2 Trends Hidden in Plain Sight (+ $1M ideas)

0:00 Drew Nick Huber talking about R V parks. And storage units. We're gonna be talking about fle markets. That's what I think is gonna happen. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I'm putting my all in it like my day's off On the roadless travel never looking back

0:18 I want to talk to you about a topic And I think this is a topic it it's my passion, this topic. But it's also I'm gonna bring it up because I think it's A a trend and that's what we're about. And B I ha it's sort of a prediction. I I think I have a prediction here and it's gonna be like be interesting in the next five or ten years, okay? Sweaters denim.

0:36 Tobacco. Yeah. You're in the ballpark. Media. Uh yeah, we're in the we're in the zip code. We're definitely in the city. We're we're in the we're in the zip code. So years ago, uh this doesn't matter to you because you're not from the South, but if you're above the age of thirty, a lot of people here probably remember this TV show, American Pickers. D did you ever even watch that show? Never watched it. Okay. Two guys who go and buy junk and they tell the story uh of the junk and then we're from storage containers, or that's a different show.

1:07 That's a different show, but again, same ballpark. But basically they would drive around the south, they would knock on old people's homes and say, Can I come and look in your barn? And they would find old, cool stuff. Tell the story of it, clean it up just a little bit, bring it back to the store where I worked, and we would resell it. That's basically it. That was that's all it is. Uh but we would have lines out the door. Because at the time this show, we were it was like David Letterman was number one and then like American Pickers was number two in terms of the most watched shows on TV. There'd be days where we would sell, I'm not exaggerating, a hundred thousand dollars in American Pickers T shirts because all these guys would come in and want to buy anything that was American Pickers related. How much revenue do you think that store did overall? I would imagine uh

1:47 Ten million dollars, one location. One location. Big store or just like a normal shop? It was so small. That we had a script.

1:55 To let people to people would come in and be so disappointed at how small it was,'cause they would think it was like those big sh like'cause the camera's made it look huge. I I do had a script. Uh so it it was like a tidy store, but we killed it. But I experienced something that but the thing was is that it was all like hillbillies. It was like redneck hillbillies from like Alabama. For some reason the picking culture, it's all like Hillbilly's in like rural Alabama. Like how you said for some reason. Yeah, I don't know. Like'cause they like old shit or they like the reuse stuff. I don't know. It's just part of the culture. But this this weekend I experienced something

2:34 That has totally changed my worldview on this topic. So there's this thing called Al Fargo's marketplace and I went to it the other day. Click this photo. Uh that I'm highlighting right here. So it's bas the story of is basically it's these four guys

2:48 And they're they look like they're twenty four years old. And they started organizing this flea market in New York City. And they host it at this place called New house, which is like The

3:00 Hipper version of We Work. So it's this like weird combination of like urban New York stuff, but like flea markets, which are historically like old people. And s southern like heritage. Like it's it's not like a New York cool kid thing. It is now though. All right. Can I just Describe what I'm seeing. So describe what uh what you see and who you see.

3:20 Every photo looks like it's taken with a Polaroid, even though we have like four K cameras. Everybody has a beard and a bald head. So lot of hair on the face, no hair on top. Um I mean the style is eclectic, there's a DJ. It looks like

3:35 Is this a party in a goodwill shop? Is that what's happening? Dude, it's a high end vintage flea market and it was Packed. And I'm thirty five. I was the oldest person there. All the guys are dressed as girls and all the girls are dressed as guys.

3:50 There's a lot of weird stuff going on. And when you th and they're all wearing it's all like twenty four year old single guys wearing suits and ties. I went there with my daughter and it was just me and her. I was I felt like I was the oldest person there. No one had children. You took your daughter to this? We were just like hanging out for the day and I like I was like let's go to the fucking flea market and it was like Adam Sandler and Big Daddy. Dude We more we wore matching sweaters. We were we were the we were the hit. We we made the uh the Instagram of these guys. But they built this flea market And it was packed. It was like

4:25 Like it was like I was like regretting bringing her because I was like, dude, this is way too packed and I can't even get around. So we didn't even stay for that long. But it kinda got me thinking. About flea markets. Because I think that like have you noticed that, by the way, that like m millennial hipsters have just disappeared? They're just gone.

4:41 Yeah. They're no longer a thing anymore. Hipsters I've just like where'd they go? Uh do you have a theory? These are the new hipsters.

4:51 Peop young people who wear uh like nice clothing like this and are into vintage. This is the new version. Doing this. There's like a branding genius. Look at these posters. It's like This is just so well done. Like how do you turn This just shows. You can make anything. Anything can be done anyway. You can make a sandwich.

5:10 Gourmet. You can make a sandwich. Terrible. You could make A flea market. Cool and you can make a cool thing feel like a flea market. Like this is all This is so well executed as far as the branding goes. I um it's unbelievable. Like this thing

5:25 The Instagram looks like a magazine. It's unbelievable. But here's the thing, this is why I'm bringing this up. It isn't just these guys. So go to the Instagram. It's uh if you're listening, it's called Al Fargo's Marketplace. And look at the photos of of the uh whoever you see that's a stylish young man. Click their pro and their tag, click their profile.

5:45 Tons of'em, tons and tons of'em have a hundred, two hundred three hundred thousand followers and it's these like young twenty three year old guys showing off their outfits and the engagement on these Instagram handles is insane. So I'll give you uh uh an example of one or do you see one right there. I'm trying to find it, but yeah, give me an example. Uh, so go to uh the handle is Denny six two three. So I'll uh post it in here. Dude, what a big day for Denny. He had no idea this was gonna happen for him. So look at Denny. All right. Denny.

6:17 Wow. Cowboy hat. Flair. Just uh He's wearing Chris Saka's shirt.

