Parker. I think it's parked at Thompson on Twitter, he replied to that he goes. Okay, so for those keeping score at home, Ela Ela bought a product for forty four billion and then Zack built the same product for 1,000 times. Less is stealing all of us users like an absolute Chad. It is God willing about to choke him out in 90 seconds of steel cage soon. Huh? So that's a cut jeans. Now, I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to be like,
What's up, today's episode were talking about threads versus Twitter, the big debate and we're gonna talk about where we, where we land our predictions for we think is going to happen, how it's going to play out, we told you some funny stories and then in the second half we have a an interview with guy named Sam of it. So Sam met Sam at this guy Sam he used to run a business called consulting.com that at its peak hit 30 million in Revenue. He was all over our Facebook feeds as kind of like one of these internet.
Guys. And so, we were curious, like, who is this guy? And what's he all about? Definitely an interesting interview. I would say he had some interesting stuff to say. Also is energy was totally different than most of the guests and also different than what you would expect out of an Internet marketer. So I'm curious to see what people think of it. I would say it's, you know, sort of like a different style of energy than we've done before, Sam. What do you think? So for those watching on YouTube, I'm sweating right now. The reason I'm sweating is around minute 35
I can't stop laughing. I'm still laughing about it. You're going to enjoy it. Taco Bell story. Let's just leave it at a cub. Oh my God. It's ridiculous. I don't know like how this story came about in a business pot. I'm happy, it did, I'm sweating right now, if you are on Spotify or apple and you're listening to this, go to our YouTube Page search. My first million go to this episode. Let us know in the comments. What you think people liked when we do that. The last time Shawn we got a lot of comments, a lot of good feedback. It's a, we actually it's been fun to read all the comments, but let us know.
You think we'll talk to you soon. Alright, what's up Sam? We gotta talk about threads threads versus Twitter and threads came out. A few days ago. We've had a few days to play with it to sit on it to think about it. And I think everybody's giving their opinion on it and why not ours, I want to hear what you get what you have to say about this. I've kind of like a way. I think we could talk about this the what I'm calling the Bull and Bear case, so the bull case, the bear case and that where we landed
And but I first just want to hear like, I don't know. When did you get on it? And what was your kind of initial reaction? How on your radar was this thing to begin with? I had only heard about it three or four days before it launched. And I heard about it because of a leak. I think there was a leak right there, somehow it leaked out that it was coming out. So I downloaded the app like the you can download it before it launched and then I got the notification right at midnight or whenever it said it launched and I signed up, I think it's pretty cool. Are you jealous that? I already have more followers than you do on that.
That was already going hard on Instagram. Yeah, yeah, going hard on Instagram, paid off there. You got like a like a double bonus for growing your Instagram. So so Props to you on that, I think it's great. You know why? I think it's great. I really think it's great for one reason which is Twitter to me is pretty great. But dude, my feed is just like fight videos and people getting shot and dying. Like it's real. It's kind of become a little bit sad, that's of you. I also don't know anyone else's fault. You know, when you click the follow button and the like button in the safe,
Save button the algorithm will just give you more look, here's the deal. If you see like a fight video you watch it. Like you're not, not gonna watch that. It's like when you have a hot girl that like, Scrolls through like your you slow, you scroll slower through that. What is this? What does this get here? All right, handles, I also think that I've become such a stand for Zach and this whole thing, he's just proven to be like the man, he's
Come off, very likable and so I found myself picking sides based off of the owner of the company. Yeah. Yeah, it's become. So it's become Sports. It's become tribal. Whose team are you on? And I don't know how the hell I ended up taking the duck but I'm like, I'm on team. Seok is very obvious to me. It's very clear. I think this guy's done an incredible Rebrand of his personality because he went from like easy to hate for a bunch of reasons. One becomes rich and powerful, people don't like that to a little.
Look like a robot talk, like a robot seem to have no personality. So, you know, that was, you know, again, like for the people who didn't get turned off by the power and billionaire thing, they got turned off by, like, okay, this guy's a lizard, or he's a robot, like, what's going on with this guy? And then somehow, you know, he hired that top top, PR agencies in the world. He hired the fixer the wolf came in and try to fix him. All he needed to do was start working out. The gaikai, takes ten digits to classes and learn how to do a pull-up. And all of a sudden,
It's like uh so like you know what I fuck with this guy and he's relatable somehow yeah, totally worked on me and then to the point where you start thinking about it, this happened. Also with LeBron James LeBron James at one point was super hyped, then he became the guy then people started to turn on him then he did this thing where he left his team went to Miami and everyone's like, oh, I hate this guy and then somebody's putting out there. Like, so you're telling me this kid, who had all the pressure in the world when he was 17, 18 years old delivered on the hype, lived up to
To it never got in trouble with the law. You've never heard about this guy, you know, married his high school, sweetheart is a good dad to his kids, you know, is one of the best players of all time and just like keeps himself in phenomenal Fitness and shape and tries as hard as you can. Every single year, what do you have a problem with? And in the same way, I feel like the same that's happened for Zuck where it's like. So this guy who built this company that billions of people use stuck with the company. He's, he works hard every single day. You know, married his college sweetheart never been in.
Trouble with anything doesn't tweet out. Offensive stuff, doesn't say anything just to get a reaction seems like a perfectly reasonable guy. Works out. Hard is a good dad. Like what do you hate about this guy again? What do you want? Do you know how old duck is? How do you think our age is like? He's a little nicer. He's like 37 38 39. Yeah, he's he just turned 39. You know, in Lebron also 38, these guys with the same man, they are the same, they been dude. Yeah, yeah yeah, LeBron got drafted, what he was a high schooler 18 High School.
Zach has been the man since he was 21 or 22. There's been nothing. I mean, there's been like if you like the grand scheme, it's there's been no. Like human errors. No, no no self. Yeah, there's been like business airs, there have been krige, but there's been nothing that they've done where you're like. Oh, that guy's a piece of shit. If you're noticing crime is cringe you doing. All right? You know, yes, when you're the man for that long, that is impossible. That is so challenging to do that. You really need to work. We're clearly Zug Fanboys. Let's talk about the Red Zone. Oh, and by the
Wait, did you see what? Ilan posted. I don't know it. Did he sit on Twitter? He goes. Zach is a cock. You're a cock? Is yeah, I had to look it up. Actually. I cook is a good. Chunk, is a guy who wants his wife to sleep with other men and he liked it, enjoys it and then he also
goes, I challenged duck
to a dick measuring contest, literally a dick measuring kind of us. Like he says, it's not like that and I'm dirty says something like that. I'm like, oh my God, he's an absolute trihard to me. I don't like it. It says,
Whether there's a funny tweet from Parker and his parka Thompson on Twitter he replied to that he goes. Okay, so for those keeping score at home, Ela Ela brought a bought a product for forty four billion and then Zack built the same product for 1,000 times. Less is stealing all of us users like an absolute Chad. It is God willing about to choke him out in 90 seconds of steel cage soon. Huh! So that's gonna cut means now. I think it's great, man. Seok is just look at the great on this. All right. So but threads you have
Here that they grew to 70
million. It's actually 100. It's 100. So they grew to 100 million users in a week, so we'll deliver the bull case first. So the bull case is this will thin the will threads win argument. So the bull case is were five days in and they've reached 100 million users making it the fastest growing product of all time, okay? Instagram has about a billion and a half users. They seem to be converting over pretty quickly to this already got 100 million on the platform if 20% of
Instagrams, users. Come on board. It's now bigger than Twitter, so 20 percent conversion from from Instagram, is what they're going to need. They've done, you know, I added a 5% or some like that. I don't know public laughs, something like 5% so far in five days. The next reason that this is bullish is Instagram and such as Ducks shared that on threads. He said we just hit 100 million and he said, we've not even really promoted it. Yeah, we haven't had done our promotions yet, which is. Yes, nice. It's also really cool that he's revealing some of the stuff. Yeah. Yeah. He's really active.
