How Nick Shackelford Picks Products After $200M on Meta Ads

WEBVTT
00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:19.519
Nick, super happy to have you on.
00:00:19.679 --> 00:00:22.079
Um, first of all, really appreciate it.
00:00:22.320 --> 00:00:25.120
Let the record state we confirmed this yesterday.
00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:29.039
Um, so I guess let me first hand it to you to introduce yourself.
00:00:29.199 --> 00:00:29.359
Sure.
00:00:29.679 --> 00:00:30.719
For those who don't know you.
00:00:30.879 --> 00:00:34.560
I mean, I've been following you, but you also seem like someone who does a lot of things.
00:00:34.719 --> 00:00:37.359
So we'd love to hear what you're up to in 2026.
00:00:37.679 --> 00:00:38.320
2026.
00:00:38.479 --> 00:00:40.399
2026 is a lot of 2025.
00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:42.640
But I I I was telling you this right before we jumped on.
00:00:42.719 --> 00:00:48.479
I was like, I don't pretend to be a founder of anything, but like I'm really, really in all of e-commerce.
00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:51.679
I think this space to me has given me everything.
00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:56.719
Like, I won't go too deep into why, but I was a high school soccer coach.
00:00:56.880 --> 00:00:59.280
Uh, I cared about sports more than anything.
00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:05.040
And then when you realize that you're not going to be pro for a very long time, you have to quickly figure out what's going on.
00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:06.799
And so I was early in Facebook ads.
00:01:06.879 --> 00:01:12.799
And so, like, you I'm I'm literally playing with my fidget right now, and this is kind of where things started off for me.
00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:23.120
But it was meta-ads, it was branding, it was website optimization, and it was all things that like you don't know what is going to turn into from a legitimate brand building standpoint.
00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:29.840
Like, I I come here and I see um the the incredible products and businesses that you guys have in this office.
00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:38.640
Uh, and it's crazy to say that those guys were probably learning from things that I was talking about uh in early, early forums and chatrooms and and different types of Facebook groups.
00:01:38.959 --> 00:01:39.200
100%.
00:01:39.439 --> 00:01:47.840
I mean, I've been following you for quite a while now, and then we briefly met in Greek Out or Geek Out last summer.
00:01:48.079 --> 00:01:51.439
Um so what brings you to Hong Kong?
00:01:51.599 --> 00:01:52.560
Like, why are you here right now?
00:01:52.879 --> 00:01:54.239
So the there's a there's two teams.
00:01:54.319 --> 00:02:03.280
There's one team called the Best Fulfill Team, and they were they were like a uh fulfillment company that uh reached out to me on LinkedIn, and I actually didn't know that they were legit or not because I never heard of this community.
00:02:03.439 --> 00:02:12.159
And so I actually had to ask Jason Wong, who is a Hong Kong native, he does uh packaging and and manufacturing stuff over here, and he I was basically like, is this a real company?
00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:16.960
Because I'm about to fly me and my entire family over to China for the first time to see if it's legit or not.
00:02:17.039 --> 00:02:17.840
Oh, it's your first time here.
00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:18.560
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:02:18.719 --> 00:02:19.039
Amazing.
00:02:19.199 --> 00:02:20.719
We try to do an agent trip every once in a while.
00:02:20.800 --> 00:02:24.479
We did Japan last year, China this year, and maybe next year we'll go Cambodia or something.
00:02:24.719 --> 00:02:25.120
Amazing.
00:02:25.199 --> 00:02:31.919
Um, but this we we came here because hey, the Canton Fair pulls a very unique group of people that I had I I don't play with products.
00:02:32.159 --> 00:02:34.639
I don't I don't pretend to be a product guy.
00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:35.680
You're a marketing guy.
00:02:35.840 --> 00:02:37.280
I'm a marketing growth revenue.
00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:38.319
That's all I want to play in.
00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:40.319
And this is kind of why like we have Breeze.
00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:49.759
We have I could list like seven or eight high growth brands that I'm a part of that like Serenarbs, Bliss, uh Barnacle, Breeze.
00:02:49.919 --> 00:02:50.879
There's the list goes on.
00:02:50.960 --> 00:02:58.240
All these are just high growth, direct to consumer, first subscription, back end, like the the shit that you need to actually be successful in 2026.
00:02:58.400 --> 00:03:00.560
That's what I've basically been able to pivot myself into.
00:03:00.639 --> 00:03:04.240
Because before, like, and I think this is you probably probably know this from the beginning.
00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:05.599
I was only in meta ads.
00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:05.840
Yeah.
00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:09.439
Facebook ads, Facebook ads, Facebook ads, and then founder, those guys put me on.
00:03:09.599 --> 00:03:09.840
Incredible.
00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:12.240
Nathan from founding, he's like, Hey, I want you to teach this course.
00:03:12.319 --> 00:03:13.599
I was like, I'm never gonna make content.
00:03:13.680 --> 00:03:15.840
I don't ever want to have a community or content myself.
00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:17.919
And all of a sudden he's like, Well, just do it for me.
00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:19.680
Just make it for my community, my course.
00:03:19.759 --> 00:03:21.360
And it went wild.
00:03:21.599 --> 00:03:25.759
It put me in a new nation international situation, which I did not plan to do or do.
00:03:25.919 --> 00:03:30.159
And this was years and years ago, pr uh prior to the iOS update.
00:03:30.240 --> 00:03:30.400
Yeah.
00:03:30.639 --> 00:03:33.599
Like when things were like still good, I guess you would say.
00:03:33.840 --> 00:03:34.560
The glory days.
00:03:34.639 --> 00:03:36.159
Yeah, the the best days.
00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:36.479
Yeah.
00:03:36.719 --> 00:03:47.919
And that that put me into a place where I'm like, I just needed every single year to continue to reinvent what it is that was happening on these levels, and now I get to have access to as many different types of product or brand founders that I've ever been able to find.
00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:50.719
So let's come back to Guangzhou, Hong Kong.
00:03:50.879 --> 00:03:52.639
So you come, you spoke at an event.
00:03:52.879 --> 00:03:53.199
Correct.
00:03:53.360 --> 00:03:54.800
And then now you're in Hong Kong.
00:03:54.960 --> 00:03:55.840
Did you go to Canton?
00:03:56.080 --> 00:03:58.400
We I was supposed to go to Canton and I didn't want to walk it.
00:03:58.639 --> 00:04:00.159
My son, I we traveled with my son.
00:04:00.240 --> 00:04:04.000
So every time I do a trip, uh, I don't try to get paid, I don't try to ask for any cash.
00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:06.800
I basically say uh flight from my wife and my son.
00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:07.120
Yeah.
00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:08.960
And so I hope you flew cafe, bro.
00:04:09.199 --> 00:04:09.840
We did, we did.
00:04:09.919 --> 00:04:10.159
We have to.
00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:10.639
Okay, good.
00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:11.039
We have to.
00:04:11.120 --> 00:04:13.199
On the way home, I think we're going to United, so we'll see how it goes.
00:04:13.439 --> 00:04:13.680
Okay.
00:04:14.080 --> 00:04:15.039
So what do you think?
00:04:15.360 --> 00:04:19.839
It's funny because um, you know, as you know, we've got a big community here in the studio.
00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:22.160
There's not a ton of Americans.
00:04:22.319 --> 00:04:28.480
Uh there, it's very international, but mostly Middle East, Europe, Asia.
00:04:28.800 --> 00:04:37.040
And I think recently, what I wanted to get into you with you is like as an American founder, I know you're not super involved in product, yeah.
00:04:37.360 --> 00:04:40.720
But how do you look at the US-China like beef?
00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:43.680
Like when you're here in Hong Kong, what are your what are your thoughts?
00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:44.560
I know it's your first time.
00:04:44.639 --> 00:04:46.000
So I'm actually genuinely curious.
00:04:46.319 --> 00:04:51.920
So I I've known about this, I've known about the Canton Fair since I got into e-commerce because of the fidget spinners.
00:04:52.079 --> 00:04:56.720
Like we were directly communicating with the factories around bearings and plastic.
00:04:56.800 --> 00:04:59.759
Like those are the two things that we sold on fidget spinners was bearings and plastic.
00:04:59.839 --> 00:05:02.480
And this was seven, eight years ago at this point.
00:05:02.639 --> 00:05:05.680
And we we knew that you had to have the relationships with them.
00:05:05.839 --> 00:05:11.920
At that time, you could game Meadow or any of these channels and have like really good CPAs and like margins made sense.
00:05:12.079 --> 00:05:12.399
Okay.
00:05:12.639 --> 00:05:18.959
Now you're in a situation where you don't have a choice that a lever to pull is better relationship with the manufacturer.
00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:26.720
You have to negotiate rates, you have to negotiate product costs down with them because you can't like optimize the account as much as you possibly were able to in the beginning.
00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:28.560
So I think that the relationship being here.
00:05:28.639 --> 00:05:40.319
Now, if I was a product founder and I've met with a lot of the guys that are here for the specific Canton Fair, and they might not be going to it because I feel this is what people told me like if you're going to the Canton Fair for the first time, you're probably just starting out.
00:05:40.480 --> 00:05:44.800
You probably already should have been going and meeting with your manufacturer a long, long time ago.
00:05:44.879 --> 00:05:45.040
Yeah.
00:05:45.279 --> 00:05:49.600
And they you go to the Canton Fair because there's a reason to get all the other founders and partners around you.
00:05:49.759 --> 00:05:54.240
But in this case specifically, I was new and I wanted to see what the energy and the vibe was about.
00:05:54.319 --> 00:05:56.959
And so I was in Guangzhou for and it was, it was electric.
00:05:57.040 --> 00:05:58.079
It was so cool.
00:05:58.319 --> 00:05:58.480
Yeah.
00:05:58.639 --> 00:06:00.000
Guangzhou's come up a lot.
00:06:00.240 --> 00:06:01.360
Well, so they it's crazy.
00:06:01.519 --> 00:06:06.879
What they explained to me was like they designed uh China designated as like a like an uh economic opportunity zone.
00:06:06.959 --> 00:06:07.120
Yeah.
00:06:07.279 --> 00:06:12.639
And they basically said, like, we want they China chose a handful of people to say, like, you guys are gonna have economic success.
00:06:12.879 --> 00:06:15.199
How much do you know about GBA, Greater Bay Area?
00:06:15.439 --> 00:06:16.000
I don't, I don't.
00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:19.120
Okay, so we'll get back to e-com in a second, but I think it's really cool.
00:06:19.199 --> 00:06:20.079
And people don't know this.
00:06:20.240 --> 00:06:24.240
So in the south of China, there's something called GBA, which is the Greater Bay Area.
00:06:24.399 --> 00:06:28.079
So it's Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou.
00:06:28.240 --> 00:06:28.480
Okay.
00:06:28.639 --> 00:06:33.360
And the five next five-year mission of China is to really unify these four territories.
00:06:33.519 --> 00:06:36.800
Obviously, Hong Kong is a special administrative region, and so is Macau.
00:06:36.959 --> 00:06:41.120
So there's a border, we have our own currency, our own legislation, and same with Macau.
00:06:41.360 --> 00:06:46.079
But basically, the four city combined is what's now being called the GBA.
00:06:46.319 --> 00:06:48.879
Hong Kong as the international finance hub.
00:06:49.120 --> 00:06:49.439
Interesting.
00:06:49.680 --> 00:06:58.560
Macau as lifestyle, gaming, and entertainment, Shenzhen as tech, Silicon Valley, basically, and Guangzhou as manufacturing.
00:06:58.639 --> 00:06:58.879
Yes.
00:06:59.040 --> 00:07:08.399
And so combined, you've got finance, gaming entertainment, tech manufacturing, and it's essentially like the new powerhouse of Asia.
00:07:08.639 --> 00:07:11.120
And that's like the master plan is to really integrate all of this.
00:07:11.199 --> 00:07:13.759
And Hong Kong, obviously, is like still the international hub.
00:07:13.920 --> 00:07:15.839
So that's where you get all these expats here.
00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:20.240
And we're trying to build as as part of that the e-commerce epicenter of Asia.
00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:21.040
Well, it has to.
00:07:21.680 --> 00:07:29.920
It's a matter of time because the closer, like I said, the closer you get to your manufacturers and the closer you get to the people that are making your product that you're selling and everywhere else.
00:07:30.079 --> 00:07:34.079
Like it's just it's it's the the the last frontier of optimization of margin.
00:07:34.399 --> 00:07:41.519
Yeah, so people in this office they go to China for the day regularly, they go meet their supplier.
00:07:41.680 --> 00:07:45.600
I mean, we're building a uh a new concept that we're launching on Monday.
00:07:45.839 --> 00:07:46.319
Interesting.
00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:53.279
It took us two weeks, 100% AI, to from concept all the way to what will be launched on Monday.
00:07:53.920 --> 00:07:55.199
100% AI.
00:07:55.759 --> 00:08:07.040
And in that two weeks, not only did we build the brand, build the site, build essentially like the whole thing top down, we've also gone to China, nominated our suppliers, and have pretty much finished product development.
00:08:07.279 --> 00:08:07.759
Oh my god.
00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:08.560
Two weeks.
00:08:08.800 --> 00:08:09.199
Two weeks.
00:08:09.439 --> 00:08:10.079
Because you're here.
00:08:10.240 --> 00:08:10.800
Because we're here.
00:08:10.879 --> 00:08:11.040
Yeah.
00:08:11.199 --> 00:08:16.000
So that's what I want to get into because like I mentioned earlier, I saw your open residency.
00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:17.199
I thought that was insane.
00:08:17.279 --> 00:08:18.240
I thought that was amazing.
00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:21.519
And I thought that was like truly a masterclass in e-com in 2025.
00:08:21.680 --> 00:08:28.399
But since then, a whole year has passed and the world has like flipped over 10 times over.
00:08:28.879 --> 00:08:29.360
So different.
00:08:29.600 --> 00:08:32.960
And uh, I'm curious, like, what are your thoughts on the whole game right now?
00:08:33.039 --> 00:08:33.919
You've been in it for so long.
00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:35.200
So let's start from like a high level.
00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:40.240
Dude, I'll I'll even speak about this even deeper for you because I I've been wrestling through this since being here.
00:08:40.320 --> 00:08:43.840
There's actually reset a lot of my expectations and my where my future is going.
00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:50.559
So let me I let me establish we have structured, constant, lucid breeze, brands, events.
00:08:50.720 --> 00:08:54.320
That's like a part of the things that I've been involved in for 13 years.
00:08:54.480 --> 00:08:57.519
Every element that I think is necessary to have an insulated.
00:08:57.919 --> 00:09:02.240
I don't want to empire is like it's a weird thing to say, like I'm not trying to build empire or whatever.
00:09:02.320 --> 00:09:09.759
I'm trying to build access and I'm trying to build access to resources so that my I am insulated from all things.
00:09:09.919 --> 00:09:11.279
That's that's essentially what I'm trying to build.
00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:16.960
It's not and I'm trying to build access and insulation so that anything were to go wrong, I'm protected.
00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:23.279
This year at Breeze, we we ran into a situation where like when you're building, and I'll I'll land this plan, I promise.
00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:29.039
We got into a capital crunch that I always having, I had to wire in more money than anticipated and planned for.