6:22 Uh, but the rest is is fantastic. All right. Hundred and twelve thousand followers. He's a digital creator, a menswear blogger, content creator since oh eight. Oh my God, he's been in the game. He's a creative director, is this a Wh what flag is this? Philippines? What is that? Um I think it's Puerto Rican. But I bought this sweater from Denny. Denny was a vendor at Al Fargo's. This sweater. I bought it from a because

6:43 I want to be part of this trend. And so my point here is amongst young people This is a huge hit. And if you click around on these guys' Instagram You know, there's this joke about whatever the Silicon Valley nerds are doing in five or ten years it's gonna be mainstream. This is the New York cool kid thing. This is like walking around Soho and seeing what what people are wearing. This is it. It is happening right now. And I have

7:06 Two ways I think this is gonna be a big business. Okay. Is your take that Flea market'cause I hear if I understand you correctly, you went to this cool flea market, you d you What I can't even call it a flea market. You went to a party.

7:19 No, it was a flea market. Okay, it was a mostly a party. Happened to have some goods. It was a flea market with the D Tay. You took your daughter. Hilarious. You're saying fle markets are a bigger deal than most people realize, especially people like us who live on a computer.

7:32 And then you're are you saying there's an opportunity here? Are you saying somebody's gonna build the crumble cookie of flea markets? What's the happening? I think I think two things are gonna happen. I think that there's a massive like PE opportunity here. I think flea markets could potentially be the new R V park. And you could purchase them at a real estate valuation. I also think That there is a huge amount Of male

7:55 Well, uh female as well, but male like fashion influencers and that's like a hot trend. And I've spoken to like ten or twenty of'em. And they're all fucking broke. all of them are like, I wish I could just pay my rent with this. Right. Right. I think this business is a beautiful business. And th these Al Fargo marketplace guys are a really good example of how it's done well. And I think that they're probably Not savvy.

8:15 Uh when it comes to business, they're more like artists. And that there's something really interesting here. And so you're saying this Rose Bowl flea market. twenty thousand video visitors, to uh twenty five hundred vendors per month. Alright, so basically Based on that.

8:28 Uh twenty thousand visitors paying twelve bucks to enter, the vendors paying 150 bucks to be there. They're making six hundred grand per flea market, which happens what, once a month? Once a month. But Th you're forgetting like so many other things. Like

8:41 Uh table rentals, chair rentals, things like that. So about seven to eight million dollars in revenue. you see on this one from this one flea market, basically. I think it's even more. And I also think the other point that I'm gonna make is that it's pretty like it's obviously very old. So there's this one called Brimfield Antique Show. So do me a favor and go to their website. So Brimfield uh is a is a flea market that gets a million people a year. Coming to the A festival, which is huge, right? That's like we're talking like Coachella.

9:11 Coachella size stuff. Scroll to the very bottom. So if if you want to contact someone. You go to the go to the very bottom and look at where it's tell me what it says about Jody. Oh, Jody J M J Y two at Aol.com. Just send her a note. If you want to learn this is a an event with one million customers. If you want to Learn more about it.

9:35 Email Jody at Aol.com. That's what it says at the very bottom. Go to Jody's LinkedIn. I looked at I I looked her up on LinkedIn. Can can you click Jody's LinkedIn? Where is it? It says look at Jody. Jody's great. Uh. Jody's her name's Jody Young. She is the owner of this of this business with one million customers. Jody.

9:55 Looks lovely. Jody looks like a nice woman. Jody doesn't exactly look like what I think is going to be a younger generation of people who are interested in this topic. So you're saying the owner the owner of this business, these types of businesses gonna look different in ten years. And I would say that they're probably not the most

10:14 Choose your words wisely. Answer listening. The they are probably not the most uptight operators. Uh, that's what I would say. They're probably very passionate about this. And sometimes when you're when when passion leads, maybe you're leaving You know. Dollars on the table. That's what I'm saying.

10:31 And I believe Yeah. In the next couple years. Screw the R screw Nick Schubert talking about R V parks. And storage units.

10:41 We're gonna be talking about fle markets. That's what I think is gonna happen. All right. Bold prediction. I really like this, by the way. This is a this is a Sam Par special. Round of applause for the Sam Par special. Um Cool find on the trend. Cool find on the Underrated business.

10:58 Flea markets, how big they are. Wow, they're kinda stunning in terms of like the visitors that they get. I like how you wrote at the bottom. And AI ain't gonna fuck with this. Yeah. This is part of the thesis. Um this is a good like Private equity roll up thesis by you. Good job by you. Yeah, and it's Thank you. Thank you for that uh condescending, patronizing good job for you. You like that for me. Go by you.

11:23 Amongst young people. Dude, they Bye. a huge amount of vintage clothing. Something like I said uh I saw some crazy stat Where it was something like eighty percent of Gen Zers

11:36 regularly shop. Uh for second hand clothing. And so you have companies like Deepop. Have you heard of Deepop, Sean? Yeah, it's like a second hand Mark Marketplace secondhand app.

11:46 Do they have eighty million users? And then there's Poshmark, and then there's Grail, and then there's like ten other ones. These young people are buying vintage and second hand clothing. At like alarming rates. Not alarming, but you know what I mean, like surprisingly high rates. And uh have you ever seen like thrift hauls on TikTok?

12:03 Have you seen that? I've seen uh a lot. Of things on TikTok. I've seen a lot of things. That's one of them. I've definitely that. It's a sh It's a huge thing. If you like type in thrift halls on TikTok, I follow so many of these people on Instagram. It's like a really common thing. And so my whole point here being

12:23 Young people. are buying this shit up, man. They're buying this these secondhand clothing this secondhand clothing like crazy. I'm just looking up Goodwill's numbers, so Goodwill's revenues. Last ten years starts at four point eight billion, five point seven, five point nine, six point one, six point three, seven seven billion. Uh pandemic goes back down to five point five.

