How a guy turned 3 YouTube Channels into $3 Billion Dollars

0:00 I gotta tell you about a YouTube story. Okay, so this is a Story of how a guy found an underrated opportunity in the YouTube market. And turn it into three billion dollars. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to I put my all in it like my day song On the road less travel never looking back

0:20 There's this guy, Renee. And Renee um discovers an opportunity. Sam, do you know what the most viewed YouTube channel is? Most views on YouTube, do you know? Uh the obvious answer would be Mr. Beast. The second Mr. Beast? Number thirteen. Why why why are we talking about number thirteen? I'm talking about number one, Sam. Okay. Do I do the bro move where I under guest so you can win? No, I I'm gonna say some type of Indian thing. Probably like an Indian number one is T series. It's Indian music. So it's just like a like all the famous Bollywood songs. But do you know what number two is?

0:51 I don't. No idea. Coco Melon. Cocoa Melon. Yeah, God. Does your kid Coco Melon or too young, maybe? I refuse to let her watch Coco Melon because it's crack. It's baby crack.

1:04 Um so by the way, number two. Number five, number six, number seven. Uh those are all Just like Coco Melon. They're basically kids' entertainment channels. Uh, but by the way, a couple of them are like Russian and Ukrainian in the top ten of all views. So coca melon.

1:20 Was this channel that was actually started back in two thousand and six, two thousand and seven. Uh this dad who was like an animator slash like filmmaker Um and his wife who I think was like a cartoonist for children's books. They notice there's like oh there's like nothing good on YouTube.

1:37 For kids. And so they start creating very simple animations for um for kids on YouTube. Just like literally they're f if you go look go to their channel. And you click pop, uh click oldest.

1:49 And the very old the oldest one, I think it's like eighteen years ago. is a video that's like the ABC song. It's a forty second video. Crazy and if you go look at all the old ones, it doesn't look like Hoca Melon today. There's no character, there's no like kid, JJ. There's no like um crazy cracked out animations. There's nothing. There's just like Literally they're just doing nursery rhymes. So it's like ABC, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Baba Black Sheep.

2:14 All the hits. And so those start getting a lot of views. And for like Ten plus years. It's just them.

2:21 Doing animations. No sponsors, no um no merchandise, no gimmicks, no nothing. They're just living off of YouTube ad revenue. They got a small team, they They got twenty people. Ten plus years. Wow. So Um

2:35 That's a grind. They did that. There's another story. Uh Blippy. I don't know if you're familiar with Blippy. Blippy is sort of like the guy who sings, but it's like many guys now. Yeah, they've switched out the character, but basically it's a dude who wears a blue suit with orange overalls and a bow tie, and he's like Like it's me, blubby, right? And he's like basically he just goes to like Abandoned

2:57 Like not abandoned, I shouldn't say that. Like Kids like play places when they're closed and he goes and he plays in them and he like films himself playing in the in the play place and he teaches you things or whatever. Slightly educational, slightly fun. Channel. Wait, were you gonna say blippy is recording it abandoned pla like a abandoned warehouses? Like is abandoned play places like there's no one there, but they're not abandoned. I thought you'd be like to Today's special word is tetanus, like you do like that. Can you say rabbit? Blippy, this guy basically sees that his I think his n niece or nephew or something like that is watching these like really low quality uh videos of tractors. Like you know, like kids love trucks and tractors. Oh man, like my kids loves this or the my nephew loves this tractor video.

3:44 And so he goes and he makes money if you get the same thing. Go to the blippy channel, you click oldest, you'll see It's a video of a tractor going through a field. And his next one. is like another tractor video and he's on green screen with it. He's not even a near tractor, he just green screens himself on top of it. And so he starts creating this. So he starts getting a lot of views. And so what happens is there's this guy, Renee.

4:03 And what Renee does is he decides to create a PE roll up. But around these kids' YouTube channels. And the opportunity is that Renee worked at a company called Maker Studios. Do you remember Maker? Yeah, it kinda ended up being like They were the hottest thing going and they raised money at billions of dollars of valuation and it didn't exactly live up to that, but it kinda created like a it was like so innovative that a lot of the employees were Went and did amazing stuff, is that right?

4:27 Uh kind of, yeah. So basically they were early on to the YouTube professionalization. And what they were trying to do. was they created what's called an MCN, a multi channel network. And you know, what does that mean? It's sort of like in Agency. Um like a CAA. for YouTube talent.

4:43 So for some of them, they would own the channels and then the talent would operate them. For others, the talent owned their own channel and they would do the brand deals. But like instead of you the one YouTuber negotiating your brand deals, they would go to, you know, whoever, Coca-Cola and negotiate it for all thirty channels on their network, right? So it's like creating a like a television channel, but on YouTube. And this idea sounded really good. It just wasn't a really good idea. It's been tried and failed many, many times. Right. It was one of these startups you have to be very very uh wary of because they um

5:12 It's reasoning by analogy. So if you ever hear like Elon talk about like Reasoning from first principles, which is basically you take Like solid truths, like uh logic, and you build one lot logic block on top of another, like a stack of Lego's that all click together in a chain of logic. Reasoning by analogy is to say

5:31 Yeah, we're CAA, but for you two. You don't really understand the underlying Assumptions about how YouTube works and how Hollywood works just totally different. There actually doesn't need to be a CAA for for YouTube. Um, or it wouldn't be that valuable if you were the CAA of YouTube, but it raised money and it was a very hyped thing at the time. They actually ended up with a good exit to Disney. I think Disney bought them for seven hundred, nine hundred million dollars something. Like a big exit. But um it was a f like kind of a failed company and it failed inside of Disney. It like