00:09:29.200 --> 00:09:35.600
And that that could have put myself and my family in a situation that was not planned for and unaccessed, uh unacceptable.
00:09:35.759 --> 00:09:37.039
But that's what they needed at the brand.
00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:37.840
That's what the brand needed.
00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:38.320
Okay.
00:09:38.559 --> 00:09:44.559
If I didn't have the community, the resources, or the people or the access to any of these things, this situation would have been much better.
00:09:44.720 --> 00:09:50.480
I would not be sitting with you on this family trip to talk about this because we had this community already built and insulated.
00:09:50.639 --> 00:10:01.039
And so I think when you, when you when what what built that was like the last five plus years of knowing ads, emails, acquisition, conversion rate.
00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:02.480
But that was with the heavy people.
00:10:02.559 --> 00:10:04.720
Like I needed people to do all those things.
00:10:04.879 --> 00:10:15.039
And so what I was able to do is I was able to understand and acquire like a generalist level B plus skill at every single thing, except I'm A plus in acquisition.
00:10:15.279 --> 00:10:20.320
So when you are really, really good at acquisition, you could pretty much do everything to start and generate revenue.
00:10:20.480 --> 00:10:35.759
But what you aren't great at is like you're not good at keeping it, you're not good in building a customer service, you're not good at building all these other things that you if you didn't have access to people, if you didn't have people that already knew how to do customer support builds, manufacturing negotiation, website optimization.
00:10:35.919 --> 00:10:41.039
Like if you weren't, if you the founder yourself weren't skilled in that one specific thing, you're not gonna get that shit done.
00:10:41.200 --> 00:10:49.279
But now all of a sudden you have the amount of content people are pumping on YouTube, the amount of content people are pumping on Twitter, these AI tools.
00:10:49.679 --> 00:10:51.279
That's freed sauce.
00:10:51.519 --> 00:10:52.399
And it's real sauce.
00:10:52.639 --> 00:10:53.600
It's not it's not bullshit.
00:10:53.679 --> 00:10:54.320
It's not it's real.
00:10:54.559 --> 00:10:57.840
You do have to feed like filter through, but there is insane amount of gems.
00:10:58.159 --> 00:11:05.440
So when you filter through, you're like you're like you're like filtering through, you're using the tool, and you get like it's like a weird educate and discover as you go situation.
00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:09.200
So you're like, oh, like I'm gonna use this AI ad, this thing that is on everybody's Twitter.
00:11:09.279 --> 00:11:11.600
Uh it's gonna make AI ads for you in two clicks, right?
00:11:11.679 --> 00:11:16.639
So you do it, you go through, you're like, well, it's actually kind of shit, but in the process of me learning this, yeah, and now I can make something.
00:11:16.799 --> 00:11:16.960
Yeah.
00:11:17.120 --> 00:11:19.279
So so this this is the thing that's blown me away.
00:11:19.360 --> 00:11:23.120
And I'm sitting here on the I'm I'm we have a what 14-hour flight home tomorrow.
00:11:23.200 --> 00:11:23.360
Yeah.
00:11:23.519 --> 00:11:30.159
And I go, structured is 55 employees, paid media, email, and CRO.
00:11:30.559 --> 00:11:30.799
Okay.
00:11:31.519 --> 00:11:36.320
Lucid's 20 plus, paid media, you know, it's a restricted space.
00:11:36.480 --> 00:11:36.720
Okay.
00:11:36.960 --> 00:11:42.399
Breeze is he uh sales, retail, but the digital team's like five, six people now, okay.
00:11:42.559 --> 00:11:51.039
And then these the other brands that are involved, like high growth and retention and and subscription, those, those, those teams fluctuate anywhere between like three to six people.
00:11:51.200 --> 00:11:52.399
Why would it ever be bigger?
00:11:52.559 --> 00:11:52.960
It shouldn't.
00:11:53.200 --> 00:11:53.919
It shouldn't, yeah.
00:11:54.159 --> 00:12:02.480
It really shouldn't, but it but what what's hard for people to understand, and I think Alex uh Alex Becker, uh not Alex Becker, Alex Um, he's an ad he's the ad guy.
00:12:02.639 --> 00:12:05.360
Alex uh he's got incredible accent blanking on it.
00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:12.000
Um he he was like the prompts and the tools in which everybody's using are good enough to get you close, but they're not good enough to get you perfect.
00:12:12.320 --> 00:12:18.799
And so the the the final piece, the human, the human in the loop, is needed for you to be like, okay, that's when taste comes into it.
00:12:18.879 --> 00:12:27.039
Like the level that people cannot teach, that AI cannot give you is taste and perspective of how humans are going to interact with the thing in which you're creating.
00:12:27.200 --> 00:12:35.840
And I think that's like the value that after being in it for 10 plus years, like that final little like flavor that you can put on it is where I think what 2026 is going to show.
00:12:36.080 --> 00:12:36.960
Hey, I'm Anish.
00:12:37.120 --> 00:12:40.320
And I just want to quickly give you more context on the world of elevator.
00:12:40.559 --> 00:12:46.159
Elevator goods is where we build our brands from the ground up, owning the product, operations, and growth.
00:12:47.440 --> 00:12:50.480
Elevator Capital is where we invest in brands worth betting on.
00:12:50.720 --> 00:12:54.240
Backing founders with capital, mentorship, and connections.
00:12:55.679 --> 00:13:05.360
Elevator Talks is where we document it all, sitting down with operators who've actually done it, going deep on their frameworks, their numbers, and the decisions they made to move the needle.
00:13:05.679 --> 00:13:12.320
Elevator Creators is where we help creators build brands, leveraging their audience and turning them into a real business.
00:13:12.639 --> 00:13:16.799
The studio is our private members club with its first location in Hong Kong.
00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:21.440
Built for founders and operators who want to be around people building at the same level.
00:13:21.759 --> 00:13:26.639
If you're building a brand and you want the systems and the playbooks to do so, you're in the right place.
00:13:26.879 --> 00:13:28.720
Check the link in bio to learn more.
00:13:28.879 --> 00:13:31.279
So, last but not least, thank you so much.
00:13:31.440 --> 00:13:37.519
Please subscribe because that will help us a ton in getting you better guess and more wisdom and more value.
00:13:37.679 --> 00:13:38.799
We really appreciate it.
00:13:38.879 --> 00:13:39.679
And back to the show.
00:13:39.919 --> 00:13:44.799
The first 95% is getting easier, but the last 5% is like proper uh skill set.
00:13:45.039 --> 00:13:49.840
Well, you talked about you had two, it took took you two weeks, but you had to have the idea, the concept, you knew where you needed to go.
00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:50.159
Yeah.
00:13:50.559 --> 00:13:52.639
But the speed at which you shipped it was crazy.
00:13:52.799 --> 00:13:53.200
Correct.
00:13:53.440 --> 00:14:00.480
So we we these guys are talking about like what is the new MCP Clawed to I know the Clavia one just came out, but I was we were playing with this one in the city.
00:14:00.720 --> 00:14:01.840
Shopify one just came out too.
00:14:01.919 --> 00:14:03.600
Okay, so the this one just came out, right?
00:14:03.679 --> 00:14:06.240
It was like Claude MCP to Meta.
00:14:06.559 --> 00:14:14.240
No, it was Meta allowed it, Claude also put so now they're now they're like, oh, we didn't want to use this before because you're I'm gonna lose my account unless you register it as an official app.
00:14:14.480 --> 00:14:14.799
Yeah, correct.
00:14:14.879 --> 00:14:15.759
You have to go through Manaus.
00:14:15.919 --> 00:14:16.159
Correct.
00:14:16.240 --> 00:14:17.279
So now that was a huge problem.
00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:21.759
People didn't want to, or like we started to use Manaus because I wanted to do the optimization there.
00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:22.000
Yeah.
00:14:22.240 --> 00:14:25.360
I have an$8,000 media buyer that I don't necessarily need to pay anymore.
00:14:25.440 --> 00:14:25.600
Yeah.
00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:26.320
That's wild.
00:14:26.399 --> 00:14:33.759
That's wild to even have the confidence of someone to say, like, I'm gonna fire an incredible media buyer that I needed to have the lifeline of my business.
00:14:34.080 --> 00:14:34.559
Well, two things.
00:14:34.639 --> 00:14:39.919
One, the shelf of or the the Clodge Meta MCP, they've like kind of gatekeeped it.
00:14:40.080 --> 00:14:40.559
Yeah, which one?
00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:41.440
They've slow rolled it.
00:14:41.519 --> 00:14:44.639
So I spoke to our rep and he said that within three weeks I'll open up to everyone.
00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:45.919
Um they have to roll it out.
00:14:46.159 --> 00:14:47.440
That's just a side note.
00:14:47.600 --> 00:14:53.360
I guess going back, like I'm I'm curious because you started as a media buyer.
00:14:53.759 --> 00:15:04.080
Bro, I was this, I was arguing with my former boss, Andrew Farrell, on Twitter the other day because I was like, dude, I used to get shit for because I used to call this thing called a PPP wrapper, PPE wrapper.
00:15:04.159 --> 00:15:04.879
Did you hear about this before?
00:15:05.039 --> 00:15:05.200
No.
00:15:05.360 --> 00:15:06.000
All right, here we go.
00:15:06.159 --> 00:15:09.039
This is for for any of the like OGs in the space that you guys know this space.
00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:09.360
Okay.
00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:14.000
So when you when you launch a brand new ad, I still think today that this is valuable.
00:15:14.159 --> 00:15:15.200
I still think this is valuable.
00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:21.759
You have a brand new ad that you launch, you have no engagement, you have no nothing on it, but you're like, I'm convinced that this is the absolute banger of an ad.
00:15:21.840 --> 00:15:32.639
Well, what you would do is like you would take the post ID, you would launch it as a conversion ad, and then you'd uh copy it and duplicate it over into an engagement or a video view ad specifically and run up the engagement.
00:15:32.879 --> 00:15:39.200
So you'd basically supercharge this one ad to have a bunch of engagement comments and like people talking about it.
00:15:39.279 --> 00:15:41.759
And then that ad would also get out of learning much quicker.
00:15:41.919 --> 00:15:43.279
Back in the day, there was no learning phase.
00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:43.600
Yeah.
00:15:43.759 --> 00:15:45.360
There's just it just was on.
00:15:45.519 --> 00:15:46.000
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:46.159
Right?
00:15:46.399 --> 00:15:50.080
And so this is this this shit to me of like you would have to make up these different things.
00:15:50.159 --> 00:15:58.639
And I still believe some of the sauce because in there's a founder community that we were just building around like how to run better, better, better and uh new meta ads.
00:15:58.720 --> 00:16:04.639
There's still media buying sauce that I would, I believe, like what we call like I call this smoke test.
00:16:04.720 --> 00:16:04.879
Yeah.
00:16:05.039 --> 00:16:05.200
Okay.
00:16:05.279 --> 00:16:08.559
We talked about this on I still believe the way in which you We'll get to smoke testing in detail.
00:16:08.799 --> 00:16:09.919
I really want to pick your brain on this.
00:16:10.080 --> 00:16:24.480
I think it's a I still think it's a viable way to test what you need from a systematic point of view because where people get wrong is like if you're new to ads, you don't necessarily understand just like how to start and what structure is there for me to get real learning out of what goes on.
00:16:24.720 --> 00:16:26.320
You you've been in the game for quite a while.
00:16:26.639 --> 00:16:27.120
Eight years.
00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:33.440
When you when you launch a test, you already come with an idea of like, I'm I'm hoping that I learn this from this thing.
00:16:33.600 --> 00:16:50.000
When I want to talk to somebody about like their if they're new to a uh uh a CRO test, if they're new to an offer test, if they're new to an ad test, if they're new to an email test, like you have to think about like I have buckets of money I'm willing to spend, tranches of cash that should allude to learnings.
00:16:50.159 --> 00:16:54.080
Hopefully that bucket of money resorts in a bigger bucket of money, but it's not always that case.
00:16:54.159 --> 00:16:55.679
It doesn't always happen that way.
00:16:56.080 --> 00:17:06.160
If I'm able to launch something with learning, launch something with the intention to get learning and use the learning to then inform the next thing in which I'm doing, that that that's a win.
00:17:06.240 --> 00:17:10.480
Even if it didn't quote unquote generate me a bunch of uh conversion of rows was the high.
00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:14.720
And I think that's that's a perspective that I think some of the newer ones come out there.
00:17:15.039 --> 00:17:27.920
Well, I think the younger, the new wave of founders, we were talking about this, but you know, younger 20-year-olds these days, I think just literally as a sign of the time, there's instant gratification expectations, right?
00:17:28.079 --> 00:17:28.640
Like, think about it.
00:17:28.880 --> 00:17:31.519
I mean, nowadays, Amazon Prime, you get your delivery same day.
00:17:31.680 --> 00:17:31.920
I don't know.
00:17:32.240 --> 00:17:34.160
Netflix is within five seconds.
00:17:34.480 --> 00:17:36.960
So with e-commerce, it's like, well, let me launch it.
00:17:37.039 --> 00:17:39.839
And if I don't see return within a week, turn it off.
00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:58.079
So this is what I wanted to ask you because is one of the moats in 2026 patience, is one of the moats capital, like specifically when it gets when it gets to smoke smoke testing, like how much pain should you be willing to endure in terms of capital loss as far as testing?
00:17:58.160 --> 00:18:00.559
It's still testing, like you're getting data, but you're still burning cash.
00:18:00.880 --> 00:18:01.119
100%.
00:18:01.599 --> 00:18:03.039
It you know, is that a moat?
00:18:03.440 --> 00:18:14.000
The difference between Or is that like just a sad way to say that's a product that you should probably just kill, but you think it's you're enduring pain so that you can develop a moat later on?
00:18:14.880 --> 00:18:15.519
Is that just an excuse?
00:18:15.759 --> 00:18:16.559
It's such a good question.
00:18:16.720 --> 00:18:16.960
Okay.
00:18:17.119 --> 00:18:20.079
I'm gonna I'm gonna go both, I'm gonna play with you, I'm gonna play with you both ways.
00:18:20.160 --> 00:18:20.400
Okay.
00:18:20.559 --> 00:18:20.720
Okay.
00:18:20.880 --> 00:18:22.880
So I've seen products launched.
00:18:23.119 --> 00:18:27.119
This is a bath bomb for cleaning hockey pads.
00:18:27.279 --> 00:18:29.119
Okay, so you can be on this niche.
00:18:29.279 --> 00:18:36.400
It's a bath bomb that a dude made to clean hockey pads as a normal regular bath bomb that like dissolves in a bath.
00:18:36.799 --> 00:18:39.440
You put the the bath bomb in a tub and you put your hockey gear.
00:18:39.599 --> 00:18:40.480
And it cleans it, right?
00:18:40.640 --> 00:18:41.680
Like dissolves and starts cleaning.
00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:42.640
Okay, it's like makes sense.
00:18:42.720 --> 00:18:43.599
Very niche, very niche.
00:18:43.759 --> 00:18:44.240
Super niche, yeah.
00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:44.799
Super niche.
00:18:44.880 --> 00:18:45.119
Yeah, exactly.