12:41 Uh Then it goes seven and a half billion, eight point two billion, and nine billion projected for this year. For for the last year. And if you go to uh what's it call is it called Goodwill Finds. So goodwillfinds.com, they have their own uh like online marketplace where they auction off like a handful of the like Nicer

13:00 Things. Uh that Goodwill collects. And people love it. I've bought a couple of things from there. I think Ari said she buys stuff from there. Um It's getting really popular. I wanna make sure I get this down for the record. What are you saying is the like

13:14 Someone could do or someone should do. So there's uh so what I'm saying is that flea markets are a recession proof business in a highly fragmented industry. And they last for many, many decades and they're hard to disrupt once they work well. And also that young people are buying

13:33 uh vintage clothing and are into flea markets more than other generations. And then what I am saying is I think that there is a roll up opportunity Or what I would do is I would work with some of these broke Like passionate. it fashion influencers and I think uh I could create if I if that was my thing, a really awesome flea market business.

13:56 Can I give you one other random idea? So I used to live in Indonesia. In Indonesia they do this thing that I've never really seen here. But I really liked it. So You know at a mall when you go into a food court. So in America you go to a f a mall, there's a food court. And the exper Wha what's the experience? You basically like the business model is

14:14 You walk in, there's nobody there to like serve you. Um You just go and you pick do I want s a slice from Sabaro? Do I want a sandwich? Do I want some fried chicken? What do I want? You go, you buy your one thing and you go sit down, right? Did I Capture it accurately. Yeah. And it's like

14:30 And there's a guy handing samples, I'm gonna try all the samples and we're gonna sit in kind of a nasty chair and just like eat this crap. So in Indonesia, the malls in general are a lot better. But the one thing that they do for their food court is a little bit different. When you walk in, they give you like a wristband. Almost like it's a Coachella or something like that. And this wristband is basically your way to buy anything you want. And the c the the way they design the flow, it's almost like an IKEA. You walk around.

14:56 And every booth has like cool stuff and they're and they're Like it's not super low quality food. It's still obviously faster. Um right, but it is Everything's like branded kinda well. The food like the people who are working there, like you can tell it's like more a little more upscale.

15:10 And you pick and shoot, you basically you start you start with this tray and you just keep adding different little plates from the different vendors onto your one tray. Right. So you have an empty tray and you're gonna grab a small bowl or plate from all the different boots that you wanna try something from. And at each one you just tap your wristband so that The system knows what all your p you've picked up. But it doesn't feel like you're spending money. It feels like you're like opening a door. You're just having here's my key and give me my thing. This is amazing. You sit down, you eat, and at the end, when you leave.

15:39 You put your tray down and you scan your badge and they tell you the damage and you pay for it on the way out. That's awesome. I've always thought that American food court should steal this model. You spend way more and it's just a more fun experience. Um like paying at the end once you've already like, you know Had the little like

15:55 You know, amusement park of food type of thing is pretty cool. I wonder if somebody could do a similar thing with Thrift or Flea Markets. And so the thing I'm imagining here is like Remember like Spartan Race or Tough Mudder? How they turned this like

16:10 Thing that seemed like work. And kinda hard. Into something that was fun, a bit of an Instagram opportunity and almost They turned like a an individual ra like a when you race, you're by yourself, you're into like a group fun activity. Exactly. So a social fun event that you're planning. It's basically a party. I think you could do the same thing with the flea market. So I think what you could do is you could basically arrange it, uh, whether it's a r a race or it's a it's a

16:35 One long path. And if you do the wristband thing or you basically as soon as you join, you get Ten tickets. You get twenty tickets, thirty tickets, whatever it is, and you get to and now you just have tickets you have to spend. Right. So instead of the goodwill problem, which is you go and you're like, should I get this? Should I not? Blah blah, like up front, you just make a commit. I'm gonna find 10 things here.

16:54 And then it's about just finding the most fun 10 things you could find at the event. And you go and you collect you you fill up your card. You can always get more tickets as you go. And then by the end, you walk out and you've got this new outfit. So like you literally would have a photo at the start. And a photo at the end,'cause you put it on. And you basically do like a makeover. um on a you know Saturday afternoon with your friends. And you all end up with this like fun photo at the end of you guys dressed up.

17:18 That's fantastic. Is that not a great experience? It's uh it's a fantastic experience. And uh and also just for some reason scanning things at my wrist is for some reason like more fun than pulling out my credit card. Do you remember that um didn't you invest in a company that was creating software so like Patagonia could sell secondhand Coats or something? I didn't inv I didn't end up getting to invest in it. I really wanted to. It's called I think North Face uses it because I almost doing well. I almost bought a North Face coat and they call it like reworked, where you like mail in your old coat and you get some type of credit and then they like repair it, but it kinda looks funky and cool. And like guys like me could buy it.

17:55 Yeah, I think the the way they call it the term for this like movement is re commerce. So you have e commerce, but then you have re commerce, which is when you sell that secondhand thing again. I can't find the name of this thing. Uh Sad. I really wanted to use it. I think they're doing well, by the way. They've got a bunch of like big brands. So what what they were doing was they're saying, Hey Uh they would go to a brand like us, they'd say, Hey, a lot of people are already reselling your items.

18:18 And on these other platforms and Facebook groups and wherever. And they they actually sell it sometimes out of markup or sometimes, you know, they just they you know, it's a it's a slight discount, but they're they're used goods. Why don't you just make a central place on your website for people to buy, you know, already loved items? And so what you would do is they customers could just upload a thing and you'd basically create your own little marketplace on your website. They power it with the software.

