My First Million: Apology To MrBeast, What Startup Should I Start Answered, and Steven Bartlett Explained

This is so funny.

This is the funniest growth hack I've seen in a long time.

Do you think this is effective?

I would never do something like this.

I feel like I can rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to.

I put my all in it like no days off on a road.

Let's travel never looking back.

All right, what's up?

Do you know what I'm doing right after the top of the hour?

Yeah, you have a...

Can you talk?

You wanna announce it?

What you're doing?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

How did you do this, by the way?

How'd you pull this off?

All right, so we have this guy named Michael Harris,

nicknamed Hario.

I'm gonna interview him and find out his story.

So I don't wanna reveal his whole story

because I don't know the whole thing.

But basically, he's one of the co-founders

of Death Row Records.

And when I, sometimes Sarah and I,

my wife, we volunteer in prisons

and we work with this thing called The Last Mile.

I've told you about The Last Mile.

My friend Chris, he's a tech guy, started it.

It basically helps teach inmates how to do tech stuff

so hopefully they can get a job once they let out.

Well, a lot of those people are like convicted murderers.

It's wild.

And through that, I met Michael.

And he basically went to prison for 30 years

at the age, in his 20s.

And before that, he made up to a million dollars a day

selling crack and cocaine, I think,

and helped discover Denzel Washington

and sponsored or funded Broadway plays and things like that

and parlayed that into music

and thus created Death Row Records, which shook night.

And he has all these stories about Snoop, Dre, Tupac.

So we're gonna talk to him and figure out a story.

Are you a little bit intimidated

to have this conversation?

Incredibly, because I don't know.

You're not like the big, a big pop culture guy,

but like basically like, me, I am pop culture.

Dude, you didn't know who Dally Part was.

But basically like I, there's a lot of like,

I read a book about EZE and EZE and Dre and Death Row

had a beef and I don't know like where that stands.

Like if I can say who I'm a fan of

and who I'm not a fan of.

So I'm a little nervous because this guy,

it's not like our friends or our enemies on Twitter

where we're just gonna argue,

of course this guy will never do anything bad,

but like, you know, like that's,

it's a little bit more real.

He's more capable for sure.

Don't make the mistake of referencing somebody

by first name if you don't know them.

They'll be like, yeah, I was reading about EZE and EZE,

yeah, EZE, but I don't know him.

I'm just trying to seem cool here.

It's like what people,

they say they're coming to visit the Bay Area

and they go, hey, I'm gonna be in San Fran this week.

And I just have to tell them I say, hey man, listen,

just as a friend, nobody says San Fran here.

So you're just outing yourself as a tourist

as soon as you say that.

And that's how I feel.

So I feel I want to be respectful,

but I also want to like, let them know that like,

you know, I've listened to all this music,

I've read a lot of books about it,

but purely from an academic standpoint.

You know what I'm saying?

You're like brothers from two way different mothers.

Yeah.

So like that's, yeah.

So it feels like a little funky,

but like I was talking to him the other day

because the reason I got in touch with him

is he wants to like launch some podcast

or he's a brainstorming.

And he asked to talk to me and I said, yeah.

And he starts talking and I'm like, hey,

you realize that like when you're talking to me

about this drug trade and things like that,

like you talk about delegation

and empowering your coworkers and things like that.

Like this is business stuff.

Do you want to come on the pod?

And so I thought it'd be cool.

Yeah.

We've had people who've made, you know,

originally this podcast called My First Million

because it was let's interview people

who've made a million bucks in many different ways.

So I interviewed, you know, a business person

then I interviewed a poker player

and then somebody who made it through selling,

you know, weighted blankets online

and somebody who made it doing, you know, deodorant

and somebody made it doing one 800 got junk

and like a whole bunch of different things.

But now we have somebody who did it in some new ways.

Selling crack cocaine, record label and who knows what else?

That's, I think it's going to be amazing.

I'm joking around just because I know

if I was in your position,

I would feel a little squirmy going into it.

Like just like, how do I not say something stupid?

Like I know this could be great.

This is when things are tough.

It's when you know it could be great

but you also know it could easily go not great.

If you don't build rapport

or you don't really know how to guide the conversation properly

because it's not your standard interview, right?

Like if we brought somebody on who built a SaaS company

to, you know, $20 million, we'd be like, cool.

I know the same.

I know 20 questions to ask you that are all safe.

You're going to give me 20 answers that are all safe.

And I know exactly how the conversation is going to go.

And it really can't go anywhere that's out of my comfort zone

in terms of a question or a topic to talk about.

Whereas this one's going to be, you know,

the zip code is out of your comfort zone.

So you're not going to, I know how I would feel

going into that interview.

That's why.

I wanted you to, I wanted you to come

because I thought it'd be fun

since you are, you're even a few more zip codes

away than I am.

Are you sure?

Are you sure you can't make it?

You should.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Death Row records.

Name's a bit crude, don't you think?

Do you ever think of something softer,

like Milk Road, for example?

No.

Yeah, unfortunately I got another thing scheduled

at that time, but.

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All right, listen up.

One of the greatest things I ever did

at my old company, The Hustle,

was I hired this woman named Steph Smith.

Steph is amazing.

She is so good at breaking down companies

and helping me predict trends

of which businesses are gonna blow up.

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 poached her from me.

That's okay, I still love Steph.

And now she's the host of their podcast

called the A16Z Podcast.

It's their long-standing and chart-topping podcast,

and it's awesome, and Steph is the host.

Steph 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 A16Z Podcast gives you insider access

to the people and ideas at the edge of innovation.