00:18:45.279 --> 00:18:45.759
Real product.
00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:50.319
Yeah, basically it's like the the the up north and like the hockey states.
00:18:50.400 --> 00:18:50.799
Yeah, yeah.
00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:51.519
Okay, okay.
00:18:51.680 --> 00:18:54.720
So he he he's he's running ads, he's like, dude, none of this is working, none of this is working.
00:18:54.799 --> 00:18:57.119
I was like, dude, this offer makes no sense, it's too expensive, blah, blah, blah.
00:18:57.279 --> 00:18:59.839
He's like, Oh, I'll change the offer, change the offer, change the offer, didn't work.
00:18:59.920 --> 00:19:01.680
Well, I was like, Okay, like maybe it's not working.
00:19:01.759 --> 00:19:07.119
Like, I don't know, like, okay, we need we need like one like an attractive, easy to understand mom explaining the product.
00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:13.279
And he was like, Can you just give me like uh any of your moms that you have in the hockey community, just make an ad talking about it?
00:19:13.519 --> 00:19:17.920
One girl, one ad, this one thing changed his entire fucking business.
00:19:18.079 --> 00:19:26.799
Because all he all he did, he's like, I need a a semi-attractive woman talking about the product, that's what it's going to do, and fix and it went to the ad account and changed it overnight.
00:19:26.960 --> 00:19:28.079
It was not working for months.
00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:29.599
And he's like, I know there's something there.
00:19:29.839 --> 00:19:31.119
Some conversions are too expensive.
00:19:31.359 --> 00:19:33.519
Do you believe that you can make anything work?
00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:36.480
I I I do believe because there's so many levers, right?
00:19:36.640 --> 00:19:46.319
We have, I do believe, now this might be, I don't, I hope this isn't like an ego thing, but I believe that there's not too many things that I've come across that I don't think I could sell.
00:19:46.480 --> 00:19:53.039
That issue is sell it for what the founder wants to be selling it at price point, pure discount play.
00:19:53.200 --> 00:19:54.720
Okay, here yeah, I'll put this back to you.
00:19:54.880 --> 00:19:56.559
How do you think basics should be ran?
00:19:56.960 --> 00:19:57.680
Amazon basics.
00:19:57.920 --> 00:19:59.920
How how do you think basics should be ran?
00:20:00.240 --> 00:20:00.880
Oh, like that.
00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:06.559
Well, that I mean, that's a great question because distribution is a huge moat, right?
00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:11.759
And so when you look at Amazon Prime, there's no customer acquisition cost for them.
00:20:11.839 --> 00:20:13.599
So they can price it to pretty much zero.
00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:14.240
Correct.
00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:20.160
So if I was trying to acquire customers for a basic line, I don't think I would actually get into that business, to be honest with you.
00:20:20.400 --> 00:20:20.880
So difficult.
00:20:20.960 --> 00:20:21.200
Yeah.
00:20:21.359 --> 00:20:24.400
How how how how would I how would I be different?
00:20:24.559 --> 00:20:32.880
You have built, which is like high quality shirts and products, like this is G U, this is Levi, these are Adidas, these are uh GU is phenomenal, by the way.
00:20:33.119 --> 00:20:34.480
Incredible T's, incredible T's.
00:20:34.559 --> 00:20:34.640
Yeah.
00:20:34.799 --> 00:20:38.240
But so think about so there's a there's this woman, she's like, you know, I really don't want to be a discount brand.
00:20:38.319 --> 00:20:39.599
I really don't want to be a discount brand.
00:20:39.680 --> 00:20:40.720
And I go, that's cool.
00:20:40.799 --> 00:20:42.640
She won't do you want to have a do you want to have a business?
00:20:42.720 --> 00:20:48.559
Like she sells women's undies and she sells uh intimates, and it's not name brand, but it's her brand.
00:20:48.720 --> 00:20:51.359
You're saying you can make it work, but it just has to be on it on the discount.
00:20:51.599 --> 00:20:52.720
You've got to be real, you gotta be on sale.
00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:54.000
Like what this product, what are you trying to run this?
00:20:54.240 --> 00:20:56.480
Yeah, or if you're not comfortable with that, then just change products.
00:20:56.640 --> 00:20:56.960
Correct.
00:20:57.039 --> 00:21:00.799
Yeah, or be innovative on on some of the products in which you're trying to sell it on.
00:21:00.880 --> 00:21:03.519
Like this is this is like even tied to breeze, right?
00:21:03.599 --> 00:21:09.359
Like we we get demolished on this front end because we our product is arguably one of the most expensive products in the space.
00:21:09.519 --> 00:21:14.720
And you can buy T C beverage in America for a four pack for 10 bucks.
00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:16.720
Our four pack is like 26 bucks.
00:21:16.880 --> 00:21:17.519
How could you do that?
00:21:17.599 --> 00:21:18.079
What is it?
00:21:18.640 --> 00:21:24.720
You have to understand that there's some people that are willing to pay for the brand in which it's been created, but other people want this product because they want to get high.
00:21:24.880 --> 00:21:26.240
Dude, 10 bucks sounds way too cheap.
00:21:26.319 --> 00:21:28.480
That to me, I'd be like, that must be made of crap.
00:21:28.640 --> 00:21:29.279
Correct, correct.
00:21:29.359 --> 00:21:30.720
That's and that's that's our bet.
00:21:30.799 --> 00:21:32.640
That's our that's our positioning and stance on this.
00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:34.480
Like, do you want to pay for cheap, you want to get a cheap high?
00:21:34.640 --> 00:21:35.119
But guess what?
00:21:35.200 --> 00:21:36.480
A lot of people want a cheap high.
00:21:36.559 --> 00:21:36.720
Yeah.
00:21:37.039 --> 00:21:38.880
You because you comp you comp it to alcohol.
00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:40.880
Do you want a do you know what a 30 rack is?
00:21:41.039 --> 00:21:44.240
30 rack is like less than 16 bucks sometimes for for something that's not that great.
00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:45.440
Yeah, and that'll be lights.
00:21:45.759 --> 00:21:47.119
Yeah, or even worse.
00:21:47.200 --> 00:21:51.839
Like once Amazon gets into alcohol, like could you imagine Amazon basic beer?
00:21:52.160 --> 00:21:52.960
That'd be wild.
00:21:53.279 --> 00:21:59.759
Okay, so going back to smoke testing, because I'm about to do this on Monday, we've done this several times, this trap.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:21.279
In e-commerce, where you can get stuck in a seven, even eight-figure brand for years trying to make it work because of pure emotion, emotional attachment to this concept that you had, this idea that you had, it's your brain child, it's your vision, it's your baby, you had this idea, your family supported, whatever.
00:22:21.359 --> 00:22:21.519
Yeah.
00:22:21.920 --> 00:22:23.440
But in reality, it's a garbage idea.
00:22:23.599 --> 00:22:26.079
But somehow you turn it into a seven, eight-figure business.
00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:27.680
But to me, that's a trap.
00:22:27.920 --> 00:22:31.680
I'm I'm speaking that speaking about this with eight years of experience kind of doing this.
00:22:31.839 --> 00:22:32.160
Okay.
00:22:32.400 --> 00:22:36.160
So now what I'm looking for are easier wins.
00:22:36.319 --> 00:22:43.200
You know, instead of spending years of your life trying to make something average work, find the perfect framework product.
00:22:43.599 --> 00:22:45.519
We call it the Mona Lisa internally.
00:22:45.599 --> 00:22:46.880
We're looking for a Mona Lisa.
00:22:47.119 --> 00:22:48.160
What are your thoughts on this?
00:22:48.319 --> 00:22:57.279
Because you're involved in so many businesses, and it you you have this like third, uh, you have this like bird's eye view of like what's a good business.
00:22:57.440 --> 00:22:57.759
Oh god.
00:22:58.079 --> 00:22:59.680
The ones that are easier, right?
00:22:59.839 --> 00:23:01.920
Not everything in life needs to be so difficult.
00:23:02.240 --> 00:23:04.319
But e-commerce businesses can be difficult.
00:23:04.480 --> 00:23:06.799
Like I've got a I've got a bedding business.
00:23:06.960 --> 00:23:08.960
They're big products, pillows, comforters.
00:23:09.119 --> 00:23:10.799
Like it's not easy to make it work.
00:23:10.960 --> 00:23:13.440
You know, we've made it work, but it wasn't easy.
00:23:13.680 --> 00:23:19.039
So my business partner, he always says, like, we've spent the last several years swimming against the tide.
00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:21.039
Tide's going this way, we're swimming this way.
00:23:21.119 --> 00:23:23.359
We're strong swimmers, we'll figure it out.
00:23:23.519 --> 00:23:24.799
But now we're like, fuck that.
00:23:25.119 --> 00:23:25.680
A little easier.
00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:26.799
I'm making a U-turn.
00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:27.599
I'm going with the tide.
00:23:27.680 --> 00:23:28.160
What are your thoughts?
00:23:28.319 --> 00:23:28.880
I think about this.
00:23:29.039 --> 00:23:30.400
Oh my God, this is all I would ever do.
00:23:30.559 --> 00:23:34.559
Like, um, I was I was this going the opposite direction.
00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:47.039
I was baby clothes, um, gadgets, all the things that like you are high enough AOV that you could feel confident, like you can get a CPA under 60 bucks and be like, yeah, I can make some margin on this.
00:23:47.200 --> 00:23:50.720
And let's see how many people I can convert uh one time.
00:23:51.200 --> 00:23:58.240
As soon as I got deep in the subscription side, or as soon as I started seeing like what Breeze would actually was was actually doing, this is like three and a half, four years ago.
00:23:58.480 --> 00:24:09.920
I felt I could all I felt like media buying, like you mentioned, you could solve, I truly think you could solve anything if it's priced correctly or if the offer is an alignment of the consumption behavior of the overall product.
00:24:10.079 --> 00:24:24.319
So from a Breeze standpoint, from a consumable standpoint, from an application into daily life standpoint, there's a reason why these hydration packets are not so like element is one area, instant hydration is another area, I am eight is another area.
00:24:24.480 --> 00:24:35.519
Like those those consumption behaviors and packets are built in a way like the IM8 story of their AOV in like the first two, three months shatters my perception of what is possible.
00:24:35.839 --> 00:24:41.759
What what what people are willing to spend on to have this type of thing when like are the results like 130, right?
00:24:41.920 --> 00:24:43.039
I think it's like 260, dude.
00:24:43.119 --> 00:24:45.119
I think they do they to they do the three months.
00:24:45.279 --> 00:24:45.839
They do crazy.
00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:46.799
It's something ridiculous.
00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:49.519
It's something like the price at the beginning is like so so aggressive.
00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:49.839
Yeah.
00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:52.720
And I think I'll go back to apologize on this.
00:24:52.960 --> 00:25:01.599
The I think the product has to be a consumable product on a 27 to 45 day cadence where there's a natural habit that's being formed.
00:25:01.839 --> 00:25:02.400
This is your framework.
00:25:02.559 --> 00:25:03.039
This is my framework.
00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:06.000
This is the Nick framework, what you're looking for to go with the tide.
00:25:06.240 --> 00:25:06.640
Correct.
00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:14.799
In the business, I'm involved in seven right now, and all seven of them have a subscription back end, and all seven of them I call like the seasons of subscription.
00:25:14.960 --> 00:25:19.440
Like there's very different, there's very different quadrants that they live in.
00:25:19.680 --> 00:25:26.960
One's like hard, hard growth, one is soft growth, one is like hard decline, one is like steady increase.
00:25:27.039 --> 00:25:28.960
Like there's like four different ones that I would believe in.
00:25:29.039 --> 00:25:31.759
You have an AOV of a product that sits below$35.
00:25:32.240 --> 00:25:34.640
Very difficult to acquire a ton of new customers on this.
00:25:34.720 --> 00:25:41.519
You're definitely buying into an L LTV three, four months, but this product cleans your daily life in your home.
00:25:41.599 --> 00:25:43.759
It cleans the air, it goes on top of a fan.
00:25:43.839 --> 00:25:46.319
So it turns your fan into a filtration device.
00:25:46.480 --> 00:25:51.200
And it's a better for you way of having uh cleaner air inside of your home.
00:25:51.359 --> 00:25:58.000
This is an AOB that sits underneath$35 and it's it's a rebuild style on a monthly or quarterly basis.
00:25:58.240 --> 00:25:59.759
What's the CPA on a product like that?
00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:00.559
Probably$30.
00:26:00.799 --> 00:26:01.200
Oh, wow.
00:26:01.599 --> 00:26:02.240
$30 to$32.
00:26:02.400 --> 00:26:03.119
So it's a one-to-one.
00:26:03.279 --> 00:26:05.119
It's a it's a no-brainer decision-making that I can dig.
00:26:05.359 --> 00:26:06.400
So that's swimming with the tide.
00:26:06.559 --> 00:26:07.359
That yeah, correct.
00:26:07.519 --> 00:26:09.359
That's I'm at home post-COVID.
00:26:09.680 --> 00:26:11.279
I'm not spending a ton of time.
00:26:11.440 --> 00:26:12.160
I have a bunch of pets.
00:26:12.240 --> 00:26:13.599
There's a bunch of dander in my home.
00:26:13.759 --> 00:26:15.200
I'm I have a new newborn in my house.
00:26:15.279 --> 00:26:18.400
I want to clean the air, but I don't want to buy a Dyson that's super expensive.
00:26:18.559 --> 00:26:18.720
Yeah.
00:26:18.880 --> 00:26:20.880
I have I have five fans in my house.
00:26:21.119 --> 00:26:22.400
I'm going to put this on my fan.
00:26:22.559 --> 00:26:26.960
So that's that's one that's this something that you came up with, or you saw someone doing you teamed up with them.
00:26:27.279 --> 00:26:27.519
Correct.
00:26:27.599 --> 00:26:30.319
I I will, and I'll put hand handle the Lord on this one.
00:26:30.400 --> 00:26:35.599
I'm not a product person, but I'll figure out exactly how to sell that and I know exactly how long people are gonna stay with this.
00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:37.039
So what's your setup right now?
00:26:37.119 --> 00:26:39.119
Is it because you said you're involved with seven brands.
00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:39.279
Yeah.
00:26:39.519 --> 00:26:41.200
You've got structured, you've got the agencies.
00:26:41.359 --> 00:26:55.759
How do you cut, like, are you just kind of inserting yourself as like the head of retention or subscription and then kind of cutting up your time brand by brand and sort of being like a, I don't know, like nomadic and how you kind of give them your your effort?
00:26:55.839 --> 00:26:56.960
Or what's your setup?
00:26:57.119 --> 00:26:58.160
I think that's a great way of putting it.
00:26:58.319 --> 00:27:01.359
I think structured, lucid, and breeze have CEOs.
00:27:01.440 --> 00:27:01.519
Okay.
00:27:01.680 --> 00:27:08.640
So all of them, all the all of them have great leaders and people in place that it was not needed for me to run any day-to-day for them specifically.
00:27:08.799 --> 00:27:18.319
And so I think the this is why I think we bet on 20-year-olds or want to bet on 20-year-olds because they have the the crazy amount of energy and the right amount of delusion that they can get everything done.
