought he did social media so well for his business. And I asked him, and I said, hey, dude, how explain how social media works for you? And he goes, I'm a mortgage originator. I have a mortgage company, right? And he goes, so what I do is I create. I give seminars to local, like, listing agents on how to use social media. They follow me, I make videos about mortgages. They watch me enough because it's helpful for them to understand how to do mortgage stuff for their clients. So they tell them. And so they watch all his videos. Well, well, they're not going to, like, transact whenever they, like, see the video. They're going to transact when the customer needs it. But he's always top of mind. So what ends up happening is that that video then is keeping him. That content is always keeping those people top of mind. So when they say, hey, we're going to close the house, and they say, well, who am I going to use? They're going to say, Tim. Tim. The funny story about Tim is I followed him to do the research and I watched so many of his videos because he popped him to my feed so often that when I needed to close on a mortgage, who do you think I called again?
- [86:47]
A
It's top of mind.
- [86:48]
B
Top of mind. And I trusted him because he told me all the paperwork that I need on what I need to do to close. Here are the top 10 reasons on what you need to know. I was like, dude, this dude's obsessed with this shit. He's so obsessed with it. I'm so convinced that's the guy I want to work with.
- [87:02]
A
Yeah.
- [87:03]
B
So I'm going to boil down for you, what is the Secret sauce for business. Like, how do you do it? Right? Like, if you're gonna, like, launch the Longhorn thing, right? Like. And you're like, I'm dedicated to this. What do you do? The first thing is, and I'm gonna walk you through what we do with our clients. And this can be obviously replicated to the nth degree. I can be the rover. You guys can copy it. Okay? The first thing is it's an onboarding doc. What that onboarding doc is, it's a page and a half of your business. It's the whole thing, right? Who you are, what you do, who. Who your potential customer is, where you think it's going, everything more the merrier, right? You're just. Your whole freaking story, okay? You take that whole thing, you copy and paste it, and you put it into an LLM and you say, give me 10 keywords that I can look up people that are, like, kind on Instagram so that I can find a creator, like this person, okay? You just tell the LLM that it spits out 10 keywords. You take those 10 keywords and you literally plug them into the search, right? On Instagram, and you see what pops up on the Reels tab. And you're looking for creators that are not the best of the best, not the worst of the worst, but, like, people who are, like, creating content. Like, Mr. Beast would be, like, a bad comp, right? He's too big. And you're not looking for the guy who just started, didn't do it well. You're looking for people who are, like, the bell curve of success. They're out there, they're doing it. They're getting views, they're very active. You create a list of 10 of those people for your industry, for your niche, right? So in this case, like, for the Longhorns, it'd be like people who are breeders, right? People who own farms. Now, let's say that's, like, super niche. It's so niche, right? There's only, like, three of them. We're gonna try to find people that are close to that.
- [88:34]
A
Okay? Horse breeders, dog breeders.
- [88:37]
B
Yeah. Cattle rancher guys, right? It's no different in real estate when you have comps trying to figure out the value of your house, how to do that. Well, this one's got four beds, you know, ours has five beds, but it's in the same area.
- [88:47]
A
Right?
- [88:48]
B
It's this whole compilation. You're creating a compilation to figure out who are these people that you're basically going to use as comp. Comps Once you have those comps, you then look at their last 120 days and you're looking for standout content, content that can be replicated. This is the key. It was not a collaboration, it was not a paid ad, it was not a manychat video. And there was no other weird business. Clearly wasn't futzed with.
- [89:13]
A
Right?