Steph sits down with luminaries

like Apple's co-founder, Steve Wozniak,

Neil Stevenson, and all types of amazing people.

So check it out, it's called A16Z Podcast.

That's all one word, A16Z Podcast, check it out.

All right, let's jump in.

I have a bunch of topics here.

I gotta start with an apology.

I have to formally and humbly apologize to Mr. Beast.

So here's the situation.

We've talked about it a little bit before.

Back when we did Camp MFM, we invited Mr. Beast,

and I should say invited, meaning we invited ourselves

to his house, basically, in order to do it.

We were like, oh yeah, we're gonna do this.

He's like, yeah, that'd be cool,

but you know, schedule's crazy, I'm interested,

but you know, not in LA, because I'm in North Carolina.

We're like, oh, coincidence, what town do you live in?

That's where we're doing it.

So we went out there, had a good time.

One of the things that happened was I made him,

we were touring Duke's campus on their basketball court,

and I made him a bet that I could make a half court shot

before he did for $10,000.

Very stupid bet.

He stood to gain nothing, and you stood to gain everything.

Well, he could gain $10,000 also.

Oh, I didn't know that you had to pay him $10,000.

All right.

Yeah, yeah, we were ready at first.

So put 10 grand up, I had learned this

over the course of a few days.

He's like me, he's a bit of a degenerate gambler.

Like, I think his company,

they have like a separate bank account,

or it's like, eh, Beast, you could gamble this,

but don't touch the main stuff.

And that's all money he already won from gambling.

So they're like, look, that's your house money

to play with that.

Petty cash, petty cash.

Although I think the petty cash was like seven figures

if I was given, correct.

So anyways, bet him this amount, hit the shot,

glorious moment, and then it's like, we're so busy there,

we just go back to doing the camp, and it's like, yeah,

cool, you know, I'll pay you.

And I was like, great, you'll pay me.

That's what he does.

And so he didn't ride away.

And so I was like, and everybody,

all the other people on the trip were like,

yo, that's always awesome, awesome.

Did he pay you?

And I had to just be like, no, no, not yet,

but he's good for it for sure, right?

He's good for it.

And so that became the running joke was like,

no, no, he didn't pay yet, but he will.

And I brought it up on the podcast

because I talked about this on our end of your awards

as like a highlight moment was saying, dude,

I bet you I can make the shot in half court

of Cameron Indoor Stadium, this hallowed college basketball

stadium and just having the balls to make that bet

and then having the luck of hitting it was a high moment.

And I said, the low moment was following up

like three weeks later and be like, hey, you got that,

no, no rush, but you got that money?

Yeah, this wasn't a fake bet.

This was a real bet, bro.

Like, you know, first set it in a joking way,

like, ah, bitch, better pay my money.

Then three weeks later, like, hey, did you pay?

And so then I was like, oh man, low moment was being the,

like having to follow up and being like,

you know, basically begging for the cash.

So did he pay?

He was cool the whole time.

He was just like, oh yeah, my bet,

I'll have my assistant pay.

And I was like, yeah, no problem, cool.

And so that, I said that joke on the podcast

and then people have been referencing it like later.

Like people will, I don't know why listeners reference it.

They tweet about it every once in a while.

And so I guess he saw this tweet recently.

And this is now like many months,

like six months after the event.

Six months later, yeah.

He was like, somebody tweeted out this whole story,

this whole thread.

They go, you know, I realized why the Mr. Beast

not paying you stories, like didn't sit right with me.

And it's because you, Sean, also stood me up.

You said you wanted to invest in my thing

and that we should talk.

And then I followed up three times over email asking,

be like, hey, you said you wanted to invest

and like, let's talk, let's talk.

And you haven't replied to three of my emails

and like, you're ghosting me just like he's ghosted you.

Not cool.

And if you want to, you know, make things right,

you should take that call

and you should invest in my company.

And so he kind of put this out there

as a bit of a ballsy tweet thread.

And Mr. Beast saw it and he DM me.

He's like, what are you talking about?

Like I paid you like a while back.

What do you mean?

And I was like, what?

Oh, and I went and I checked.

Oh, dude, you punk.

So I had given him a Bitcoin, like a fresh Bitcoin wallet

because he's like, I'll pay him Bitcoin.

And I was like, all right, no problem.

And I'd given him a Bitcoin wallet

and I never checked this thing.

Because like, you know, who checks

like a random Bitcoin wallet you created.

He paid me back in November.

And so for months, I've been like telling this joke

about the like, hey, you know, just,

I know you probably meant to do it,

but you didn't do it yet.

Just when you get a chance.

No, no rush.

When you get a chance, just would love.

Was he, you think he's pissed at you?

No, I don't think, I don't think he gives a shit.

In the same way that I didn't actually give a shit.

I just thought it was funny.

Like the other thing we learned at that camp

with from that guy, Hasan Minhaj, the comedian,

he goes, comedy is all about low status.

And I remember that and I took that.

I was like, oh, my comedy is usually

trying to be cocky funny.

Like somebody says something and I say how,

dude, you know, like you were like,

you don't know about pop culture.

And I was like, bro, I am pop culture, right?

Like it's more cocky.

But actually what I learned from Hasan was that

low status is actually a funnier, more endearing way

to sort of win people over.

So telling this story about like,

yeah, then I had to follow up

and it turned from this cool moment

to this incredibly lame moment.

That was a low, it's a, it's trying to do a low status

comedy thing.

But then I realized I had been wrong the whole time.

He paid me in November.

So, yeah, whoops.

Damn, dude, that's a nice, that's a pretty big mess up.

