My First Million: #188 - What It's Like to Be Rich, How to Respond to Growth Plateaus, & the New Neighborhood 7/11

It's really f-ing hard to start a two-sided marketplace and when you do the prize is a billion dollars, you know in your pocket

All right, what's up? I was thinking about the beginning of these because

If you watch like Joe Rogan Joe just sort of rolls into the conversation

It's actually starts like mid-sentence of what they're already talking about and I think that's kind of cool

It's pretty casual and then you have other people that really try to like brand their

Brand their beginning. So I'll give you a couple examples and you tell me which one you think is a good idea

so

the all-in podcast which I like is

hosted by Jason Calichanas and then what he does is they have the

What they call the cold open which we do sometimes too, which is you pull the kind of like the most interesting or funny one

Liner from the middle of the episode you put it at the beginning and then you roll into like the intro song where it

Introduce you kind of it's like a custom song that introduces the four people. It's like Chamath the back King

You know

David Friedberg the king the queen of quinoa or whatever. So that's like one version

Then there's you know Scott Adams the guy who started Dilbert or writes the Dilbert comic

He does this thing every time he does a live and he used to do live streams like every day or something like that

and he would always say let's start with a

Ceremonial sip and he would like hold up his drink to the camera. He would have you do it too

Even though you're not even on camera. You're just at home. He's like everybody. Let's do this and

Cheers. All right, here we go. And he's like he talked about it. He's like he's big on

Neuro linguistic programming and LP and

And so he's a hip note. He's like a trained hypnotist or something like that

And so he's like you want to like associate the same sort of like he's like doing this with my tea is brilliant or your coffee because

It has emotion. It has a taste. It has a smell and it has a

Auditory thing I'm saying every single time the same exact thing and so I'm basically programming you for a certain feeling or emotion of the

Live, so he's like really, you know going hard at it

Our buddy pomp does the same thing. He's got like his little catchphrase where he starts

He's like bang bang everybody. He does this little finger thing at the start of every single video

Very specifically does the same thing every single time. So what do you think about that?

I like the Joe Rogan one to just roll into it. Don't try so hard. Yeah, do you agree?

I definitely think that other ones more effective, but

But who cares like, you know, I think if you have to try that hard, I think it's fine

I think it's fun to do if it's whatever if you think of something, but if nothing comes naturally

I I don't think you should force it because

It's just more likely like awkward than anything else at that point

and in general I think that like I

Tweeted this out about Twitter bios. I don't know if you saw this tweet I did but I said

Here's the Twitter bio paradox and I showed two people side-by-side

One was Dan Gilbert who's been our Billy of the week before so again an actual billionaire

So I wrote this guy's a baller and his his bio makes him try to sound like a regular guy because his his

But his Twitter bio was like, you know family man

Retired pizza delivery driver, you know trying to make an impact on as many people as I can and then it's like at

Cavs at quick and loans at whatever like these companies like yeah, he owns an NBA team and like a 10 to 30 billion dollar company or whatever

And then I put it but the other side and just puts up some random guy

I had to snipe some some guy didn't mean nothing personal

but I just searched on Twitter Forbes Thundery into 30 to see who would be putting that in their bio because that's the

ultimate tell that you're trying too hard because you know, we've talked about before it doesn't mean shit and

And I found this guy who was like investor entrepreneur

Innovator philanthropy

Philanthropist exactly Forbes 30 under 30 finalist, which people were just making fun of him like dude

You weren't even for 30. You were a finalist. You're like, but at the top 30,000 people or something

And then it's like, you know

International speaker renowned, you know, whatever I can't stand that and then he at mentions like two companies that he's like

You know started or whatever and nobody's ever heard of these companies

And so I said on one side you have a baller trying to act like like trying to counter signal that he's a regular guy

And on the other side, you have a regular guy trying to signal that he's a baller

And you know, this is the the paradox of Twitter the harder you try the more you tell me that you're still trying and

And you can see this across the board

There's you know, a lot of people have no bio and the no bio is like my name speaks for itself

You either know who I am or I don't care

I've achieved so much fame that I'm not trying to impress you

So I think that's a pretty interesting tell and and I like the the term that somebody pointed out for it

Which was signaling and counter signaling. They're actually both signaling

Yeah, we're all trying to signal the rich guys trying to signal. I'm just like you don't mind me

Don't hate me. And then the other guy's trying to say I'm bigger than I am right but both are both are signaling

All right quick break to tell you about another podcast that we're interested in right now

HubSpot just launched a shark tank rewatch podcast called another bite every week the host relived the latest and greatest pitches from shark tank from

Squatty potty to the mench on a bench to ring doorbell and they break down why these pitches were winners or losers and

Each companies go to market strategy branding pricing valuation everything

Basically all the things you want to know about how to survive the tank and scale your company on your own

If you want to give it a listen, you can find another bite on whatever podcast app you listen to like Apple or Spotify

Or whatever you're using right now. All right back to the show. Oh

You want to do some questions? Yeah, let's do it. All right. I'm gonna ask you a question

All right, but that people asked us

This is a funny question. I don't know if I want to answer this. We'll let you do it

Oh Dan can pause them. All right, Dan, but let me ask one first

What's it like to be rich? Yeah, it's sweet

It's sweet because you don't have to worry about a bunch of things and so yeah

It doesn't take away all your worries, but it takes away all your money worries

So if you've ever like, you know, boom you get hit with a like

My car was in an accident. It's like, oh shit. I'm gonna have to pay like thousands dollars to get this repaired

If I didn't have money lying around that's a that that can ruin a day real quick

They can ruin a week real quick

They can ruin a month and so yeah, it's sweet to not have to have certain set of worries

Or things that just are downers. Do you have a number? So we what's interesting is that, you know

There's this idea of having a number of like I'm ready for retire and like a lot of studies have been done and very like

Interestingly a lot of people will have a number that they're at and then if you double it

That's what they like on average people say look. So if you have five million dollars, but if I had ten out of the half

Only I had ten. Yeah. Yeah, or if I have ten, if I had twenty I'd be happy

Which is always kind of funny. It's like three inches in height. Everybody wants three inches in height, right?