Right? I see part Victory lap part like Community engagement which is which is cool. And he tweeted for the first time in like 15 years, right on the day of launch, which was, which is also nice. And it was like the meme of the three Spider-Man's pointing at one another to is pretty great. He's you know, he's in on the joke. Whoever, he hired like his nephew, or whoever like just as like you know, give me the, give me your app. Give me your phone. I'm Gonna Make You likeable like hey instead of like fighting it just post a meme. It's cool. Don't worry, but he needs a verb. So there's no bird. What do you say? You threaded it?
You posted it. Yeah. You know what I mean? There are worth reading. I don't know what's going on. So the interesting part is, I will go on threads and I expect to see the same sorts of people on as I do on Twitter and there's some, but there's a whole new market of people who were basically never on Twitter, just didn't like Twitter didn't work for them. So you know, you get a whole new set of people that are going to use threads. That weren't they don't have to switch off of Twitter. They're just new people to a Twitter like Behavior so it can basically beat Twitter without
In people to switch because it's expanding the market. Twitter is I don't know if you know this Twitter is basically the most abandoned product, I think ever so more than a billion people have signed up for Twitter or tried Twitter and then be like, no, get it. I'm good. Just yeah, that's not for me. Another, the big question, the the like sort of like the hundred billion dollar tutor billion dollar question is, is that because the idea of Twitter, does it appeal to that many people,
Or that Twitter's execution was not good enough to hook those people. And if it's, the idea, then those same people who try threads will eventually bounce, because they're like, they're just people who like to look at pictures and videos. They don't want to write text, and read random as text messages from different people. So if it's the idea that Twitter safe, all these people will try and they'll bounce. But if it was the execution, if it was that Twitter, didn't hook them properly.
Then they're screwed because if there's one thing that that they Instagram and Facebook teams are going to do is they're going to execute. You could already see it in the small things that they're doing with their like, yeah, we're just going to make like kind of like the feed work better and blocking and muting and they all of the like all of the stuff, we're just going to do the stuff good. The stuff that they've been doing for 20 years which is like hey when somebody signs up let's just make it really easy for them to find like their friends or interesting people for them. And like, let's just make this this feed killer like this is make this algorithm killer were
Want to keep scrolling stuff that Twitter never really did. Like if you go look at Twitter's add product like, have you ever run Twitter ads? Yeah. So this is also to say, this is another big bull case which is if you've never run ads before and you go talk to anyone who has run any ads, Facebook is always in the top two or three parts of the conversation. So normally it's number one, it's usually the best platform I've spent maybe 10 plus million dollars of my own like me actually running ads. Facebook is always
Number one, Twitter is never part of the conversation. I don't know if I don't even know if it's any, I don't know if it's like that anymore because I haven't run ads them a flyer clear on it now. So I'm running ads on it literally right now and it works. But the ad platform is so trash compared to Facebook and Google's ad platform, which is so surprising, because that's how they make money. You would think they're highly incentivized to do it. So anyways, I guess my mate. My bigger point is not really about who's ad platforms to be better. It's just but that matters, it's going to be
Solution on all the details on on getting people linked up with the right people, making the feed super interesting and you know, and handling spam better and abuse better and all the things that Twitter has struggled with over over the years. So, the bull case is that basically, this hundred million users, if they convert some of Instagram people, they'll be bigger than Twitter. They don't even need people from Twitter to switch. They can just bring net new people to the market, and they can just continue to promote this cross Instagram and WhatsApp. So that's the bull case. Now, I'm going to switch to the to the bear case. Also, part of the bookcase to
The shoots itself in the foot a lot so Ilan does a lot of dumb shit pisses. A lot of people off, he's basically pushing to like basic put up a wall where like you have to pee dollars a month in order to like, have your shit be seen in the in the feed. So that's basically introducing friction. He added the Tweet limit, not long ago, which introduces friction, because, you know, she's insane. We're treat for you. Cut off, like the ability to post tweets and have them in bed and other places because he was like, oh, we're getting scraped too much. So you basically put a login wall in front of the content like he's adding friction everywhere. So
These are, these are foot faults. These are, you know, nobody is not threads killing you. This is you killing you. And so that's, that's part of the bull case. Now, here's the bear case.
Why this won't work if I was to argue why this won't work. Here's what I would say. I'd say, hey maybe the last Facebook Standalone product that just worked, not one that they bought the one that they made. And that's where there's really a kind of a graveyard of poke and a bunch of these other apps that they tried to create the try to create a tick. Tock, competitor didn't work. The try to create a Snapchat. Competitor didn't work. So there is a graveyard of these things. The only things that have worked up in things that they put into the Instagram app, like, stories and reels because people are hooked
On Instagram. So the Standalone app thing hasn't really worked. And this is a standalone app.
The next problem just because a hundred million people try. It doesn't mean they're actually going to stick. There's going to be massive turn, just like there is one having. Have you gone back to do this? Yeah, I open it up right now, but like, I'm not like hooked on it completely myself yet. Are you? I'm not hooked yet? No, I'm definitely not looking. I think Twitter, but I've also built up like a big following plus a bunch of people that I follow. So, my feet is more interesting on Twitter. It's like, yeah, I'm a curator for 10 years. I was going to say, we might be the 1% of the 1% because we make
Living in part because of Twitter and so we could be like there could be a part of it of like aw shit. I don't want to do this other thing because I already have this one thing that's working and this thing is just gonna like cannibalize it. So I can't tell if there's that bias there or what it is. But no, I'm not hooked yet but I am opening it. Maybe once a day, maybe once every two days, I am a little bit like shit. I don't want another thing to have to use, but I am happy that it's text-based because that's where I excel because, you know, I'm a Missouri six. But like,
But I'm on my life's a good word 9. Yeah, I don't want. I'm not like, I'm not, I don't, I got the I got a good face for Twitter. So like I prefer that I but I weird outliers because both of us have, I do pretty other. We probably have almost almost a million followers together on Twitter and so going. Now I go to threads. I have 3,000 followers or something I have starting from scratch again. And, you know, I'm like that guy who I moved to San Francisco and I bought a house
And I just redid my Lon and then everybody started moving and they started raising the prices and I'm like, I'm Doug. And I'm like, yeah, I'm Duggan. I already paid for the Renault, you know. Like I guess I'm just hear what everyone else is choosing places. That might be a better fit, so, you know, we might be the wrong person, they're all right. Listen up. One of the greatest things I ever did at my old company. The hustle was, I hired this woman named Step Smith step is amazing. She is so good at breaking down.
Companies and help me predict trends of which businesses are going to blow up. If she's so good. In fact that Andreessen Horowitz one of the most famous Venture Capital firms in the world. They stole her from me. And they poach her from me, that's okay. I still love Steph and now she's the host of their podcast called the, a 16z podcast. It's their long-standing and chart-topping podcasts, and it's awesome. And step is the host step comes on. MFM my first million all the time. You guys love her, she's a fan favorite. And she's one of my
Favorite people and so you should check this out. So, each week, the a 16z podcast gives you Insider access to the people and ideas at the edge of innovation. Step. Sits down with luminaries like apples co-founder, Steve Wozniak, Neal Stephenson and all types of amazing people. So check it out. It's called a 16z podcast. That's all one word. A 16z podcast. Check it out. Here's the other reasons that Twitter might win.
Twitter after the churn threads might have 20 million, or 30 million active users compared to Twitter. 300 million, right? So I think there's gonna be so much turn that this hundred million. Number is a bit of Fools Gold. The next thing, Twitter has key content so it has news, it has Sports. So it's got the journalist, it's got the athletes. It's got the, the people that cover the NBA and NFL like it's got famous people, its case, they got like this. He like rapid breakdown.