- [89:13]
B
No bots, not paid shit. You can tell very easily. Look at the views, look at the comments, whatever, right? Make sure the metrics check out. And what you're going to do then is you're going to catalog 10 of those videos and you want to make sure they're kind of Recent.ish. so 120 is like 120 days. That's like kind of far back. Could be shorter, whatever. And I actually recommend not looking at their viral content. I actually recommend looking at the content that is consistently getting views, not the stuff that was actually the ultra outliers. Throw in a couple outliers, but like not don't make the whole thing outliers. There's a weird psychology behind them. Ones that go viral versus the ones that do well all the time. If you're going to build and you want to get traction right away, then you're going to look for the hook, which is the most important thing on a short form content piece because it's a scroll and the first three seconds is the only thing that matters. The hook is the thumbnail. If you can't get past the hook, you're never going to get past the rest of the video. Then you're going to look for the style, content type. Was it a talking head? Was it a vlog? Was it a clone video? What is it? Right? You're going to catalog that information, you're going to make notes, you're going to say, why did this video work? The psychology of it. Did they show me a cool thing? Was it a fact I didn't know about? Was it topical? Like what was it? Right? Like what was the juice that made it do the thing? Once you're done. Once you're done, that right? And you do this 100 times. The answer of what is going to work in your industry is so ultra crystal clear an infant would know what to do. Like it is so obvious and you feel like you have God power now. You're like, I have observed, I now absolutely 100% know. And so what you do from there is you script. Most people, I think, actually don't know this, but the most authentic looking content is scripted. And the reason why is because if you actually picked up your phone and you actually just started rambling, the human memory would create such an awful piece of content. It cannot think in stories, in story arcs and clever hooks and this kind of stuff. It just, it would be horrible. So content is actually scripted down to the take and you do that. So on the day that you're actually going to shoot, you've consolidated all the information into one shooting format. Right. That you can actually shoot the whole thing. So you're going to write out and what I suggest is between 12 and 18 pieces of content short form per month. That'll roughly take you like a day, right? To do all of that to do. If you're to do the research, that's going to take you a couple of days, two to three days. If you're going to do the actual writing yourself, it's going to take you about a day. Ish. But you get really used to it, right? Shooting is going to take you one day. You should be able to do about 18 pieces of content short form in one day. Then there's the editing part, which takes about three to five days. That's usually the most time expensive part about the whole thing. You want to find, typically speaking, you want to find an American based, North American based editor first to create like the actual like piece. Then if you want to go offshore after you've created the style that you like, you can save some money that way. Then you post, you schedule all out, you just post. Kind of doesn't, to be honest, posting really doesn't matter. Like you just want to make sure that it's like roughly consistent. There is no optimal time, none of that junk. Like because it's a scrolling platform, it'll show you when it wants to show you. Analytics is the very last thing. Analytics basically guides the writing. So on a 30 day cycle, the analytics will tell you exactly what to introduce more into your actual content cycle. So let's say for example, some of those talking head videos did really well. Some of those vlog videos did really bad. Well then the next month you're going to take out a couple of those vlog videos and you're going to put in a little bit more of the talking head videos. You're not going to radically do it, but you're going to kind of guide it, right? Yeah. So that whole process, what that does is it creates something where the scripts are predicated off of things that are working in real time and you are cross referencing all of your scripts with that onboarding doc. So it's 80% of the structure. 20% is you. And that is the exact same formula for exactly what I did with those early YouTube videos with Mark Rober, for all the ones I did on TikTok, all the ones I've ever did on Snapchat. You're utilizing the structure of success, and you're wrapping 20% new. Think about it like a car. Is a. Is a Jaguar really that much different than a Ford?
- [93:36]
A
No.
- [93:36]
B
No. There's four wheels. There's an engine, there's a chassis. There's a thing you sit in. Like, it's just the stuff on the outside. So you can think of it like, you don't want to. You don't want to recreate the wheel at all whatsoever. You. You literally reinvent the wheel. You just want to recreate the outside for who that potential person is.
- [93:54]
A
Yeah.
- [93:54]
B
And that's really what you're going for. Yeah.
- [93:56]
A
What I hear you saying is, like, R and D is rip off and duplicate with your own flair, with your own spin. And, I mean, I've always said copying is the greatest form of flattery.