Do you did you have a number? Do you have a number?

Yeah, I did and then some people who were way past that were like dude that number is not enough

So your number was six. I used to say six million

Because I've done some calculations and I was like six six should do it where what I was trying to calculate was if I had six

That was like working for me six million invested. I was saying, okay with X

You know average annual return does that cover my life burn?

even if my life burn was twice what it is today and

and people were like, yeah, but

You know that rate of return is a little bit like too optimistic and your life burn is gonna go up more

You just haven't really figured that out yet. Yeah, you know, the more money you have the higher your life burn is gonna go

It's hard to really be disciplined about that. So do you have a number now?

Yes, and now I think the number is

I don't know. I think 20 is the number where I

Would now have to like think of different ways that like why money matters

Why why more money would matter to me? Like all the obvious things would be

More than taking care of at 20 million

So what's funny is I've talked about this as well and the people at 20 say the same thing

40 maybe a 40

Maybe a 40 so I don't know when that when that stopped I used to think one and then I used to think six and then once you get there

You're like, okay, you're at six. Well, six. This is I'm not I can't stop here, right?

20 maybe at 20 and maybe at 20. I'll do the same thing. What do you think it is? Um, so I think definitely like

Yeah, 15 to 20 like if you have 15 20 million dollars at a really young age, like, you know, let's say 31

Like it's you're set. It's hard to lose. It's hard. Yeah, I can I can lose 10 million and still have 10 million

So like it's hard to lose now

You're not flying private, but you're living a really nice life and you're never gonna work again

But here's the thing guys like I don't know about you but guys like me even though I say I'm not gonna work anymore

I'm always gonna work

And because work is play so I have someone who could earn 20 million dollars at a young age

I think they're set regardless because they're always gonna be able to earn

That's a very good point age the age definitely matters because it's all about sort of how many years of compounding are you gonna get from there?

So I was doing the math basically like at a seven and a half percent return

So like if you believe that the trailing hundred years is going to repeat itself for the next hundred years

Then you can if you believe that that's it. That's to be true

Then your money will double around not every nine years. So 20 at 30 becomes 40 at

40 which becomes 80 at 50 which becomes

160 at 60 and that becomes a billion by the time you're 90 which is kind of wild

How that now the question is like well when we're 90 like is a billion even gonna mean, you know

Not much who knows but like that that growth is quite phenomenal

And that's really hard to grasp unless you put it in front of you. So getting

Wealthy ish at a young age. I think it's very significant

Yes, okay, so that's fine. I don't know. I feel like I gave kind of a generic answer

Which was what's it like to be rich? I guess like I didn't what what I'm glad I didn't do was say

Oh, you know, it's not as it's not as good as you think

Which a lot of people say a lot of rich people will say, you know

I thought it'd be great. But then I realized that what really matters is family. It's like, yeah, dude

I know that family matters, right? I'm asking what the rich part of the experience is like, you know, how's that?

how's that been for you and

And I guess what I would say is like

Rich whatever rich means to you, you know, the main the main benefit from my perspective

Is that there are just certain things you don't have to concern yourself with or work or worry about anymore

um

You know the biggest being if I don't want to work or I don't want to go to this job

I can just not do that. I could do something else with my time, right?

Like the money has freed up time time can be now invested in any activity you want and that tends to be like

You're picking that now you're picking stuff. You really enjoy or do you think really makes an impact rather than

You know something you have to do in order to pay next month's bill Andrew asked outside of business

This is Andrew. What's in what are you research and read about? I'll go first. I read a ton of history

I love American history starting in around 1860 going all the way up to about 1950

I think that's when crony capitalism kind of came to

Like kind of went away and all the regulations that came into place in America

It kind of came to be and a lot of interesting stuff was going on there

I also love reading and listening about the mafia because I think what the mafia did is like

As American as apple pie like it's so fascinating to me. So I read a ton of history and I research a ton a ton of

Early American stuff. So I'd like to go to museums and and look at old architecture from that era

Wow, we couldn't be more different. All right. So outside of business. I would break it into three groups

I study or research

What the nerds are into right now? So

anytime, you know

Smart friends who are kind of like technically minded if they're into something

I it takes me probably five times longer than them just to understand that that new technology

but uh, I put in that time because I like it and um, so like, you know, somebody will mention something that hey, you know

um

This ai thing, you know, is now able to predict protein folding and I'll be like protein folding

I don't know what the fuck proteins fold for what's protein folding all about what have people tried before

How do they even get this to work? What is actually machine learning?

What how does that work, you know, like and so I try to I try to basically study what the nerds study

That's one two is more of like the unwinding which is sports. I'm like knee-deep in basketball

You know, uh stuff. So I like to follow all the story lines stats, you know, that sort of thing

Uh, and then the last one that I would say is self-help or some kind of like mindset. So I think that

Uh, you know people probably at this point if you listen to this podcast, you know that

Um, more than anything, I'm a believer that if you can master your mind

You've won the game and I think that that's the hardest hardest thing to master is your mind

And I want to read all the different ways people do that and try them in self-experiment and then go back and research more

So that's the third thing I do

How did success influence or change the dynamics of your romantic relationships? That's a good question

But we both have been um from uh, julie julie

Davila

Yes, julie had that was a good question best question so far

so I was I met my wife right when I started my company and um

Before that I dated a ton. I I was I was a big dog. I was a I'm not saying it was successful

Let me change that I tried to date a time

But yeah, uh, so I tried to I liked women. Um, it didn't always work, but uh,

I prefer being in a relationship

Being successful has been cool with my wife because it feels because we are manage our success together and like

I think for both of us our wives were successful before we were. Yeah, my wife

Yeah, we're at least way more liquid. That's they made they made more money faster than we than we did dude

I'll say it. I mean to my wife was a self-made liquid millionaire before I was right

uh

Yeah, I think the same I think same same is true for me. So so that was uh, that's the first part like, you know, how

It's really, you know, how was success for them?