18:43 And When Uh and then they don't have to wait for a buyer. So they could just put it on the thing and get basically store credit for it. Um when somebody buys it. And so you could uh you're giving store credit, which was gonna get them to come back. And the other person's getting the item, which they were gonna got by anyways off platform. Makes a lot of sense.

19:01 Yeah, I almost bought something the other day from you with someone using their software, but they didn't have my size. Um So that's my the website was called Treat. The the company was called Treat. T R E E T Um That was the the name of the the company that was doing this.

19:16 I still wish I had invested this thing. This thing's great. It's awesome. This is great. So that's my big pitch on Flea markets. I think I think Oh, and by the way, there are one or two P E

19:28 Guys in the space. Doing this? I think there's like United Flea Markets dot com or something like that. But I think you're gonna see more. So this is my prediction. And also my opportunity spiel. Okay, I like that you made a prediction because

19:41 The next thing I'm gonna tell you about is a giant I told you so. But nobody likes hearing I told you so. Um in fact, there's a great tweet that went viral over the over last week. This guy Matt Lasky tweeted this out. He goes My wife just taught me the professional way to say I told you so. I saw that so funny. You say.

19:56 This was identified early on as a likely outcome. Yeah. I'm gonna be using this a lot. So Let me just say that me and Sam identified this early as a likely outcome. And what I'm talking about Is true crime podcasts. Okay, so

20:13 This doesn't sound like the sexiest thing, but Uh do you know what the most popular podcast in the w in uh in America is? Joe Rogan. That's it. Correct. Do you know what the second most popular is?

20:22 I would have guessed like caller daddy. Okay, great. Also would have thought it's some famous personality podcast. Like the opposite of Joe like Joe Rugged for Women. Yeah, exactly. Um

20:34 It's actually crime junkie. A podcast that was started by a Thirty six year old podcaster. And here's the headline. This thirty-six year old podcaster. is making forty five million dollars a year of profit. Forty five million dollars a year.

20:48 It's insane. And where's she based? That's the crazy part too. So let me tell you the story here. So this woman, Ashley Flowers, she's working at a normal day job and she grew up loving like Agatha Christie stories, you know, like sort of these mystery crime stories growing up. In fact, so much so that she joined, maybe volunteered at this place called Crime Stoppers, a like local crime stopping n um you know organization for her in her town.

21:15 And it was supposed to, you know, just help people report crimes. Um to one central place. Now to promote the organization, she volunteers and says, Hey, what if I create a weekly radio show? Called Murder Monday. And she does it and she realizes like hey, people kinda like this. Like they like Murder Monday. This is working. And she's just doing this again for fun, volunteering on the side of her day job.

21:37 And then she hears Serial podcast. It comes out and it seri becomes this phenomenon. And she listens to it and she says. Oh, that's cool. What if I do murder Monday?

21:47 type of like my radio show that I'm just doing for my local org, but what if I did it as a podcast? And she jumps in. This is back in twenty seventeen. She records. She you know comes home from her day job. records her first episode, uploads it. And off to the races.

22:02 Now here we are later. She's got sixty five employees. Her business just raised forty million dollars from Cherning. uh has valued the company at two hundred fifty million dollars, and it has a reported or a rumored forty five million dollars of EBITDA. Uh per year. Which honestly sounds a little high. Um the valuation's off or Exactly. And why would you raise money if you're making forty five million dollars a year in profit? And the valuation's likely more true than the the rumored

22:29 Profit number. But whatever. Let's say I think I think it I think twenty million would be a very um Real number at the at the low end here. Insane. She herself does two pot she hosts two podcasts herself. She's the producer of the shows. She sells the ads. She closes the deal. She's touring all around the country, all around the world. Uh, she was working fifteen hours a day, now down to ten hours a day. She's got a little three year old daughter.

22:51 She has racked up five hundred million plus downloads in the last five years. Just insane volume. That's ridiculous. Do you listen to True Crime? I listened to a bit of dramat. So okay, the here's the I told you so part of this.

23:04 If you go to the MFM Vault, MFM Vault.com, which is A place where you can go find old episodes and you can search. So I just went on to MFM Vault and I just searched true crime because I know we've been talking about this. Guess when the first time we talked about this is, just like guess the year. I don't know. Uh A year and a half ago?

23:21 So that would be like twenty twenty three? Twenty three. No twenty twenty. Five years ago. And it was an episode where Lance Armstrong Popped by the office. Like literally. Popped into the podcast while we were recording.

23:35 And you and Lance Armstrong are talking about your favorite type of podcast. And you both love true crime. And you guys are geeking out about true crime. Sam. And Lance Armstrong, the greatest cyclist of all time. Like uh Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, Tiger owns a bike. And Lance Armstrong, the the greatest biker of all time. What do you like to get scared by it? Like that's the conversation. Exactly. And we started talking about true crime. Then we talked about it again in 2023. We talked about

24:09 Um, Parkast, you had brought up that this guy had created this uh true crime podcast network. Sixteen shows. And he sold it to Spotify for like a hundred million dollars, fifty million in cash, fifty million in the earnout. What was his name, Mac something? Something. And um then we talked about then again we talked about it a few years ago. We talked about Law and Crime, which was this media company that was dedicated to true crime.

24:32 stories as well as like just r reporting on actual court cases that were going on. And it was of uh also acquired for more than a hundred million dollars. And all along the way, we've been talking about how Th like true crime is this thing where there's just underrated appetite more than you would think for this. We had Mr. Ballen come on. Mr. Ballen comes on and he talks about how his content is all about telling strange, dark, mysterious stories. People just love this shit. And we've been talking about it. And every year that we've been talking about it, it sounds like it's too late. And every year we talk about it, another nine figure company has essentially started or grown during that period of time. And so

25:09 Even now. Now that this is still like You know, a super established I still think there's a ton of opportunity here. And I want to brainstorm this a little bit with you. I uh I'm totally on board with this.