Making news and influential content threads is going to have new content, but like the type of person who's big on IG. May not be the right type of person for what works in this text Medium. We don't TBD. There's a TV on that. The next thing Fred's is just a straight-up clone. There are no product improvements. And in fact, there's some big drawbacks like they don't have DMS, they don't have like you know dude, I get DM's. I've been getting DM's I think I don't know what they're called, there's no inbox. People have been messaging me. Let me pull it up. But I think there
Mentioning you there's definitely no no no, maybe that's what it is. I don't even know how to use it yet then. Yeah, it's a mention but it looks like a DM, like the thing looks like a DM. All right? Yeah, you're right. So it's just if they close the app, but they left some things out. Now, that might, that might make it better, but for the most part, I would say the product strategy. Like, if you printed out the roadmap, it's like, here's some features that you turn the page and it just says not Elon Musk. I cannot Twitter, right? Like, it's just basically, here's not Twitter and like there's a bunch of who don't like you. I don't like Twitter and they'll just try this out. So,
I don't know if that's a great, long-term product strategy, by the way, speaking of mediums and leaving things out. Do you use Twitter on your phone or desktop both? Yeah, I mostly use it on desktop, and I use the thread app and I was like, Hey when's the when I need a desktop thing and that's why I prefer typing on it and people really call me Boomer and shit. And apparently that is that's a boomer shit. Dude, that's a boomer, should I guess but I hate using it on my phone. I want to use it on my computer so I could scroll through and click shit. Yeah, that's like if a guy knocks on the bathroom stalls like hey I gotta take a
S sitting down and you like what? It's not illegal to do what you're saying but certainly not acceptable and that's yeah, you're more of a what are you? More of a pea with your shorts down at your ankle type of guy while standing up. So so your desktop thing, it's okay to use desktop. But let's not let's not get out of here. I think most I'm not most I think a ton of people do that man. I'm telling you the older guys I guess I'm old now but I needed this. I needed that time. We should appeal to as a social media platform, the
Oh guys, look like khaki. All right, so here's a couple other things which is the best creators on Twitter. So the people who have basically and 10 15 year, period, proven that they're really good at creating text-based content. Now have a big following and don't really want to start over from scratch on on Instagram AK me. Yeah. So I think those are some of the some of the downsides of this. But I do think, you know, once you take into account the bowl in the bear case, it's
Time. How do you think that this plays out? Let's do the intro interesting nuggets. Really quick, if it doesn't work out, Nikita, our friend Nikita, who is worked at meta and did all the social stuff. What did he say? He was basically, like, you know, this thing's gonna be 100 million users soon, and if it fails after that, that will sort of officially make it. The biggest fail in social app history. At that point, which I think that be really means anything to be
honest. I think the truth is, I think it's going to end up closer to the Bowl
than it is the bear. I think it will.
Will it will more work than it does fail? I don't think Elon would ever sell Twitter out of like Pride reasons, but I think it will if it weren't run by a billionaire. I think it would effectively put it on a business for the ad ad purposes. I think it's going to work. I don't know if it will overtake, but I think it's going to work so good that it's going to cannibalize Twitter and it's they're going to be at least equal the CEO of cloudflare tweeted out a chart. I don't know if you saw this of Twitter traffic because cloudflare has like that,
They run like, that's fucked up, right? In some way. It's yeah. I don't know, I don't know. Maybe they haven't paid their bill or maybe there's always like a doctor. That's like a doctor. Like revealing like your illnesses, isn't it? It's like, it's like these two guys are making fun of each other's. Like, actually this guy his cholesterol is way worse than yours, right? Yeah. So like if you want to beat him up but kick them in the left knee, you did that basically turned out that showing that this Twitter.
Down like five percent and overall traffic so far this week from from thread. So it's like, you know, he said like, it's plummeting or something like that. Like dropping off a cliff, which is like pretty dramatic for. I don't know, five percent, I wouldn't call plummeting but that's weird that he shared that that's super weird. Yeah it's going to be closer to the ball and whatever. I've learned Nikita actually would always joke about this. He would say never ever ever bet against duck and I've heard so many people say that when I bet against Elon for sure
Not often, not often. I think that he follows through a lot. He just been closer to death so many times and I don't think Zuck entirely has. I just think that zaca Berg when it comes to this field of consumer social. I just think that he's, I would not bet against that person. Yeah exactly I think that's the that's the rub here. I think that it's not suck for seal on a mono e mono. Like they are like in the same way that in the cage is Uncle probably win because he trains. He's been training Jiu-Jitsu for her.
Like, you know, couple years so that's, it gives a little Head. Start in the same way that duck. Probably could not build a rocket company or a car company. You're planning, you can even build Oculus. Like, you can't even, like, do that. We're still pretty well, to be honest. It's doing okay, but I think that they're going to miss, they're not going to be like the one perhaps we'll see, but I guess like, it's his domain. The so the social app thing is their domain, they have Instagram. I think I'm with you. I'll and where I do think threads will be bigger than Twitter. I don't think it kills Twitter.
I just think it's sort of stunts whatever slow growth that Twitter has its just don't sit even further and Twitter remains this kind of Niche. This basically this thing that has really strong appeal to a niche and I think that threads becomes the more mainstream version of it, like I think it becomes the more palatable
Just cool. Interesting thing in the same, in the same way that like this happens, a lot with music or with TV shows, or with with stuff like that, where
Something has its time and then the new thing comes out and it's just has like a little more mainstream appeal and it just becomes the default and the other thing doesn't die, doesn't go away necessarily. But I do think that if you fast forward two years or 18 to 24 months, I think it's pretty. I think my bet would be threads is bigger than Twitter and Twitter basically has now, like a ceiling on its head. That is bumping into it can never really grow from there. It might get better at monetizing.
People or preventing them from switching, but the dominant place for that will be will be threads, which is insane to me. It seemed impossible like to Dethrone a social network like, 12 months ago. There's this cultural shift with young people, where there's so much more kind and nicer than our generation at when we were that age and you see that on Tick-Tock. So if you go to tick tock and you look at the comments, people are so much more positive.
Still something more positive, that's Tick-Tock is amazing at sorted, comments and hiding comments, whatever, whatever that is and maybe, but maybe they're bitter because all you builds its finest and jokes. And then you're like, oh, that's how I'm supposed to behave here and Twitter, right, you see that out? It builds a culture where as on Twitter I post something and I get made fun of so much sometimes and I always click on the accounts and it's clearly like a bot or I don't know what it is but there's this huge underground culture. I have no idea how this is happening of people who all they do.
Is make fun of make fun of people and I always it shows it to me. Do you get that when people are making fun of you all the? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. She's always just shows you everything. Twitter says, it shows you everything. You said something. Here's what they said back and guess what? There's always gonna be people that either disagree argue or just say means shit to you. That's like, you know, just that's actually the way the world works. The best companies have figured out how to algorithmically like suppress that behavior. Yes. And one of the day I opened up the
Red's. It was like Gary Vee saying, like I hope you all have such a wonderful day and it was like they like seeded it with like these positive people and it like, created this weird culture where it seems significantly more positive. So we are going to threads a good morning y'all. Yeah. Or like I have like pop saying like, I hope you have a wonderful day and get after it like it just so much and I have sahil already pop it up on my shit. It's like all positivity whereas Twitter it's way more negative.
Honestly, it does wear me out. And by the way, Zack has sort of said this in his in his threads where he's like, yeah that's part of our key strategies. Like he's like I always thought there should be a sort of like this town square Converse. A public conversation type product that gets to a billion users Twitter for some reason never figured it out. We're going to do our best and then people were like you know oh I noticed this place is like in a more kind or sort of like you know much more positive energy right now and he goes yeah I think that's really important.