Is the real question? I was like working with this marrying this broke, you know

Broke entrepreneur who keeps trying to say he's he's living the big dream

But you know, where's the where's the success for like, you know, it's five years that that's that's the first question

So, yeah, when I dated Sarah

Her mom was like so does he and her parents are entrepreneurs?

So they kind of got it but like does he have a job like well, no, he's gonna start this conference thing

Well, where does he work? Well, he can he works at his laptop. He can work anywhere and they didn't get it

And so my first year I made like 20 grand and then like he's a wedding planner. I think

like so anyway, like

My wife had a full-time job and she would probably make it six figures straight out of college

She went to an Ivy League school and went to facebook

Anyway, how how has it changed the dynamics? It's made it my opinion way better

I do we do all of our finances together. We meet once a week and we go everything

When I started when I started dating my wife. She

She had just bought her first house. She was driving a BMW m3 sport

I was living under my parents house in a like they had like an

Unpermitted in log unit that I lived in with my my best friend from high school

lived in there with me and

Uh, you know

That's where that's where I was. He didn't have a car. I didn't have a house

Uh, I had a job. I had a good job. I guess but um, yeah, that's that's how we were when we met and then

You know, great. What does he do? He's a ceo of a startup. Okay. So, you know, it's virtually virtually unemployed

You know, like on the brink of unemployment essentially was the situation

I'll say one thing which is as you know, as good things started to happen

So got got promoted from like a product manager to ceo of like the company and then from ceo to like

You know investing and then selling the company and all that stuff

There was definitely a period where I got a little cocky

Um, where not intentionally but I look back now and I'm like, I was kind of kind of being a dick

I sort of thought

All these people I hang out with

That are like, you know, super successful

I felt like they they didn't have to deal with any of the bullshit at home that I was dealing with

It's like, okay. Yeah, I got to take out the trash. You know, does my investor take out the trash?

I don't know. Maybe he's got somebody to take out the trash for him, right?

Like, oh, I have to you know, wake up at like right now

I wake up in the morning at seven o'clock and from seven to 10 a.m

I you know, I'm on daddy duty taking care of the baby

And I was sort of like don't we're supposed to have like nannies for this?

I was like very spoiled in that sense and I thought

Well, no, I'm the like successful working guy, right? So like

I don't have to do these like normal things. And so that was my like entitlement to myself

And then I realized two things one is

Uh, yeah, those guys do that too. That's you know, a lot of the people that I was talking about that I admire

They did all that too. They just didn't complain about it like a little bitch. And then the second thing was that they um

That like who cares like do whatever

Uh, do whatever works for you and your family and like stop being stop holding your time as more valuable

Than my wife's time or that my kids time or my dog's time or anybody else

Your dog's time. I used to think my time was the most precious and now I don't now. I'm sort of like

You know, it's our time. We got to use it how we want

Do you I think it's cool. We're both married. I think it's cool to have this like team mentality

You know when my wife and I

So I we're both Catholic and even though we don't practice or anything

I was like we have to get married in a Catholic church

It was important to me and what that means he's got to go meet with the priest and he was like, so why are you getting married?

And we were like, well, we have similar values in life. We have the same goals

We just we both want to take over everything. We um want to have children and raise them in a particular type of way

We want to share our assets and pull together and he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa

What about love you guys love each other and we're like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah that too

And so like for us it was definitely we definitely love each other, but also there was functional partnership

Yeah, it's like it's very this is a very practical way to like live go through life

Like it's very it's easier for one another when you have someone that whose family in town

I don't know how to what they're gonna have your back. So anyway, I've enjoyed

uh having a little bit of success while being uh married if you're single

I guess the pros could be like you could just like fool around with people way out of your league

But I do think that it would be exhausting and actually probably not as fulfilling but maybe more fun

Man, I look back now when I was single, you know, I was 25 years old single

Didn't own a possession in the world and I was managing a bunch of people who were

10 20 years older than me had kids had families had mortgages had all the stuff

And I thought at the time I was being super understanding about it. And now when I look back, I'm like, oh my god, I was such a

idiot like I just didn't understand how

how

Hard it is for these people to give this much to a startup. Um, when they have all these responsibilities and obligations at home

And I was, you know, just a free bird 25 years old and you know

I could piss my time away didn't matter and like for these people that extra one hour they were at work was now

Through off the whole dinnertime bedtime schedule for them their kids their wife, you know, like all this stuff

And so I just look back now and I you know, I apologize to anybody I worked with then because I didn't truly understand

I thought, you know, this hustle culture was there was the right answer then and now

And I didn't realize how much they were already giving

And I always wanted more

What um, you know, let's do two more. Um, what pandemic behavior do you want to maintain?

Um

Yeah, basically the last year was you know, it sounds insensitive. So

Whatever, maybe that's that's the case. But last year was the best year of my life. Um, same

You know, I had a blast and a whole bunch of life events happened, right?

I had a kid I became a dad and you know, but I just everything I grew up my hair. I built a home gym

I started working out regularly. I you know, um

You know, I'm working from home. So I just had way more time with my family with my wife

Then when I was commuting every day and was at the office all day

um

You know, this podcast has been a lot of fun

This has been like 10 amazing things that happened this year that made this year literally the best year of my life. So

Uh, in terms of pandemic behavior, I would say I definitely don't like getting close to people and shaking their hands anyway

So, you know, good. I'm just gonna keep not doing that. Uh, but I would say like the home gym

uh, daily workout at 1 p.m. Is

Definitely the behavior I need to like keep going with

I agree. I've I've gotten in wonderful shape throughout this and uh, that's the one I'm gonna maintain. Yeah, um, all right

last one maybe, um

I'm curious about this favorite purchase one. All right

and

Okay, let's do let's do three of these. Let's do um

If you were 21 again, what would you be doing? I can't stand that question, but I'll answer it. Yeah, what is it?