You're just disparaging this guy.

Yeah, I was slandering the dude left and right

just saying, you know, at least I paid my debts, right?

Like, you know, I was joking around like that,

but incorrect, he paid.

All right, well, we have an end.

Happy ending for all involved.

Yeah, I was shocked that you were saying that on air,

by the way.

What?

Yeah, that he didn't pay.

I was like, this is gonna make its way to him.

I didn't just say it.

And randomly people asked, did you pay?

And then I'm like, oh, what am I gonna say?

Yes, no, if I didn't think you paid,

I was gonna say no.

I wasn't just like proactively being like,

by the way, call out, you know, that's not how it was.

I appreciate, sometimes, you know, it's just,

the people listening, it's just Sean and I

basically know Zoom right now.

We're on a riverside.

So just us talking, and it's very easy to forget

that there's other people who will hear this.

I find myself saying stuff all the time.

I've said, yeah, you get real comfortable.

You get very comfortable.

And I admire Joe Rogan.

I don't listen to a ton of Joe Rogan,

but I do watch some of his clips

and he does a really good job of,

he rarely disrespects people.

He'll say like, oh, they just have a difference

of opinion, it's all good.

Or he'll say, someone will bring up,

hey, did you hear how this person was talking trash?

And he'll just say, oh, you know, that's funny.

That's funny.

That's a really good job of not picking fights.

And I saw on your thing, on your list,

you have this kind of fight that started,

and it looks like I started it.

And I don't want it to come off that way.

But basically on this pod,

I tried never to like pick fights.

Or if I do pick a fight, it's like,

I'm actually going to go to battle with this.

And you have this, what's the guy's name?

Steven Bartlett thing on there.

Yeah.

Yeah, let's talk about this.

You want to bring that up?

Yeah, by the way, I actually want to say this,

you're right that when it's me and you just talking like this,

and there's nobody else here,

it's really easy to get comfortable.

You forget, oh cool, 150,000 people are listening, right?

If I was in front of an audience,

if I could see 150,000 people,

there's no way I would feel as comfortable

and as loose making jokes, or saying something,

or like, I'll do this often.

It's gotten me in a lot of trouble actually.

And I decided, as long as I'm saying something

that I actually think, I'm going to carry on in that way.

Because I don't usually think negative things about people,

but if people get upset about it, there is.

Well, the way that I do it nowadays,

and the pod actually taught me this,

which was if I'm going to talk negatively

about someone behind their back,

I'd better be ready to say it to their face.

And so I work really hard to only say things privately

that I'm okay saying to that person,

or even publicly sometimes.

And that's the takeaway.

I think it was, have you heard the story of like Abe Lincoln?

Basically, he like talked trash about some guy,

and they're like, I challenge you to a duel.

But he's like, shit, I don't want to go to a duel.

And so he's like, dude, I'm sorry, I'm afraid.

I don't want to fight you.

And then he's like, that's it.

I've never talked trash about people,

but I remember reading that,

and I'm like, that's a good sign.

And talking trash is easy.

I do it every once in a while just because I'm human.

But if you're going to do it,

we got to be able to say it to their face.

And so that's kind of my role that I try to live by,

but it's very hard to follow.

But all right, you want to talk about the Bartlett thing?

Yeah, yeah, okay.

So you teed up, because I think you tweeted it out.

So what's on your mind?

There's, well, nothing, I was just curious, but basically,

there's a guy named Steven Bartlett.

He's got a pod that's quite good.

It's mostly a YouTube thing, I think, but pretty good.

He's interviews interesting people.

Background is he had a company called Social Chain,

which there's a long story about it

that we've talked about before

where he basically owned, among other things,

a bunch of Twitter handles,

and he could help make a product popular

or a TV show popular by sharing it

amongst all the Twitter handles, whatever.

It's an agency.

It was relatively successful.

It was definitely successful.

He was kind of a prodigy.

It ends up getting acquired,

and the company that acquired it

did some type of reverse merger.

It goes public at its peak, hundreds of millions of dollars.

An article came out on Thursday.

And by the way, this guy, Steven,

he worked for Sean as an intern when he was 21 years old,

and we've said fun stories about that.

An article came out that said this thing was sold

for eight million, and I shared.

I go, well, this thing was only sold for eight million.

I thought this was a publicly traded company

for hundreds of millions.

I was a little confused.

What's the story here?

And people got pissed.

Not at me.

They got pissed at him saying,

this guy's saying he's built up a $300 million company,

and they listed tons of evidence saying otherwise.

And I didn't actually look into the evidence.

I don't know the truth,

but people were really angry at that.

It was pretty wild to see.

Yeah, I think you framed it well.

There's basically two things going on here.

One, as somebody gets really famous,

the target on their back gets bigger.

And so he's become more and more famous.

He has a very big kind of social media presence.

I think he's got like a million followers on Instagram

or Twitter or something like that.

Link Dan, he's big as well.

He's on the Shark Tank of England.

Yeah, he's on Dragon's Den,

which is like Shark Tank in Europe.

So he's like well-known there.

He wrote a book.

He's like doing things.

He has this podcast.

He goes on these tours, basically,

where he like speaks in front of auditorium.

He's a guy.

I call him the Black Gary Vee.

He's like very much like Gary Vee, in my opinion.

And in the same way that some people not Gary Vee,

I'm like, bro, you didn't build a business.

That was your dad's business

that you were just the marketing guy for.

And he's like, well, actually,

like the business was really small.

And then I started to wind library TV

and it grew much bigger.

There's people who come out and say,

oh, you're not as you represent yourself.