What we're going to do, you know, that's something we're going to really focus on and try to get right. I don't think that Twitter ever got that, right? Some of these features like setting the culture in that way or invisible. They're not like now you can do live video now you can do Twitter spaces. It's not a feature that you see it's almost what you don't see. That's the feature, I think that Facebook and Instagram have a lot of experience, fighting abuse spam, hateful content. It is not going to be. No, it's not. It's going to be gone like the, whatever. That's fine. I get that, but I think they're going to do a better.
Job of it in the same way that like you remember it used to be a common thing people say which is like if you ever want to see sort of Hell on Earth, go to the YouTube comments. Like YouTube comments were considered like an actual Cesspool. And now if you go to a popular YouTube video, the comments are often like they add to the joke, they're funny and they're positive, and I don't know what they did over time. But over time, they fix that problem. Which was that the YouTube comments were like you know where you know, hope goes to die and now
It's good. It's part of the experience and the sure there's some spam or, there's still obviously like the one-off thing, but it's nowhere near where it was like in the early days I went out to dinner last night, I'm in Williamsburg, I went to dinner last night and I, you know, Williamsburg everything's tight in New York and I sat next to the sky who worked at meta on the threads team. And I'm not going to reveal a lot because I don't want to write this guy out, but being Sarah out to dinner and like I texted her, I was like just, let's just not talk.
And we just listen to this guy. We just listen to this guy talked for two hours about launch week and like what it was like and he was like it was the most exciting time of my career. This guy was so bought in to like the threads movement. He would was talking about how much money he was making. It was crazy, man. I was just, that is what you hear. You don't say the person but tell us everything. It was, it was seven figures a year. It was seven figures in the sky and like, I feel like I know all about this guy kind of know where he's from but I'd or at least I know where he moved from. I heard the very the very
Typical. This is so funny. You hear people say this all the time when they first moved to New York or when they're like Tech guys. They say San Francisco was all about. What have you built lately, New York. It's all about how much money do you make? You know, you're reminded every time about how important money is San Francisco is all about what you feel like, that's like such a thing in a positive way. It's not you. They there's the guy who was asking about you think it's refreshing, do New York, it's refreshing that my pay stub delivers but he was just talking about like he's like the launch and he was just saying like how
Morale. The company is really high and everyone was pumped, which is, which is something Facebook needed because it was pretty shitty for a long time with all the negative PR, that he would just talking all about like, the launch and like what they were doing. It was so fascinating, we're just sit there. I'm shocked that he didn't, like, catch the hit that I was just like listening in to the sold-out conversation, I just heard everything. Hey, there's one thing that Facebook Engineers don't have a lot of awareness, dude, I don't hear notice that you weren't talking to your wife. You
Ever go out to dinner. And like if you're with like a business associate or like a successful friend, and you talk about money, you're talking about like you know like I want to buy this house that cost us much money or like this is what I'm earning. What you think I should do with it. Whatever we talk about these sensitive topics whenever the waitress or waiter comes over. I always quit talking about that because I'm like, that's embarrassing, it's tacky. They didn't get that hit. And so I remember them talking about, I remember them, they said the seven-figure things like yeah, it's not that big deal. You just go get like a director of startup and get a, you know, a million dollar.
And that's okay. But like, are you really doing anything meaningful, right? As the woman was, like, waiting to see if they wanted dessert? Yeah, I remember seeing that as like I hate that that is so fucking embarrassing and obnoxious, you got to shut up at that point. That's when you, you know, you like, you gotta lower your voice, you got a whisper, I'll tell you, you know what I mean? Like that. That's what you're supposed to do in that scenario, but these guys did not catch that hit. I hate that. Yeah, it's a little piece of you dies inside every time. You know who sucks at that.
Is whenever I'm with our friends Su Lee Soo. Lee is horrible at. That isn't talked about the shit. Yes, I'll talk about like, you know about like what he's investing in so loudly and I'm like, dude, shut the fuck up. This is embarrassing, everyone's looking over. You don't use that word million please. I have anymore this conversation. I haven't seen that but I've I have another friend that does it like crazy. And then I'll be like, hey, I'm like kick him under the table. It was like, what? Why are you kicking me? Like a friend?
That we took to this place in San Francisco that I guess has like the best hot chocolate. If he likes Hot Chocolate over. Like, dude, you're a little baby for liking hot chocolate. First of all, but if you are a baby, the likes Hot Chocolate. You gotta go to this place has the best hot chocolate. So we go sit at the bar bartender comes up or whatever like that, the table, whatever. It's like, hey this guy loves hot chocolate and we told him this is the best spot. So he had to had to try it and he's like, the waiter was like, what are you for? Yeah, he's a cool. Yeah, let me bring you on. And so he brings one out.
Guy takes a sip. It immediately gives like an audible like and what is, it doesn't like it. And so we were like, oh, you know, whatever cake guess it's not, I don't know, guess not your way your type. And so he just puts a just, it was a downright. So it's sitting in front of them.
Waiter walks by and he just shut like, pushes it forward towards the almost like he's pushing his chips all in at a poker table and the guys like, oh, are you, are you done? He's like you didn't like it, you just know, it's not very good. Oh my God. That's so embarrassing, accomplish here, why are you doing this? So, I literally just fall off my stool and crawl away and die. And, you know, they had to deal with this interaction, but it was terrible. I had a friend we went
Out and got dinner and afterwards, they gave us coffee and we want to decaf and the next day we texted back and forth, while hey, did you stay up all night last night? And I thought he was like, yeah, I was like, I think they give us regular coffee. He's like, I got a call them. I got to call them and let them know that he was like, insistent, like, he's like, I gotta call them. It's only like, call them and like, dude, what, what's what are you doing? We're on vacation. Like, we're visiting like, what? That's such a weird. It was such a Larry David move to like call someone to tell them you made a mistake last night you gave us a normal coffee instead of decaf and
Those types of people are very challenging for me to be around David, that's it. It's like a likable and adorable. And when anybody else in real life does it, it's just hateable. My, my mother-in-law has a version of that where anytime were complaining about something her go to is not even like tell them and call them. She's like, called a news channel 5 date, they will investigate this. It's really not here. I can't stand that. It's really not what's going to happen here. I voted a steak before they've brought me pesto, chicken pizza, and I won't say a word, I'm like yeah, whatever.
Dude, I can eat that. I gotta tell you this story, I can't decide. I wanted to do a segment called L of the week, because I think we sometimes brag a lot on here. We say, you know, how we're so great and all these this point, I think it would be nice to share a big L that we took, but I got to be honest, this might actually be a dub, there's might not even be a now, because the experience of showing was it. All right, so I go, I'm feeling I'm doing something working, whatever and I'm feeling hungry. While I was driving back from an errand and I'm like, I'm hungry. I'm just gonna pick up some food real quick, so I go to Subway.
And I'll get a sandwich and I go to Subway, I walk in, there's like five people lives, only one guy working, and it's a black guy and a white guy checking out and I'm like, thinking about what sandwich I'm going to get and I kind of decide I noticed that think I still check it out and I look over and I'm like, what's taking this guy forever? And these guys are talking about, like, six weird rope, South Africa. He's like, yeah, they're talking about Africa and talk about race temple, race relations, and they're just talking and like,
Zero like I'm happy that there's whatever no racism on Earth, but I'd really like a sandwich right now and so with the four people, but that meatball marinara. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Red is the color of my meatball that I think right now and so they're just talking and then they fucking they hug and I'm like, what's going on right now? And with a hug, I lose it. I leave I walk out. I'm like, I'm hungrier than ever because I've just killed. Nine minutes.