If I was 21 now in 2021

I don't

I don't know. What would let me think what would you be? What would you do?

I think I would go on tour

with in the most like interesting spaces with the most interesting people

So I think what I would do is I would say hey, I'm a hired gun

You pay me whatever pay me

5k a month 10k a month something like that

Uh flat fee

I'm gonna come work my ass off for you

Uh for three months

I love it. I'll stay on but by default

You're gonna get just like somebody unbelievable just right-hand man to to deal with any headaches or problems you have

And you'll never see somebody, you know work harder and smarter at figuring shit out than me

And I would pick basically like four or five people that I thought were amazing

um

That were doing things in interesting fields doing interesting projects

And I would pitch that to them and I would if they said no, I would find the next five people and I would just

I would go on tours. I would I would treat 21. I would treat work like I would treat I would treat um

Like marriage in the sense that I would focus on dating

Figuring having fun figuring out what I love what I like figuring out what likes me

And um, I would be in no rush to like

Find the project or start the company or like pick a career. I would say cool

I'm gonna go on I'm gonna have these these little three month relationships with bad-ass people in bad-ass spaces and

um, you know, just please

I commit to doing that for two years and then I'll figure it out after that like a that'll be my Mormon mission

I would probably

My goal at 21 would be how do I become a

Liquid millionaire by 25 and then after 25 I could dedicate a little bit more time to like a big purpose

Or how do I create cash flow?

And so I think I would want to start a blog or something like that and try to sell it

uh

In the next two or three years

I would I would not try to do that because um

I think that

You know, if we're measuring the score on like a I don't know 10 year period or 20 year period

Then I think I would get more value by

Being at the cutting edge of certain spaces certain industries and being

seeing what like

Like a plus-plus players are like we now work with them and earning their trust. I think that's a lot more valuable

All right a quick message from our sponsor

You know, I was thinking about the shortest day of the year earlier

And while we technically have the same amount of time as every other day of the year

The lack of daylight makes it feel so much shorter

Which is exactly the same kind of feeling as working with disconnected tools

Our work day is the same length as always but before you know it

We spent three hours just fixing something that was supposed to be automated

Thankfully hub spots all in one crm platform can serve as a single source of truth for managing your customer relationships across marketing

Sales service operations with multiple hubs and over a thousand integrations

And an easy to use interface hub spot lets you spend less time managing your software

And more time connecting with your customers learn how hub spot can help you grow your business at hubspot.com

All right last question best purchase over two grand and under one hundred dollars over two grand for me

gotta be uh

This rowing machine that I bought for about two thousand dollars. It's called ergata

I am obsessed with it or I bought a pretty nice

Uh mercedes that's really fast. I go on drives every morning and in the afternoon and it just makes me happy for under a hundred dollars

Uh

Under I don't know uh

I have to thank what about you

I would say this camera that i'm using right now. Um

Because when the whole world went remote everything's done over video

and

Yeah, I used to just use like a mac air mac air laptop makes you look like you know an actual like prisoner of war in uganda

when you go on a video call and so

This having a dope camera

Is great for the pod but it's great for every single meeting. I feel like

I feel like i'm putting my best forward and uh, I look great. I feel great

I think the other person you know treats you differently depending on how you show up

And so I think this one camera is like the equivalent of buying, you know a closet full of

$10,000 suits, you know and without any of the headache of like wearing a suit

So that was it my my under a hundred dollars is an arrow press. I love my arrow press

What is that? That's a coffee thing. It's a coffee coffee thing. It's like uh, it makes individual cups coffee is badass

I use it all the time

Uh under a hundred dollars. Okay. I got this for free from jack smith jack gave me his thera gun and I fucking love the thera gun

Um

He gave it to you. Yeah, he had like an old one or something like that. He

He got a new one or I don't know what I don't know why I had to go buy a knockoff on amazon

Yeah, that's what I was gonna do and actually then he messaged me was like, hey, I have one

I'll send it to you and I was like, oh, I'll buy it. He's like, no, no just put your address

I'll send it to you and I was like jack good guy and now I told I sent him a message

I was like dude

I use this thing every night. I think of you every night because I'm like, I love this gun

I love jack for giving me this gun. This thing is amazing

Do you want um, do you want an update on some numbers? Yeah

So this month may may is over now, but in may we're doing a podcast push

So we got about six hundred and thirty thousand listens

So that was the number we were

Uh to put that in perspective. That's plus. I think 34 39 percent month over month and so that's 40 percent

month from april to may and then the month before april march march to april was a 30 percent

And then the month before was also a 30 percent

Right, so basically since you started saying i'm going to focus on growth this thing started growing between 30 and 40 percent month over month

We've doubled in the time that you said it. I remember we were at 300 something thousand then now we're at 600 something thousand downloads per minute

Now I don't think I think june might be stable

The reason why is because I don't think people are gonna be listening as much

I saw a distinct drop

Uh on monday like monday's we normally have 35 000 listeners this monday was 18 000 right

So I think I think we might hit a little trough of sorrow, but that's okay

We gotta know to expect that but we're gonna keep grinding

But I think that we're gonna hit a million soon and here's some more stats our top rating

We are number eight in itunes and in spotify in the business category, which is pretty good number eight number eight

Wow, uh, we are in number eight still right now in spotify and for some reason

We were number one in britain in the investing category. I have no idea why

but

That's the updated numbers. I'm pretty proud. I think you should be proud too

Um a few things that people loved trunks thing was amazing people loved is your short ones people loved

Um, you did one today on but that was june, but yeah people liked it so far. I think yeah

Um, I uh, I'm gonna I'm I'm posting that on youtube, but I'm because it's like my story

I'm gonna put that on my youtube. I think I deserve that and uh, I I think that uh, that's gonna go viral, but uh