5:58 Could be an okay business, just not a good business that requires hundreds of millions. Yeah, not hundreds of millions in funding good business. There are plenty of these like agents creator agencies on TikTok and Twitch that are like bootstrap that'll do like a few million dollars a year of profit. Good for them. So What happens? So Renee, he's at Maker. He didn't start it, but he works there. And when Disney acquires it, he goes to Disney and he becomes like the head of like digital content internationally or some some like you know some title there. And what he realizes is he says, um, here's the opportunity. He goes, When I was at Maker, I realized that kids' YouTube videos were getting tons of views, but they were overlooked by traditional PE and media companies because they, you know, basically they look too janky to be taken seriously. He said, Of the top hundred most

6:41 viewed children's bands online. None of them were owned by big studios. So he's at Disney. He's like, look at the top hundred channels, kids' channels on YouTube. None of them are owned by Disney or Pixar or like any of the major studios. And his co founder Who was at Paramount at the time, goes

6:58 Yeah. Also none of those none of those YouTube channels that are getting all these views have streaming deals. Because the streamers say we need the content to be exclusive and the YouTubers are like, exclusive. I mean YouTube's my bread and butter. Why would I take the content off of YouTube? So they were just like, Wow, we're not doing a deal. So they get together. And they started stack ranking and they basically made a c simple criteria. So they said

7:20 I want something that has high views. And has like a a quality IP. So like it has a brand name. It has a character that people might might associate and love, something you might buy a plush doll of someday. Like you'll buy a a toy of this this thing. He goes. If they have both of those, I'm interested.

7:36 And straight out of the gate, they've raised about a hundred and fifty million dollars. And they raise all this money j saying we're gonna do this roll up and they do three deals. So shout out to uh the the roll up Europe Beehive newsletter because he had the details on this. Nobody ever all the traditional media they only have the surface level details. Some guy on Beehive has like a really detailed breakdown of this.

7:59 Because these companies are based in Europe. And so they're all l listed in company's house. So he was able to like go see literally how how much did the CEO make. And the headline of the story is they take that hundred fifty million dollars, they start buying up these channels, and four years later. They exit this to Blackstone for three billion. What

8:17 Technically can't they the exit to Candle, Candle's backed by Blackstone. That's where Candle got the the money. Um, but they sell for three billion dollars. How much revenue was it making? So th they break it down. They go and they buy uh cocoa melon for a hundred and three million dollars. Ninety two million up front, eleven million contingent. Okay. So a hundred million on coconut, seventy million on blippy.

8:39 Of which only twenty six million was up front, seven forty five million was contingent. And then Little Babybum was the third big one that they bought. And Little Baby Bomb had also nursery rhymes and whatnot. And they did that for sixty five million. So that's That basically uh and they at at that point they had raised more money of of equity and debt. And so they raised about four hundred million in total equity and debt to create the three billion exit.

9:01 So like a ten X return roughly. on the capital that they use to buy these channels. And in four years. Literally through M and A, they were able to create three billion dollars of value. Here's what they did. So here's the revenue. So uh their company's called Moon the the holding company's called Moonbug.

9:17 So Moonbug, basically twenty nineteen is sort of like a twenty million dollar year business. Twenty twenty, it's about a fifty million dollar year business. Then it goes to one fifty, then it goes to two hundred thirty million dollars with a hundred million at EBITDA before they got taken out. Holy shit, it was doing a hundred million in Ibita in only four years. Exactly. And the founders of this thing, so each of them cleared Uh Renee makes three hundred million for this four years of work. Uh his co founder makes three hundred million. The head of MA made sixty million.

9:47 And the CFO made like twenty or thirty million dollars um in the roll up and the rest went to the investors. When they bought these companies, did they need to be great at operating YouTube or was the they were so good at incentivizing blipy or whatever that they're like just Keep going, you're doing fine. Uh Payout if you hit this and that.

10:08 So these businesses are Or Simple and complex at the same time. What do I mean by that? One, a lot of the views are just gonna come on the back catalog. So

10:16 Uh, you know, it's it's still wheels on the bus. It's twinkle, twinkle, little star, that are just racking up views every single month. You don't have to do anything on those videos. I'm not sure if you're saying wheels and the bus as an analogy of running a company, or you're literally referring to the song Wheels on the Bus. Yeah, the song. And so um they the back catalog gets a lot of views. What they did, which was smart. So Coco Melon wasn't originally called coco melon. Uh oh, is it called Checkgate? Which sounds like a

10:43 Company. Dude, it reminds me of it sounds like the cult. Remember the uh the cult there where they all kill themselves? It was like Heaven's Gate, Check Gate. Okay, so yeah, I don't not familiar with that. I need a brush up on my cult. Yeah. So check eight, and then they rebrand it to ABC Kid TV, which if you watch the videos, it'll still start ABC Kid TV, and then it st starts the song. Uh then they rebranded a cocoa melon, but that's like in Twenty

11:07 17 or something like that. Like it was like a long time. It was like 10 plus years into the company that they rebranded. And that's when they introduced JJ and the characters and the colors and then So basically that's where you get the characters. Same thing with Blippy. They had Blippy, they take out the main guy. They ha they replace him with a Like a rotate like a like an actor, basically. 'Cause he's ready to move on. And um they also introduced Mika. Dislike

11:31 diverse character who could come in and like appeal to a wider set of audience. So they're doing like moves in the content. Yes. But the other moves they did was they got it on the streamers. So they got it on the Netflix. It's now the most watched kids thing on Netflix is coconut. Then they go into the toys business and they're doing, you know Millions and millions in toys and licensing.