We about a sandwich and I got teased and there's no sandwich coming right next to the subway, is a Taco Bell and I make a business decision. I say it is, I guess it is what it is. I'm going to talk about today, have been to talk about like 13 years, go to Taco Bell. So I walk in a Taco Bell and I'm in line. I'm and you could always I have this theory about places which is you could see your future when you go into a place because it's you're gonna end up. If you go to a place regularly enough, you're gonna start looking like the people that that are in that place. So sometimes I'll go to it. I like Fitness.
Class, and I'll look around and be like, all right, if these people who are like the clear regulars here. Don't look the way I want to look, I'm just gonna leave now. Cuz this is, this is not a good path, right? It's a good one. What do what you seen? Talk about a budget, like Tweety Bird, shirts. I'll, uh, go to First. Everybody talked about was under 17, so I was like, oh, I get it. Their body can like, still tolerate this. I'm the only guy in his 30s at this place. So I'm and there's one guy sitting there and he's probably like twenty eight and he sit down and it's just him and he's got a feast in front of
I'm like this guy. He was like Hey Omakase Chef's Choice. Bring it all out. So he's Omakase that Taco Bell and he's sitting there, he's eating up a storm and there's only me these three teen girls who are in front of me ordering and then this guy, and his kind of quiet and Taco Bell.
As I'm standing in line. And this guy pulls a move that I had. I'm still stunned just thinking about this, he's sitting there and Taco Bell eaten his feast and he just rips the loudest fart. Ha ha, ha, and we all look over. I'm like, wow, so embarrassing. This guy just far too loud in public. Wow, it was looks like he's sitting on one of those benches it like echoed. It was like this crazy Auditorium.
I look at the guy, he just stares back at us. Hazel just raised his eyebrows. Like what we're all here at 3:00 p.m. on a Tuesday. That is what this guy did not carry on.
You're right. We're all equals here. You just got done shopping by Taco Bell guy. It was like a light oak, and a big do for this. Did that happen? This is like five days ago, there's no one else. I could really tell that. Like, I started story to my wife and she was, he went to Taco Bell and I think you're missing the point of the whole story.
I didn't even get to the good part and I just thought he should have farted back at them. The chamber. I didn't, I didn't even really just like laid it down right there in front of us and one of the girls said the eye contact nobody said anything. We all look to laugh at him by his bravado. Holy shit. Biggest I've ever experienced.
That's the past. It was the food at least horrible. Honestly, the food is talking about is phenomenal. Like the taste of Taco Bell is great. It is a great taste. They got like the menu. I mean, first of all, the Innovation you've been no talk about, like, you know, talk about used to be tacos. It's not like, it's like this. It is just the same shit, Rito's, that's become a taco, and it's a taco inside of a burrito and it's like, how's the taco inside the burrito and I guess we call it a Cheesy Gordita Crunch and then they had like,
Thing called the volcano right now and I was like I guess just give me the volcano because I didn't know what to do there. That's like I don't really understand what's happening. I'm Still Still reeling from what just happened with few minutes ago and I got the volcano thing is great. It's fantastic. You should have brought that African guy over to get it, let him sniff up America. Let him see what it said. Hey this is what we're about bro. Come on peace love and happiness that hug shit. That's a cool experience. This is the reason why we're here.
World War back back-to-back Champions guys like that salt of the earth. They don't make them like that. Like that anymore. Could you imagine a European doing that impossible from Singapore? Yeah. That's like so Sean, I've got a funny story so
Sam Evans today. I'll do a little bit of an intro but about three or four years ago I used to see Sam's ads everywhere and it was basically him and a bright blue blazer and his fancy apartment overlooking Manhattan and there was a little bit of hate and me and there was a little bit of it slicked back hair too. I remember he hits. Like Mike hair. Yeah and for some reason he pissed me off and I wrote like on one of the ads like you're full of shit or
Nothing like that. You did a hater comment. I did a hater comment and it's a tad. Be for years. And I talk to my friends who eventually bought some of its products and they're like, oh no, it's awesome. We loved it and I started learning more and I was like I think I was wrong and so I sent Sam this message. I think 18 or 24 months ago and I was like I'm sorry I that was for some reason that one comment it bothered me and eventually I saw Sam the four weeks ago at a party at Sofia's party and I talked to him and my wife.
I talked to him for like an hour and I was like, you're one of the more fascinating people that have ever spoke to and I was like did you get that email right I apologize instead of got it. So that's kind of like how we got here but Sam how do you describe yourself? You had consulting.com which was like a big information business. We have a new thing you want to want to tell us how you describe yourself.
Sure I'm an entrepreneur and
I have a software company called school, I'm CEO of that. It's like a community platform for creators,
your kind of underselling yourself there. A
what do you want me to say?
The reason why I like take it out with you is shot. He reminds me of Jack Smith so much, like it's the same type of like, yeah. Funny thing is like, Jack. You're right. There's like definitely like a echo of Jack there but Jax
I almost feel like Jack picked business models that suited his like personality, and he's like way of thinking. Whereas Sam, the funny thing is that when I discovered you like Sam, I saw this sort of like outgoing persona, it's like guy who's looking to recording a selfie video of himself and his fancy apartment telling me something. It's sort of like oh this guy thinks he's some Hotshot business, guy, whatever. And now you talk now and I'm like
Owns a surf shop or something? Why is this guy like in the, like, the most zen, zen mode almost introverted to an extent? Isn't that strange? Was that strange for you to have, like a very public Persona? Even though you clearly are actually more of a laid-back, maybe more introverted
guy? Yeah, I think that's why it rubbed people the wrong way likes him because, you know, that's kind of the thing that I didn't like about.
About that business. Like, if you're selling training or coaching or whatever it is, you have to be very out there. You have to make content of yourself, you have to continuously promote yourself, right? And I was always very uncomfortable doing that and I guess I used like the New York apartment and the blue suit is like a character. Yeah, like a character or like a crutch to help me, you know what I mean?
Yeah. And it worked.
You built consulting.com which was like a the way I'll describe as like sort of like training masterminds courses type of thing, where you would teach people how to start their own Consulting business and people pay a few thousand dollars and you put a bunch of free content and that would get people sort of in the funnel. And then eventually, they pay a couple thousand dollars to learn how to start their own Consulting business. And from what I understand, like, you scaled it up to about 30 million a year at one point out of sort of the peak on the revenue side before.
For being like, this is too much, and too crazy. And we have too many people too. Little profits were pushing. Like you know, the boundaries but you sort of scale to back down to a more manageable level where the revenue went down. But the profits went you know, up or the same and you had less headache. So it definitely worked. Did you get where'd you get the idea for that where you're just like, in a basement watching Tai Lopez videos being like, okay, I understand I can do this now or like, we're why did you decide to even do
that? You mean like so courses?
So courses in the way that you sold them,
It was just like a really heavy paid ad strategy with you as this character or this Persona the face of it. Very internet marketing.
Yeah. I wanted to start my own business. I used to have a job. This is going back like 12 years and I used to watch this, this interview site called mixergy. Do you guys remember that? Yeah,
yeah. We love Andrew.
Yeah. And I watched an interview one day and this guy was saying that he was going to show. He had a software company is
Was Dane Maxwell and then he said he was going to teach some other people how to start a software company and that was my first experience of being in a course he launched. A course that was called back. Then the software Roundtable and I learned how to start a software company in there and started a software company, it was called Snap inspect. And so I first experienced being in a course, like, from the student side,
And through that experience, I had a successful software company and then I was like the star student of that of that sulfur Roundtable, Foundation thing. So, then I did and he made me do an interview on mixergy. This is back when I was very young and then a bunch of people started. Emailing me and saying, could I, they wanted to pay me so I could help them with their software company.