And so when you see this headline that,

oh, his agency sold for $7 million,

you're like, bro, what, 7 million?

Why are you representing yourself

as much bigger than you are?

And the explanation, I think, is kind of simple.

So here's the explanation.

His agency was called Social Chain.

When they got acquired,

they renamed the larger company,

which didn't have as much of a public-facing brand,

Social Chain Group.

And so, Social Chain Group was a bigger business

that did many things, had many agencies underneath,

had some other things that there's a e-commerce,

there's a big e-commerce business that was with it.

They sold there like a mattress company, basically.

And most of the revenue came from the e-commerce side.

And a smaller slice of the revenue came from the agency size.

And even a smaller slice came from his specific agency

called Social Chain.

I think when he sold, when Social Chain got acquired

or whatever by the larger group,

I think they were at roughly 9 million a year in revenue,

something like that.

And that was maybe two years in,

and it was like a great upstart story.

It was like 20 employees all under the age of 25,

doing this cool disruptive social media marketing at the time.

And this was 2014, 2015,

and then got acquired by this bigger thing.

Those guys had an e-commerce business,

and so naturally they're like,

oh, great, this marketing agency is a good business to have.

It'll help our businesses,

plus it brings in revenue alone from its service business.

And I think where he went,

so I think the simple explanation is,

yeah, his business got acquired,

the overall business did a bunch of revenue,

his agency did not.

But he was a key player in that overall group.

I think he was co-CEO of the group.

The group was one of four or five divisions.

So he was kind of like a division head

of a larger company.

Okay, great.

Where I think he went wrong is there's like a clip of him

on Dragonstone, and the other guy's like,

do you even know anything about business?

And he goes, no, anything about business.

I built a $300 million company by the age of 28.

And that's like the clip that the guy,

some people on Twitter circulating being like,

you're full of shit, dude.

You didn't build a $300 million business.

There was a $300 million business

that acquired your small agency.

To that, I say, they are correct.

He did get, I mean, to me that's like a very,

maybe it's just relatable

because I've been in those situations where I kind of like,

I feel insecure in a moment.

And I can imagine being a young guy on TV

and then the other investor says,

what do you know about business?

I could see your insecurity flaring up in a moment there

and try to say, try to puff your chest out

and say the biggest thing you can,

even though it's not technically true.

It'd be like when we got acquired by Twitch,

it's like, and then I ran a division at Twitch,

it'd be like me saying, I built or ran

a $5 billion company, right?

That would not be true.

That would just be like, puffing my chest out

in a way that's misleading.

So I think that-

You forgot the ER.

I was a builder on a $3 billion company.

You were a builder.

Right.

I was a part of a company that was,

I joined a company 13 years after it was founded.

And I was early.

But I felt that, for example,

I feel silly about this now,

which is that when we got acquired,

the deal was set, the deal was no PR,

like no disclosure of the terms.

But somehow it got leaked to TechCrunch

and I think a couple others that we got acquired

and they put a price in there of $25 million.

And the price was not $25 million.

It was less than that.

But the answer's gotta be no comment.

But I could have corrected it.

So I could have gone and said, no, it wasn't that.

I didn't even have to say what it was.

I could have just, in retrospect,

I could have just said, it's lower than that,

but I can't disclose.

Instead, I just said, hey, I can't say anything about it.

I'm not allowed to say anything.

And Twitch also said that I'm not allowed to say anything.

So I just sat out there and a bunch of people were like,

wow, great exit, $25 million.

And I'm like, yeah, that would have been a great exit.

It's still good, but less good than that.

So that's not the accurate number.

And that's still just what sits out there today

is that people think that that's what the number was.

And it kind of benefited me.

I remember in some ways,

and every time it benefited me, I felt guilty

and just like, it was also a weak move

to like take a representation

that makes something you did seem greater

than it actually was.

So I didn't like that.

And, but I can relate to this moment where you,

like the ego part of you or the insecure part of you

wants to feel like something is,

wants to say, no, I did a great thing.

So, you know, I understand where he's coming from

in that point of view.

But I don't really see what the controversy is besides that.

I think it's just like, is the dude more famous

than what he did with his agency?

Yeah, probably.

But he's famous because he's amazing at creating content.

And he's a great, like he's a great brand builder.

He's built his own brand.

How old is he?

He's only 28 maybe.

Yeah, he's like, yeah, mid to late 20s,

something like that.

So,

I mean, I'd say you're doing all right, dude.

He's pulled it off.

So I think both are true.

He did over represent in some ways.

Yes, that's true.

Every time he says,

I built a company with hundreds of millions of dollars,

it's not really true.

You know, and he probably knows it.

He's a very hateable guy.

Not because I dislike him.

I actually like his content,

but I think he's hateable because he's young.

He's good looking.

He's successful.

He's pretty cocky.

I don't know, cocky, but like confident.

I mean, you know, it's easy to hate people.

So yeah, he's in some regards a very hateable guy.

Yeah, when you have everything that people want.

That's what I mean.

Okay, you've got money, fame, looks, charisma,

you know, whatever body, what else is there?

You know, I'm not sure he's really missing anything.

So yeah, there's a natural visual reaction

some people have to that, which is like,

either A, it can't be all good.

There's got to be something wrong

and I'm going to find it.

Or B, fuck that guy.

I'm tired of seeing him on my Instagram feed.

What's this financial freedom thing

that you wanted to talk about?

Let me do two.

Okay, so I want to do this story

about this woman I met,

who I think has a really cool business.

So a couple of podcast episodes ago,

I said, hey, I got this idea for a D to C business.