11:51 And so you know, you they built out the full like suite of business basically around these. They do Blippy the musical. It's a live tour that's going around the nation. And that's uh you know, selling out, you know, basically these tickets, me and my family. We all went and there's you know, there's not an empty seat in the house. And so like these things are like they turn them into you know, rocking and rolling businesses, they kinda use the Disney playbook, right? Which is like Create m massively loved IP.

12:15 And then monetize it. Through everything except for they just didn't do theme parks. Have you seen on South Park where uh Mickey Mouse is uh you know, comes off as this nice guy, but behind the scenes he's trying to convince the Jonah brothers that they better wear their virginity rings. Uh or their chastity rings because they're wanting to like have sex and he's like Can you?

12:34 You better put that fucking ring back on. First of all Incredible impression. You know, uh there is no when you're taking a risk, you cannot paint a world where it's only upside. You have to accept that there is potentially downside. These are the things I tell myself before I'm ever uh taking a big risk. And I thought about that. I'm a risk taker. I do impromptu impressions sometimes that I've never done before. But that's what I imagine Rade to be. He's like,

13:11 Listen, Blippy, I need you to put that fucking tie on and I need you to get out there and dance. Like when Blippy's like asking for a raise. What's the hard part about this business? Is it uh or uh convincing people to sell? No, I don't think that was that hard because They had a huge check. And the huge check helps. Um you know like I think at the time.

13:34 I think Coco Melon had done like eighty million in revenue or something like that, uh that year. And then they bought them for a hundred. So they bought them, you know, probably like at a five X multiple or six X multiple of profits or something like that. I I don't know exactly the multiple. But I'm guessing they offered them like hey, here's a bunch of money. that you could have and like you've been running for like, you know, years doing this on this treadmill.

13:55 And like, what if we could help? And what if we could take you to the next level? You don't know those people. Oh, I golf with the guy from Netflix. Oh, I used to be at Paramount. Oh, I've you I was at Disney. I can help you get to the next level. Break down doors that didn't seem like they were open. The hard part. was picking up the gold on the ground. So This happens a lot in business. It's like these ideas are just sitting on the ground. And

14:16 It's the hard part is somebody taking a very simple idea very seriously. So to say Yeah, you know that silly like Nursery rhyme channel. I'm gonna go raise 150 million dollars from like whoever Goldman Sachs to go and uh and acquire these. And you have to say that with a straight face, when there's no track record of That, you know, uh you have to really pitch a a strong case.

14:39 And I also wonder, and you would actually have good insight into this because you worked at Twitch, I wonder what opportunity Looks like. So for example, when you explained Uh Renee Renee's inner dialogue of like

14:52 Hey, look at all the top one hundred channels. None of them are owned by uh PE or they all are just kinda like these bomb and pop shops. This seems so obvious. But I wonder what that inner dialogue actually was with uncertainty. Uh in the same way where

15:09 I don't know anything about streaming, but you used to work at Twitch and then I know that like There is that. There's like two new video g kick streamer, I forget. But like I wonder if a Twitch employee could have looked at him been like These there's an opportunity here, here's a gap, because I could see the data, therefore we should support this other thing. What what was the other one called? Kick

15:27 There's Mixer, there's Kick, there's YouTube has their own Facebook has their own Actually, you know, there was a time where We were Before Twitch acquired us. We were building like a tool in the ecosystem. We were getting to know a bunch of the streamers who were using our tool.

15:41 And we were like, look, this tool like the hard part is this tool like kind of caps out at like a hundred million. If we d if we win. If we win the the size of this is like a hundred million, we think. And the problem is that the platform's worth like five billion. Um, how do we do the five billion thing? And we're like, we'd have to create another platform.

15:59 Like, okay, well There's the technology part of it that's hard but doable. Um, the hard part is getting the streamers and getting the network effect to go. Like how do you break the network effect of something like Twitch? And what you realize is that A very small number of streamers drive a huge amount of the viewership.

16:14 Um So in theory, you could get those streamers together and you could say, Hey, we're coming over here. And so I actually went and pitched Uh, my investor. No, I d I sho I shouldn't say pitch because it wasn't I wasn't fully committed.

16:27 I wasn't sure that this is a swing worth taking, but I was like I think what we would need to do wouldn't it be neat if we did this. I was like, we need to throw s an some sort of event where we get a hundred of the we get all the top hundred streamers in a room together. And basically we need to make them an offer they can't refuse. We need to make that we need to basically overpay the top hundred. And You know, the thing is with the top hundred, even if they're making five million dollars a year.

16:50 And you're offering them Three X that, four X that, whatever it is. Okay, you'd need five hundred million dollars to do this. And they need to say yes, which is hard. But if you had five hundred million dollars

17:02 If you could create a platform that's gonna be worth Five billion dollars. Like It's not that much more complicated. Like once you have the streamers, you've got the hard part. You could build all the other stuff. You could build the chat. You could build the streaming technology. You could build the the the bits. You could build the subscription feature. You could build all the other stuff you would need to build. But you'd have to get the main feet creators to come over and you have to have the sentiment be this is where you need to be, not Twitch. Really, really that's the really, really hard part.

17:24 And um So we were like, I don't know, that's kind of a crazy idea and we didn't end up doing it. When we got acquired, Emmett takes me out to drinks um the night we the deal closes and we go meet this bar in the mission and we're talking. And he I was like, Yeah, like you know, it's kinda like you can put your cards on the table now. The deal's done.