00:27:18.480 --> 00:27:19.279
It's a perfect combination.
00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:19.599
Yes.
00:27:19.759 --> 00:27:32.240
But when you get older, 35, pushing 35 in the area, like the the area of importance is best to like navigate the intensity or navigate the delusion and to the correct path forward.
00:27:32.480 --> 00:27:44.160
My my my play here is um every every there's all the CEOs on the core teams, and the area that I've what's really difficult to do is when you do too much context switching from what you need to do from an execution standpoint.
00:27:44.319 --> 00:27:54.000
So as long as I'm not context switching out of retention, subscription or acquisition, then the workflow is just a matter of what we've been doing for the last 10 years of agency, which is like same thing.
00:27:54.319 --> 00:27:59.440
Stick the next SOP that you're kind of just going and optimizing in each brand.
00:27:59.680 --> 00:27:59.920
Correct.
00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:00.799
And there's a flavor, right?
00:28:00.880 --> 00:28:03.359
There's a flavor to each of the brand because they're in different seasons of subscription.
00:28:03.599 --> 00:28:03.920
Yeah, of course.
00:28:04.079 --> 00:28:12.319
But like this is the thing that I this is why my bet is even deeper in this, like into I'll tell you where I think 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028 is gonna go.
00:28:12.480 --> 00:28:14.960
This is gonna go into the telemedicine space 100%.
00:28:15.440 --> 00:28:15.680
Yeah.
00:28:16.079 --> 00:28:17.119
And I care about that.
00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:20.160
This is this is my future when you're ready to talk about that.
00:28:20.400 --> 00:28:20.720
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:21.039 --> 00:28:23.680
We have a lot of mutual friends who I know are betting big on that right now.
00:28:23.920 --> 00:28:24.319
Oh, yeah.
00:28:24.400 --> 00:28:24.559
Yeah.
00:28:24.799 --> 00:28:25.680
For but why?
00:28:25.839 --> 00:28:27.279
It does what it says it's gonna do.
00:28:27.440 --> 00:28:27.839
Yeah.
00:28:28.079 --> 00:28:32.559
The CPAs are allowable, are through the roof, and it's really difficult to build.
00:28:32.720 --> 00:28:34.319
It's fucking really hard to get into the space.
00:28:34.559 --> 00:28:34.799
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:35.039 --> 00:28:35.680
Tons of our tape.
00:28:35.920 --> 00:28:42.720
So on on the where the time allocation goes, is like we have I have two core assistants that allow me to just do what I need to do on a daily basis.
00:28:42.880 --> 00:28:48.160
I can show up and execute on any of the calls or any of the deliverables that are that are on on Nick's plate.
00:28:48.319 --> 00:28:57.359
And then I have two team members that uh get me the analysis and the reporting that I need with the amount of AI tools that are have are at our readily available need.
00:28:57.920 --> 00:28:59.759
This is just out of like sheer curiosity.
00:28:59.920 --> 00:29:07.039
Are you so you you you know, you've you go, you get on these calls, you talk to all these businesses, CEOs, marketing teams.
00:29:07.279 --> 00:29:11.359
Do you then come away from that, those calls with work to do?
00:29:11.519 --> 00:29:16.720
Or is it mostly like how are you spending your time working, or are you spending your time learning, consulting?
00:29:16.880 --> 00:29:21.519
I mean, you have to spend hours consuming knowledge on X to also like iron sharpens iron, right?
00:29:21.599 --> 00:29:24.160
You also have to be on top of what's happening in the industry.
00:29:24.480 --> 00:29:26.799
You'd be shocked that I I try my best.
00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:29.440
So I we produce, you guys understand content.
00:29:29.519 --> 00:29:31.119
You guys do a great job of content.
00:29:31.279 --> 00:29:35.039
I don't consume anything outside of an hour and a half a day.
00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:37.200
Um, I have 45 minutes in the morning.
00:29:37.279 --> 00:29:44.720
Uh because PST si uh six to seven, six to seven is my my morning consumption of like my channels.
00:29:44.880 --> 00:29:49.759
And then right before I wrap up, four to five is when I do a second channel uh second channel review.
00:29:49.920 --> 00:29:54.640
And then in between, Kiana manages all my channels of where the content distribution needs to be.
00:29:54.799 --> 00:30:00.480
You've probably seen some of this stuff, is like posts, all my content is pre-planned and pre-uh discussed and written.
00:30:00.559 --> 00:30:07.359
I have two copywriters that plan all what I want to discuss or play with, and it's a lot of my mental exploration.
00:30:07.440 --> 00:30:09.759
So like I don't I spend a lot of my time not consuming.
00:30:10.240 --> 00:30:11.599
This is like Nick LLC.
00:30:11.759 --> 00:30:12.319
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:30:12.400 --> 00:30:18.559
This is a lot of time not consuming, it's a lot of time of production because every day I talk to more people than I want to talk to, yeah.
00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:22.559
If I'm being completely honest with you, but it's it's of course active practice.
00:30:22.640 --> 00:30:27.920
Like I'm actively practicing and in more more brands I want to be in, unfortunately.
00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:29.519
But this is the current season I'm in.
00:30:29.759 --> 00:30:32.880
So going back to smoke testing, because I'm super curious on this.
00:30:32.960 --> 00:30:38.400
We were talking about the the fan filtration, and we were talking about what like what are the modes in e-commerce, right?
00:30:38.480 --> 00:30:39.920
Because it was funny.
00:30:40.160 --> 00:30:42.079
Yesterday we had a sharing session here.
00:30:42.160 --> 00:30:43.519
There's about 30 people in this room.
00:30:43.839 --> 00:30:44.240
Crazy.
00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:47.039
And people were getting up and showing what they're working on.
00:30:47.279 --> 00:30:53.359
I was actually so, so shocked at the level of like raw, like dashboards open, add accounts, everything out.
00:30:53.599 --> 00:30:54.160
No filters.
00:30:54.240 --> 00:30:54.480
Yeah.
00:30:54.799 --> 00:30:57.200
You know, AI tools, everything.
00:30:57.440 --> 00:31:00.400
So someone on our team was showing what we were working on.
00:31:00.799 --> 00:31:02.400
And one guy made a joke.
00:31:02.640 --> 00:31:06.799
And it was actually funny, like he was like, ha ha, like I can take a picture of that and rip it.
00:31:06.880 --> 00:31:08.400
Like my AI could rip that in a second.
00:31:08.559 --> 00:31:12.559
And in my head, I was like, oh wait, like my gut reaction was like defensive.
00:31:13.119 --> 00:31:21.200
But then I realized like, no, like you literally could, like, yes, you could, but I don't care anymore because that's not the moat.
00:31:21.279 --> 00:31:21.680
Yeah.
00:31:21.920 --> 00:31:26.319
The moat, in my opinion, is a the founder, like your ability to drive the ship.
00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:30.480
But to me, that's still a big moat, because like you and I could sell anything, right?
00:31:30.799 --> 00:31:31.440
If we really wanted to.
00:31:31.599 --> 00:31:35.759
If you really wanted to, correct with AI, you could figure it out, you could build it, you could stand it up, you could test it.
00:31:35.920 --> 00:31:38.000
So, what's the moat in e-commerce today?
00:31:38.240 --> 00:31:46.000
I I think this the the if you really wanted to sell the thing, if you wanted to like the the moat is like the commitment to doing it all the time, every day.
00:31:46.240 --> 00:31:46.640
Very well.
00:31:46.880 --> 00:31:47.839
All the time, every day.
00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:53.279
The willingness to like, you're gonna create three offers for this one product, and because this one, maybe the LTB is not as high.
00:31:53.359 --> 00:31:54.720
Okay, well, what offer do I need to do?
00:31:54.880 --> 00:31:59.680
This thing, we we've been able to scale this across one demographic, one angle, but why not two or three different angles?
00:31:59.839 --> 00:32:06.480
To go back in and rebuild over and over and over for the same product for the same things you're selling on, that's the moat to overall crack it.
00:32:06.640 --> 00:32:09.680
Like there's there's these guys that do and so effort is the moat.
00:32:09.920 --> 00:32:22.559
It has to be because the speed, this is the this is what I'm nervous about when you when the younger crew are making bets on and making short-term decisions because they haven't seen like a down, like they haven't like really lost, right?
00:32:22.720 --> 00:32:27.359
There's like the delusion that these people have in a good way, like not negative, but they haven't lost yet.
00:32:27.680 --> 00:32:36.640
So another thing I was excited to talk to you about is um, again, because you're from the states, we've only had a couple guests, but none of them have been from the states.
00:32:36.960 --> 00:32:44.720
And something that I find really interesting is that the e-commerce community in the states, I lived in New York almost 10 years.
00:32:44.960 --> 00:32:45.279
Jeez.
00:32:45.680 --> 00:32:47.119
And so I'm super familiar.
00:32:47.279 --> 00:32:52.640
It the the states community of e-com young 20-year-old founders is very different than the rest of the world.
00:32:52.799 --> 00:33:16.240
And I know you know this because you go to Geek Out, you know, you're in, you know, Mikanos and you see the Dubai crowd, you see the Australia crowd, you see the China crowd, like their tactics and their knowledge and goals as far as like international shipping and testing, it's very different than the US, where I at least I personally find that it's very like test in the US, sell in the US, very focused on.
00:33:16.480 --> 00:33:17.359
Obviously, it's the biggest market.
00:33:17.440 --> 00:33:18.240
Like that's a no-brainer.
00:33:18.480 --> 00:33:19.440
But it's the most expensive market.
00:33:19.759 --> 00:33:22.400
Most expensive, but also nonetheless, it's limited, right?
00:33:22.480 --> 00:33:26.160
And so I'm curious, like, how do you guys approach US versus non-US?
00:33:26.480 --> 00:33:33.440
Well, I think the I've never needed to approach non-US because I our market is big enough to I don't have to think about international just yet.
00:33:33.519 --> 00:33:44.079
Like I feel like the difference between the Chinese crowd, the Chinese crowd, the European crowd, is that they're like there's one there's one brand founder, he's he does Italian and Swiss supplements in the Italian market.
00:33:44.400 --> 00:33:46.079
Italian market's cashed on delivery.
00:33:46.319 --> 00:33:56.160
Like they don't they don't they don't do subscription as much as like the UK or uh other parts of Europe are more familiar to do subscription or they're like more open to do subscription.
00:33:56.319 --> 00:34:00.000
So like running a subscription supplement brand there makes no sense.
00:34:00.079 --> 00:34:09.119
Whereas you have Marsmen and you have subscription front-end funnels in America that pump crazy revenue because the American public is understanding and okay to subscriptions.
00:34:09.199 --> 00:34:19.280
So there's just like business models that you can create that just will not work at any sort of crazy scale in a localized Italian market or in a localized uh European market.
00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:28.559
And by the way, like our navigation of fulfillment and shipping and processing and taxes is like very, very easy to navigate, relative speaking, to what happens in Europe.
00:34:28.719 --> 00:34:37.679
So I think when when you find out these European brands or these Chinese brands that are building their first, the scale is nowhere near what scale is in is in America.
00:34:37.760 --> 00:34:41.840
So that's why we we don't need to think anything outside of American expansion.
00:34:41.920 --> 00:34:42.159
Yeah.
00:34:42.320 --> 00:34:43.760
Because it's already expansion.
00:34:43.920 --> 00:34:44.079
Yeah.
00:34:44.239 --> 00:34:54.079
And so I I think the the biggest difference I would say is you you try to scale like intra avatar and persona from just like a world, like from an American standpoint.
00:34:54.159 --> 00:35:01.760
Whereas from the international crowd, they're like trying to do like personas in niches in countries, in countries, in language, which is crazy.
00:35:01.840 --> 00:35:13.599
Like that to me, like the I I would say the international crowd is hardened more because their GDPR, their compliance, their their uh goes both ways, right?
00:35:13.679 --> 00:35:22.800
So like their ability to have to jump through the hurdles earlier is not what we on the states have to deal with because we're able to literally scale with what we currently have.
00:35:22.880 --> 00:35:26.880
And now it's uh up to us to dude, even even language, like think about creators.
00:35:27.199 --> 00:35:34.960
If I'm trying to scale into like uh I have to get like the proper dialect to go into just English speaking UK or or or European markets.
00:35:35.119 --> 00:35:36.159
That's not something I had to deal with.
00:35:36.400 --> 00:35:39.280
I might want to get a Texas accent if I really, really wanted to.
00:35:39.519 --> 00:35:40.159
But do you do that?
00:35:40.400 --> 00:35:41.519
You don't have to.
00:35:41.760 --> 00:35:43.519
You can you don't have to, but you can.
00:35:43.679 --> 00:35:46.400
And actually international accents sometimes work better in America.
00:35:46.480 --> 00:35:47.599
So like, ooh, that's exotic.
00:35:47.679 --> 00:35:48.400
Yeah, that's different.
00:35:48.559 --> 00:35:48.719
Yeah.
00:35:48.960 --> 00:35:59.840
So that that shit, I think, I think American, I would actually I'll I'm hopefully I don't get a shit for this, but like I would say we're softer because we don't have to deal with the hoops in which you guys all have to deal with over here.
00:36:00.159 --> 00:36:06.079
Well, it's funny because I spent the first, I mean, still US is also for us majority of the sales.
00:36:06.239 --> 00:36:07.039
But I don't know.
00:36:07.119 --> 00:36:14.079
Now I'm just kind of thinking to myself, again, finding this like Mona Lisa product that you could ship globally without thinking about too many hoops.
00:36:14.239 --> 00:36:16.559
Like it couldn't be a supplement, for example.
00:36:16.800 --> 00:36:19.840
It couldn't be an electronic product because of the plugs, the voltage.
00:36:20.079 --> 00:36:27.920
But if you do find that Mona Lisa that can ship to 50 plus countries, then it actually could be a little bit more seamless than maybe either of us are thinking.
00:36:28.159 --> 00:36:29.599
Even if you do it English only.
00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:30.320
Yeah, true.
00:36:30.400 --> 00:36:32.320
Are you familiar with the crew that do essence vault?
00:36:32.400 --> 00:36:32.480
No.
00:36:32.800 --> 00:36:35.119
It's basically off-brand cologne.
00:36:35.920 --> 00:36:37.119
Yeah, perfect.
00:36:37.360 --> 00:36:37.920
Perfection.
00:36:38.239 --> 00:36:40.960
Car sense, things that like that's a that's a sleeve.
00:36:41.039 --> 00:36:41.199
Yeah.
00:36:41.360 --> 00:36:42.559
It's a nice cool small box.
00:36:42.800 --> 00:36:43.199
Small, yeah.
00:36:43.360 --> 00:36:44.719
That's that's like high margin.
00:36:45.199 --> 00:36:48.320
We were shipping like beverage high cases, high cans.
00:36:48.400 --> 00:36:51.599
Some of the brands are like Yeah, Breeze, you wouldn't be able to No, no, no.
00:36:51.840 --> 00:36:54.239
Yeah, that's of course its own thing with the THC.
00:36:54.719 --> 00:37:02.719
I think actually Breeze is like I people like if I like I have like a subscription decline over time and like it doesn't scare me because I'm like, well, this is a retail product.