- [94:04]
B
Yeah.
- [94:05]
A
Like, you copying Mark was another way to honor and be like, dude, that was sick. I want to do that. That was rad. Now, if you said this was my idea, I have no idea who that guy is. Like, okay, now we're, like, skirting the line here. And, like, you're probably out of integrity, but it's like, I honor this guy. I saw this. I want to do something similar. This was badass. Check it out. It's like, I'm honoring you. I'm copying you because I'm impressed by you. It's no different than the kids idolizing Michael Jordan when they're playing basketball on the basketball court. What do you do, though, with the person that says AI is going to take over this industry?
- [94:39]
B
So it's awesome. So what's interesting about this, there's two pathways on AI the first pathway is this AI is going to make video content. Right. And we're not going to be able to distinguish AI from content now. Right. And my perspective on that is that we as humans are really good at figuring out what is not real. Right. Maybe eventually we won't. Okay. But we're not there yet. And when we do get there, there will be some other deciding factor. There'll be some badge. There'll be a red dot. There'll be a made without AI like, there'll be something that will distinguish that. And you will know the other thing, too, is that, like, At a certain point, like, if I were to, like, film the studio or tell AI to like, do it all over again, there will eventually be inconsistencies within that program. At least the way it works right now, Higs Field is probably one of the best. But, like, there'll be inconsistencies. So to a certain point, the juice just won't be worth the squeeze as far as, like, making everything AI, Right? But let's just say that is the path that we're going to go. You could absolutely hack that path, right. And make a bajillion pieces of content. I still think there's going to be a standout something or other because people are really, truly looking for the authentic you. Yeah.
- [95:47]
A
I mean, at our true core, humans are looking for connection. We're craving connections. And no matter. I mean, there are some people that are in love with their AI and there's some creepy stories out there, but generally speaking, most people are not going to marry chat or whatever you call their AI. Like, they're looking for a human connection, even if it's through a screen.
- [96:05]
B
And two, just think about the diversity of filming content. Like me walking out into your ranch. Right. And filming that. Do I really want to describe, through an LLM to AI for them to replicate your ranch, and then if they did it again and one person found out that you used AI and it's not your real ranch, you've, like, blown up your whole thing, dude. Like, now there's no coming back from it. So it's like, it's a really spicy space. They just kind of don't like the video portion of it. The whole oomph of social media is that it's the more authentic, true self. So I just don't know how much that's going to mingle. Right. I'm skeptical on that route. The other route is this, right. Which is LLMs and the functionality of just AI in general. Right. If we think about AI right now, where are we really seeing, like, the most leaps? It's within the LLM space. It's data collection, it's data crunching, it's copying and pasting. And so just like the legwork. Right. We can kind of liken this to like a. Want to say, like a jackhammer or like any kind of, like, farm equipment. Right. Like, we're not out there hoeing the fields anymore. Right. We have a combine. Right. And no one wants to go back to like, hoeing the fields manually. We have a combine. It, like, does this for you at way Greater speeds. That's the way that I see AI within this space, right? And so what we did early on is like, I didn't want to be someone to be like. So like, no, we're not going to use it. I actually saw the same thing as when I saw TikTok. I saw, holy shit. If this is what I think it is, this could be the TikTok moment all over again, right? Like, if we find out how to use it, we could leverage this in a way that others don't see yet. And if we're able to do it, we could get way ahead of the game. And so what we started to do is saying like, hey, that process that I just told you, where in that process could we just stop doing it manually? And so in the very beginning, I told you LLM, in the beginning it wasn't that. It was us literally trying to figure out keywords, right? There was no LLM. So then after we started doing that, we were like, that's cool, it's pretty sophisticated. But then we started saying like, all right, I'm going to try to figure out how you actually write a script. If I could figure out how to write a script with, with, with like an actual AI like program, this would save me a ton of time. And in the beginning it was absolute trash, right? It was like making your first YouTube video. It was holy shit. But again, through this like high volume testing, we figured out, and this is getting really dorky, okay. We figured out as such that every LLM and they're changing, of course, but they all are. They all work off of a token system. What does a token system, what does that mean? It means that there's a certain amount of essentially you can consider it like data, which is like energy usage for the actual server. How much? Because of their linked.