17:41 And I was like, Yeah, you know, actually one he we were talking about something, I said, You know, one of the things that I thought about doing. was I realized like, you know, we did the math, we realized these streamers matter the most. If we paid them this much, I think we could have got them uh, you know Seventy percent of them maybe to come over. And like that could have caused

17:57 Like some waves. And he's like Yeah, actually we've thought about that. So what we had done was we uh We made it so that none of their con all their c they're on contracts. В вас Um, unlike YouTube. So like on Twitch, they actually have like multi year agreements with Twitch.

18:12 And he goes, we just made it so that they don't expire at the same time. So we always aligned it where for the top streamers, they're all ending at different times so that nobody would ever feel safety in numbers to move to another platform. As a giant group. Because they could never get their contracts to align. That's why Emmet is Emmett. Yeah. I actually I think in reality that actually wasn't the case. And in in truth, the c streamers just could have like moved over and there's nothing Twitch could have done about it. Like the contract wasn't you have to stream here. The contract was you only get this deal.

18:43 If you stream here. Meaning like you get this ratio this, uh the maybe the split or this minimum guarantee, whatever, right? But like the reality was If Twitch went and started suing streamers, that would have been horrible for their own business. They would never do it. Uh, which is why multiple streamers did.

18:58 take money from Mixer and Kick and others and they left and Twitch didn't do anything about it. So like the reality was A more high agency version of me. You could have actually tried tried it and it would have been probably would have been more worthwhile my time than what we did with the tool because the tool never had the upside. Uh

19:15 This is a great story. Uh I wanna know like the update. I wanna know what happened and how did you know how much money he made? Uh I told you my guy on Beehive. He basically went to their their his L Renee's LLC or whatever, you know, the equivalent of an LLC is on Company's House. And you could see that two hundred eighty million dollars hit the bank in a certain year. They had to report that. And so he kind of did all the math. And he also had their cap table, like their waterfall. So it was actually kind of nerdy and interesting in that that The way they structured the deal was basically with investors. They the founders who were doing the roll up.

19:46 We're basically entitled to somewhere between twenty two to twenty eight percent of all proceeds of the roll up. All right. So that was like their profit participation at the end. So whatever we sell this for We get between twenty two to twenty eight percent. Investors are gonna get the rest. Wait, that's that's insane. That's different than equity.

20:02 Uh no, it's like equity, but it's basically like you know, you have equity. But then you have, let's say, preferred equity. Right. Or you have like liquidation preferences. You can have rules. You can have strings attached to equity. So for example I did not know that. What they did'cause in venture this happens all the time, right? When a company raises money, they raise preferred shares. Preferred shares mean they get their money back first. So even if I own twenty five percent, I don't necessarily get twenty five percent. I might get zero. I guess I just assumed if this is a PE firm, the rules are different. And like it was like pr for example, it was like tied to the carry or something like that. So what they did was um

20:34 It was based on the the multiple of the invested capital, the moy, right? So it's like uh if it was under three X return, so they they raised four hundred million. If it was gonna be an under three X return, they were gonna get like only nine percent of the proceeds or something like that, like a lower percent. Got it. But they hit Ten ten X. Right. So they hit the the highest tranche, which was basically they got their ten percent of sweat equity plus eleven percent of Profit participation. So they got like twenty two percent or something. Did they use any of their own money to start this? I think Renee was an investor, but I don't know how much.

21:03 Yeah, this guy's great. That's a good story. Yeah. Um I have a life update for you. Uh and I I wanted to share because I think it's I think it's fun, but I also think that there's a lot of people who can learn from the situation that I'm in because I think they're in similar situations. So The life update is

21:19 My partner Joe and I, we are now the CEOs of my company Hampton. And the life update is basically I'm going like pretty much all in on it. And I wanted to explain a quote that I read that made me want to do this. So we like Or at least I like Palmer Lucky. Do you like Palmer Lucky? Yeah, sure. Why not?

21:38 Palmer Lucky, we had him on the pod like three years ago, two years ago, and I have been just fascinated with his way of thinking. And he had this interview come out. I link to it on the bottom of our document. Uh it was with Tablet Magazine.

21:52 And I think he came out with this in Twenty two, maybe. Uh and I want to read it to you. So Palmer Lucky is the CEO of Andrel. It's a thirteen or twenty billion dollar company, something like that. Also created Oculus. So he said

22:07 At some point in business and in life and in rose romance, you have to commit to a path. A lot of my peers in the tech industry do not share this philosophy. They're always pursuing everything with optionality. Oh, I need to be able to raise money from anybody. I need to be able to sell my business in any way. I need to have liquidity in any way. I need to make sure that I'm not closing myself off to future romantic partners. I need to make sure that I've got my options open. I need to make sure that I'm not gonna buy a house and lock myself in or

22:35 Having children, I don't know. I'm not ready. I don't want to commit to that path. And keeping their options open, they sh they ensure that they're going to jump from option to option. And if they don't commit to a path. They're going to fail at it.

22:48 You have to commit to make it work. And I think marriage is the same way. You just have to commit to it. You have to say, This is the path that I'm on, for better or worse, and I'm going to double down. And I thought That is a great quote. That really stuck with me when I read this, and I realised that. With my business Hampton, I had hired a CEO for it. And so I wasn't able to like really from day one, right? I think that's the important thing. Uh day uh month eight.