It would be best run, I think by a woman who's like,

cause it's a product for women and it uses my joke,

which I don't know how to pitch it exactly.

So it's like a normal thing, but beautifully done.

Like just imagine like, you know, pens,

but just beautifully done, right?

And it's true, like that's part of the stick of this product.

Cause it's just like, it's well packaged

and well made, beautifully done.

And so anyways, I got a bunch of inbound

and I joked about it.

I was like, oh, to our four female listeners,

if you're out there, this could be an idea for you.

And a bunch of people replied, maybe 2030, 40 people said,

hey, what's the idea I want to hear about it?

Here's my background.

And one woman had a really interesting background.

So her name, I think is what is it, Sarah Michelle?

Yeah, Sarah Michelle.

So she built this business called NP reviews.

I'm guessing you've never heard of this,

but here's why it's interesting.

She basically built a course prep business

and sold it for more than $10 million in two years.

And I just think that's kind of a badass move to pull off.

You don't hear of a lot of course-based businesses

that sell at all, let alone sell for eight figures

in two years.

And what she did was basically she built like Kaplan,

like the test prep thing for nurse practitioners.

It's called NP reviews as a nurse practitioner reviews.

Pass your nurse practitioner exam the first time.

Stop stressing and start studying smarter

with our proven exam review courses.

Awesome.

So she basically says, yo, you're in school

to become a nurse practitioner.

You have a, the big test is coming up.

It's like your version of MCATs or LSATs if you're a lawyer.

The nurse practitioners have that same thing.

And it's like, great, take, you know, work with us

and you'll pass.

They have a 99% pass rate amongst their students.

So they're like, you know, don't worry.

She's like, don't worry.

I was in your shoes.

Wow.

This is awesome.

I was stressed about this and I passed.

And if I could pass, you could pass.

I've helped so many people pass since then.

And what she does is it's basically a funnel

where she's got ads about this and content about, you know

this exam or becoming a nurse practitioner,

which leads you to this landing page which says,

don't stress, we got you 99% pass rate.

We help you pass your upcoming exam.

And then she funnels you to a Facebook group.

So basically it's like join the group of 25,000 other people

who have passed this exam.

And you join the Facebook group and you buy one

of the courses.

So you can buy this like $300 a month one,

$130 a month one, $100 a month one, whichever one you want

that fits like whichever test you're planning to take.

Built this thing up, sold it to a company called Blueprint

that basically is rolling up these test prep things.

And I just thought that's an amazing exit.

And I'm super impressed.

And here's why it's awesome.

If you go to the bottom right, it says powered by Kajabi.

That's a $100 a month software that anyone can get.

By the way, I'm the president of Kajabi listens.

He messaged me.

Oh, I know.

Yeah, he DM'd me as well.

So it's a $100 a month software.

They have like a 30-day trial.

So you could even like not pay and just like get courses

like spinning up and then make it some money.

So the website, it's fine looking, but it's not like,

you could make this without a designer.

The copy is pretty solid.

Very clear problem.

The copy is very good.

Copy is very good.

Like, for example.

I haven't read it all, but it looks decent.

Look at the, like the, just the headline,

just a quick copy thing.

The headline says,

pass your nurse practitioners exam the first time.

So what is it, you know,

leading with the outcome or the benefit you want

versus talking about yourself.

She could have said, we are a test prep, you know,

a six-week test prep program with live online classes

and a community, blah, blah, blah.

That's how most people pitch their products.

They talk about themselves.

She talked about the outcome.

Then the second thing,

stop stressing and stop starting smarter

with our proven ANCC and AANP exam review courses.

Okay, great, stop stressing.

So hits the emotional, like the emotional state you're in

and tells you, you know, the emotion,

the better emotional state you're going to be in.

And then after that, she basically is like,

I did it, you could do it.

I've helped these 500 people do it.

Here's some testimonials from them.

Here's some pictures of their faces

and they're holding up their like certificate

that says I passed.

And they're like, thank you, Sarah.

You helped me pass my exam.

And then she's like, there's like a founder letter.

I've been in your shoes.

Feeling anxiety as you prepare

for your nurse practitioner boards, you're not alone.

The stakes are high and these tests aren't easy.

You need a review course to help you master this.

I get it because I've been there.

I remember how I felt studying for this.

That's why after passing both of my exams,

I decided to create a review thing to help others too.

Since these launch, I've helped thousands of people

with 98% pass, here's how it works, blah, blah, blah.

Join our Facebook group and check it out.

Just a really well done, really simple product,

really simple idea.

And I think this, by the way,

this idea could be done with any like trade

that has certifications.

So personal trainers get certified for their like health,

you know, stuff and they take these programs

that they have to get certifications for.

Whether you're a, you know, dental hygienist,

speech therapist, there's ongoing.

An architect, it could be anything.

Ongoing professional education

and anything that there's a, you know,

a finishing school for.

So like med school, nursing school, whatever.

Cosmetology school, whatever it is.

Being the test prep for that,

obviously she's not the biggest one.

Like Kaplan makes a few billion dollars.

They offer, they offer prep for EpiCats

and offer prep for nursing, nursing school.

But you just carve out your niche

and you're the more trusted face.

You're the more human brand.

And it's beautifully done.

Dude, this is why I hate that question.

When people ask me, if you could start over again

with nothing, what would you do?

And I say, I would do the same thing.

And they go, does that still work?

And I would always say, of course it does.

Now we have an example.

Milk Road did the exact same thing

within the last 12 months.

And I have another friend named Ben Tossel.

Do you know Ben?

He's doing an AI Milk Road now.

Yeah, he had a, oh, that's what we're doing.