00:37:02.880 --> 00:37:05.360
The normal shop, like, how many how many beverages are you subscribed to?
00:37:05.519 --> 00:37:06.159
Right now, none.
00:37:06.320 --> 00:37:06.559
None.
00:37:06.719 --> 00:37:06.880
Yeah.
00:37:07.280 --> 00:37:09.199
Most people you ask that question, they're like, you know why?
00:37:09.280 --> 00:37:11.679
Because I'm gonna find this beverage, I'm gonna buy it in bulk on Amazon.
00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:16.079
Well, dude, the culture of consumption outside of the US is radically different.
00:37:16.400 --> 00:37:16.960
Tell me about it.
00:37:17.199 --> 00:37:20.159
Well, it's just the US is the consumer capital of the world.
00:37:20.400 --> 00:37:27.920
Like the way Americans, and again, I I lived in the US 15 years, if you include like college and all that stuff, like the way Americans consume is like crazy.
00:37:28.159 --> 00:37:28.559
Out of control.
00:37:28.880 --> 00:37:29.119
Crazy.
00:37:29.360 --> 00:37:35.119
Yeah, I mean, to the point where I mean I was reading it was that there's like two trillion of credit card debt outstanding.
00:37:35.360 --> 00:37:36.079
That's not a big deal.
00:37:36.159 --> 00:37:36.880
It's not a big deal.
00:37:37.119 --> 00:37:42.239
I mean, yeah, if you compare that to the I I actually don't know the national debt goes up by like a trillion a like a month.
00:37:42.719 --> 00:37:44.320
It literally just hit another record while we were here.
00:37:44.639 --> 00:37:45.280
Yeah, literally.
00:37:45.440 --> 00:37:50.480
So I think that's crazy because um uh even in Europe, like they don't really use credit cards, they use debit cards.
00:37:50.559 --> 00:37:50.719
Yeah.
00:37:50.880 --> 00:37:55.920
But I will say on the international subject, one thing that's a pain in the ass is payment processing.
00:37:56.159 --> 00:38:00.800
Like if you want to be successful in Korea, you gotta get payment processing with cacao.
00:38:00.880 --> 00:38:05.280
And if you want to be successful in Hong Kong, you gotta get payment processing with like FPS.
00:38:05.440 --> 00:38:06.480
It's total nightmare.
00:38:06.559 --> 00:38:09.199
It's it's but um of course that's that's a moat, right?
00:38:09.440 --> 00:38:09.599
Correct.
00:38:09.840 --> 00:38:24.559
I guess just to like come full circle in some ways, like what I've been struggling with, what our team's been talking about like relentlessly, and I always like bring it back to these conversations because I want to pick your brain, is like, what's the real moat?
00:38:24.719 --> 00:38:29.760
If we're gonna spend the next two years building something, how can we make it the biggest outcome possible?
00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:33.119
Because as we discussed, we can s you can sell anything.
00:38:33.519 --> 00:38:38.400
You could probably turn that into a seven, eight-figure business, but is that worth it or is that just a time suck?
00:38:38.559 --> 00:38:42.320
And how do you do something that people don't just rip?
00:38:42.480 --> 00:38:45.679
But what I've what I think I've realized is there is no moat.
00:38:45.840 --> 00:38:46.800
You just gotta do it.
00:38:46.880 --> 00:38:52.239
And the founder and the time and the effort and the infrastructure effectively is the moat.
00:38:52.400 --> 00:39:12.320
And at the same time, the other thing that I've realized, again, this is just me, people will totally disagree with this is I'm no longer like building brands for long-term enterprise value so that they can sell one day to Procter and Gamble and Unilever, like uh Groons, or like even like a breeze, total brand will sell one day, I'm so sure.
00:39:12.480 --> 00:39:17.039
Whereas like the international crowd now, run it for cash, make money.
00:39:17.199 --> 00:39:23.199
If it, if the offer declines in two years, whatever, at least you made you know your boat along the way and you're good.
00:39:23.360 --> 00:39:23.599
Yeah.
00:39:23.760 --> 00:39:27.840
It's it's in the beginning for me, it was like, let's build brands long term.
00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:31.039
And I still enjoy that, but to me, it's also kind of exhausting now.
00:39:31.360 --> 00:39:34.480
Dude, I am I hope we're not unique in both dealing this way.
00:39:34.639 --> 00:39:37.119
Because I've I've I've felt this way for many, many years.
00:39:37.199 --> 00:39:39.599
This is why somebody's like, why don't you just focus and do like one thing?
00:39:39.679 --> 00:39:40.239
I'm like, why?
00:39:41.119 --> 00:39:41.840
Why would I do that?
00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:45.280
Like there's so much to do, there's so many things that I'm interested in.
00:39:45.440 --> 00:39:45.679
Yeah.
00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:48.159
And why would I just do one thing over and over and over?
00:39:48.239 --> 00:39:50.480
Like, commit yourself to one brand for 10 years.
00:39:50.639 --> 00:39:50.800
Yeah.
00:39:51.199 --> 00:39:55.039
I believe that I believe there's people out there, like Chad, Chad Agreements is a great example.
00:39:55.119 --> 00:40:00.400
Like that man was that man built that thing from the beginning with the intentionality of doing what he just did.
00:40:00.559 --> 00:40:01.599
That man was so relentless.
00:40:02.079 --> 00:40:03.039
He didn't like two years.
00:40:03.760 --> 00:40:06.159
That's he didn't like two under two years.
00:40:06.400 --> 00:40:18.480
Yeah, yeah, but it was like the like his background that led him to that was like he's he knew the people, he knew the team, he knew the structure, he like knew what he was going into, he why he was doing it, what the product was, what the retail rollout was.
00:40:18.559 --> 00:40:28.639
Like he like was like relentless and he executed, like he he he asked him like uh on the on his that wasn't a he wasn't like being facetious, he was like, we actually like we hit we hit our target.
00:40:28.800 --> 00:40:32.400
Like when they when when on when they asked him like, were you above revenue target?
00:40:32.719 --> 00:40:34.000
He was like, No, we we hit our pace.
00:40:34.159 --> 00:40:34.559
That's crazy.
00:40:34.719 --> 00:40:35.199
Yeah, it's insane.
00:40:35.360 --> 00:40:37.199
Like he set the he set the pace, he knew what he was doing.
00:40:37.360 --> 00:40:41.440
And so I I I seen her go, I think I hope, I hope in my time.
00:40:41.519 --> 00:40:46.320
And Breeze was I I thought Breeze was because it was all agency, he was all growth, all brand.
00:40:46.400 --> 00:40:50.079
And then with Aaron, Aaron, he's an incredible visionary, he's an incredible salesman.
00:40:50.159 --> 00:40:52.079
He was like, like, be a part of this, be a part of sport.
00:40:52.320 --> 00:40:54.239
I was like, absolutely, like how do I help?
00:40:54.320 --> 00:40:55.760
How do I how do I jump into it?
00:40:55.840 --> 00:40:58.000
But like that's not like that's not my Mona Lisa.
00:40:58.079 --> 00:41:00.480
Like that is a product that I Are you looking for a Mona Lisa?
00:41:01.119 --> 00:41:05.039
I think there's one out there that I can go, like, I hope, let me let me reiterate this.
00:41:05.119 --> 00:41:10.239
I hope that there is one out there that makes me go, this is all the things that I I hoped it was.
00:41:10.400 --> 00:41:13.519
Let's turn down and move everything out of the way and go build.
00:41:13.679 --> 00:41:14.079
I hope that is.
00:41:14.320 --> 00:41:24.960
So I was gonna ask you this question because if you found a Mona Lisa, let's say one of your seven was that, wouldn't you in theory want to just say, hey, to the other six, I'm gonna go all in on this one?
00:41:25.039 --> 00:41:26.159
Because you would.
00:41:26.320 --> 00:41:28.480
You would, you I would, but I I haven't found it.
00:41:28.639 --> 00:41:29.360
I haven't found it yet.
00:41:29.440 --> 00:41:29.599
Yeah.
00:41:29.760 --> 00:41:35.039
And and I think the you talked about this earlier is like I think the optimization as you grow is a little bit different.
00:41:35.119 --> 00:41:41.119
And this is why you we in our area of our like see like there's like reasons, seasons, and lifetimes.
00:41:41.199 --> 00:41:42.960
Like this is like something that I learned very early on.
00:41:43.039 --> 00:41:45.199
It's like reasons, seasons, and lifetimes.
00:41:45.280 --> 00:41:45.840
And lifetimes.
00:41:45.920 --> 00:41:46.079
Okay.
00:41:46.239 --> 00:41:52.079
So someone or something like a person or product or business enters your life for a reason.
00:41:52.239 --> 00:41:59.679
Our job as men is our job as entrepreneurs, it's our job as contributing people into the society to make a determination.
00:41:59.920 --> 00:42:02.239
What is the reason that this thing is in my life?
00:42:02.400 --> 00:42:09.119
And if that reason is important enough to us or big enough to us or impactful enough to us, that reason turns into a season.
00:42:09.360 --> 00:42:15.360
Seasons can last years, seasons could last months, seasons could last however we deem it to be.
00:42:15.519 --> 00:42:21.199
And then if the if that season for us is that impactful to us or that important to us, that thing turns into a lifetime.
00:42:21.360 --> 00:42:25.199
So that's people, our wives, our family, our partners.
00:42:25.440 --> 00:42:27.199
Or if it's not, that's okay.
00:42:27.360 --> 00:42:30.079
That season comes to an end and then move on to the next thing.
00:42:30.159 --> 00:42:37.599
But like that's our job is like we make the determination, what happens down the reason, into the season, and then if they're with us forever, then it turns into our overall lifetime.
00:42:37.760 --> 00:42:38.079
I love it.
00:42:38.239 --> 00:42:40.639
That's that's how I make the decision-making factors on this.
00:42:40.800 --> 00:42:47.599
Because then I hope and I hope to God that I have a lot more products that give me seasons and the one that I'll be able to spend a lifetime on.
00:42:47.840 --> 00:42:48.719
But you haven't found it yet.
00:42:48.880 --> 00:42:49.199
Not yet.
00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:50.559
And so are you looking?
00:42:50.639 --> 00:42:54.079
Like, are you actively or is it always but no?
00:42:54.159 --> 00:42:59.360
I guess what I'm saying is like, is it something that you think will just come to you, or are you like actively thinking through what that could be?
00:42:59.519 --> 00:43:02.559
And then are you gonna go at it from a founder perspective?
00:43:02.719 --> 00:43:05.760
Because I know you said you're not you're not acting in that role right now.
00:43:05.920 --> 00:43:11.119
Or are you thinking to yourself, when I see it, I'll build that founding team and then obviously lead marketing retention and so forth?
00:43:11.440 --> 00:43:17.199
I'm incredible at team and I'm incredible at culture and I'm incredible at revenue.
00:43:17.519 --> 00:43:19.119
Very, very, very, very good at this.
00:43:19.280 --> 00:43:23.280
But the CEO role is like a very difficult, very difficult role.
00:43:23.360 --> 00:43:24.639
It's not a it's not a fun role.
00:43:24.800 --> 00:43:28.000
No, it's the CEO is a very terrible role.
00:43:28.159 --> 00:43:30.079
So I would love to have someone be that role.
00:43:30.239 --> 00:43:31.760
That's not so I don't have to deal with that.
00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:34.000
So I'm curious when you think about CEO.
00:43:34.320 --> 00:43:37.119
I read everything, sorry, everything I've done has been in a partnership.
00:43:37.360 --> 00:43:40.480
There's never been something that I'm like, I need a hundred percent ownership of this thing.
00:43:40.559 --> 00:43:40.639
Yeah.
00:43:40.800 --> 00:43:41.280
My entire life.
00:43:41.599 --> 00:43:42.800
Lonely and boring, in my opinion.
00:43:43.039 --> 00:43:43.760
Why would I do that?
00:43:43.840 --> 00:43:43.920
Yes.
00:43:44.159 --> 00:43:47.039
Why would I well I I I like this person, I want I want you to do that.
00:43:47.199 --> 00:43:48.239
I like struggling with people.
00:43:48.480 --> 00:43:48.800
100%.
00:43:49.280 --> 00:43:50.320
It's way easier to struggle.
00:43:50.480 --> 00:43:52.239
Misery does enjoy a little bit of comfort.
00:43:52.400 --> 00:43:52.480
Yeah.
00:43:52.719 --> 00:43:52.880
Yeah.
00:43:53.199 --> 00:43:59.840
But but the the the if I I I hope, again, I hope I find a product that is worth spending the rest of whatever the lifetime is going to be.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:01.920
But I wanted to be with an incredible amount of people.
00:44:02.159 --> 00:44:05.360
Maybe, maybe you grew up, you were in you were been here and been in the States.
00:44:05.519 --> 00:44:09.679
People used to aspire to have like this giant mansion, this big, giant homes.
00:44:09.840 --> 00:44:19.599
And I feel like the more people you meet, more people are in uh this community, you realize like they really want to live where they want and do what they want on their time with their people.
00:44:19.920 --> 00:44:23.679
Much different than just building a massive, massive home and never leaving the home.
00:44:23.920 --> 00:44:26.079
That was that was a different thing for me that I grew up in.
00:44:26.320 --> 00:44:27.039
Yeah, interesting.
00:44:27.199 --> 00:44:33.519
When you think about CEO, because I'm also thinking about this right now, like we were talking about this before we started.
00:44:33.679 --> 00:44:36.400
I don't want to run the brands necessarily.
00:44:36.559 --> 00:44:38.079
I want to hire someone to run them.
00:44:38.400 --> 00:44:45.440
Do you, in your head, if there's two pathways, one is like hire someone super experienced, maybe older, more expensive.
00:44:45.599 --> 00:44:53.199
The other path is hire a 20-year-old, maybe a little bit seasoned, let's say they're 28, I don't know, but they're like clearly so energized.
00:44:53.360 --> 00:44:59.519
They've got enough road under their belt, enough miles under their belt where they get it.
00:44:59.599 --> 00:45:02.239
You know, they're not super old, but they they've done enough.
00:45:02.400 --> 00:45:02.559
Yeah.
00:45:02.719 --> 00:45:03.599
Obviously a little bit cheaper.
00:45:03.679 --> 00:45:06.800
Maybe you can incentivize them with more equity or KPI incentive.
00:45:06.960 --> 00:45:08.639
Which of those two paths are more interesting to you?
00:45:08.880 --> 00:45:09.840
Very interesting question.
00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:16.800
So I think over my time at all the companies, we've I've hired or fired at least 100 to 200 people.
00:45:17.039 --> 00:45:21.199
Men or women, like as soon as there's two phases that they entered into this.
00:45:21.280 --> 00:45:32.239
And this is not pure CEO, but this is like a really CEO is a very important role, but you can say the same thing across like every major C level decision in their area of ownership.
00:45:32.400 --> 00:45:33.119
Is that fair to say?
00:45:33.280 --> 00:45:54.000
When hiring someone in this area, like if they are about to have a child, their their energy right before they're about to have a child, you have to have really, really honest and real conversations with them because as soon as they finish, as soon as they're like had the baby and man or women, they come back from paternity and maternity leave, uh, their their incentive and their energy is very different.
00:45:54.239 --> 00:45:54.639
Of course.