23:15 So I got it to a million in revenue. He scaled it. to eight figures in revenue. And then I am now taking over. And so um

23:25 But because of that, I wasn't able to like You know put my influence on it. You have to like respect your CEO. You have to respect the manager in charge. And I hated that. I was not a fan of that, and I think that on this podcast we talk a lot about that.

23:40 And it sounds cool. And I'm sure it's great for a lot of people. But it wasn't great for me, and the reason I wanted to bring this up on the pod was because A lot of people you see doing this. They call it like a hold company, a holding company or whatever, where they're like doing lots of different stuff because we we glamorize it because if it works. I'm sure it's great if that is your main thing.

23:59 And I was starting to think, Oh, that would be great. I would like to do that. I realized I don't wanna do that. I just wanna do one thing. And this quote like really inspired me. That that's like really what I care about. Now let me ask you a couple questions. You weren't doing a hold company holding company though, right? You were just doing Hampton already. Yeah. So why the switch where you go from Bing.

24:19 founder, chairman type person to I wanna be the CEO or actually co CEO, not even Be the CEO. Why that? I realize that I wanted to have full control because I wanted this to be a legacy creating company. I wanted to just

24:35 put my texture on it, but also what I realized I hate Remote work. I hate it more than anything. And I wanted to create an office where I live and an office culture'cause those are some of the greatest memories that I have. You and I used to work across the street from each other at the corner of Bush and Montgomery, right? Was it Bush and Montgomery? Yeah.

24:53 I loved that intersection. Just walking out and seeing the action and seeing my employees upstairs and be able to just like go for lunch and just like Like shooting the shit during breaks. I loved it. And I just felt that this was a really good way to Make all of my selfish wants come to reality. Right.

25:11 Yeah, that's great. A lot of people are probably feeling this right now'cause Everybody went remote during COVID. And now we're what? Two, three years.

25:20 Into that. That full remote decision. And at first you have the honeymoon period of remote. Ah, look at this. I don't have to commute. I don't have to even get dressed on to wear pants. I'm just gonna top up. Here we go. Um, you know, oh, this is great. I can see my kids. And then you're like

25:37 God, I can't get away from my kids. I haven't left the house in weeks, you know, or whatever, right? Like you you start to see some of the consequences of the negative side of of those decisions. And I think the biggest one for You and Me i at least I I felt this is I I miss just being creative and serendipitous with my team.

25:57 So it's like A have a team. Right. And B Be able to just whiteboard, sticky note, go for a walk, go for lunch.

26:05 Like I brought uh Diego out here. So Diego was living on the other side of the country. He's living on the east coast in Baltimore. How long's it been now? Diego's been out here for a couple months, two, three months, something like that. How has your life changed? For the better, dude, way better. First of all, I get to kinda still do Basically what I do But now I just have a buddy to do all of it with, right? So it's like I kept the same schedule where it's like

26:27 Uh In the morning he comes over. The first two hours of my day are like my creative block, right? Where it's just I'm uh I don't do anything else. I just write. Or I podcast or I you know read. I d I only do something on the creative side. It's like a creative gym session. It's like going to the gym, but for creativity. All right, so we do that. Well, we do that together now. It's great. And then My trainer comes over. We work out together. He's w he's working out with my trainer now. So it's great. Yeah, you know, and we we do a we do a hard work out.

26:52 There we go, grab tacos. And while we're getting tacos, you guys are like a prison gang, man. That sounds exactly like a prison gang. We just need some enemies, dude. Yeah. Actually I do have some neighborly beef. I could I could actually just uh double down on that. Now that I think about it. Yeah, my boy. Get blown into your yard. I'm sorry. I don't control the wind. Um so But then where we go. And what I told him, I go, Notice this, dude. Of our best ideas, how many of them have come While we were at this taco shop.

27:23 'Cause there's something in the creative process to like the bounce, as they used to call it the pick up artist game that in in in the book The Game, they talk about this technique called the bounce. It's like you're at the club or bar, you meet someone. If you really want to like accelerate your connection with that person, don't just stay there for another hour with them. Be like, hey, let's go grab a bite to eat. I know a great place. And if you leave, if you do the same the same hour with that person, but in two different places. connection goes up. Well, there's a something like that with creativity where We're working on a problem here. We end up getting, you know, like slightly stuck, or we come up with what we think is a solution.

27:55 But in our gut we're like doesn't seem great. Uh, let's take a break. Let's go for a walk. So we walk or bike to a taco place. At the taco place, it's always that's where the idea comes. Once we've taken our mind off it, once we've changed the the environment. And I was like, dude, notice how many how often that happens. If we were just remote, none of that would have happened.'Cause I would have gotten off the zoom with you.

28:15 And then I would have gone to take a break, you would have gone to take a break. I wouldn't be like, Hey, let's just leave our phones on. Like it would have just been like a little bit weird to do that and we would not have had You know, that those next ideas. And if you're in a creative line of work. Those ideas are gold. Those ideas is what you're in it for. I right like unless you're in a like factory type of work where it's all about productivity.

28:36 Um You know, for us, creativity is the pro is productivity. It is the new productivity. And so we need to set up a situation that lets us be more creative, which being in person was was Pretty massive for that. Yeah, it's funny w we're both craving the same s stuff, and I think that a lot of people are. Um, and I Yeah, and so like uh I went and looked at apartments this weekend.

28:56 And um I uh we have our I think my lease starts May one. Uh and so I'm going all in on this, uh this in real life stuff. Like I need to move or you're gonna like split. I don't know yet. I'm still working out logistics. I went and looked at this apartment building. Do you have you ever been to like I don't know if this is happening in San Francisco. So the new thing in New York is that there's these apartment buildings and it took me a long time to realize what they are, but I I've nailed it. They're cruise ships.