25:21 I am a huge fan. My my new one is the Law and Crime Network. On YouTube. And Whenever like The deadler comes about or there's like a new crime, like P P Diddy's like lube stuff.

25:33 I was watching that like Like what's his what's the Luigi? Luigi Manjani? Like this is like a gift from God for the for the for the true crime people. Like I've been obsessed with all of this stuff. Like learning about freak off parties, learning about uh you know, like deny Oh we got a new hot prospect, we got Luigi. Yeah, like Oh, Diddy is here. Oh my God. We can have content for years. Dude, I listen to this stuff on my runs and I and I I'm all about it. So what do you want to brainstorm? Like you're just running away from the problem? I'm like what are you doing?

26:10 I think my my hypothesis so basically with the true crime stuff, it's basically me and a hundred million women. It's like Eighty it's like eighty. percent women I think are into this. Uh and I think that women listen to this from the perspective of how would I how would I get away? Like how would I get out of the situation? And men listen to it from the perspective of like How would I get away with this? That's like the perspective, I think, that each of the genders listens to these things. American Kingphan. Yeah, my hero. My hero did this. Yeah. So um

26:47 By the way, already opportunity. So you know when you run I think most running apps or running like um music playlists. They try to have a certain beats per minute. To keep up keep like pace you during a run, right? They try to be up tempo.

27:03 Yeah. True crime. Hundred fifty beats per minute. Innovation, white space. You know what I'm saying?

27:10 For zone two workouts. I only listen to Solved Murders by Parcast. Oh, I gotta go do a uh a sixty minute run. Turn on solve murders. That's sixty minutes of like we're gonna get through two thirty minute episodes and I'm gonna learn about some crazy birds. Kind of slow, right? So like what if somebody created a higher energy? All right, so here's my brainstormer. Can I give you some pitches on uh my my brainstorm? This was my five minute brainstorm before the podcast of what would I do? Because it's one thing to say.

27:35 There's an opportunity there. Great podcast already. How how how I would do it. But Sam, do we settle for great? I don't know about you. Great doesn't get me out of bed in the morning. I mean great's pretty good to be honest. I'd rest on those laurels. But all right, here's the brainstorm.

27:57 So um White space in the true crime space right now. Uh first, okay, uh the obvious one. This is not that fun of a one, but YouTube. So Um, most of these that started, they were just audio only podcasts like serial. They were inspired by serial, they were podcasts, and most people thought podcasts were all audio. YouTube came out recently and announced

28:17 That a billion people a month. Watch podcast content on YouTube. So if you're a podcaster and you're not doing YouTube Where are you at? And if you're listening to this podcast and you're not subscribed to us on YouTube

28:28 Where are you at? That's what I have to say. Go find my first man on YouTube. All right. But so the first thing is go all in as a YouTube first podcast. Even Crime Junkie. She started off heavily in audio. then started doing video just as kind of an add on. If you w go watch their video, it's like Uh, you know, started off really scrappy and now it looks a little bit better. There she's now and then when she raised this money, she's investing in like a full video studio to do this, like for real. But the format is actually pretty great. Have you ever listened to her podcast? It's basically She sits on a couch with her friend.

28:57 But unlike most podcasts where it's two equal hosts or something, they're going back and forth, it's her explaining to one friend. What's going on with the crime. And her friend is like active listening. She's like sitting there. Nodding her mostly just nodding her head and be like ooh. And then like ask the clarifying question when the listener would have one.

29:17 So smart, by the way. That little thing is so smart because Most content gets better. the more you narrow it to an audience of one. If you're writing, write to one person. If we're doing a podcast like This podcast works well'cause we kinda do that too, where instead of saying

29:33 All right, listeners, we'd like to tell you about some great businesses you it's like, dude, Sam, have you seen this? You're like, no, what? I'm like, check this out. And it's that vibe that actually like works well the podcast. That's a little bit of the secret sauce. All right, I gave you three of Colonel Sanders' nine spices there. That's

29:48 Last week last what episode it was leveraged to the side. It was leveraged to the tits. Now it's I just gave you three of the colonels' nine spices. That's fantastic. Uh I I was gonna say something and you uh th that was great. Um All right, my bad. Um, I was gonna say, uh with this podcast, like I did not know that you were going to bring this up and you didn't know I was gonna bring the other thing up. So that's like a little bit uh that's how we are. We surprise each other and intentionally, right? We could say let's share notes, let's do research, let's be prepared, but that makes for a word podcast. We surprise each other because The show is

30:28 You need a reaction. I want to tell you something. I want you to react. I want you to riff re for real. And then I want you to surprise me, and that makes it fun for us to do. So she does the same thing. She basically tells the story to her friend. Her friend says they're active listening. Um, she started off just taking existing shows and now has like a team of 10 journalists that do original reporting. She now has another show called The Deck, where she works with local cops. And they give her in like access to evidence and they try to solve actually solve cold cases. Awesome. She is basically the Mr. Beast.

31:00 Of true crime. Like when you see how she just took a very simple idea and took it very seriously, and she scaled it up. It's like, yeah, why not? Why not have our own journalists? Why not scour the country for stories? Why not partner with the cops? Why not build a studio? Why not have a hundred employees? Why not turn this into a full-on production company? She just kept going with the very simple idea, right? Mr. V is like, what if I gave away a thousand dollars? What if I gave away five, ten, hundred, one million, ten million dollars? What if you stood in a tiny circle? What if you stood in a big circle? What if you didn't have to stand in the circle? What if you had to s lay down? Like it just keeps going with these like ideas. And Takes a very simple idea, but takes it more seriously than anybody else. So I feel like she's done that.