- [99:00]
A
Right.
- [99:00]
B
How much data is going through it? How much data is it willing to give you per ask? So if I said, I went on chat and said, hey, can you write the Bible? That would be a tremendous ask. That would be. That would be over the amount of token usage that it'd be willing to give me. So it wouldn't do that. Or consequently, if you said, okay, do it and it ran up the token cost and it just would go and go and go. So it'd be very expensive to do that. Typically when we pay for a large language model that that number that we're paying for is just the token usage per how often you're actually asking it to perform a function. So there's a limit on it, Right? It's like gas in the car. Right? It's a really good analogy. So what we figured out is that how much information can I give the LLM before it runs out of tokens so that it can actually give me a cool script? Because if I give it too much information, if I said, hey, here's a book I wrote, give me a script, we learned that it actually gives you really weird stuff.
- [99:55]
A
Yeah.
- [99:56]
B
If I said, my name is Nick uhas, make me a script. Not enough. So what we learned is, is that there's actually a perfect amount of information that fits within the token cost that actually gives you something that's better than what I would write. And that is the onboarding doc. That is a transcription of the video that you want to be like. And then it's the, what we call the style guide ratio doc, which is an information piece that tells you what kind of content you actually should be making. You combine those three things together and it spits out something that is so incredibly detailed because it does all of those things. But it didn't do it manually.
- [100:37]
A
Right. You gave it to it.
- [100:39]
B
So what do you do with that? Right? It's obviously not going to be like perfect. So you take that thing and you sculpt it a bit and then you end up with a script that actually is, in my opinion, perfect. So we started to test this and we started giving this to our clients, Right? Because this is actually what we do with our clients. And so we gave that to a bunch of people and we started seeing that those were getting millions of views. And one of our clients, another go bun. This guy's mother, she's a plastic surgeon. We did this exact same thing. It fed the thing and it gave us a script. She shot it 1.5 million views. And so we said, that's the thing. This is the thing. Like, if you do it like this, this gets you as close as you possibly can get to that methodology of the high volume testing that you just have to run these and then when you see the banger, you're gonna double down on that. And so what we did from there is again, another GoPundance guy in my GoPod. I said, hey, his name's James, James Bates. I said, james, you're a software guy. I said, let me tell you, my system. I said, this is my system. How could I just string these together and save time? And he said, oh my God, bro, how long does this take you? And I said, this takes me like 30 hours, dude. Like, this is Such a. I have Google Docs open, I have Google Sheets open, I have Instagram open. I'm copying and pasting and dude, this is a mess, man. And he goes, all right, let me see what I can do. He finds this dude and his name is Ben, and Ben and I make this prototype. And I said, all I want is I want you to figure out how to basically go from this, like, research from the Instagram stuff to, like, the script writing stuff. Like, just fill out the spreadsheet for me, right? I just want to select creators and fill up the spreadsheet. He goes, no problem. He makes it. And it's that alone saved us like 20 hours for the week. Like, individually, right? And I was just like, I was floored. I couldn't believe that it worked, but it was ultra ugly. It was so ugly. Like, the user interface was like, so ugly. Like, you couldn't. Like, if you were drunk at a bar, you wouldn't even do this, right? Like, this was like, not 10 beers, you wouldn't be into it. So I said, all right, it's in my head. I got to figure this out. I got to figure out what would this look like. If I developed this myself and I wanted to make this for me, and I were to use this system and I wanted to be pretty enough that my writers could use it, what would that look like? I was flying home from CMH, from Columbus, Ohio, all the way to LA on a 1 way. My wife and I always buy the three seats. And I'm jammed in between the dog, our three year old, and the newborn. Okay, so it's like I have nowhere to go. I can barely move my arms and I have a little tray table and I'm just like, I'm gonna close my