The numbers are good. We grew a lot. It's working

I think the best thing you said was to there will be a plateau whether it's this month or the next month

There's always a plateau and I've talked about this before which was one of the biggest

Lessons learned as somebody trying to build shit is that these plateaus happen

You should you know, I used to think oh plateau means the you know, the world is the sky is falling

This isn't working

Uh, you know change everything. No, uh blah blah blah and it's like no

You know the dabbler quits and goes and does a different thing

The stressor gets freaked out by the plateau thinks that they did something wrong and takes it personally

And the master says oh, there you are. I thought I thought you'd be here soon

Hello, uh, and then sort of dances with the plateaus and figures out how to get to the next level again

So I think we're gonna probably plateau somewhere here in the

Six to seven hundred thousands per month before we shoot through the million per month

And I was working with my wife yesterday. She wants to launch a course you've inspired her Sean and she

Was all excited to start this thing. She's been talking for months. It's a great idea

And yesterday she was like halfway through recording the content and everything and she was like I feel horrible

I'm like, ah, you're there. Right, right. You're there. I've like the 40% park

Yes, and I like talked to her and I was teasing with her

But I was like, Sarah, do you know why I'm good at what I do is because I know that that is normal

And I keep going and do you know why most people are not?

Uh, what who they want to be is that's where they stop right?

But so what you have to know is that point where you you start high and then you get to low when you're a little bit into it

You have to a recognize that's very normal

That is incredibly normal and then you keep going just like if you're exercising you're like, oh, I'm starting to sweat

I'm starting to sweat. It's like, oh, okay. That's normal. That's part of it

Now you got to keep going and keep going right, right, right exactly

If you if you put down the the but you know the the dumbbell every time your muscle started to burn

You would never never you never grow right because the burn is right where it starts, you know the growth starts

And so I think for pre-launch

There's three points. Everybody hits that the first time you hit them you react pretty poorly

Typically, uh, the first is the overthinking phase. That's before you get started

The second is the fuck. This is the the the the despair. This is never gonna work. This sucks

Uh, the thing I was so excited about now that I'm doing it and it's harder than I thought

Uh

Is this ever gonna be good? That's where your wife's at right now

Yeah, and then there's the last bit when you're at the 90 percent mark and the perfectionist comes out and says no

No, no, no, no, no. It's not good enough yet. People aren't gonna like this

It's not gonna work and you're actually at the 90 95 percent mark and the perfectionist wants to pull you back to 50 percent

Say no, no, we need to do all this other stuff before we go out there

so I think those three points overthinking then the point of despair and then the

The perfectionist point they happen pre-launch of every project. Yes, so it's very normal

Um, so let's talk about a couple ideas, which I think you're gonna you've got some stuff

Yeah, by the way, also the live shows are happening. I guess by the time this gets released

They'll have already happened. So you know, whatever but after this like literally

I might have to cut this 10 minutes short because I got to pack my bag

I'm coming to your house in austin and then we're going to miami. It's gonna be awesome

Can I just say that I think this is gonna be a game changer for us?

I think that we're gonna see it's gonna be fun to see these excited people

You know, it's crazy as Sean and I like plan to do this like two weeks ago

Or we have been talking about it and then one day he texted me

He goes, do you want to go to miami for this time and we were going to go to crash someone's event?

I don't even know but we just said pocket. Yeah in done. It's subtle like we did over a text

and then we got everyone rallied around it and

I think a hundred people ish are going to come to the austin one and then I think we're at 500 for miami

And it wasn't until today that I thought and we're speaking tomorrow

So recording this on a wednesday, but you're hearing it on friday. We're it wasn't until just now

When I write for the podcast, I told dan what to do, but I was like, oh, I guess we have to figure out what we're gonna say

Right, what are we gonna talk about?

It's so I told dan I go dan send out a google form to all the attendees and just have three things

What look what city you're in?

Uh, what question you want answered and what your first name is and then we'll just like see the trends of questions

And then right maybe we just rattle. I think you told me that idea

And and and we'll just rattle that off. But uh, yeah, it's cool, man

You know like what if this this sounds so lame because it's just internet nerds like you and me

But what if like me? Oh and jack butchers coming now

What if like me you and jack and andrew and all these like

Like these losers online

Yeah, if we have like a nerds on tour, I'm pretty sure we could get like 10,000 people to come to each one

Yeah, yeah, I think nerds on tour is a cool idea. I think we should just do it

Uh, maybe, you know early next year. We go nerds on tour

That's actually a great idea. It's isn't it funny how all the names are great. So dan let's grab that domain nerds on tour

Let's see if that's available

All right, you want to uh, what's what do you got? What do you got? Okay, so let's do some ideas. Um, okay

So neighborhood 7-elevens

So what is I love neighborhood 7-elevens by the way?

So I don't know what kind of neighborhood you live in. I'll find out when I go to your house tonight, but uh

My neighborhood is kind of like I'm in the suburbs and so I don't know in this neighborhood that might be 100 homes

and

There's like a gate at the front

It's sort of like one of those neighborhoods where it takes you

Seven minutes to just get from your house to the front of the neighborhood

Because you're you know, you want to go to the the grocery store the grocery store is only two miles away

but like

Takes you seven minutes to get out of your neighborhood and then another 10 minutes to get there

it's 17 minutes like round trip and um

And there's just like a hundred of these neighborhoods or a thousand of these neighborhoods in the suburbs

Like everywhere I go in the suburbs of california. It's like this

And so I started thinking about

Two two ideas that came together as one in my head. So the first was there's a startup

We had talked about called fridge no more

And yeah, we talked when we talked about that it was like just starting. I'm pretty sure it's a huge thing already

Well, they just raised yeah 15 20 million dollars or something like that. Um

Love those guys and uh, you know was considering investing. I just thought the value is a little high, but uh, but yeah

Anyways, I think it's really cool concept and their concept is it's called fridge no more because like look in the future

You won't even need a fridge. Why because when you want something you'll just push a button

You want like, you know two ice creams. Great. They'll show up at your door and like under 15 minutes

How do we do that? Well, we have these like super small

kind of like cloud uh corner stores

That are just like we'll have like a hundred in every city

And these cloud corner stores will be able to dispatch in order to you in a very small amount of time with a very low

um like delivery fee and

And gopuff does this on college campuses. That's like a multi-billion dollar company. I think

And so I started thinking about in the suburbs the challenge, uh, is a little bit different and I thought why don't neighborhoods

Just have a neighborhood corner store. Okay. Well, how would that work?