31:39 She's coming to Radio City. Uh in New York, uh in May. Should I go? I would totally go to one of her live events. Yeah, you should go. Um

31:47 Why not? She has like a huge tour. She has a huge tour. You're gonna become a very big fan of her. Let me I I found something that when I found it, I go, Oh, Sam's gonna love this. And I'm like the mama bird and you're the baby bird. And I'm about to poke in your mouth with something you're gonna love. Peter Chernen, when he met her. Here's what here's the quote he said about her because he invested forty he he met her at a part of a TV show pitch. And then was like

32:12 Just like wow, this woman is really impressive. And told his guy, go find a way to invest. And he like flies to Indiana and like I Hounded her for this investment.

32:22 So here's what Peter Churning said. He said I find her uniquely impressive. That's a good one. And he's good, right? He he's been around everyone. I find her uniquely impressive. What a What a subtle but like powerful compliment. From a guy who's met.

32:36 So many interesting people. And I think Her and Pat McAfee are both in Indianapolis. That's like they're they're like at a form like the Indianapolis uh podcasting like mafia. Two dots make a line. So um Check this out. Okay. So here's the other white space here. Ready?

32:52 Black true crime. Not a lot of black Podcasters doing true crime. Where's the couple? Are you a follow of Black YouTube or Black Twitter?

33:01 I am a I'm a m card carrying member of black culture. So yeah, I'm a part of like is DJ Vlad the greatest YouTuber of all time? One of the greatest journalists of our time, of our era. Yeah. Getting the Wade brothers dish on like what it's like or like Club Shay with Cat Williams getting the dude How about Club Shay getting like a hundred mil I think that was I think before Trump on Rogan, or maybe even including I think Club Shay and Cat Williams It's the number one most downloaded YouTube video or YouTube interview uh of the year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exact it's insane.

33:37 Are are are there not more of these, like these like uh true crime shows geared towards that audience? Um, there's only a couple and the very first one was called like affirmative crime or something's like nah, that's a bad name. This is not right, right? Like this has happened in comedy podcasts. Like comedy podcasts started with a lot of like white comedians in LA, but now there's like oh so many really funny Yeah, just Two guys hanging out, two black comedians hanging out type of podcasts, sports podcasts, et cetera. Like I think podcasting started off

34:04 pretty homogenously white and true crime, even just the way it comes across is a little bit like um Midwestern woman. Right. Like Serial kind of was in that lineage. I think she used to work for NPR right, something like that. And so it just feels very produced and Almost um Like New York elitists. Exactly. Exactly. And it needs to be more

34:27 You know. Country grammar. Somebody who listened to a lot of Nelly growing up. They all like a lot of those guys have like that Ira glass like uh Today's episode. Yeah. And this American life. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? That cadence is so good.

34:49 Well, by the way, world's worst impression to be good at. I read glass. This is the only time that was ever gonna land for you. Um all right, next one is comedy times true crime true crime. So I think a lot of the true crime podcasts are very serious, they're heavy. They're trying to be a mysterious creepy makes total sense. You get why I would do it that way. I think there's an opening for somebody to do true crime.

35:11 But just With a comedy angle. And um You know, not to not to tutor our own horn here, but like we did this a little bit in the business space. We you know, a lot of the business podcasts, a lot of the interviews, a lot of the the podcasts were It was just an IQ contest.

35:26 Everybody just wanted to be the bigger know it all than the other. It was very dry, informational. And um you know Being you, this is kinda how we talk when we hang out, and we just didn't filter ourselves that way. And it's not that we're Like compared to comedians, we're not funny. But compared to most VCs, we're pretty funny. And that like

35:45 And so the bar is low also in true crime. But there's nobody funny in true crime. So if you're even moderately funny, you're the funniest true crime podcast. Let me as a uh so so that talking out my ass, are they actually funny ones? No. Well you're you're not you're not off. But you're actually right. And I'm gonna give you one piece of evidence that you're right. So We are called

36:02 M F M. I have gotten like hate mail. from women who are like, You're not MFM. The real MFM is my favorite murder. So go to my favorite murder dot com and the it read the headline. Yeah, we're not even the most famo we'll never be the most famous. MFM podcast. Yeah, it's my have you heard of my favorite murder murder? Have people like said like you're not really MFM. I've never listened to it though. Is it humorous?

36:26 It looks like it. The so go to the website. The headline is A Tru Crime Comedy Podcast. Okay. And listen. It's hugely popular. It's hugely popular. But I actually have a bone to pick. Dude, they're talking about like Ted Bundy killing people and they're like Isn't he hot?

36:45 Like they're talking about you know what I mean? It's kinda weird. Like they're talking about wanting to like get with Ted Bundy. So I'm actually like you know We should do some we should shop up coffee shop. With Wi Fi. Go to Star Wars. But you're you're right. Look, it's like uh you know, had you developed the theory

37:04 You had you developed the theory of relativity and never even heard of Albert Einstein, I would still say you're a genius. A few other uh possibilities here. True romance? So uh I think there's an opportunity to do a true crime style genre but spin off into combined two very popular genres.

37:21 True crime. And Romance. You've we've talked a lot of the past about Like how the most read books and the most voracious readers are reading.

37:30 Daniel Steele, fifty shades of gray style. romance uh novels. And I think somebody could do true romance as a podcast genre. One of my favorite uh True crime podcast. They have a series called

37:42 Killer couples. And it's all about love birds to go out and commit murder. And maybe you should have done the spring stream. I listened to two seasons of Cereal and like fell asleep just Sereal is like the J V team now compared to uh w you know what's going on now. All right. I'm on board with Killer Couples. What else you got? I maybe I feel a little bit discouraged, but I'll just finish out because quitting is the only thing more embarrassing than what's happening. Speaking of true crime, I do think that there is this weird like when I we did this one like bit. With the hustle about

38:16 Romance novels. And there was like these crazy weird genres of like first of all, romance novels are like a massive hit. And then but there's like women who wanna like a romance novel about a military guy. But there's like take it a step further, there was like

38:29 Women who wanna have sex with werewolves. Like you know, the what was the what was that Rob that movie that shit called? What was that thing? The Robert Patterson the The twite. Like there were some weird like undertones of like bestiality with all that stuff. Right. Uh but th so I think that there's always a niche for uh Yeah, but you know my the bone I have to pick with this?