eyes and I'm gonna visualize what this thing looks like. And I close my eyes and I put on my Bose headphones and. And I can literally see what I want. I can see it perfectly. I can see the button. I'm like, I want to drag and drop here. And then I literally, frame by frame, I draw it out. I just draw the whole thing out. And it's like four or five pages on this notepad. And I was like, that's it. That's the thing. That's what I want. And so I had talked to some other people and they were like, hey, you should. You should just Vibe code it, dude. Like. And I was like, yeah, but I've heard Vibe coding makes bad products. So I went back to James and said, hey, if I Vibe code, the user interface. Okay. And then you have Ben actually make it functional. That's kind of like me, like, coming up with the blueprint, choosing the SKUs for what countertops I want, choosing the paint colors, and then he just builds it, right? He was like, yeah, if you do this, he can do that. And I was like, dude, sold. So I went on Lovable, which I would actually not recommend. I would recommend different ones. Don't use Lovable. I went on Lovable and I took a bunch of pictures of all those, like, things that I drew and I said, all right, we're gonna go page by page and we're gonna build this thing. And so essentially what I ended up building was like, I built a software thing that does what my company does. So it's like the ultra fast version of doing that research. It compiles it into spreadsheets. So spreadsheets then automatically go into an LLM. That LLM then tells you exactly what your content prescription is, and then it tells you exactly what to actually do with the script based off of the transcription. So all you have to do is you just have to select the creators that you want, so you just import the name. So, for example, back to the Longhorns. If you were like, hey, this is a guy I follow. I'm already into Longhorns and I'm in the Longhorn industry. And like, Jonathan Longhorn guy put that guy in it, scrapes all of his information, and then you literally get to go through his whole catalog and just choose which videos you want as comps. And you can do this up to 10, right? And then you can go on to the next creator and you can choose which videos that you want to be like. Then the system does that giant computation. That giant computation was what we used to do manually. We literally sit there and be like, okay, like, you should be doing like seven talking heads. Now the LM is like, has all this information. Boom, there you go. This is what you should make. This is what it should look like. I took your onboarding doc and I slapped it on here. It literally does it in seconds.
- [106:13]
A
And now is this a subscription that anybody can have access to?
- [106:16]
B
Correct. So we decided initially this was supposed to be like our secret sauce in our company. And we're never going to let this thing out of the bag. We were gonna be like, whoa, we could charge people X, but it cost us almost nothing. Now, like, I could reduce my overhead so much, like, this would be such a win. But what ended up happening is we started to realize that in the span of what's called done for you social media marketing. Right. Those. Roughly speaking, no matter where you are in America or anywhere, it costs about $5,000 a month for that service. There are people, there are businesses that don't wanna spend $5,000. Why they can't. Yeah. Let's say I have a lawn care service and I'm starting it up. I don't have 5k for you to do this for me, but I understand the process and I'd be willing to bootstrap it and do it myself. So we said, there's a customer for that for sure. Right. And so we said, well, for our business. Right. The done for you social media marketing services. We can just offer all these tiers now. Now we can have the one that's White Glove. And they want to save a lot of time and they don't want to do it because they don't have time to do this. We can have the ultra one up here that's like, you know, we're going to do everything for you into the moon and back and we're going to be there on set with you the whole nine yards. And then we can have the one that if you want to bootstrap, you can bootstrap. And you can literally have our exact tools. Like, literally the same thing that I use for my company. You can have that. You can literally have that and you can operate it and you can make your own viral content.
- [107:42]
A
And it all goes back to like you wanting to be a value.
- [107:45]
B
Yes.
- [107:45]
A
Which is like, I think a really important part. Like, you could have kept creating content.
- [107:49]
B
Yeah.