So you told me about the vending machines thing last podcast. So it got me thinking, okay

That was a good one, right? That was a good one as I was driving through my neighborhood. I was like, look at all these garages like

Would somebody not want

$500 a month to turn their garage or part of their garage into basically just like fridges and freezers

um, and then

It could just get you know, basically you just deliver to the uh, you deliver to the neighborhood

Garage, that's the neighborhood corner store all the bulk wholesale goods, you know your your water your all your drinks

your sodas your

Snacks and your like ice creams or whatever

And then in the neighborhood you would just have it where you just order and either you go pick it up

Out of the girl out of that garage or you know, some kid in the neighborhood can just pick up the order

Make five bucks for just taking it from one part of the neighborhood to the other to bring it to you

And uh, the key would be the convenience of the speed of this that you could get it in like, you know under 10 minutes

To get something delivered to you. So basically the idea is

Take the idea of 7-Eleven but use the sharing economy

So put put a mini 7-Eleven inside of garages inside of all these suburban neighborhoods. What do you think of this idea?

I've got strong feelings

so

Um, well, just let me let me let me get to it the sharing economy

So kind of really got popular with airbnb uber

I remember 2013 in the same way that all the older school magazines are all talking about crypto

It was like the sharing economy. So there's a sharing economy for everything back in 2013 2014 and it was all we talked about

And I've looked at the data and I've like tried to figure it all this out. I am almost positive

That the sharing economy only works for like two or three things

uber and driving

airbnb home rentals

And maybe that's it

I've seen sharing economy stuff. Have you ever seen I just got pitched on this other day and I just can never get

I never am on board with it sharing economy for like utility like tools in your

Yeah, this idea has been around and recycled like a trillion times like hey

Why do I have to buy a drill my neighbor has a drill?

You know, I just want to use it once. Why don't I just rent the drill on the land locally that idea never works

Or at least it hasn't ever and and there's probably a reason why it hasn't

Um, there's a bunch of these sharing economy things like one was like you go to someone's home and you cook dinner with them

Or they like it's a private like it's a cooking lesson, you know, right even airbnb experiences doesn't really work that well as a business

It works as a nice little add-on thing for them. But that's not like where their value is. Um, and I've always thought that sharing economy for most

Things is a horrible idea. I used to share an office when I first started my company

It was me sieva and one other company. I think they were called bruster or something and they were trying to get people to make

It was like storage

So they were like one of the people to rent storage in other people's garage

And I would hear these guys on their phone trying to call constantly trying to get and they had zero users

And I heard I'm trying to get user one user two. I heard all the whole thing

They would walk around on the phone

It was so hard to convince anyone and when they did convince someone it never worked

And so in terms of sharing economy stuff and like uh, like this idea, I'm almost always default to

I don't know that seems really difficult. Do you agree?

um, I don't agree with okay, I do agree that it's difficult, but

Like on the storage one. So for people who don't know there was a batch of startups all trying to do this, which was hey

Airbnb lets you rent out the excess space in your bedrooms your house

Um, why don't we rent let you rent out your excess space in your garage?

And so omni started this way. They ended up shutting down after raising a bunch of money

Um clutter tried to do the same thing clutter. I changed. I believe they've made it, but maybe they pivoted

I don't know what it's now just a normal ass like we come pick up your stuff and store it in a warehouse

The store in warehouses. Okay. So yeah, so I don't know what the uh, what what went wrong there

But that was one that I would believe could work right because if I have extra space below one these things

You don't get they don't get used very much. So they sort of just stay in storage for the most part

There's one reason why I mean and I and I've thought about this convenience. It's all about convenience

So it's the convenience that has to pay for itself. So uh having someone stay in my house is

relatively inconvenient, but I can make like three grand a month pretty consistent

Right

Okay, yeah, so it's not about convenience. It's about money. Well, no, it's a balance

It's it's like it's my convenience at a price now having someone store shit in my garage for $80 a month

Which is how much it costs to store stuff at a normal, uh, right storage unit. That's just fucking not worth it

I don't it's not worth it to me. It's the pain in the ass and it's not worth it. It's way too inconvenient

Right. Yeah. So I think there is, you know, this trade-off. I would also say I think a lot of people merge these ideas together. So

For example, sharing economy. What does sharing economy mean? It means taking excess resources that are unutilized and getting them to be utilized

Right airbnb excess space get them to be utilized

Then there's like gig economy gig economy is like more like uber

Right like push a button and uh, like push a button the guy's gonna come pick you up

And it's not so much excess resources because that guy it's not like that guy was just happened to be driving by anyways

It's like, no, he just made this his job. Um, and gig economy. So then people started trying to do that with like

masseuses right like push a button a masseuse will come to your house. Um, you know, like pedicures at your house or whatever

Whatever every every random thing

And then there's sort of like creator economy, which is like a totally different thing altogether

And so people started just like using these words pretty interchangeably and I think that doesn't work and in general

Almost all these are two-sided marketplaces, which are just like f-ing hard to do. It's really f-ing hard to start as two-sided marketplace

And when you do the prize is a billion dollars, uh, you know in your pocket

And so, you know, it shouldn't be it really shouldn't be that easy

But uh, I agree. So so I agree with you that this probably a wouldn't work or b

Uh, would be looks like a real pain in the ass to do but good idea sean

yeah, but interesting idea in the sense that

um

I think it would be pretty game changing in terms of convenience because it would be essentially

Like a cold vending machine

Inside of neighborhoods, right? Like, you know, like a super vending machine inside of neighborhoods

And if you could get it to work

You now have every sort of suburban neighborhood

uh, you know to go spread into

where

A lot of stuff is done in cities partly because the people who build startups tend to live in cities not in the burbs

And so um, so a lot of stuff works in the cities because that's where they live

That's what they know and then people are really densely packed into one area

And so it's hard to get things to work at a neighborhood level

You ever been to a truck stop where they have like just this slab of concrete with benches and like

10 different vending machines all right there. We're just like an awning and you could

We'll just do that. Let's just do that in the burbs. We're just gonna get that slab

It's put all those vending machines right in there. Well, that's the thing like the question is

What would you sacrifice one home for right because you need the space?