29:23 And so basically what they are is they're really cheap. I mean they're super expensive, but the build quality is like Kind of crap. Like mm all like basic builder quality. Uh apartment units.

29:35 But then the actual lobby has a bowling alley. Oh like the amenities are amazing. Yeah. Yeah, like a rock climbing gym. And it's like all like in the basement. And then it has like the best gym you've ever seen in the world. And then it has like a playroom, a golf simulator. It's basically built to be sort of like a mall where like it's built for like uh the thirty five year old, three two kid, all all under eight type of like families. And so I went and looked at like an apartment like that and I was like sitting in that apartment building and I'm like I don't know if I can go to bed here at night in these like tight ass walls, like w hearing like honking in the city. And so I haven't decided if I can like put up with that and I'd rather commute, but potentially I would move to the city. I like here's what I did. I sat down and I was like, what's my dream day? Well my dream day is I get up at seven, I go and work out and then I get coffee with like Austin Reef, who lives next to my in laws, or I would get coffee at my in laws And then I'd go to work at nine thirty.

30:27 And then my wife would like show up at the office to do some work and then we're both home at five to have dinner. And that's like And then maybe at like seven or eight after the kids go to bed, I would go for a walk outside. I'm like, that's the perfect day. All right. How can I create that? And so I'm still working backwards on how could how could I create that. The problem is is I forgot about going to bed at night and how I need a huge ceiling'cause I get claustrophobic and that's gonna cost sixty thousand dollars a month because New York City is like

30:53 the craest place in the world when it comes to renting an apartment. And so I'm still trying to figure out, you know, some of those logistical details on how on earth like I could pull off this. It was like super relatable with like walking and doing whatever until you're like but I need sixteen foot ceilings to sleep. No, I just like at your house, like you're like a lot of apartment ceilings are eight feet tall. And it like I don't know, you feel like claustrophobic. Dude, the rent in New York City is out. So When we were younger Uh do you remember like the idea

31:21 Uh when we were twenty five, I think I spent like eight hundred dollars a month. A$10,000 a month apartment? Nowadays in New York City. It's not nice. It's like a shit two bedroom. Uh it's crazy how expensive uh Manhattan is. And so I gotta like figure out all the logistics, but that's my spiel. I'm going all in and I'm gonna go all in on in real life. I need it. My soul is aching.

31:41 How much were you working on Hampton anyways? Hours a week. Forty hours a week. What's gonna change your CEO now? Well, I can't Like com like before it was like, Well, how can I convince this person that my idea is the right way? Or how do I respect the boundaries?

31:59 Uh you know, like it Ye I was a very respectful boss, I felt like, and it was like But now it's like I don't I'm not really gonna be respectful. I'm just gonna say like this is what I want to make. Uh, I need you guys to help me make this uh type of energy versus before I think I was a little bit more hands off and I was thinking a lot.

32:17 Now I'm actually operating. Yeah. What? Oh no, they're just funny. Like I I feel like uh I was just reflecting, like, you know, you I think Andrew has a good gift of this. I do this too, which is like We tell these great stories. You're like, you know, I was reading this article about Palmer Lucky and he said this beautiful quote, and you have this quote you're like, I decided I too need to commit and choose a path. But it's like

32:39 And it's a great way to frame a story like this. It's like the truth, I think. I'm gonna speak for you for a second, but I think the truth in a lot of these situations is just like It's irritating to be out of con like to not have your hands on and not be in control. It's like I just like to be in control, do things my way. But like wow, that's a less Fun story to say.

32:59 It's like you know what, I just really feel like We all chase optionality and it's we we we're better off to commit and really just make it. I think it's the truth, but I don't think that's why you're the CEO now. No, usually usually discovery this Palmer Lecky quote. No, usually discovery for me and I bet it's for you and and for many other people is you feel a certain way. You're like this Frick it sucks. I want words on it. And then someone puts words on it and you're like

33:24 Oh, that's like normal to feel or this person said uh this I guess what I'm saying is you weren't choosing multiple options. You just weren't in control. The quote that Palmer Lucky should have said is like if you're the founder. Put your fucking DNA in the company and just go like be hands on, be a micromanager, but go in there. Do it. I was going easy. I was in like the dad phase. So like it was like uh w like I want it to be available at like noon. Now I'm now I'm more so like look, I can be there in the morning. And in the evening, and I think that's I'm still being a good dad.

33:55 Before it was like uh I have to have X amount of hours of face time. Now I'm out of the honeymoon phase of being a dad. And I'm like, look, I could like be with you for breakfast and be with you for dinner. And I think I could still be a good father. And so that was partial it. Partially it. Gotcha.

34:10 Yeah, I uh I was talking to somebody and uh recently and they were like Yeah, I just want to Like I'm working I'm working hard on this. They're like chasing some project, some deal. And I was like why are you

34:23 Doing this. You're so Like you've done so many deals. You're s you're post economic. You you've made so much money d Why go so hard at this? And they were like, I just really want my kids to see what they're you know, their dad working. And I was like I don't I I don't even think he was lying. I think he genuinely believes that, but I'm like

34:39 Dude, you're doing this deal because you like doing deals. That's all you've done. You you've done deals for thirty years. You're amazing at doing deals. It's a rush to do a great deal. It's fun to win. It's fun to dunk the basketball, and you're trying to dunk. And you don't have to be like I just want my kids to see a hard working dad's like dude, you're sitting on your laptop sending emails. Like it's not like they see your their dad you know sweating it out in the soul mind. So I was like, but people tell themselves all kinds of stories. And I just find it hilarious because of course I do the same thing. But when you see it in other people, it's much more easy to spot like, Oh, you've Told yourself a story. That's cool. Like that makes it's fine. Whatever whatever gets you to do the things you want to do is fine. Would you want your children to work with you? Is that even in your once?