And I would just sell, like 61 our Skype calls for $1000, and then very quickly, I ran out of time to sell by sold so many of these packages. And I just noticed that I was repeating myself on these calls like a lot. And I was like, oh, this is, this could be a course, everyone's like, struggling with the same problems and I've run out of time, right? So the next guy took through this 61 our calls. I recorded the calls
and then I put them in a Dropbox folder and then the people that wanted to buy my coaching. And from that point on, I said I don't have any time left, but I've got like a course that you can buy for the same price and I would just sell it for 1,000 dollars and give them a log into the Dropbox and they would watch the recordings in there and they liked it and they didn't ask for their money back and it's like
And that's where it started. And then when I sold more and more of those, I was like, whoa, this is, I should put some more effort into this. So I did and then I wondered how can I sell more of this? Instead of just waiting for people to come to me from my mixergy interview and asked me over email. So that's when I started learning about like internet marketing and then I remember the people back. Then we'll like Frank Kern and who else there was like ramit
Theythey. There was this guy called clay Collins do. Remember this era? Yep. Off like, yeah. And so, I just, I learned how to Market from that world, like that kind of underground internet marketing world, and then my course, business started to do so good at quickly. Overtook the prophet of my software company and I just wasn't very passionate about property management, which was the niche that my software product was for, was I called Snap and sparked. Yeah, it's still a
exist. It snap inspect.com and I just wasn't passionate about the niche. So I sold my shares of snap and speak to my co-founder and and just went all in on the course business and that's what eventually became consulting.com. And in the end I was making courses showing people how to make courses. I just fell in love with the craft of finding a group of people that you care about.
And solving their problems and then sharing the solutions with them and turning that into a
business. How did you get the domain consulting.com? Because that's a great domain.
I went to the URL and it was there was nothing on it and then I used like MX toolbox to find out like who owned it and then I just sent him an email and I said, you want to sell it and he said
yes how much do you pay for that
one? That one was.
Thousand. Just in the, the 10 minutes
that you've just given that Spiel and tell them the background, and then the hour that I've hung out with you, you have this trait that I love that certain people have, we're in your brain, I could see you're the type of person that you see a challenge, and you don't think of it like a lot of people think of it as an emotional thing, but it's a very logical and you're like, this is a puzzle. I'm going to figure out this math equation, and that gives you Joy. At least, it seems like it with the marketing thing. It seems like
Same thing where you're like, if I wear this jacket that will pop off in a thumbnail and that's important for a higher click-through rate and it's like you just read tons of books and you put together like an algorithm on what to do and it's and that's why it didn't seem entirely authentic that that was who you were, but it seems like you were just playing a game that you wanted to win. Is that how you went about it? And who did you what? Interesting people did. You learn the algorithm from that aren't entirely popular or that are like some strange
resources, I guess.
I just looked at the people who are doing quite well like I'm Brendon burchard and Marie forleo. This is back then and I noticed that they had like a, if you thought of their name you could quickly assign like a couple of attributes to them. They had like a brand essentially and I was like this kid from New Zealand, teaching people how to start a business and so I was like whatever it is that needs to. If when people see my
Do they instantly need a think of money? Basically, and my main Market is America and New York is like so iconic, it's like the money plays, right? So that was why I went to New York and why I found an apartment with a view like that. I
heard a rumor that that apartment is almost like exactly the same apartment as something from, it was a Wolf of Wall Street or one of those like iconic money movies where they like hang a guy over the
Balcony. I heard that it that you wanted that apartment for that reason. Is that true? It isn't true. I wanted the apartment because they had a really cool view, but then we were watching that movie and we had to pause it and be like, wait a second, is that this building? And we realized it's not the same building but it must be one of the five in that area that are all very close to each other. Got it. So you you start doing this. Now, I'm curious a lot of the names you mentioned.
Never hear about those people anymore, you know, I've I remember Frank Kearns, I remember even Pagan and some of these guys that, you know, you can kind of go study, their content, their funnels, but they're not around anymore, or if they are like, I don't know where they are. They're not, they don't seem to be like, crushing it anymore, like they used to Am I Wrong? Are they just out there crushing and I just don't see him for some reason. Or why do you think that they very few kind of sustained? Or did they just get so rich? They quit, or are they like locked into
One mode and they didn't evolve with the times. What do you think happened?
I think things have changed a lot, and a lot of people didn't adapt, but also I think some people just got, they're just not going as hard, or they might have got burned out, and they just relaxing a little bit. Probably a combination of all of those things. How how big were some of those? Old-school marketers. But they're old-school to me how big were some of their businesses you never know. Like, you never realize, it's always so interesting. I have no idea because it
I think they weren't real businesses in a way because they would make it a ton of money on a launch. Right? But then, that product would kind of go away and then they might do another launch and six months and it was all based on this launch model. And these launches would pull big numbers like millions of dollars. But and I'm sure there was a lot of profit in that too. But they weren't like these products that were Evergreen. That could be sold.
SLI. And they didn't have a team and they weren't like contributing to this body of work. They weren't building on top of what the yesterday. Essentially, you had this interesting video, where, yeah, there we were told by Jack Jack's on my best buddies, and he was on the last episode and you guys are very similar, but on this video, you opened it up and you just looked at the camera and you go, I'm back. And apparently, like the story of the video was consulting.com Consulting. Got to like 30 million in revenue and you'd hired dozens
People fancy offices. You hated it, you basically scale it down to, I think you called it a band. I think it was like five or six people. You're like we're going to do 10 million in Revenue, 5 million profit. Everyone gets a share of the profit what was like the peak of the Consulting business and then where was it when you sold it?
Sure. So the Pake was, it must have been around like 2017 or 2018 and it was doing 36 million.
A year in Revenue, but profit-wise was probably only like five million on that most of it was was expenses and we had about 50 people and we were spending like two million a month on ads and it was just everything was breaking. I hired everyone way too fast.
And it was heavily dependent on ads which I didn't like I was reading this book on my honeymoon in Tulum in Mexico and it's called lean thinking and apparently it's like Jeff Bezos. His favorite book just while I was reading it and in there they talked about how you should optimize a business.
Based on customer, based on value. The way a customer experiences it, right? And you should analyze like the head count. How many people are like, working on how many people are actually contributing to Value the customer experience and your head count and then your your money flows. So like, how are you allocating the capital? Where is all the money being spent, and does the customer experience value from that? And then your time and attention and energy, right? So you're just analyzing all of these flows.
And I realized that all of our time, money attention and headcount was on ads.
And that customers did not think ads were valuable. In fact, they thought what you did, it actually pissed them off, right? So I was like, oh man, I've really screwed this one up and I was like, everything should be focused on the customer. And so I went back.
after that vacation and realized that I basically had to start again
And so, I just started restructuring that company. I realized that organic content was really good, because customers find that valuable, right? Like a good YouTube channel. Good email newsletter. So I was like we should do that and then if we do that, we don't need to do ads and then I was like, everyone on the team should be contributing value to like the customer. They should be doing support or they should be account management for Mastermind.
It's they should be customer-facing in some way.
And all of my time and attention and energy should be thinking about the customers problems instead of advertising problems, right? And so I just with that kind of mental model, I just started restructuring the whole company and then so like you've talked about
Consulting a bunch of other pods and but the story is that you eventually and we go back to you eventually sold it, but your new company score. Its whenever I was texting to it always autocorrects to stool sko.
Well you are telling me you didn't exactly say it this way, but I read it this way. When you were telling
me
that you you're like we're not taking any funding or at least you're not anytime soon because you self-funded it with 10 million and you're like I'm hiring the best people. So you like went from like this, like internet marketing type of culture to start up. First of all, is that
true and second was that number, right? Ten millions
a you're going in on this. It's true. And why
why the shift from like this start up, where you like have hired, all the like you're running things, very Silicon Valley, ask versus what I imagined in my head a lot of
Internet marketers are not, like,
well I started and software. I mean, but the first company I ever did was a bit. So I've always had a love for software. The problem back. Then though was, I didn't love my market, like property managers and we were constantly have limited by our money. You know, software Engineers are expensive. Subscription Revenue has a cash flow trough in it and so we were limited by money and I didn't love my market, but I did love software.