So either it's got to go inside of a home

Right in the garage in the backyard and inside the house

Or it has to be so valuable that you could justify just buying one of the homes and converting it into some like commerce

Basically for the the neighborhood and getting the permits to do it

Which is you know, once we start talking permits this time to change ideas. Okay. I got another I got another suburban idea for you

so

The new golf so my buddy ben got invited to go play in this pickup game as pick a basketball game and uh

It's he didn't want to turn it down because it was like like ballers

Yeah, there's a bunch of ballers that were like gonna go play there. There's like this baller not real ballers

Half half were actual like, you know, like good ballers

And you know people who are like, you know, this guy's gonna get drafted this year

This guy trains the NBA players. What the fuck isn't ben like a little guy

Yeah, but we met the guy who's the trainer for the NBA players. This guy alex

And I forgot his company name last time so I'll shout it out this time through the lens

He's the one building the master class for athletes. So um through the lens

So anyways alex was organizing this game and he was like, hey, you want to go come play in this?

You're you're in new york also. So

Uh come by and if you if you're an NBA fan, you always see on instagram

All the NBA players in the summer go play in this one gym. That's like, um, it's like in an apartment building

So it's like yeah, my friend used to live in that building it like sky or something. I don't know what it's called

But it's like, yeah, it's in new york. Yeah

It's like this exclusive thing and it'll be like LeBron and Carmelo and Kevin Durant all playing in this like little gym

Whatever, so the guy was like, hey, we're gonna go play tomorrow on that gym. You want to come?

He's like, fuck yeah, like all right

Who's there and it's like a bunch of like, you know, I don't know billionaires children and like, you know

Want to be NBA players or whatever so they went and played and I was like, how was it?

He's like, oh, it was good. But like, you know, a I suck and b

um

You know, I'm just trying not to get hurt, right?

Like he's like once, you know, you're 30 you got like he's like, I just had a kid

Like I just can't afford to get hurt and I'm not playing regularly

So I'm you know, I just kind of like played it easy. I guess which is kind of lame

But that was the truth I said, well, you know, same here

I stopped I basically played basketball as like my favorite thing to do until I was like 27

and then like since then I've just been like, well

The odds of me spraining an ankle or spraining a knee is just too high. I can't like

Actually play the sport anymore properly. And so I kind of opted out

So I started thinking about like at every age there's a different sport that's like right for you

So, you know, maybe in your 20s and 30s, it could be something like basketball or soccer

Then your 40s, you really there's not many 45 year old like pick up basketball players that are that are going out there

There's always, you know, maybe the one old dude who's like barely barely moving

But for the most part you need to graduate to another sport that is that matches your life athleticism

So it might be tennis and you know, the little bit older might be golf

And then a little bit older like I think the sort of end sport is basically

Just plain poker. You can just do that in a wheelchair

And you know, it's like the last thing you can do as like some kind of form of sport or competition

and so

So anyways, he got me thinking like

Okay, if I'm I'm about to shift into the like tennis phase. Okay, cool. Fine

It's pickleball, bro

And that's pick so then I started thinking about pickleball because I was like, what is pickleball?

Pickleball is mini tennis that is like kind of the best of tennis, but it's also

Easier on the body, right? Am I right about pickleball? I haven't played but that's what I see

You don't have to run. No, I would say it's as hard on the body, but it's like it requires close to no skill

Right. So okay, the skill cap might be different, but I also think there's less. Let's running around and jumping

Sure, but like anyone can do it, right? So so it's more accessible. That's kind of the point

And then I was thinking about golf because I think once you hit, yeah, I don't know 50 plus

It seems like golf is the major sport for that age

And golf is like the least fucking accessible thing, right? It's super expensive

It takes the whole day is hardest shit to like even to be decent at golf

So I'm like, how is it? It's amazing to me this even worked, right?

Like it's kind of like mind-blowing golf even even has any popularity. So what's the point? What's the new one?

What is the new golf?

So can I tell you what I've been thinking? Yeah, what are you been doing?

when I have friends in town

or

You and I won't have enough time. Maybe we will tomorrow, but

Like I had a friend named Brennan come over whenever people visit. I go

5 5 p.m. Thursday or whatever come to my house and wear tennis shoes

And I've bought tons and tons of wraps and so they get there. I throw them hand wraps and I go we're gonna box today

And I throw them their thing and we wrap up our hands up. I go, all right, we're gonna warm up with some mitts

I'll show you how to punch we do that and then I go, all right. Here's an extra mouth guard. We're sparring

and

I I lead him and I we don't hit hard

But like if they want every once in a while, I won't hit them hard in the face

But I'll get up in there and then I'll pop them really hard in the stomach just so they could feel alive

Yeah, feel what it's like to be alive and then I'll let them punch me

I had a guy chip my tooth the other day and it's been the greatest bonding experience. I've done it with men women everyone with the women

Like well, so pop me real hard and I'll hit her in the stomach. Like it's awesome, man

It is awesome. I have loved doing this with boxing. It brings you together

It makes you feel alive and it's a fun sport because we could do it in my garage

And you normally don't box because it's embarrassing to try that in front of a bunch of people