38:51 What? Nobody likes Harry dudes. As a hairy dude out here, where where's that? Where where's the appeal? What you like werewolves? Yeah, you need to get re rebranded. I heard that werewolves were a thing for women, and then just did not translate whatsoever. Look, gray hair guys have rebranded to the silver foxes. Yeah, you know, we gotta do something for the hairy backs. I heard somebody say this the other day. They were like Oh yeah, I had this like salt and pepper thing going on. Like, yeah, it's a lot of salt though.

39:26 That's the problem. Just all games. Do they make games? So there's that one uh board game. Do you remember what it's called? It's kind of a mystery board like board game subscription series, cat catch a murder, catch a killer. Hunter Killer. Hunt a killer, I think. Hunt a killer. When we talked about it, I think it was doing thirty million a year in revenue. Tens of millions a year in revenue. I think that This woman instead of touring, she should be creating

39:54 Um Uh board games. She should be creating a game that's in target in Walmart on the shelf and it's a true crime. uh card game or board game that people can basically solve these cases um together co like cooperatively, or it's some kind of like Um What you know, like mafia where like one person's the game master and the other people are trying to figure it out.

40:14 I think a game take a game mechanic like that, but apply these true crime things and use your brand as crime junkies. I think somebody should be partnering with True crime broadcast to build those out. Hunt a killer, I think it's called. Um My whole perspective on games got completely changed. We hung out with the guy, um Elon at um He's coming on the podcast, by the way. We're doing um what was it called? Uh Killing Kittens or something?

40:36 Exploding kittens. Exploding kittens. A board or it's a card game, but board game, I guess. And I don't know what we'll wait to see if he's gonna reveal anything. But Shockingly.

40:46 Large. Like numbers are bananas. He's also like, Yeah, of the top five most popular games in the world, we make number one, two, four, and five. It was amazing, uh how successful it is. And I was like I should start a game company. Uh he he felt like a

41:05 twelve like he had the excitement of like a twelve year old. Like he was so into like games and making people smile via these games that I was like this guy's that was my takeaway. I was like, Oh my God, I wish I was doing this. This is so cool. I could do this. Yes. And then I saw how Truly joyful he was about. Making the games not. Not being successful at it, but The the doing part.

41:26 And I was like, Oh, that's different than me. I don't have that. I just want the I want to have done it. He yeah, you want the result. He like was showing us this game and it was like half done and he had a pen that he had written in like different Points on the cards. Like the he was making the game as he was going and he was like

41:43 Wouldn't this be cool? Let's like let's change the game to this. Like he was doing it in real time and we are playing the game. It would be like you know playing poker and he's like actually we should come up with like an ace. An ace means this. Yeah, he was like rapid prototyping on us. Did you see what he pulled out of his pocket while we were playing that game, by the way? Just total side note unrelated, but it was so funny. What was it? He's trying to read a card and he can't read it. He needs his glasses and said he worked out. A pair of glasses, but the glasses had no sticks. It was like a monocle for two glasses, and he just rested it on the bridge of his nose and started reading it. And I completely couldn't pay attention to the rest of the game because I was just constantly trying to figure out is it gonna fall off his nose? And how what are the physics of this? How does this work? I think they're called readers. He had readers on or something like that. Is that a thing? Is that a known thing? Like modern monocles? It's like you s it's like uh at Walgreens, you see'em like uh next to the aisle uh next to the checkout. You know what I mean? It's like the spinning sticks?

42:39 Uh I am d I'm amazed that this woman is potentially doing forty five million dollars a year. I don't know if I believe it'cause that is so shocking, but we should see if if if anyone's listening can get us in touch with her, I would like to talk to that uh talk to her for the pod. That would be fun. Um yeah, Ashley Flowers. Very, very impressive. Uh how old is she?

43:07 Thirty six. She's young. Wow. That's crazy. Dude. That's crazy. I can be hurt.

43:14 She can be me. We can trade. Isn't that crazy that like You know, s it's f it's uh it now we're like, Yeah, that's obvious. Uh but seven years ago to be like, I'm gonna start a crime podcast and that's gonna make me a billionaire. That's pretty wild, to think. 'Cause she potentially might be a billionaire if after another, you know, five or ten years because of this. That's absolutely wild. And we called it, so we're right and we deserve all the credit.

43:40 No, we didn't call it. It was identified early on by us as a likely outcome. All right. Uh, do we I have a bunch more, but I think we're we're it's time to wrap, so maybe we call it. I think we should call it before we go.

43:54 Did you see? Fire Festival two. He didn't listen to our advice. So Billy came on our podcast right after he got out of jail.

44:07 Prison. Prison. Yeah. Mm. And he

44:12 Um I love that where that's like, you know, other people get like authors when they have their book tours. We get like the post prison. We got Shkreli. We got Billy. We get them we get them first right out of prison. And um You told him you what did you tell him? You gave him some advice. He didn't listen. He basically was like s explaining all these ideas for his the business that he like he owes money.

44:36 So he has to like earn he has to earn money. Not just a little bit of money. He owes a lot. He owes like twenty seven or thirty million dollars. A lot. And He was like, I'm gonna start this festival.

44:47 Uh, we're gonna do like this other festival and we were just like You know, maybe you Maybe don't. Maybe you should may maybe you should maybe I I think you shouldn't do that. I think that like maybe you can there's a lot of things you can do because you're famous, but you know, a Firefest two, maybe you shouldn't do that.