00:45:54.800 --> 00:45:57.760
But their intentionality and their execution is usually incredible.
00:45:57.920 --> 00:46:04.079
So I actually might make a bigger bet on somebody that's about to enter into a different phase of life of family.
00:46:04.239 --> 00:46:04.800
That's one.
00:46:04.960 --> 00:46:11.199
Two, I I think they're if they're the young hustler that they have great integrity and they're willing to take feedback and be coachable.
00:46:11.280 --> 00:46:14.159
That is also incredible, but it depends on the type of business in which you're running.
00:46:14.320 --> 00:46:18.400
If you're trying to grow a high growth, aggressive, I want them online at 2 a.m.
00:46:18.559 --> 00:46:20.480
kind of thing, you're not getting a mom and dad.
00:46:20.559 --> 00:46:21.840
You're not getting mom and dad that's doing this.
00:46:22.079 --> 00:46:29.440
Yeah, I worry with the older CEO path, they're just like the world is changing every day six times over.
00:46:29.760 --> 00:46:30.880
That they might be too slow?
00:46:31.039 --> 00:46:35.440
Yeah, that they're just not on, they're just not on the tides, the changing tides enough.
00:46:35.679 --> 00:46:48.800
Well, so this is why having a community and commercial table and geek out and Twitter or Slack telegram groups are so important for us nowadays is because you if someone's like, hey, I'm trying this or I'm interviewing this thing, I'm using these apps.
00:46:48.960 --> 00:46:51.840
Like that that's this is our job now.
00:46:52.159 --> 00:47:00.960
It's to provide the access to resources and the access to individuals that can get our young guns to be an incredible and act as like an old head because they have access to that.
00:47:01.199 --> 00:47:01.760
That's exactly right.
00:47:01.920 --> 00:47:08.320
So I I think nine out of ten times we want to make a bet on the young gun, but it's it depends on the type of business in which you're trying to build.
00:47:08.559 --> 00:47:16.719
So the young guns still need some form of mentorship, they still need guardrails, they still need a lot of times motivation, yeah, capital, infrastructure.
00:47:16.880 --> 00:47:18.239
I think for me, it's clear.
00:47:18.320 --> 00:47:28.480
Like I get very motivated by these like young 20-year-olds that are just like so fucking deep in the internet that they learn something new every day and then they run at it.
00:47:28.719 --> 00:47:33.920
The problem is their focus breaks and they don't have real business experience.
00:47:34.159 --> 00:47:46.559
Like the problem that me and one of my business partners talk about all the time is young people make it sound so easy and it's not like, dude, throw a real lawsuit at a 23-year-old.
00:47:46.639 --> 00:47:47.199
They will crumble.
00:47:48.320 --> 00:47:49.039
Beautiful delusion.
00:47:49.280 --> 00:47:54.880
They will crumble, like a real lawsuit or some real existential crisis.
00:47:55.039 --> 00:47:59.039
Like they didn't think through the trademark, and now they're getting sued.
00:47:59.119 --> 00:48:01.280
And I I knew a guy who was based in Dubai.
00:48:01.360 --> 00:48:06.559
He had this like, dude, it was crazy, this underwear business that was going bananas.
00:48:06.719 --> 00:48:12.159
And then he got hit with a trademark uh violation and he had to rebrand and he just crumbled.
00:48:12.400 --> 00:48:12.880
Crumbled.
00:48:13.119 --> 00:48:14.400
Did not know how to handle it.
00:48:14.559 --> 00:48:19.440
Rebranded and then it boom, like completely lost all multi-million dollar.
00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:30.239
Yeah, and I think there is something to be said about older C um older experience because I mean there's a reason that you know the CEO of Apple is in their 60s or whatever, right?
00:48:30.480 --> 00:48:34.159
I I don't know how the old and new CEO is John, but he's worked at Apple for like 25 years.
00:48:34.400 --> 00:48:36.639
Yeah, the longest tenured person in product.
00:48:36.960 --> 00:48:37.280
Exactly.
00:48:37.440 --> 00:48:37.599
Yeah.
00:48:37.760 --> 00:48:37.920
Yeah.
00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:39.039
I I this is why.
00:48:39.440 --> 00:48:41.199
But he's not on Twitter 24-7.
00:48:41.679 --> 00:49:02.880
No, he doesn't, but the the this is something that I'll be able to think about a lot on because this is something that the next like on my team, if I think about who's on my team right now that are moving, like I have four different people much younger, under 25, spending the time, effort, energy, and they they don't have, first off, they don't have wandering eye of opportunity, right?
00:49:02.960 --> 00:49:05.360
They they're like, I'm here for this specific thing.
00:49:05.599 --> 00:49:06.079
Very important.
00:49:06.239 --> 00:49:09.840
Yeah, this is you and I very important have access and wandering eye on many things.
00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:11.119
It's just not good for focus.
00:49:11.360 --> 00:49:11.840
Yeah, horrible.
00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:15.039
Uh or or like, because we're in our head, we're like, I can probably do something over here.
00:49:15.360 --> 00:49:16.639
This is interesting, right?
00:49:16.960 --> 00:49:31.519
Their their ability to just like be in the thing more than anybody else is also very valuable, which is why if the old and also the old head could be paired up with a very cracked AI youth lead that is then enabling their ability to execute.
00:49:31.599 --> 00:49:32.960
So like you can choose either way.
00:49:33.119 --> 00:49:51.199
You either are gonna bring the young gun that's gonna come in through and give them like genuine uh coaching around how to be an executive, still, still this one's executing, but this is giving the coaching, or it's the other way around where it's like you have the old head that's doing the executing, and then you're needing to pull them coaching from a younger person that's teaching them AI.
00:49:51.280 --> 00:49:53.039
So there's like there's I don't think there's a wrong decision.
00:49:53.599 --> 00:49:55.119
Batman and Robin set up 100%.
00:49:55.440 --> 00:49:55.920
That's interesting.
00:49:56.079 --> 00:49:57.119
And I believe in Batman and Robin.
00:49:57.280 --> 00:49:59.199
There's times where you need to lead and there's times where you need to not lead.
00:49:59.360 --> 00:50:00.239
That is super interesting.
00:50:00.400 --> 00:50:12.000
My biggest fear as a founder, you know, who's in their 30s is like you train someone and you give them all the tools, you turn them into a super monster.
00:50:12.159 --> 00:50:12.400
Yeah.
00:50:12.559 --> 00:50:15.039
And then they I mean, they're so smart.
00:50:15.199 --> 00:50:16.960
I mean, then they say, hey, you know what?
00:50:17.039 --> 00:50:18.239
I'm gonna go do this on my own.
00:50:18.400 --> 00:50:18.719
Yeah.
00:50:19.360 --> 00:50:23.760
Which entrepreneur to entrepreneur, I would I would give fl I would give you your flowers for that.
00:50:23.840 --> 00:50:24.719
Like, I respect that.
00:50:25.039 --> 00:50:25.760
You should do that.
00:50:25.920 --> 00:50:26.400
Yep.
00:50:26.960 --> 00:50:29.760
But what's that's a double-edged sword, right?
00:50:30.079 --> 00:50:33.840
So how do you how do you train people to be with you for the long run?
00:50:34.079 --> 00:50:38.000
Because you want to hire the smartest people, and sometimes they're too smart.
00:50:38.320 --> 00:50:41.760
I left comment thread and Taylor and I had this exact conversation.
00:50:41.840 --> 00:50:44.480
I was like, make me a partner um and I will not go anywhere.
00:50:44.639 --> 00:50:48.079
And he was like, I can't do this because of XYZ cap table y.
00:50:48.320 --> 00:50:51.679
Um and I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna build structure and go do something else.
00:50:51.760 --> 00:50:53.440
And he was like, No problem.
00:50:53.679 --> 00:50:59.760
Because at some point, like it's our job, it's not our job to keep them, it's our job to do everything we can to want them to stay.
00:50:59.920 --> 00:51:06.559
Like they they they themselves have to want to stay, but this is part of the it's just it's just like it's like that is the the double ed story.
00:51:06.719 --> 00:51:23.840
Like you will train somebody that you pour a lot of time, effort, energy, money, resources, emotional capital, relational capital, actual capital into, and you hope that they they care enough about you as a mentor, they move into, which is why like there's no business, there's no business in personal life.
00:51:24.000 --> 00:51:24.880
The same exact thing.
00:51:25.039 --> 00:51:29.760
I think people try to separate the shit and they try to say, like, oh, that's my work life, and like this is my personal life.
00:51:29.840 --> 00:51:30.320
It's separate.
00:51:30.400 --> 00:51:31.679
It's not no, no, no, no.
00:51:31.840 --> 00:51:32.960
Your wife was here earlier.
00:51:33.119 --> 00:51:34.880
My wife and my son are in the hotel.
00:51:34.960 --> 00:51:37.199
Like, this is what we do, this is this is what we live.
00:51:37.440 --> 00:51:38.079
Yeah, this is our life.
00:51:38.159 --> 00:51:45.760
Yeah, and so the young, I think the younger that they won't see it until they like actually see it and they're like, Wow, like this is home, this is safety, this is community.
00:51:45.840 --> 00:51:58.320
And like, I don't want to say we're family, because like I think that that's the weird vibe people say like as an as an as a tactic to keep, but they're they will have to want to stay with you because they'll see emotional opportunity, they'll see relational opportunity, and they'll see a financial opportunity.
00:51:58.400 --> 00:52:00.880
Those are the three things that we can hit that should be with you.
00:52:01.039 --> 00:52:01.440
Yeah.
00:52:01.599 --> 00:52:07.760
I I don't think you could fight to keep anybody longer than they want to be here, and it's probably detrimental if you do fight to keep them past their time.
00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:12.239
I think it's really interesting too, because this like concept of equity really throws people off.
00:52:12.400 --> 00:52:15.199
Like when you're younger, you're like, I want equity in that.
00:52:15.280 --> 00:52:17.519
And I'm trying to be intellectually honest.
00:52:17.679 --> 00:52:18.239
I really am.
00:52:18.400 --> 00:52:22.559
I find that equity is a bit of a trap because like what's it worth unless you sell it?
00:52:22.800 --> 00:52:27.679
And and it can't will they have enough money to afford to buy it at their shares, to buy shares when it's time for them to buy it.
00:52:27.920 --> 00:52:28.239
Exactly.
00:52:28.400 --> 00:52:40.960
I I just like that's another trap that I find um gets younger founders into younger people or employees, so to speak, into trouble because they think that they want something which is not really that valuable.
00:52:41.199 --> 00:52:41.440
Correct.
00:52:41.599 --> 00:52:43.199
Like, I would rather just take the cash.
00:52:43.360 --> 00:52:43.679
Correct.
00:52:43.840 --> 00:52:45.440
Like, forget the equity, just pay me more.
00:52:45.679 --> 00:52:47.760
Yeah, I don't think But that's in hindsight.
00:52:48.079 --> 00:53:06.480
I think that this message gets out to the right person is like you you don't want to have to fight if you're a if you're a young, cracked 20-something year old that's getting courted by a 30-year-old that's a veteran that's played in the space and understands what this is, equity is not as important as upside of earning potential in your earliest years.
00:53:06.639 --> 00:53:09.679
Like you you have to get rich on before you can really do anything else with your life.
00:53:09.760 --> 00:53:14.639
Yeah, like you, you have to focus as much as you possibly can on like financial stability and security.
00:53:14.800 --> 00:53:18.960
And then after that, you can start playing with like cool equity here, uh, ownership over there.
00:53:19.039 --> 00:53:22.800
Like, just because you have equity or ownership of it doesn't mean you you you're gonna stay.
00:53:22.880 --> 00:53:28.480
Like you could have ownership and equity as soon as you invest, so you can get the fuck out and you're still you're still able to be paid.
00:53:28.719 --> 00:53:30.559
Yeah, I just think people overcomplicate it.
00:53:30.719 --> 00:53:31.119
I agree.
00:53:31.199 --> 00:53:32.000
They think they do too.
00:53:32.159 --> 00:53:33.840
And and and I think people abuse it.
00:53:33.920 --> 00:53:38.559
Like they say, like, well, do you're you're you invest in three years, like you ought to stay for three years.
00:53:38.719 --> 00:53:39.760
Yeah, that's the other thing.
00:53:39.840 --> 00:53:40.320
That's wild.
00:53:40.480 --> 00:53:41.519
Like, yeah, that's a tactic.
00:53:41.760 --> 00:53:47.440
We were so we were debating, people used to ask, like, hey, why why would I just do one thing for a very long period of time?
00:53:47.599 --> 00:53:47.760
Yeah.
00:53:47.920 --> 00:53:56.480
And I think the the the ability that what happens now is that you have a lot of tools at our at our disposal from ads to emails to pages.
00:53:56.639 --> 00:54:00.960
The hardest part, I'd say, like, you said you you were talking about there is really no moat.
00:54:01.119 --> 00:54:07.840
And I go, I think the only moat, the only moat potentially at the beginning could be the the quality of the product, right?
00:54:07.920 --> 00:54:17.440
Like you, you as a founder, you as a product person spend a lot of time in creating an incredible product and the distribution of that or the selling of it is actually the easiest thing for people to do.
00:54:17.679 --> 00:54:40.079
And the more that we have like some of the younger founders or just anybody that's been in the game of e-commerce for quite some time that understands how to use some of the tools, do they have to build something that goes into a massive exit, or can they build it to a place where it's an incredible level of cash flow and then take the same exact team that they've been using, use the same exact processes that they're using with the same exact team that they're using and launch an adjacent brand.
00:54:40.239 --> 00:54:47.840
Ins for a perfect example, we'll use hydration packets, hydration package for expecting mothers, hydration package for business male entrepreneurs.
00:54:48.239 --> 00:54:50.400
Like it's the same thing, it's the same product with the position.
00:54:51.360 --> 00:54:52.719
All the wrapper is just a little bit different.
00:54:52.800 --> 00:54:56.960
Like that, that to me is where I think this is where the next wave of individuals are going to be.
00:54:57.119 --> 00:55:05.840
Because the speed at which you can spin an idea up or packaging, like the hardest part would be to convince the manufacturers to like put new branding on the packaging, potentially.
00:55:06.079 --> 00:55:07.039
Yeah, but that's so easy.
00:55:07.280 --> 00:55:07.679
Now it is.
00:55:07.760 --> 00:55:11.119
I see I wouldn't even be able to speak to that because I don't know how fast I can go.
00:55:11.280 --> 00:55:15.840
But now we're already going fast over here of like how many offers or pages are or creative that in which I can launch.
00:55:16.079 --> 00:55:17.519
But to you, that's different brands, right?
00:55:17.599 --> 00:55:18.320
It's not the same.
00:55:18.800 --> 00:55:23.199
To me, that's different brands because you the clarity of message is so important.
00:55:23.280 --> 00:55:27.519
And I've learned this the hard way with Breeze because we were selling the THC and non-THC.
00:55:27.840 --> 00:55:33.599
And so many people were finding us and looking for us on TikTok or Amazon and going, like, I bought this, but there's no THC in this.
00:55:33.760 --> 00:55:36.800
And I felt like there was a mismatch of clarity of like what we were selling.