We're calling it Milk Road now.

It's the Milk Road of, of, of the day.

Like the hustle was sort of like the Milk Road

for general business.

Just happened to precede it for five years.

Andre the Giant was just the Sam Parr of wrestling.

Yeah, that's what we're gonna do now.

I like that.

He's a big buff guy.

He's pretty much the Sam Parr of wrestling.

Well, anyway, like I say, I would do the exact same thing.

And now you're an example.

You did the exact same thing.

And then now there's Ben.

And Ben goes, well, I'm just following.

I heard, he goes, I heard in the pod

that Sean said he just copied you.

So I'm gonna copy Sean copying you.

And you know what?

It's working.

It's working.

He's got this AI newsletter and it's working.

And there's a handful of businesses.

There's a bunch of businesses where it's basically

the same thing all the time, but a little bit different.

And maybe not even better, just a little bit different

or in a particular niche.

This course business, this is another one of those

where it's just the same thing.

Her website is, I think it's only like eight or nine

or 10 pages.

She's got the webinar.

She's got like the different offerings to Facebook group.

It's the same thing that you can do in any case.

And in some cases, this could be a home run, I bet.

You know, like I sold a little bit early,

but Morning Brew is doing, I think they said 70 million

in revenue industry dive sold for $500 million.

Those are all home runs.

Same with the course business.

I think there's a world where you could do

the exact same thing.

It could be quite huge, although $10 million is awesome.

So that's why I think that whenever people ask

that question, it's stupid or I hate it

because you're just looking for an easy answer

and you're looking for permission to not to do something

because you want me to say it's outdated

or it doesn't work anymore.

And my answer to that is no, no, no, it works.

It works.

Don't ask permission, just do it.

Right.

Yeah, there's a better version of that question.

That question is sort of like the question

when somebody asked Elon Musk, they're like,

and Elon, you're a great inspiration

to many entrepreneurs out there.

What words of advice do you have to somebody

to encourage them to start a business?

And he goes, if you need words of encouragement

to start a business, don't do it.

And that's how I feel about like,

if you're really clueless about what ideas should I do?

First of all, this whole podcast has hundreds of ideas

of an examples of ideas you could do.

Don't overthink it.

You could just do any of those.

Secondly, you should have a running list

of irritations and problems that you experience

in your professional and personal life

that you're like, God, if somebody made a way

that made this better or made this easier

or made this faster or made this cheaper, I would buy it.

That's a great source of startup inspiration.

If you're just like, I don't know,

maybe Sam will tell me how to be a successful person.

That's not what successful people do.

Now, having said all that, I'm doing it again.

I have a little example of this.

Okay, so I've talked on here about my personal trainer.

And my personal trainer is my buddy, J.A.,

you've met him before.

Awesome guy has become a great friend

and has delivered a ton of value in my life.

As you know, I basically was not working out

and was like, you know, on this steady climb of like,

yo, I'm gonna gain 15 pounds a year for like five years.

What was your peak weight, 250, 220?

Not too, probably like 230 was my peak weight.

And not like, oh, I'm bulking.

That wasn't muscle mass, let's put it that way.

And so anyways, I get in touch with J.A.

and I'm like, hey, I want to make a change.

He's like, awesome, how often are you working out right now?

I'm like, zero times a month.

And he's like, cool, okay, let's start there.

And so he came over and took me from like zero

to now working out five days a week, eating better,

you know, seeing a bunch of great gains and results,

getting stronger, fitter, healthier, more mobile,

all those things, I'm playing basketball again.

My life has got a lot better.

And so I'm like, dude, you help me with this one area

I really wanted helping in my life.

How can I return the favor?

Okay, I know I'm paying you,

but how can I help you even beyond that?

And so he's basically always wanted to have

his own successful business.

And he's like, he's like, I see what you do.

I think that's awesome.

I want kind of the same.

I'm thinking about e-commerce or this or that.

He goes, I want that, I want that.

And I go, all right, dude, I got it for you.

I have an idea that I think will work,

that I think will make, it'll be successful,

which is great, because that's what we want.

We don't want to fail.

So the second thing is it will lead to a lifestyle

that I think you enjoy.

It's not a ton of like front work,

doesn't take a ton of capital upfront, take this out.

I'm helping him create a milk road for personal trainers.

And so basically it's going to be a newsletter

that goes out every morning to other,

like it could be fitness enthusiast,

but I think starting market is just other trainers.

So train the trainers is the thing I keep saying.

And cause I'm like, dude, you are awesome with workouts,

you're awesome with mindset stuff.

You find all these interesting, like, I don't know,

links to like cool, like, oh, Andrew Huberman

said this thing about the supplement,

check this out, you know, blah, blah, blah.

And I was like, dude, I feel like if you just kind of

published your daily, you know, your daily,

what's going on in your day to day as a trainer,

that would just be an awesome email to receive

if I was another trainer.

So we created this format and we created this brand.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to help you.

You have the URL?

Yeah. So the URL, there's no sign up yet,

but I just got the domain.

It's so the email is called the daily pump.

And so mydailypump.com is going to be the email.

So go register for this cause I want feedback on it,

but I'm going to build this whole thing in public.

So milk road, I didn't build in public.

I was like, Oh, this is a good idea.

I'm going to sprint on this.

And basically one year built the thing up into the largest

crypto newsletter in the world and sold it.

And so, you know, had a, had an awesome outcome there.

And now that I did that, I know how I would do this

in like 10 other spaces.

I don't really want to go do that.

Cause it feels like I'd be just doing,

I'd be on the hamster wheel,

just playing the same level of the video game,

even though it's probably smart.