45:03 And He's doing exactly that. So he's doing Fire Festival too. Is that what we said to him on the pod? Did we say anything else? We we told him you're you're crazy. And he was like he just saw the potential. He was like, What if we did it right this time? Um so

45:18 Article came out today. It says says uh Fire Festival two is off to a s a rough start again. Days after the tickets go on sale. Which is Uh Allegedly taking place on Isla Mujeres, an island off the coast of Mexico.

45:33 The local tourism board claims they have no knowledge of this event. The director of the uh tourism board says we have never had any contact with any person or company about this. For us, this is an event that does not exist. If you go to the uh location that they list for where it's gonna take place. Um I don't know if you have Google Maps, Andy, but if you open up

45:55 Uh twenty one degrees, twelve degrees, thirty po thirty two you do all that. Just Here's where here's where where the event is is taking place. Take a look at this. In the ocean. The location. In the middle of the ocean where there's no land.

46:11 Also, uh the most expensive tickets are twenty five thousand dollars. Like He you know how we've joked about uh entrepreneurs who have just taken what has worked and they just like say like all right Uh you sold all this candy bars. Just do the same thing now, but for uh A Risa's Pita Buttercup style product. Right.

46:29 He did that. So he must have exported uh the the code for th that old website and he just put a number two on it and now he's doing Firefest too. Uh it's the same thing. What did that woman s uh what did that guy's wife say uh instead of I told you so, it was uh This had a bunch of predictable outcomes. What is she what's the what's the line? This was identified early on as a likely outcome.

46:50 Yeah. You called it This was uh this is insane. I I don't even know how he's allowed to leave the country. Uh yeah, it's not good. But Hey.

47:02 Listen. I'm an optimist. There's a chance. There's always a chance. Uh here's some other great quotes from this article, by the way. We tried. Billy uh took to Instagram to address the concerns. Here's what he said. Um

47:14 Firefest Fire Two is real. We have incredible partners the festivals. They're in charge of all logistics production operations. Uh, there's no way they would ever take on a fake festival. Right. No, he didn't say the right part. And then the next thing he says is um

47:32 Well the the the tourism board responded. The organizers did not even bother to approach the authorities. Uh it's very strange because anyone who organizes events knows if you're gonna hold an event, let alone a massive event event event, you need the municipal authorization. Um I think they thought they could just announce it, see if it got traction, and then ask for permits halfway down the path. It's a bit naive. McFarlane responds.

47:52 We have accommodations. Is that really what he said? That's what he said before. Also there's you can you can buy tickets on his website. Uh, for up to twenty thousand dollars. But

48:06 Like there There's a great way to accept his accept your money as a c as a user, but The like they don't list any bands. Pl it's a show, right? Yeah. So so that's the other part here. At this point, no talent has been announced for the festival. However, McFarland responds.

48:21 We have talent. Uh Did I ever tell you about the time my dad Uh I went on a trip with my dad and I learned the power.

48:33 Oh. Just being absolutely delusional. The negotiation. Um It wasn't even not even a full negotiation. It was I mean, it wasn't even a negotiating situation. We were at the airport.

48:43 And my dad is cheap and so he doesn't want to pay the check luggage in. Oh yeah. So he just like bought the he got his bag that's too big to check in and stuffed it. And then they were like, You wanna check bags? He's like, Yep, just that one. Like the free one. And then the lady, this like poor little lady from Singapore Airlines behind the desk was like, Um sir, like

49:03 Uh You'll need to check that one too. And he goes, No, no, I'm carrying that on. And she goes. Uh sir it's too big.

49:09 And my dad. Response. No, actually it's too small. He says it's too small, which makes absolutely no sense to anyone in any situation. There's no such thing as it being too small. And by the way

49:28 She just kept saying, I think it's over the limit. And he goes, No, it's too small. I checked. It's too small. And it worked. She led him on the plane. And we got it on the plane at the plane. They're like, Sir, it's not gonna fit. He's like, You need to check it up front here,'cause it's free to check when you're up there. And he got it for free. And then he just kept doing this on the trip. We were uh trying to get into this, like he's like, Oh, let's go to the four seasons. They have this like the the New Year's festival, like they're doing this big celebration there. And we're like we're driving up, it's like all these signs, like you must be a mem you must be a resident. To attend. I'm like Dad says uh we have to be staying here. We're we're definitely not staying at the four seasons, so like we can't do this. We should turn around.

50:04 No, no, no, it's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine. And we're like, what do you get? There's a guy at the front, like the gate, he's checking everybody, like what room, give me your ID, all this stuff. And um And so like My dad just goes up and he just pulls up and he goes So what, do you need to see some I D or something?

50:22 And the guy just goes. No, it's good, you're fine, go ahead. We got it. And I was like, Wow Dululu is the Sululu. And I've been saying that for the last two days. My kids, they know I'm just ups. Dululu is the Sululu. If you got a problem, I got a Sululu for you. Who said that? Who treated that's like long, thoughtful thing, and this guy just responded with that. The Lulu is the Fulu. And I was like, This is amazing. That should be the new small boy stuff. I don't have any tattoos, but

50:54 I did. It's up there. It's a contender. My kids' names and that's not. Dude, that seems like a cute thing like a Gen Z woman would say on a true crime pod that Just like we stole M FM, uh you know, uh we're gonna steal that one too. Thank you. That is now ours. Yeah, sorry, I wish I could remember who said it. I don't I don't know your name. Um

51:13 This is a good podcast because I'm exhausted from laughing. That's how I know. I had a really good time. Yeah, again sometime. Alright, uh great show. See y'all out there. Have a good night. That's it. That's the pot. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my law in it like my day's off On the road less travel never looking back

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