And I also hated like having to Market, I swore I was never going to touch software again unless it had Network effects because I wanted it to Bro, itself basically like a platform instead of a software tool. So then I fell in love with courses and that the beauty of that was like I was able to save a lot of money. And then I came back to software because I now was building software for the market that I loved, which was like online creators.
And I had money this time. So I wouldn't be limited by their. I could get the best engineers and not cut corners on anything and take a more long-term View. And this was a platform opportunity instead of like a software tool. So we didn't have to have a marketing or sales team and we had no, like, cat.
And how is this growing? Because I see the traffic is like an elite million visits a month or something and saying like that looks like you had an affiliate program.
I'm here, if you're not running marketing, where's the growth coming from? Because I get that there's Network effects, that's way more than like Circle. Doc, is it called Circle? That's way more than a lot of, like, High VC competitors. The traffic, I believe. Yes, I don't know if the numbers, right? But Leslie, silent double. So cool. Yeah. How are you getting so much traffic? It's a community platform. So once you start a community and you add some content to it, the first thing you do is you invite members, right? And then what happens is, roughly one percent of members
Create their own community so they like, oh, this platforms cool. I want to make one of these and then they create their own and then they invite their members and then that there's a there's a loop there or a network
effect. When you are doing your content stuff, your ads, I had read stuff like you did some interesting things like you, we talked about, like, the apartment and the suit, and I don't have like a motorcycle in the middle of the room and stuff like that. What were some interesting experiments that you ran that, that either worked, or didn't work that sort of taught you.
Something about, you know, human psychology, or the way that people's what gets people's attention, what people would get people interested, what gets them hooked? What are some learnings from all of those different? Kind of content experiments, you did when you were doing when you're making, you know, when your content your face was that was the driver. A lot of people just want to make money like that. One was annoying. So if you just put a Jason something or a fancy car or a New York apartment like it works so well that it's
Yes.
It's annoying because you'll all do I have to do that fit and people just won't they just listen to the value of the idea but that's what I learned back then. When I was doing those experiments, I think now people are looking for like longer-form real stuff that like a podcast podcast are really taking off, right? So, I think the people that are doing a good job. Now, is like, what you guys are doing. I think, having a podcast and an email newsletter, that's
what I would do if I was starting again right now that those two work really well together,
we have this friend, Rebecca's a Marlo who has tens of millions or maybe 15 or something million, YouTube subscribers and she only launched it in like 2017, not that long ago and I was like Rebecca, why did you get so big? And she goes I took it like a job so like I got laid off or I quit. I forget what happened with her other job and she goes this is now my thing. So it was like a 40 hour work week, it's like this is all I'm doing and I was like, doesn't everyone do that?
She said, no, shockingly know, most of a lot of popular YouTubers. It starts as a side Hobby and even when they're like, fairly big, it's still not full time. But she's like, I just treat this sumbitch a company like I just ran out like a company and it worked out. So I think that like that focusing no chance. He's had some bitch. No chance. You said sumbitch I added that the that's the same party special maybe maybe I sub that out. Maybe it was like you know, I took this wonderful thing very seriously.
Yeah, yeah. You've been you've been pretty good with Focus. I mean, that's what why even sell consulting.com if it's like doing well, you're not working on it. I mean, you're a mom, you seem like you're very, very, very focused on shit. I mean, just to go 10 million on that on school, is that a, without a significant chunk for you to do that? And was that, like a verbal commitment? Like, I'm willing to do up to X? Or did you literally wire into a bank account? So, that's now in the company that's being used for this company. It's, we're burning
that that. Yeah, that like, I bought
Bought a house because, you know, I've got a wife and family, so have older house and I left some money in the personal account for, like family. And then I was at everything else. I'm just I'm bidding on this company
so no other portfolio. Nothing how big do you think schools going to
be there? It's hard to answer. There's what I would like it to
be, which is what
I've always wanted to build something that a billion people use.
How do you sleep in at night? Knowing that you're holding a lot of your nut is in there? That's a very stressful thing.
Why? Well, at the moment because things are going really well, you know what, the growth is compounding, pretty fast and top-tier, VCS email us every week. I've had to just stop talking to them and a lot of people want to give us money, but we're not taking it. And so, I think the fact that a lot of people want to give me money is allowed me to come to him.
And quite a lot that I'm not that we're not going to run out of money. Also, just the growth. Is it profitable? No, it's not. But deliberately so. Okay. Fair enough. And would you base the company? Is it remote or people in America and New Zealand, where you, where your people, everyone's in LA and San Fran? And do you like, what? We when Sam says he wrote, you remind him of Jack Smith. One of the cool things about Jack Smith is that while he's clever and interesting on the business side,
He's also clever and weird, and does crazy experiments. Also in his personal life, whether it's like, sort of biohacking or lifestyle choice or not naming his child until she was 10 years old, like, whatever it parenting, parenting, everything he takes sort of like a novel approach to each thing. I'm curious, are you weird in other areas of your life? Do you do anything? That's sort of non-standard that to you make sense when I read other people's sounds a little strange. I'm sure it. Would you like to say any example since this?
The podcast.
I mean, I slept on a futon for like three years and I loved it and then when my wife got pregnant, she she made me give it up, but I really missed that futon. You know, Japanese
futon. Yeah,
I love that thing. I just like to keep things. Very simple and minimal like only have one pair of shoes and I only have like the same type of socks in the same kind of like underwear in the same t-shirts and then like three, we'll jump.
A and it's all I have and then I have the same soap like this tea tree. So and I just have like 20 blocks of it and I even take one with me when I travel because I only will like that. So I like don't wear sunglasses because I think they are necessary and I just like to reduce things just to I like to find something that I think is good and then only use that and then just get a few different pairs.
Of that and just keep things as simple and as minimal as humanly
possible. Does your wife normal?
Yeah, she is,
we were the reason why one of the things you said we were sitting around Sean. It was me saying, my wife, Sarah, we were sitting around at this restaurant and Sam you have. You've got some strange energy in a very cool way. You got very strange and cool.
Jay that I like, I love people like you and we were just sitting around and the conversation kind of died. And we were just sit, we sat in silence for like 3 seconds, I think and then you just said I delivered my baby if we were like, we are like, why with why did you cause I had my hands. We're like, old on. Say it again and you're talking.
About how your wife is, she you're going to be like a home delivery or something and the Midwife didn't make it in time and you just did the day of thing and you just did it. And I remember thinking, like,
the reason I love this guy
is, I don't think he understands like how strength like your mannerisms, your voice there. This is, they're so unique and strange in such an interesting way, which I frankly, love I
People like you because you're so unique and you're not vanilla. Do you realize that you're like that? Honestly not
really because I don't I don't try to fit in and I don't try to like I don't even look at what other people are doing. Like I don't have social media at all and I never look at really what's going on or what's in the news or anything?
And I just do what I want
to, what do you do with that free time? So let's say no social media, no news for most people, that's like four to five hours a day or something like that. How do you reinvest that four to five hours a day? Where do you put it? What, what does give you energy or what do you do for entertainment? Or what do you do to unwind?
I mean, all I really do is focus on school and that's mostly the product. So I'm just obsessive about the product all the details of it. And then
I go home, hang out with my wife and daughter and then I need two hours of like watching something to unwind otherwise, I can't sleep. And so, I'll, I'll watch series, like, TV series and I like old stuff like things before technology because it's it's nice and slow. And it helps me go to sleep. But when you see your obsessive, what does that mean? Like do people like working with you? Like are you the type of guy who likes?