I have the knowledge now of how to do it.

It'd be too boring.

I don't want to do it.

But this has a different like meaning, right?

If I could help him build up this business,

I think that will be, you know,

like just helping my friend out with something that I know

would really be helpful to be impactful to them.

And so, so that's what I want to do.

And I'm going to share how we build this thing up,

you know, sort of step by step.

And my, it's been a really interesting process

because he's not from the startup or business world.

And so a lot of times at the beginning, I was like,

Oh yeah, we should do this.

And he's like, yeah, yeah, dope.

And then he wouldn't do it.

And I'm like, I got frustrated.

And I, this happens to me with a bunch of people

who I'm like, dude, you, I meet somebody.

They're like, Oh, I want to improve my situation.

I'm like, Oh yeah, you just got to do this.

Or I'd back you if you could find something,

I'll bring the capital, you do the work.

And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then three weeks later, I don't hear from them.

And I used to think, Oh, it's cause they're lazy.

And I actually realized it's not cause they're lazy.

They're not lazy people.

In fact, usually the person I'm trying to help,

they're working 10 times harder than me

and their day job, right?

One guy was a plumber and you know, it's like,

okay, this guy's doing much harder work.

It's not that he's lazy.

It's that they're afraid and they're confused.

So they're afraid to fail and they're afraid to look dumb

if they do the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing to me.

And they're also just confused.

They don't know where to start.

They just never started something like this from scratch.

And for me, I knew we spent now 15 years doing this.

It's very easy to think, Oh, dude,

I just spin up a landing page.

I would set this up on Beehive

and then I would go over here and I would do this.

And then I would, I would not focus on that other stuff.

And I wouldn't care about advertisers

to like get to 20,000 subscribers.

And like, I would scrape this email list.

I would do this ad and I would, and they're like,

dude, I don't, I've never run a Facebook ad.

I've never done a landing page or done any of this stuff.

I don't want to talk about that stuff publicly.

I kind of regretted it a little bit

because like you had this at Milk Road.

I didn't, I had it a little bit as well

where like people in South America or other countries

were just like copying it.

They would like translate it

and then just send the email like 30 minutes later.

And in one regard, it's flattering.

But in another, I'm like, and sometimes it's harmful,

but other times it just pisses me off.

Most of the time it just pisses me off.

It's not harmful, but I don't, I've changed.

Once we got audiences, I was like,

I don't want to talk about this stuff.

And so I get nervous about that.

Now, I don't think you have like,

whether this thing succeeds or not,

it doesn't impact you other than you want to help your friend.

I think if I talk about it publicly,

it's going to keep me invested in it.

It's going to keep me engaged

because I'm going to have to like keep reporting the story.

And I also think it's easier for me to justify the time

because this takes time for me to help.

And I already had a pretty busy plate.

But if I could say, well, you know what?

I'm able to use this for stories as content

that then I don't have to separately make other content.

So that's my selfish justification.

I also think if somebody was going to copy this blueprint,

I wouldn't do it in personal trainers.

That's only because he is a personal trainer.

There's 30 other niches where this would work better

than for personal trainers.

And I think that because it's specific to him

and it's actually fits his, it's authentic.

And it fits his actual like where he is a master.

Like in the same way I'm like,

dude, I don't get it.

Why don't you just blah, blah, blah?

What I realized was he probably looks at me

and says the same thing.

He's like, dude, I told you to increase your protein intake

and just eat these macros.

You'll get the body you want in six months.

But here I am at your house

and there's a Chick-fil-A wrapper.

What's going on here?

Like that's the equivalent, right?

Like he'd be like, oh, you should wake up

and do this morning cardio thing.

Fasted cardio, it'll only take you 10 minutes.

Sounds so easy.

Sure enough, he shows up.

I got some excuse as to why I didn't do it.

I'm like, oh, I just forgot that like a beginner

is always going to go through these stages

and I just got to stay patient with him

the way he's been patient with me.

Now I do those things when he says them

much better than I did at the beginning.

You got to get this page up though.

You got to get this page up by tomorrow.

I'm gonna get it up before this thing is done.

But the cool thing that I've been doing by the way

is I've been posting,

I've been texting him one thing every day.

I'm like, you give me a workout of the day.

It's like sit down for,

it's like go to the gym for an hour

and you're gonna do this workout.

And I just got to listen to you, follow your blueprint

and it's gonna get the result I want.

Because you've done this, you've mastered this.

You're black belt in this.

I was like, I'm gonna do the same thing on the business side.

I'm not gonna hope you figure it out.

I'm not gonna leave it to you to figure it out.

I'm gonna give you one thing a day to do.

It'll probably take you about an hour.

I'm gonna give you your daily workout each day.

And so that's how I've been doing it.

One day, one little text message at a time.

And I'm like his business trainer

the way he's my personal trainer.

So it's been kind of interesting to see how that's worked.

And that's been pretty effective, to be honest.

I'm eager to see if you regret this or not.

He'll pull it off.

It's gonna be at least mildly successful

because he's got a massive head start

because we're gonna be talking about it.

And I told him, I was like, dude,

I'm not gonna give up on you.

I was like, you could have given up on me

and been like, dude, this guy's not,

this guy says one thing-

Are you paying him still?

Yeah, I pay him, but like, you know.

So there's obviously a little difference there,

but like there's a difference between

you show up and do the dub or you go the extra mile.

He goes way the extra mile with me.

So like, you know, my kids are raging out.

He'll be holding one of my kids

so I can get the workout in while he's training me.