35:20 I would I would think that would be really fun or cool to do. I worked with my dad for about a year and it was actually a lot of fun. Much more fun. Like my working with my dad was more fun. than just like hanging out with my dad and not working. You know what I mean? Like it was actually like a a better dynamic was a cooler dynamic. I learned more that way. And I saw him differently and he acted differently in work mode versus he did in home mode. So it was kinda cool. So I think it would be really fun, but it's not something I'm like

35:43 trying to gear up. You know, I I've I think I've told you this before, like My new sort of dad Ideal. is uh Ben's dad. So Ben's dad and he He he did a very simple thing that's gonna sound like

35:56 It's gonna sound like nothing, but I personally think it was quite profound, which is The way I Initially was trying to be a dad and how other people are dads is

36:06 You have things that you're into. I love basketball. And I keep trying to buy little basketballs and like put them near my son. I buy the hoop and I like take him to a class. I'm like really trying to get him into basketball because like Oh man, I really just want him to like love the things that I love. And then we could share that. We could bond over that. Whereas his dad was like He's like what's that type of blood that's like uh it's the universal donor. It looked like O negative or something like that. He's O negative. So he's like

36:30 He's got one son who's into stand up comedy, so he's like Great. I'm now into stand up comedy. Yesterday I knew nothing, didn't care. Today. Everything I do is eat, sleep, and breathe, stand up comedy, bought books, watch videos, goes to shows by himself, starts practicing himself, starts giving his son feedback on every single thing that he's doing in a helpful, supportive way, making connections, whatever, whatever he could do, he's like, I'll meet you where you're at. And um Ben loves the Phoenix Suns. Guess what?

36:54 Andy now watches every Phoenix Suns game, is a hardcore fan, is always talking to him about the Suns because he's like, I'll meet you where you're at. If that's what you're into. I will get so into it that we can bond over that. And I just thought that was like a really selfless kind of amazing thing he did. And I just hadn't seen a lot of Dads do that. I think

37:11 My instinct and many dad's instincts is just to try to get'em to like the shit we like. And then they don't and then we're like, Oh, all right, like I support you. But like at an arm's length. And I just thought it was much cooler to go all in on what your kids are into. So I hope and I'll expose my kids to like business and like I'll be totally open to them working with me, but I really want to do the Andy thing, which is If they're into whatever. Musicals then

37:35 Doray me. You know what I mean? That's awesome. That that almost makes me emotional here about Ben's dad. What a what a great dude. He really is. Do you wanna end there, or do you want to keep going? I have I have one quick one. This is actually kinda cool.

37:50 This guy Josh on Twitter. So Joshua. Oh g Ogundu. Uh tweeted this out. It was co cool find. So She tweeted out about this company called Shotzi.

37:59 You ever heard of Shotzi? To app. No. Yeah. Didn't we talk about Shotzi? No, so Shotzi is an app for tracking your

38:09 Ozempic injections. Oh, that is funny. And it just crossed a million in ARR. And all it does is it basically is a it's a shot tracker. So, you know, it's I guess I I I don't know, maybe you could tell me like I guess it's somewhat cumbersome to keep track of Maybe it I don't know if it's when you did it, how much, your dosages, it a reminder, it's time for your next shot.

38:31 Um by the way, how about that little jab of uh I don't know, maybe you could tell me like how do people use it. I know I'm joking. Uh with those epic, you have to increase The dosage a lot. So let's say you start with like five ML After two weeks you have to go to seven and then you have to go to like ten and it's not like incremental. So you So when you hear this idea, were you like, yeah, that was a pain point or for you was it like nah, I don't know. I didn't take it enough to be a pain point, but it's very clear. It's just sort of like imagine taking vitamins and like you have to add a pill every two to three to four months. And it's like it's just it is easier to track if you want to follow it by the book.

39:07 I'm more of a like eyeball see how I feel type of guy. Look in the mirror. Do we want to party today or not? That's like you know, that that that's kinda uh they call it vibe coding. I was a viboze epic guy. It was just how do I feel that day? Yeah, so the uh the woman who made this, I think her name's Aja, she uh She was a engineer at The athletic. Like a software engineer at the at the media company, the athletic.

39:33 And I guess on the side she just built this like for her own pain point. And then I think it took off in like the Reddit communities. And just off of Reddit and then some TikToks about it. It's gotten downloaded like a hundred thousand times. It's got this paid subscription, cost a million in ARR. Um what?

39:48 Niches and Riches, man. Like this is uh Riches and Niches. It's like just such a simple Just problem solution app, right? That it that a that somebody realized, okay, if If Ozempic is the next big thing, right? If G these GLP ones are the next big thing, I don't know how many people take them. I think it's like forty million people or some like really big number of people who now all are on some schedule and realizing that you could build an app just for that population is a uh a smart idea. Have you seen like the Oscars and the Grammys and things like that? Like everyone looks great.

40:21 Everyone died losing weight quickly. Is is it is uh Are they illegal in sports? I don't think so, no. Oh, I mean it's kind of a kind of like a it definitely is lose like muscle mass, right? So I don't think Athletes would really care too much about this?