If something very small at the footer is screwed up, you freak out over
that. You know, I can see a pixel. So if something's off lime lime, something's off over there and then I'll inspect it with chrome inspector and it will be one pixel. So I can, like, I've I joke with the team that I can see a pixel. And yeah, well, I'll go into those details. Like, I designed schools interface and figma like the whole thing. And
To find a lot of like how that entire system works, which is it's quite complex.
I knew you were like that because when Consulting that come first came out, most courses. Don't didn't. Look the way yours looked yours had this like, you had this really cool thing of a, it was like a caveman becoming a person, right? Is that what it was? And then it was like a picture of the globe, and it looked like a software page. It looked very unique and I remember seeing the design of it and I thought that is
incredibly unique and it stood out, it made you feel more sophisticated than most other people in the space. Remember that page it might describe. Yeah, accurately. Yeah. What uh, what we think when you made that that's what I like to do. I like to just spend a long time on the tiny details. You know, I've spent days trying to figure out the right pixel, radius of a rounded corner, for the full, like a butter, is that a feature or a bug? Like, if somebody I worked
Spending days on a, how much the Border radius should be on a button? I would slap them. I'd be like, what are you doing? This is not this doesn't matter and this is not going to be like, high-impact so why are you doing this? So, you know, is that a is that a good thing or is that a byproduct like maybe you do that in certain areas where it really works? Then us I gotta live with the fact that I do it in these other areas where doesn't matter at
all? Yes. So I I won't block anyone by
Doing that writes. Like, when we're building the thing, like I'll be very fast and not the bottleneck of the team, but then, in my spare time, I'm playing with things, thinking about the next time, we update the design system, and I'm just tweaking little things in might. That's what I do for fun. So it's not like what I'm doing. Is my work only thing. How
do you, how do you organize your day? Do you have like a you like focused on one thing to have like a morning like, okay, there's my to do list. What how do you how do you create your
Today, most of what I do, I would say its product strategy and design. That's like, where I spend all of my time just in those zones. And we have got like three product teams at school. So, three full stack product teams with back and front. End q a product manager designer, right. And they've got three road maps, that are all going in parallel.
And I need to think ahead of them. Like, I've got a dream up like the whole product strategy and roadmap and everything. And then I have to reverse engineer it into chunks, break it down and then figure out which team should work on. What thing and sequence it. And then I've got to design the whole thing's Beckett brief that team and stay a few development Cycles ahead. And so, I'll either be designing.
Something trying to figure out a priority talking to that engineering team or checking's. Doing the final Q&A, check before we push something into production. I actually think that that's totally the
right way in my opinion that a lot of companies should run. The reason they don't is because a that's really really hard. So like your the brainchild you have to like you probably know every single thing that's happening. That's incredibly challenging for just about everyone. Number two, it doesn't feel good to feel.
Dictator. It's like basically your, you guys are a band and you're like the main, you're, you know, you're the main. You're the main guy, your Celine Dion. And everyone else is the backup band. That's a weird reference, but it is what it is. You're Billy, Joel. I don't feel like that's where I went. Yeah. That's that's really what you're sleepy. I don't know. Long hair. You're like the guy? Whereas, or at, I don't know if I can recover from that. Whereas, most startups. It's like, it's a lot more decentralized and
Things like that. But with this type of product, it seems like you're like the the main person and there's a circle around you, it's shit going on. Is that right? It sounds fucking exhausting. Funny. Example of this was I remember Sam when you were running the hustle and I was running my company, we would meet up every couple weeks as part of our like, kind of like founder Master my thing where we would get together. You know, I was the sort of drinking the Silicon Valley, Kool Aid, which was like autonomy, and like, give people Empower, your people and all these things and I was like, you know, preach it to my team like, hey,
Whoever's got the best idea we're going with you, you know, a janitor, you got an idea, let's do it. You know, like let's make it happen and Sam showed me. I meet up with Sam and Sam shows me like a 12-page doc that here at wrote out for some new woman that he hired and he just go in the documents. Just says, welcome. Here's the things that you're going to do, your job is to do this. Here's how you will do this. Step one, do this step to to this hero.
Like 20 feet and was just like handed it to her and was like, this is do not deviate from this. I don't want to hear. I don't want to hear your fear ideas of it and I asked you was like, why did you do this? You're like, cuz people fuck up and I just, I need her. I think this is the right way to do it. And I just need her to do it this way. No, because that whatever Sam is said, I totally agree with that. The problem is that it's fucking exhausted. You know what I mean? Like, it's really hard to
That for a long period of time, it's not scalable,
but it's kind of scalable like the engineers. I'm not telling them what to do like in terms of code, right? So and then I'm not even coming up with all the ideas from my own mind. I spend a lot of my time looking at what our community wants. So like, going through our school Community, where people ask for stuff and share bugs and feedback, then I'll talk to power users. I always find who's spending the most time on the platform. Get a top, 100, just DM, a few of them.
Get on Zoom talk, just talk to them for hours about it, and then I use the product myself and then I talked to the team to and so ideas. Come from all of these places, but I'm like, the filter and the Sauter in the prioritize, ER, basically. And then when I go to engineering, I know what the feature should be. But they, they might push back on a lot of what I say, based on how easy it is to implement with code. They might be like, all do you really need to do it this way? Because that's going to make the code messy.
Why don't you do it this way? That would be way more simple for the system and I'll listen to that feedback and adjust the actual feature because I'm trying to like, I'm trying to give the users what they want, but I'm also trying to keep the code clean, and, and I'm trying to build things fast too. So I'm like, how could we shrink the scope of this to make it so we could deliver something faster? And, and so, it's not like, I'm just dictating to everyone. There's a lot of collaboration,
And
you know, shown is something I've, you know, that Company, Jasper. Yeah. Have you talked to those guys is the founders name is Dave or David? Come on. First of all, on the website of consulting.com, dude. I said to say, for one, if you go to, like unsplash, I think it was called or one of those like stock websites stock image websites. For
some reason, Dave is on the picture of
so many stock pictures, I used to use a picture of him and then I met him. Like, dude, I use your face for a stock image, or
This like royalty free website. And number two do used to be part of consulting.com. Danny so Jasper's but for the listeners like a, I guess a billion-dollar. Now company that does AI stuff was he part of your crew?
He was a, he bought my course like many years ago and he was one of ours, like most successful students. He used to sell coaching like training and stuff, but then he wanted to get into software. So then he did this thing proof to remember that that little pop. Yeah, yeah.
And then that turned into
Jasper. And did I, why did someone someone told me to ask you what you think about AI? Why do they say that?
I think it's like massively over height and somewhat like just unnecessary. Like, I don't know about you guys but stretchy, but he hasn't replaced my Google usage. I still use Google every day and I found no real task for it. Honestly, it seems, but the hype is Extreme. But hype Cycles,
Around like the growth in like, well, it's not there yet, but I could see the future of this. So you're not bullish at all. In the future of it.
No,
I'll take the other side of the same. Anything else you want to ask before we wrap up? No II. Appreciate coming. I find. I want to talk to you again. Another time I find you fascinating, I think that you're an original thinker and I appreciate people like you thanks. All right. Well that's that's the pot, that's it.
I feel like I can rule the world. I know, I could be what I want to travel. Never looking back.
All right, everyone, that's the end of my first million. However, I've got good news. You see, if you liked this episode, we actually have another podcast. The hustle has another podcast, it's called The Hustle Daily Show to daily podcast. That has everything you need to know about business and Tech and only a few minutes. It's awesome. Our best writers, like Zack Crockett are behind it. It's incredibly fascinating. I listen to it daily so check it out. The hustle Daily Show.