Totally and you're afraid to get killed. Yeah, and I know we're not like and they'll see me. I go put I go put your hand up watch and

Well, I like I move so slow. I'll just kind of tap them. I'm like, look, that's all we're doing

We're just gonna barely touch each other. Yeah, so I think in the I think 30s, maybe even 40s boxing works

I think beyond that

Boxing also doesn't work because you know for obvious reasons

Um, so so I think you're you're doing the thing where you're basically as you shift in age you like shift in sport

um

And I've seen like I think I talked about this once before but like people have taken

Like so I was talking to my friend saw hill. Uh, this guy saw hill bloom. People might have seen him on twitter

He's got a big twitter now

And we were we were eating and he was talking about he used to be a baseball player at stanford

he was a pitcher

and he's like

You know, I got hurt, you know, that kind of ended my pro

aspirations and then it was sort of like

Well, this thing the sport I've dedicated myself to forever is

Pretty much useless to me at this point, right? Like I will never play pick up baseball

Like what am I gonna do go find nine friends on one side nine on the other side that all like baseball

all have four hours to kill and uh, you know, we have the right skills where we can like pitch and catch

Uh, you know, like most people can't even sit in the catcher squat

Like, you know, it's just you're never gonna play baseball again

And it's true like baseball is sort of the worst trans worst access sport at an early age

I think golf is the worst one at a later age. And so I think that if somebody could take the characteristics that make golf work

And create their version of pickleball

I think you'd own a pretty valuable asset and I'm on the lookout to see what is this next one because I have several friends

That didn't invent pickleball

But when pickleball started to get popular they built pickleball businesses

Some, you know, uh, I can't say their names. They actually they've like literally asked me not to but uh,

Uh, one of them is they did equipment. So like they just built like, you know, like an amazon fba business

Selling pickleball stuff and they were able to rank at the top because at the time pickleball wasn't that competitive

But it got more and more popular over time

And then other people started leagues and there's other people that are bar stools

I think doing something on the media side. I don't know. There's a bunch of different ways you can ride these waves of new sports

and so

What makes golf work is that it's I think it's outdoors

Um, I think that it's uh, you know, it's a chill sport

So it doesn't require like running jumping squatting like stuff like that like it's

You know old guys can swing the club too

Um, and then all the bad parts you would have to change

So you'd have to find a way to make it a 60 minute or 90 minute experience

Um, you would need, you know golf's cool because you can do it by yourself

You can do it with one other person or do it with four people. So that's good. I'd keep that

Um, you would not want to have it be where you need like thousands of dollars of equipment just to get started

Um, or like, you know pay to go do this thing

And then you'd also want it to be where a beginner can like feel some sort of success and not just like

Like I went to a golf course once on spike ball

Too athletic dude, you think you're still thinking like you you have athleticism still you got to think about you 30 years from now

You got a bum hip the testosterone that you've been taking for 30 years has now wiped you out

You're you know, you you're gonna be in a different phase. You're gonna need a different sport at that time

I think it's got to feel like I just go for walks

Yeah, but the walks don't have the thing that the boxing is giving to you where you get to scratch the competitive itch

and you get to do like kind of like

Um, you get to feel alive. You get to still feel like you're doing something

Uh walking is sort of like the most basic. I think you got to take like shuffleboard

uh shuffleboard level of like

Movement and make it a like outdoor activity. I don't know. What's that one sport that old people play that's like, um, bochi

bochi bochi, but you know, I don't know what bochi ball is

Maybe this is bochi ball that I'm describing

But I feel like maybe something like bochi ball is what's gonna what's gonna pick up

so

We need to go to questions I think

You're not a fan of the new golf. I'm not a fan of the new golf dude. I'm telling you it's gonna happen

You're gonna see the sport rise in popularity amongst older people and you'll be like

Fuck Sean was right. There was an appetite for a sport for older people. That's not called golf

Maybe but like I can't it's just like such an impossible thing to predict

I mean like I would be it'd be better predicting which companies would be a billion dollar company then

Which sport is going to be who like who would have thought a sport named pickleball was going to be sick

Yeah, I don't know. I would have put my money on slam ball, but you know just to show what I know

then do we um

Do we have uh, what's it called? Do we get the merch? So we have stickers. We have shirts for the tour

Yep, we got stickers. We got shirts. We got hoodies and then my first business in college was making buttons

So I got some buttons for you guys too. Do you have the shirts with you?

Uh, I don't they got shipped out yesterday. They are arriving uh tomorrow into Miami

Okay, great. So Austin Austin. No shirts. Miami shirts. Everything's going to Miami. Yep. Okay, and what about um

And what who's the guy who designed the shirts? Let's give that guy a shout out too

Yeah, let me uh pull it up. Dustin is his first name

And he's like he's like a creative agency or like a kind of a design company or something

Yeah, he's got a creative agency in Las Vegas. I tweeted out, you know, hey

Give us some to you know, somebody give some designs. We'll we'll hook you up and uh

His were by far the most kind of like favorite it or liked

Uh by people who said like, you know pick this one. This these are the winners

Yeah, Dustin Ionati. He's got an agency out in Las Vegas called artisans on fire

Artisans on fire. Okay, sweet. Yeah, artisan fire. Go check that out. Uh, and he made the

Post-economic shirt that's gonna fly off the shelves. Are we giving this away or are we charging for them? I didn't hear the the end result

I got square set up. So you guys tell me

All right, we'll decide when we're done there. All right, can I hear one a funny observation?

Yeah, yeah

So I've been listening to you guys for like a year now always on one and a half X. So one of the weirdest things is having to listen to

You guys in real time

I've heard that before

Yeah, Sean sounds like he's a couple drinks in I can't believe that uh, but I talk faster than sam, right?

I feel like I'm I think we both

Well, you talk really fast at one and a half X. Yeah, that's fair

I can't believe people listen to this on on speed. It doesn't doesn't make sense to me

All right, I gotta go. I'll talk to you soon

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.