00:55:36.880 --> 00:55:39.840
And it's been a huge pain point in my mind.
00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:42.400
Now I didn't even know Breeze had non-thc.
00:55:42.559 --> 00:55:44.559
Yeah, we're we're this is how we're in retail stores.
00:55:44.639 --> 00:55:48.320
Like this is how we're on Target and Sprouts and all these ones because I I was ignorant.
00:55:48.400 --> 00:55:52.800
I thought it was all I thought I thought you just figured it out with like the states that were compliant in THC.
00:55:52.960 --> 00:55:54.800
Oh, we did we did that, and we did that also.
00:55:54.880 --> 00:56:00.480
But the the the the point was like for brand for beverages specifically for it to get real crazy mass distribution.
00:56:00.559 --> 00:56:01.760
You look at Bloom, right?
00:56:02.000 --> 00:56:03.360
Look at what Greg's doing on this side.
00:56:03.519 --> 00:56:10.800
He was supplement first, then he made that he had an incredible deal partnership, uh, the parent company of C4, which is massive distribution of energy drinks.
00:56:11.039 --> 00:56:13.280
He's like, I'm gonna double down for energy drink for women.
00:56:13.440 --> 00:56:14.159
Beautiful can.
00:56:14.239 --> 00:56:16.880
There's like a Lani New kind of vibe, but it's obviously blue.
00:56:17.119 --> 00:56:17.440
I've seen it.
00:56:17.599 --> 00:56:19.679
Like they spoke to a consumer.
00:56:19.840 --> 00:56:23.519
The liquid inside is the same shit I'm drinking in a monster or anything else.
00:56:23.920 --> 00:56:27.599
Part of your like Mona Lisa framework is a product that you can then spin up in other directions.
00:56:28.079 --> 00:56:28.880
This is actually so interesting.
00:56:28.960 --> 00:56:29.679
I've never thought about this.
00:56:29.840 --> 00:56:50.239
I think I think it is, dude, because if you think about it, if you have the manufacturing and you have the team to do the distribution, do the branding, do the the content, do all the all the necessary work to sell it, and you just wrap the different type of perspective of brand around it, why wouldn't it have the correct level or similar level of success of the same exact teams executing on it?
00:56:50.400 --> 00:56:55.920
Unless it's like widely, widely different from the consumer in which you're selling to, or the TAM is anywhere smaller than the original TAM.
00:56:56.239 --> 00:56:57.599
Do you care about seasonality?
00:56:57.760 --> 00:57:01.199
Like, would you ever do a product that's winter only or summer only or something?
00:57:01.440 --> 00:57:08.639
We did early on when we were doing a very heavy giftable product, which was like we'd get Christmas pup socks uh or or like dogs on prints.
00:57:08.719 --> 00:57:10.480
Like that's a very heavy gifting product.
00:57:10.639 --> 00:57:16.159
That's a Christmas, that's a birthday, that's a mother's day, that's a father's day, that's a graduation day, but yeah, that's really difficult to win on.
00:57:16.320 --> 00:57:20.719
You you uh so part of the framework, I think you need a product that's like for me and for you.
00:57:20.880 --> 00:57:21.519
What does this mean?
00:57:21.679 --> 00:57:31.920
Why baby products and uh children's clothing do so well is because I can buy it for myself, for my family, or I can buy it as a gift for you or for your family.
00:57:32.079 --> 00:57:35.440
So I'm constantly able to sell it to different types of perspectives for people.
00:57:35.599 --> 00:57:40.079
I can sell it to grandma-grandpa, I can sell it to the the the girlfriend, boyfriend, uh, husband, father.
00:57:40.159 --> 00:57:42.880
I I can play it in so many different spaces and areas around this.
00:57:43.039 --> 00:57:46.880
I think that goes part of the framework is like it has to be shippable.
00:57:47.039 --> 00:58:03.840
It has to do nothing to do with plugs, outlets, or or electronics, has to be uh instantly felt, which I think this is why like scent, and I think this is why the the like impact it could have on your life on a daily basis, a part of your routine and ritual is also incredibly important too.
00:58:04.159 --> 00:58:06.079
Some industries should be left untouched.
00:58:06.320 --> 00:58:12.079
Like when I when you look at Sense, for example, I mean, to me that's like the conglomerate business, right?
00:58:12.320 --> 00:58:15.920
Estee Lauder, you know, all those big companies, they just dominate.
00:58:16.079 --> 00:58:17.360
Do you look at that as opportunity?
00:58:17.440 --> 00:58:20.559
Like I'm I guess the reference I'm thinking is also Warby Parker.
00:58:20.719 --> 00:58:20.880
Okay.
00:58:21.280 --> 00:58:25.599
Like how they came in, conglomerate, Luxotica, complete disruption.
00:58:25.840 --> 00:58:29.039
I think the sense, I think it there's open for a couple of the hits.
00:58:29.119 --> 00:58:35.280
Like Marsman's a perfect Marsman is a men's testosterone replacement, and the one in America that's compared to is like nugenics.
00:58:35.360 --> 00:58:40.960
Nugenics is like the TV commercial men's testosterone replacement that runs on like ESPN around golf channels.
00:58:41.039 --> 00:58:48.559
Whereas like Marsman is like the new rebirth rebrand of a men's testosterone replacement supplement that is our our generation any younger.
00:58:48.639 --> 00:58:51.360
I think it's the same way of like roguein, hair growth.
00:58:51.440 --> 00:58:51.599
Yeah.
00:58:51.760 --> 00:58:55.440
Hymns did another rebrand or or how you can go around this too.
00:58:55.679 --> 00:59:03.599
So it's sort of like a rebirth of what has been classical and proven to work with a modern millennial and Gen Z spin to it.
00:59:03.840 --> 00:59:07.519
Okay, so let's talk telehealth, because I know that this has become a big thing.
00:59:07.760 --> 00:59:09.280
Why why do you think it's become a big thing?
00:59:09.440 --> 00:59:10.000
Yeah, okay.
00:59:10.079 --> 00:59:16.320
So let's let's let me give you the disclaimer that I'm really not very well versed in this.
00:59:16.719 --> 00:59:16.960
No problem.
00:59:17.360 --> 00:59:21.519
So these might come off as very entry-level questions, which actually I think uh, it's good, it's good.
00:59:21.760 --> 00:59:27.599
So obviously, anyone with half a brain has seen GLP1s skyrocket beyond belief.
00:59:27.840 --> 00:59:30.159
To your point, the product actually works.
00:59:30.320 --> 00:59:31.119
Like it actually works.
00:59:31.280 --> 00:59:33.920
You know, I've seen people who take OZMPIC and I'm like, holy shit.
00:59:34.239 --> 00:59:34.880
New person.
00:59:35.280 --> 00:59:36.239
Totally new person.
00:59:36.400 --> 00:59:42.960
Now, on the flip side, I I don't know how much like real long-term testing has been established.
00:59:43.280 --> 00:59:46.960
It's so new, and no one could tell you what's gonna happen in 20 years.
00:59:47.199 --> 00:59:47.519
Correct.
00:59:47.679 --> 00:59:55.280
I think all at the end of the day, if you look at the core of e-commerce, it's direct response problem solution.
00:59:55.440 --> 00:59:58.480
You're fat, take a pill, you're skinny, right?
00:59:58.880 --> 01:00:01.360
And that's why I think it works.
01:00:01.679 --> 01:00:10.159
Because it's it's this perfect um combination of TAM trend impact and direct response impact problem solution.
01:00:10.559 --> 01:00:12.559
So marketers are all over this.
01:00:12.800 --> 01:00:21.599
Now I'm curious because you seem like you're super in-depth in the space, or you will be, or you want to be, like, where do you see this going?
01:00:21.840 --> 01:00:25.360
And how do you how how do we make this so it's not super?
01:00:26.159 --> 01:00:33.760
I don't know, like when I when I see sometimes these like health ads where it's like side effects might include this is like the most American thing ever, by the way.
01:00:33.920 --> 01:00:36.159
Like this would never exist outside of America.
01:00:36.239 --> 01:00:42.559
It's like side effects include lung cancer, like brain damage, like, and it's just like I'm just like, what the fuck?
01:00:42.719 --> 01:00:42.880
Yeah.
01:00:43.119 --> 01:00:47.039
So how do you avoid not you but the industry, how does it avoid that?
01:00:47.280 --> 01:00:52.079
Because like something like HIMS has just made it so branded and approachable.
01:00:52.239 --> 01:01:00.880
Anyone with ED could go on and buy something, get a cute package in the mail that's branded with insert cards that's like, oh, cool and trendy, but like it's still erectile dysfunction.
01:01:00.960 --> 01:01:03.519
Like it's not, you know, buying colognes.
01:01:03.760 --> 01:01:04.079
Yeah.
01:01:04.239 --> 01:01:06.000
But they kind of make it feel that way.
01:01:06.320 --> 01:01:10.239
They think I think this is do you you these questions are very real.
01:01:10.320 --> 01:01:16.880
And these questions are the questions that everybody's asking themselves as you're sitting on the sideline wondering, like, is this real or not?
01:01:17.199 --> 01:01:20.400
And I'll tell you, like, it is very, very real, very, very real.
01:01:20.559 --> 01:01:25.119
And this has been running for much longer than any of us have been uh uh aware of.
01:01:25.360 --> 01:01:42.400
Blue Chew's been around for a very long time, HIMS has been around for a very long time, um, keeps has been around for a very long time, uh, Remedy Meds has been around, and I'm talking five plus years, but I consider that a long time in the space of growth of uh D2C, specifically around like where trends move and change.
01:01:42.719 --> 01:01:48.480
GOPs have been around from a diabetic standpoint for for 20 plus years.
01:01:48.559 --> 01:01:48.639
Yeah.
01:01:48.800 --> 01:01:53.440
So it's been it's been a it's been a drug for those that are really, really needing it on that spectrum.
01:01:53.679 --> 01:02:01.920
Only recently was it a trend from LA movie stars to lose the weight that they needed to get to where they want to be.
01:02:02.159 --> 01:02:05.599
Like that that's where like this like super miracle drug came from.
01:02:05.840 --> 01:02:08.639
Like people were dropping weight very, very quickly.
01:02:08.880 --> 01:02:26.000
The the the crazy thing about this, the reason why I think this is going to be uh an impress an incredible space moving forward is because what COVID did for us was accelerate the adoption of feeling okay with putting credit card onto a website that I've never heard of before now.
01:02:26.159 --> 01:02:26.400
Yeah.
01:02:26.559 --> 01:02:28.559
To an older demographic, an older generation.
01:02:28.880 --> 01:02:29.119
100%.
01:02:29.440 --> 01:02:29.679
Yeah.
01:02:29.840 --> 01:02:33.519
That was a generation that we wanted to be online because that's the generation that has the money.
01:02:33.679 --> 01:02:36.400
They've been able to buy, they've been able to shop, they've been able to purchase.
01:02:36.559 --> 01:02:40.079
And a lot of the times, like they weren't just not doing it because they were not comfortable or not safe.
01:02:40.159 --> 01:02:41.440
They actually really had no need.
01:02:41.599 --> 01:02:53.920
When they were forced to do it this specific way, now it brought an entire generation of confusion, uh confused consumers onto a platform and which we were all accustomed to because we're very digital savvy.
01:02:54.000 --> 01:02:55.199
And now they're making purchases on.
01:02:55.519 --> 01:03:00.400
I had people that were donating to their church, watching live streams on their phone for the very first time.
01:03:00.559 --> 01:03:01.360
My mom was one of them.
01:03:01.440 --> 01:03:05.119
She was like, I was having to make donations uh through my church's platform that they set up.
01:03:05.199 --> 01:03:07.280
Like that was like the first time that she was I would have to do this.
01:03:07.440 --> 01:03:08.159
So you think about this.
01:03:08.239 --> 01:03:13.760
You have the older generation that had to jump on the internet to start meeting with their doctors or have conversations.
01:03:14.000 --> 01:03:17.679
Our generation, who are now like I when's the last time you've been to a doctor?
01:03:17.920 --> 01:03:18.800
You're young and healthy.
01:03:19.039 --> 01:03:19.679
Yeah, it's been a while.
01:03:19.920 --> 01:03:20.559
It's been a while, right?
01:03:20.960 --> 01:03:30.159
If you had the opportunity to not go to the doctor but get what you needed from a pharmacy that's down by you and just by doing a uh tel excuse me, teleconference, probably do it.
01:03:30.239 --> 01:03:30.400
Yeah.
01:03:30.559 --> 01:03:35.599
So all it means is like our generation is gonna do this, which means our children are gonna start doing this.
01:03:35.760 --> 01:03:39.119
So this whole area is just gonna continue to evolve and move into.
01:03:39.199 --> 01:03:39.440
Yeah.
01:03:39.679 --> 01:03:44.719
So I think from the wave of opportunity and from a wave of adoption, we're in that wave currently.
01:03:44.880 --> 01:03:45.360
So that's one.
01:03:45.440 --> 01:03:47.519
So like TAM or adjustable market, yeah.
01:03:47.760 --> 01:03:47.920
Check.
01:03:48.159 --> 01:03:49.199
Yeah, huge tailwind.
01:03:49.519 --> 01:03:54.000
Two, the the efficacy of the drugs and the improvement they're having.
01:03:54.159 --> 01:03:56.480
Like these studies are gonna continue to come out.
01:03:56.639 --> 01:04:02.480
People are gonna continue to have crazy, crazy uh drops of weight and or improvement of health markers.
01:04:02.639 --> 01:04:05.440
And that's like it's gonna be undeniable of what's happening.
01:04:05.519 --> 01:04:09.280
I'm I'm I'm two years in on GOPs and various amounts of peptides on this stuff.
01:04:09.360 --> 01:04:11.679
This is not why I'm in China to find it, but I have that.
01:04:11.920 --> 01:04:14.079
Peptides, but we have not even spoken about peptides.
01:04:14.159 --> 01:04:14.400
Yeah.
01:04:14.559 --> 01:04:15.840
So it's all in the same category.
01:04:15.920 --> 01:04:17.039
GOP is a peptide.
01:04:17.119 --> 01:04:17.199
Yeah.
01:04:17.360 --> 01:04:18.960
So it all falls in the same category.
01:04:19.039 --> 01:04:19.199
Yeah.
01:04:19.360 --> 01:04:23.679
But why what what makes it more important to me is like you have to talk to a real doctor.
01:04:23.840 --> 01:04:28.880
There's real medical intake questions, 68 questions that they have to go through.
01:04:29.119 --> 01:04:32.320
They get prescribed to this, they talk to somebody ongoing.
01:04:32.400 --> 01:04:43.599
And so, like, there's a very, very real experience portal, community, and like change that's happening for these people because people forget, like, when you're we don't, we're not losing our hair.
01:04:43.760 --> 01:04:49.679
I have a gift of growing this hair, but when you're on finesteride or monoxidil from a hair regrowth time, that's for life.
01:04:49.840 --> 01:04:50.800
You don't get off that.
01:04:50.960 --> 01:04:58.000
And and people, and this is like an industry joke is like just because people are on GLP, like people don't stop GLP, they just stop paying you for GLP.