40:37 you cannot loot you c uh I'm not a scientist, but you obviously you can If you eat enough protein and you lift weights, I think you can maintain. It basically just makes you not eat. So If you can say like yeah, but I'm going to eat. uh and I'm going to hit my protein and I'm going to lift weights even though I don't want to eat today.

40:57 Yeah, you could you could keep protein. It's just You don't want to eat, you're full. Let me see let me ask you a random question. Um I was watching this video today about Somebody was speculating uh that LeBron

41:08 Uh LeBron does Like whatever. I saw the Lance Armstrong thing about it. So Lance Armstrong was talking about it. Chail Sonnen has talked about it. Chail's like, Yeah, we have the same drug guy. I know. I know what he's taking. I'm not gonna say, but I know what he's taking. But Chail's also like a professional troll, so you don't know when he's being facetious or the drug cheat. Yeah, but also did use uh, you know, performance against the drugs when he competed.

41:29 And he was basically like he's on EPO and like you know, you would take if you will if you wanted to do what he's doing. If you wanted to be Doing tomahawk dunks at age forty in the NBA, uh like you know, playing thirty minutes a game and averaging twenty seven points or whatever. Like you would do this and uh And I I actually just

41:46 we'll think about this in like the world of business. Um Is there PEDs in business and like how would you feel about uh People doing that.

41:55 Have you ever taken Adderall, Erytolin? I've never taken it, but I know. I have several friends that do it, uh to to focus, to be more productive. I don't do any I don't do any drugs, but ten years ago before I got sober, I for some reason a doctor gave me a Ritalin prescription. I have no idea why. I I don't remember how what what happened, but I got it. And I took it for about

42:16 four days and on the fifth day I had like a mental breakdown. It made me too speedy. I was like I get maybe anxious. I'm like, I'm going crazy. This is horrible. And I was like, I'm never taking this crap again. But those four days. I was on fire. Ah, I was like laser focus, and it I felt on top of the world.

42:34 And so obviously a lot of people take this, and I would not feel bad if my competitor took it. Is that what you're asking? I just I don't know, like in sports it's Definitely seen as I think for most people when they see he would hear about an athlete doping or cheating

42:51 It'd be literally like you're cheating. And it's a tainted record, right? But I think I think those drugs should be legal in sports a little bit. You think so you would you think in in business, you I guess there's two questions. Do you think a lot of people are taking this type of stuff? I remember Sam Bankman Freed had the like the patch. I think it's a huge amount of people taking it. Dude, I think uh th there was a joke on Reddit. There was a guy who was like, I'm naming my daughter Vivance because I love those drugs so much. Uh yeah, I think there's a sh yeah, I think e everyone

43:22 I think if you're under the age of thirty I would assume that you're taking it. Oh wow. That's cra that's you think it's that popular. Yeah.

43:30 I think that I am now a very wholesome straight edge person and I think you have always been that way. So I think perhaps we don't just naive, dude. I didn't even like nobody nobody offered me any. I didn't I didn't get any. It's not like I'm like morally superior. I just didn't even know that. I'm not I'm not saying that it's morally superior to be this way. I just think that you and I have never well, uh uh since I've known you, I have never partied and you have never partied. Or at least been part of like the drug or alcohol scene really. And I do think most people.

43:58 Uh it's like getting weed, you know, like oh like I can't sleep. And the doctor's like Gotcha. I understand. Do you know what I mean? Like waking, like Yeah. That's how I think it is. The closest thing I have to that is like calling my dog a service animal. So I can like you know take her into some place. Dude, I so when we were younger, our parents would Like my parents gave me Ritalin because like every boy who couldn't sit still in fourth grade, they were like

44:23 Oh, you you you have an illness, son. And we need to keep you from standing up from the chair. And like you know, you you you have to take this pill. And I remember taking the pill in fourth grade. And after like a few months I'm like I didn't have like the vocabulary to explain to my mother, but I was like This is making me sad. Like something was going on. And so she was like, Oh, this is crazy. What are we doing?

44:44 But I remember taking it, it changes you. And I do think that when I took it as an adult, it felt like I was on EPO and I was having to do the tour de France. Like it felt I'm like, Oh, I understand how this is like uh uh an uh a PED. Did you see how Chamat Wants to come up. I don't really respect a lot of what he says, but you see how he said he wanted to have the uh So

45:05 P E D free poker. Oh yeah, yeah. He was saying like a no add all poker tournament, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Uh that's that's sort of intriguing. That's it. I must just be sleeping on this. Like I I didn't realize this was as I I have a couple of friends who I know

45:20 They were they told me like Oh yeah, I'm gonna stop doing that. I was like, Oh, you've been doing that? What is that? Why? For what? Like, you know, it didn't even really occur to me. I guess this I As you guys are saying this, I'm realising that oh, I've probably just been Foolish about that. Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me. Okay, so like what do you call the listeners of this pod? The yuppie class, like The white collar class or whatever.

45:42 I would bet That's thirty percent of the people between the ages of twenty-two and thirty five who are in this white collar or yuppie or Henry class. Uh ADH.

45:55 D medications. That's my prediction. Thirty percent. It's a lot, right? If you're on that addie in the comments, let us know. We're gonna poll the YouTube comments right now. Naddie or Addy. I had friends that would buy in the Silk Road. Can you even buy it online? I guess you don't even need to buy it online anymore. You can just go to your doctor, but There's probably like an Adderall toothpaste at this point.

46:20 And if not. Great idea. Yeah. Brush in a rush. Let's go. Ten out of ten. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.

46:38 I'm putting my law in it like my day's off On the road less travel never looking back

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