- [107:50]
A
And could have kept doing brand deals and probably could have made more money and probably could have gotten more views. But you felt in your heart of hearts you needed to be of value to people. So by not offering it to everybody, it would almost contradict the main thing that got you there in the first place.
- [108:04]
B
Yeah.
- [108:04]
A
So where do people find it?
- [108:07]
B
So we came up with the name. It's pretty awesome. So it's not out. I don't know when this is going to release, but. But it's coming out in like two weeks.
- [108:14]
A
This will be out after that.
- [108:15]
B
Perfect. Good. I need, like, if we had two weeks, that'd be perfect. So we, we had to come up with a name. Right. And I was racking my brain, Right. And I went to AI even and I was like, dude, like, this is what I'm thinking. And so one day I thought. And I was like, what is this thing? And I was like, this is the Amazing Content Operating System. Do you know what that spells?
- [108:36]
A
The Amazing Content Operating System Tax or tacos.
- [108:41]
B
Tacos. So we came up with tacos. So you'll be able to find this at Tacos. AI.
- [108:48]
A
Tacos.
- [108:49]
B
AI. Yeah. And so. And it was like we. I went way out of my way to find this actual URL. Like, had to hunt the guy down. Like, we chatted. He was big into AI and, like, to buy it, all the AIs are taken. And so. And then the more that I said tacos, the more that I was just like, this is cool. This is fun. This is creative. And we started really thinking about it more. And it was like, it's actually weird, but it's like. It's actually, like, folding in all of the elements of content creation into one thing. Yeah. And when I told it to some other people, right? Because, like, if you think about it the way I just said it, right, it feels very like I'm at McKinsey, right? Which is like, we take this data and we crunch it and whatever. And I told this to somebody who's an ultra, like, artistic, like. Like, literally artistic genius. Like, someone who could, like, see a movie in their mind, right, and could, like, make it right for them. His name is Brazil, right? That's his nickname. And so I told Brazil this, and he goes. His first inclination was this. He goes, dude, it's like. He goes, you're like, you have a kitchen with a million spices, and people can make whatever they want. And it was weird because when I first. When we created it, I was like, oh, no. It's like, it's like, to go viral faster. And he's like, no, but now you can combine things, cross niche, and now you can make things that you could have never made before. So we started thinking about it, like, it's a content kitchen. We were like, holy shit. It's actually what it allows you to do is this. If you're a creative person, right? And you, like, the very high end of, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? You're, like, way up here, and you just, like, the creative juice, all of that legwork is now gone. And so now you can spend all this time to really create stuff that is, like, ultra cool and creative, but all predicated on stuff that is really fun that people actually want to see. And so I think, honestly, it's like, in my opinion, it's an accelerator of creativity because now you can. You can. You can have all the different kinds of tacos you want, man.
- [110:48]
A
And the other thing is, is, like, to your point, you can make it your own flavor.
- [110:53]
B
Yeah.
- [110:53]
A
Like, if you want to just focus on plumbing, you focus on plumbing. But if you want to be a plumber that has longhorns, you be a plumber that has longhorns, you mix this guy with this guy, and it's going to give you a little bit of five of these, seven of these, do a little bit of this. And the other thing I really admire about you is, like, you're having fun.
- [111:07]
B
Yeah.
- [111:08]
A
You can see it on your face. You can feel it in your energy. Like, you are creating something that is having fun. And I don't think people focus enough on chasing their passion, like, doing things that light you up. Creating is clearly like the thing that lights you up and you're in creative mode. And you can just feel it radiate through you when you talk about it, which instantly makes me go like, I'm buying tacos. Tacos AI. I'm gonna sign up because I'm like, I know this guy. I like this guy. I trust this guy because he wouldn't pour his heart and soul into it if he didn't believe in it. And I just, I think, like, that's the coolest thing. Whether it was when we were out on the ranch and we were ear piercing cows or we were in here having a conversation, the thing I respect most about you is just how you show up as a human. Like, you are all in to play the game of life to the fullest potential while learning as much as you possibly can. And I just admire that about people. You especially. And, like, I'm leaving here going like, this guy went hyper niche, hyper focused by tons of testing, like, tons of testing constantly. And you're still to this day testing even with tacos.