Or like, he'll come in on an off day

and just make the gym better.

Just a surprise and be like, look,

I want your environment to be dope

because you're gonna just get that extra

five to 10% juice enjoying your environment.

And a trainer doesn't have to do all that.

They don't have to come and rearrange your gym

and help you with your kids or show up,

stay for two hours extra, because whatever,

you know, that sort of stuff.

So let me show you one more quick thing

before we wrap up.

So I've got this friend named Nick Gray.

Do you know who Nick Gray is?

He's the party guy.

So Nick Gray is my good friend.

Yeah, he started a thing called Museum Hack

where he took, he had another company

that like made parts for private planes

or something like that that he sold.

And then he started a thing called Museum Hack,

which was private tours and museums.

He sold that.

Now he's got a new thing called the two hour cocktail party.

It's a book on cocktail parties

and how to host the perfect cocktail party.

It's honestly quite good.

I use his techniques.

He's doing this new thing that he just showed me

where whenever he goes to a bar or a restaurant

or a museum or anything,

he takes a picture of the food or the front of the building

and he reviews it.

But can you see the go to the MDB link I have in there?

Look at what he does.

So he posts a review of the place

but he puts his book in the picture

and he's been testing this.

And over the past couple of months,

his photos, there's like analytics on it.

They have two million views on his pictures.

And this guy, Nick, he's crazy.

So he just tweeted out this thing.

He was, I'm gonna host a conference

for all my ex-girlfriends.

He's got a lot of ex-girlfriends because he dates a lot

and he's very charming and so girls love him

but he's really nice.

And so he stays friends with all of his ex-girlfriends.

One time this guy for his 40th birthday party,

he rented out a water park and there was like 30 of us

and I swear to God, I'm not exaggerating.

Four of the guests were his ex-girlfriends

and they were all hanging out together.

And he's like, I wanna, so this guy's crazy.

But look at this, can you see the link to his Google,

his Google reviews?

This is so funny.

This is the funniest growth hack I've seen in a long time.

Do you think this is effective?

I would never do something like this.

He's got this blog post coming out tomorrow or the next day

and it's, I think if you just Google Nick Gray, G-R-A-Y,

you'll see the blog post.

I don't know the name of his website.

It's probably just nickray.com

and he's gonna like reveal the results.

But he was showing me this.

I was like, Nick, I was just out to eat with him the other day

and he had his book with him.

He pulled it out of his bag and he was taking a picture.

I go, what are you doing?

He goes, check this out.

And he showed me his Google reviews.

He goes, they have analytics on this

that my photos in the last couple of months

have gotten 1.8 million views, 1.9 million views.

Is this hilarious or what?

That's so funny.

That's, this is such a funny and it reminds me of somebody,

the story is better than the actual growth act.

So somebody said this about Pinterest too.

They go, yeah, Pinterest, man, they were such grinders.

I remember they used to go into the Apple stores

and change all the default homepages to Pinterest.com

on the Macs that are sitting on the table.

Yeah, and who knows if that works.

I'm like, dude, this guy's spending hours

driving to Apple stores to try to get like five impressions

on his website and think that somebody's gonna be like,

huh, you know, I went there for an iPhone,

but you know what I really wanna do?

What was that website I saw on the demo computer?

I'm gonna go sign up and make an account

and become a daily active user.

That doesn't happen.

But the story, the hustle story makes it worth it.

And I've done several of those where the hustle story

makes it sound like you were going to the nth degree,

even though it made zero sense to do so.

He has reviews of everything.

There's one of Panda Express, of Lulu Lemon,

of Charlie's Subs, Vans, the store,

any store that he goes to,

he's taking this really good picture of like the front,

like there's a great American cookies.

It looks like it's just like an Annie Anne's in the mall.

He takes a picture of the front

and just has his book in his hand.

There's this guy on Yelp that Sarah and I follow

because he has his, he like tests all the good food places

in New York and San Francisco.

And he had a newborn when he started doing it.

And all the pictures of his newborn eating the food.

And then it was like, you see the baby get like one year old,

two year old, three year old.

I start like getting to know this kid.

And we're always like, look, that guy's been there.

And it's actually an interesting hack

that I think could actually,

I don't know if this one will work,

but there's like these weird personalities

that I've seen on Yelp and on Google reviews

where I start to get to know them and I trust the reviews.

And it's actually a really fascinating platform to hack.

And I wanted to bring that up

because I've never really seen like insights like this.

And I think it's incredibly fascinating.

Yeah, that's super cool.

All right, that's the pod.

By the way, the gentleman's agreement is working,

by the way, I went to a party with a bunch of 23 year olds.

Sounds a lot worse than it is.

A friend turned 23, he asked me to go,

I went to the Jeffreeze party on an island tour.

Yeah, it was that like the Lolita, like taco, taco.

No, he, I had so many people come out to me and said,

hey, by the way, I honored the gentleman's agreement.

That's because the show,

we have this thing called the gentleman's agreement.

We make this content for free,

but it's not actually free to listen in exchange.

You got to go subscribe to our YouTube and it's working.

We're getting like 800 to 1,000 new YouTube subscribers a day.

So.

Yeah, this basically three X the number of daily subscribers

we were getting on our YouTube channel.

Who would have thought?

Everyone told us to do this the whole time.

We're like, you're an idiot.

No one follows that.

Yeah, we also, we kind of, yeah, we say it a lot now,

but for like two years,

we never told anybody to do anything.

So we're just kind of, we're due.

Yeah, we're due.

I feel like I can rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to.

I put my all in it like no days off on a road.

Let's travel, never looking back.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.