- [112:09]
B
Yep.
- [112:09]
A
So, man, I really appreciate you being here. I had a ton of fun. The ear piercing was a little bit traumatizing, but I think we got over the blood. We made it through the blood. But really appreciate you sharing this. Really appreciate you being here. The link to Tacos AI will be in the. In the description below. Everybody can find it, but thank you so much for your time.
- [112:28]
B
Absolutely, dude. And as you were talking, I just want to ask you this question. Do you think that your soul is in your brain or in your heart?
- [112:35]
A
I think our soul is actually in our gut, and we're taught to put it in our heart, and then they're ultimately taught to put it in our head. I think our soul is in our gut. And the more we can choose to listen to our gut and our intuition, the more full of a life we'll live.
- [112:48]
B
That's awesome. Yeah. I was just really curious as you're saying that, because I was like, man. Because what you're describing is, like, that is your soul, right?
- [112:54]
A
It's in your gut. I think it's in your gut. And then everybody's like, oh, feel your heart.
- [112:57]
B
Feel your heart.
- [112:58]
A
So you feel your heart a little bit. You're like, okay. And they're just like, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't they like, okay, I gotta get heady now. Let me go back in my head. I think if you can get back down into your gut, into your core, into your intuition, like, you followed your intuition through this entire thing. Like, let me close my eyes, Let me put my Beats headphones on, and let me draw on a napkin. That's not heart, that's not head. That's just 100% in your gut. Like, you knew where it needed to go.
- [113:20]
B
Yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah. I asked you that because it's like, I was thinking about this as you were saying this, and it's like, it's not a thought or an idea, truthfully. This. This thing is actually my soul. Like, it is a part of my soul. And, like, I've never done it. I've never done anything like that. Like, every video that I've created is a piece, but this is like the brainchild. It is truly my soul.
- [113:43]
A
It goes back to those compilation videos you're doing on Snapchat.
- [113:46]
B
Yeah.
- [113:46]
A
You're taking your whole entire life's compilation and saying, like, I learned this in rollerblading. I did this on College Humor. I did this in Big Brother. Then I did this. Then I went to this. I'm going to put it all in this one big bundle, and I'm just going to give it to anybody that wants to buy it.
- [114:00]
B
Yeah. The thing that I'm the most amped on, truthfully, the most amped, is like, we designed this, obviously, for business owners, right? Like, that's where it came from, because that's the camp we came from. But when I thought about that, I was like, individuals obviously can use this in the exact same way, too. I want. I am. I just want to see what people create. Because at the end of the day, like. And people used to sell this all the time. And I was like, you're so cheesy, bro. Shut up. And people would be like, I'm in this so that other people can create. And I was like, that's lame. And. And then I started to realize, though, that if only you are creating content, you can only create as many videos as you could literally have time to. But if you're giving people either, whether you're a platform or a tool or whatever it is. Right. Then what I learned when we did the Snapchat thing was, was that when the videos did well, I had the same dopamine hit as when my videos went. Then the same dopamine hit when my clients started getting stuff. And I foresee that when some user of tacos gets a viral video, I will get the same dopamine hit.
- [114:59]
A
Yeah.
- [114:59]
B
And so I'm kind of just like, that's just more.
- [115:02]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [115:03]
B
So, yeah, man.
- [115:04]
A
That's beautiful, man. And, you know, like, hopefully for the launch party, you have tacos. You have to have tacos.
- [115:10]
B
Yeah, we absolutely have to have tacos.
- [115:13]
A
I had a lot of fun today. Thank you so much.
- [115:15]
B
Thank you, brother.
- [115:16]
A
Yeah,
- [115:20]
B
Sam.