01:04:58.159 --> 01:05:06.000
They're gonna go find it cheaper elsewhere somehow, some way, because as soon as they realize that they can like feel some type of way or act some type of way, they're never gonna, they're never gonna stop doing that.
01:05:06.159 --> 01:05:15.280
You can stop at a certain place and go towards microdosing or go towards another thing, but the biggest barrier to entry that I think they're gonna solve is like not many people want to give themselves a shot.
01:05:15.360 --> 01:05:16.480
That's a huge barrier to entry.
01:05:16.639 --> 01:05:17.199
Yeah, that's tough.
01:05:17.360 --> 01:05:17.760
It's tough, right?
01:05:18.000 --> 01:05:19.360
Sometimes it's shot only, right?
01:05:19.519 --> 01:05:19.840
Correct.
01:05:20.239 --> 01:05:26.880
Because most for now, most of like NAD pills and supplements and sublinguals and dissolvables, they'll that'll start hitting the market.
01:05:26.960 --> 01:05:32.400
There's incredible, incredible NAD supplements right now, or M and N, which is like the precursor to NAD.
01:05:32.719 --> 01:05:34.719
These are all being sold on Amazon left and right.
01:05:34.800 --> 01:05:36.000
Check the rankings on these things.
01:05:36.159 --> 01:05:36.480
Yeah.
01:05:36.719 --> 01:05:37.840
What all over the place.
01:05:38.079 --> 01:05:44.400
And again, this might come across as like a basic question, which in some ways is like good because I think other people would feel this.
01:05:44.480 --> 01:05:49.920
It's like I I often feel that when I see a trend, it's quote unquote too late.
01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:51.920
And I'll give you examples like creatine.
01:05:52.079 --> 01:05:55.519
By the time I kind of came onto creatine, it was exploded.
01:05:55.679 --> 01:05:57.440
NADs, GLPs.
01:05:57.679 --> 01:05:59.039
The list goes on and on, right?
01:05:59.199 --> 01:06:02.400
Even Even form factor, gummy bears, right?
01:06:02.639 --> 01:06:03.840
Do you care about that?
01:06:03.920 --> 01:06:07.840
Do you care about being early or does it not matter because it's just so big?
01:06:08.000 --> 01:06:11.360
Like, would you recommend to someone today to launch a gummy bear brand?
01:06:11.679 --> 01:06:14.400
I probably not the the from the gummy side of things.
01:06:14.480 --> 01:06:20.639
If you've looked at the the efficacy of like a gummy being as impactful as like a normal supplement, it's pretty low.
01:06:20.719 --> 01:06:22.559
Like the way that they like have to like make the gummy.
01:06:23.199 --> 01:06:24.960
That's why you have to put like eight in a packet or something.
01:06:25.199 --> 01:06:30.960
Yeah, you you're eating like I think the benefit is for the older demographic where like they can't choose two pills.
01:06:31.119 --> 01:06:31.199
Yeah.
01:06:31.519 --> 01:06:35.760
You know, like kids aren't gonna take so this is like the best of the best of the evil.
01:06:35.920 --> 01:06:44.000
If I can give this to my child because they're not gonna eat their nutritional things, but like yes, it's a gummy bear, and yes, it's this type of thing, it's better than them not taking it.
01:06:44.079 --> 01:06:44.639
That's one.
01:06:44.719 --> 01:06:51.119
Or two, like the older the where gummies really came about was like older people couldn't eat pills or like swallow pills.
01:06:51.199 --> 01:06:54.159
Like they needed to get still get these nutrients, but they couldn't swallow their pills.
01:06:54.239 --> 01:06:55.760
So like they went to the gummy factor.
01:06:55.840 --> 01:07:04.159
So the the form factor was important for the demographic, but like the efficacy of this is probably not as high as a powder form or something else for them to consume.
01:07:04.320 --> 01:07:12.400
I wouldn't necessarily recommend into GOP because there's regulations that are coming into the space sp specifically, and there's like gonna be a crazy price push.
01:07:12.559 --> 01:07:20.159
But these are like things that are so deep to discuss right now that it'd be too hard to like for me to even go into because I don't I don't know it on this legality remote.
01:07:20.400 --> 01:07:24.880
There's a guy in our in our office who's working on a GOP brand for India.
01:07:25.199 --> 01:07:25.599
Wow.
01:07:25.840 --> 01:07:26.159
Yeah.
01:07:26.400 --> 01:07:28.000
That was the exact word I used.
01:07:28.320 --> 01:07:37.760
Is there a the patent just expired, and so now the prices are just dropping and obviously India's 1.5 whatever billion people.
01:07:37.840 --> 01:07:39.519
Um I'd I'd for sure do it.
01:07:39.599 --> 01:07:40.559
I would for sure go into it.
01:07:40.639 --> 01:07:40.719
Yeah.
01:07:40.880 --> 01:07:50.400
You just it's but it's um it's that that goes back to the earlier question, which is like, are you willing to sell it at the price in which you can sell it at to have the distribution at which you want it to be to be worth it.
01:07:50.559 --> 01:08:10.480
I don't think price like if you this is why I think having the relationship and having communities and relationships here in Hong Kong, China, Guangshou, wherever you want to be at, is so more important because like you have to go to the manufacturer so that you get the terms so that you can go scale or that you can get the terms so that you can have better quality of product that it's more efficacy, uh the efficacy is like higher than the other doses.
01:08:10.800 --> 01:08:13.199
Last question, and then I want to get into like a rapid fire segment.
01:08:13.440 --> 01:08:20.880
We just coming back to marketing channels, meta versus TikTok shop versus applied versus yada yada yada yada.
01:08:21.279 --> 01:08:28.319
Like, at what point do you recommend people to break focus at what scale?
01:08:28.640 --> 01:08:32.560
Because or or or or from the get-go, are you kind of omnichannel?
01:08:32.720 --> 01:08:40.720
I'm just curious your philosophy, because people have so many different schools of thoughts like, oh, don't leave Meta until you hit you know 100k a day in spend or even more, maybe.
01:08:40.960 --> 01:08:42.239
Where do you fall into that?
01:08:42.640 --> 01:08:46.159
So we think Meta is still line share of all of our spend.
01:08:46.319 --> 01:08:49.039
At one point, App11 was like our number two spender.
01:08:49.199 --> 01:08:52.880
It took so much budget, we could scale it so aggressively against it right now.
01:08:53.039 --> 01:08:54.720
We though we owe them a bag of money.
01:08:54.800 --> 01:08:56.880
So like we can't get back on that platform just yet.
01:08:57.039 --> 01:09:08.399
But if you the the question is, in my opinion, I think it's a different type of question to ask this is if you have a skill set of of creative for a platform, do as much as you can for that platform.
01:09:08.560 --> 01:09:10.880
For instance, like we were not good enough at TikTok.
01:09:11.039 --> 01:09:17.279
I believe TikTok in itself takes like a full team to manage and get this platform correct.
01:09:17.439 --> 01:09:23.359
From the out from the product sending, from the the type of content, from the management of the store, from inventory, all everything.
01:09:23.520 --> 01:09:24.159
It's a lot, right?
01:09:24.239 --> 01:09:26.560
So like you can't just like start doing TikTok.
01:09:26.640 --> 01:09:29.760
I think before people would assume, like, oh, just like run TikTok ads.
01:09:29.840 --> 01:09:31.199
I think people don't get that game.
01:09:31.359 --> 01:09:38.479
I would say meta from the ease of content needed to get up and running on the platform is probably the fastest, easiest, and has the most longevity into it.
01:09:38.640 --> 01:09:56.079
But then like I would graduate into the TikTok seating programs and take advantage of the GMV uh playbook that Hudson and all these other guys are pr uh preaching about because that that is a collection of consumers that are willing to spend money on and kind of trained to buy on that platform.
01:09:56.239 --> 01:10:01.840
And TikTok's been so incredible for uh affiliates or or just like brands that know that type of content.
01:10:02.000 --> 01:10:05.920
Like it's not easy to know that type of content, but once you do, what a moat.
01:10:06.079 --> 01:10:06.720
What a moat.
01:10:06.880 --> 01:10:08.239
Yeah, TikTok is a moat.
01:10:08.399 --> 01:10:08.960
What a moat.
01:10:09.119 --> 01:10:14.800
That's dude, that's see, this is where I get like almost jealous of brands that are early adopters on platforms.
01:10:14.880 --> 01:10:25.520
Like when I look at these businesses on Amazon that were just there and they've got like 200,000 reviews and they're just like goaded in Amazon's algorithm, like it's actually pretty easy at that point.
01:10:25.600 --> 01:10:26.800
Like you don't have to do anything.
01:10:26.880 --> 01:10:30.319
Like there's so many brands that are just like 10 years plus on Amazon.
01:10:30.399 --> 01:10:31.199
It's just automatic.
01:10:31.520 --> 01:10:32.159
It is automatic.
01:10:32.319 --> 01:10:32.560
Yes.
01:10:33.520 --> 01:10:41.119
This is why I think like TikTok, I think if you have a good enough product or different, but you're really good and you spend the time to learn that type of content needed, TikTok could be your perfect place.
01:10:41.439 --> 01:10:42.239
That's what I was getting at.
01:10:42.319 --> 01:10:48.800
It's like TikTok stat, if you put in it, still might be early enough where you could be sort of like anchored into TikTok long term.
01:10:48.960 --> 01:10:51.039
I mean, TikTok shops under two years old, right?
01:10:51.279 --> 01:10:51.520
100%.
01:10:51.840 --> 01:10:52.000
Yeah.
01:10:52.079 --> 01:10:52.319
All right.
01:10:52.399 --> 01:10:53.760
I got a list of rapid fire questions.
01:10:53.920 --> 01:10:54.239
Let's go.
01:10:54.479 --> 01:10:56.640
First one is favorite brand that's not yours.
01:10:56.880 --> 01:10:57.920
Favorite brand that's not mine.
01:10:58.079 --> 01:10:58.319
Jeez.
01:10:58.560 --> 01:10:59.439
Okay, cadence.
01:10:59.680 --> 01:11:00.720
Yeah, Ross's brand.
01:11:00.960 --> 01:11:04.000
Cadence, Ross, Mark, um George.
01:11:04.239 --> 01:11:04.640
George.
01:11:04.720 --> 01:11:08.319
I think they I think they Cadence has the right understanding.
01:11:08.399 --> 01:11:18.960
I would say Cadence and then Newtonic because they're like RTD beverage for consumption and then sachets and pills and gels for D2C distribution.
01:11:19.199 --> 01:11:19.840
Yeah, it's brilliant.
01:11:20.000 --> 01:11:20.640
So I love that.
01:11:20.880 --> 01:11:23.520
What's your favorite founder or operator to learn from?
01:11:23.760 --> 01:11:30.960
I I was not a big consumer of Hudson for quite some time, just from like the like his outside persona and his delivery.
01:11:31.119 --> 01:11:35.199
That was never like I never spent a lot of time consuming from him specifically.
01:11:35.359 --> 01:11:38.479
Uh oh, only recently have I consumed some of his content.
01:11:38.560 --> 01:11:41.199
I've really enjoyed the way he talks and speaks about it.
01:11:41.279 --> 01:11:45.039
Uh, and then the the guys at Javi Coffee, this guy is Brandon Monnihan.
01:11:45.119 --> 01:11:49.119
He's kind of a sleeper, but like the Javi Coffee guys have been in this game for quite some time.
01:11:49.439 --> 01:11:51.039
Yeah, that business is insane.
01:11:51.199 --> 01:11:51.439
Yeah.
01:11:51.680 --> 01:11:56.000
What's the one tool, SAS software, that you would never give up on?
01:11:56.159 --> 01:11:57.199
I would say foreplay.
01:11:57.359 --> 01:11:58.399
I would say foreplay.
01:11:58.560 --> 01:11:59.039
Tell me more.
01:11:59.279 --> 01:12:03.119
Foreplay has been, I was with Zach early on in that tool.
01:12:03.279 --> 01:12:09.279
And I think the way that it's like it's just the searchability, the amount of products I can find on this, uh, the navigation of it.
01:12:09.359 --> 01:12:12.159
I think the the saving of the boards from ad standpoint.
01:12:12.319 --> 01:12:16.159
I know people talk about Atria, but I've been early foreplay for quite some time from an ad standpoint.
01:12:16.479 --> 01:12:18.560
What's the best investment you've ever made in your business?
01:12:18.880 --> 01:12:19.600
In my business.
01:12:19.760 --> 01:12:22.000
We did, we had an executive coach.
01:12:22.159 --> 01:12:39.439
Um, his name was Ryan earlier on with Jake and I, when I was transitioning out of CEO into a non like advisor role into structured, Jake and Ryan spent a lot of time in like becoming a better executive and like how to speak and lead teams was like the best investment I think I've ever made.
01:12:39.680 --> 01:12:40.479
That's a great answer.
01:12:40.560 --> 01:12:41.600
I've not heard that ever.
01:12:41.840 --> 01:12:46.960
If you're a first-time CEO, you don't really know how to communicate to people or like manage people or stress.
01:12:47.039 --> 01:12:48.720
And I think that's been the biggest unlock.
01:12:49.039 --> 01:12:53.920
And last two, what are the most overrated and underrated founder habits?
01:12:54.159 --> 01:12:54.720
Founder habit.
01:12:55.199 --> 01:13:00.880
Overrated founder habit is like raw, raw vision setting, like over like this is where we have to go.
01:13:01.039 --> 01:13:20.479
Like we like we're all working towards this direction because especially the the more organizations become flat, especially if like in talking about direct to consumer, I'm not talking like SaaS or anything where you have like different levels of things, but in direct-to-consumer e-com or brand building, your customer support lead doesn't really need to know like rah-rah where the company is leading and going to.
01:13:20.560 --> 01:13:21.920
Like they just want to like do their job.
01:13:22.079 --> 01:13:22.399
Yeah.
01:13:22.560 --> 01:13:28.720
And so I think jumping onto every single company wide or team wide and selling crazy vision, I think is like pretty unnecessary.
01:13:28.960 --> 01:13:29.439
Could not agree.
01:13:29.760 --> 01:13:39.439
Um, I I think it's more so that's that's most overrated, just like be a great place for people to want to be at and like have a uh a cool enough community and culture around it.
01:13:39.520 --> 01:13:40.159
It's one.
01:13:40.319 --> 01:13:44.640
I think underrated is uh having like text conversations or random calls.
01:13:44.720 --> 01:13:46.159
Like there do people do one-on-ones.
01:13:46.560 --> 01:13:55.199
Um, but when you do one-on-one from like a a telecall conference, I think that really makes it feel extremely unfortunate and and uh too official.
01:13:55.439 --> 01:13:58.880
I think no longer needing to see someone's face to have a conversation is important.
01:13:58.960 --> 01:14:00.239
Like you should probably call people.
01:14:01.119 --> 01:14:02.960
People forget, like we just used to call people.
01:14:03.199 --> 01:14:03.520
Yeah.
01:14:03.680 --> 01:14:06.319
For for for me, it's um most underrated.
01:14:06.399 --> 01:14:08.000
So our team's become very global.
01:14:08.159 --> 01:14:08.560
Yeah.
01:14:08.800 --> 01:14:14.319
And now what we do is we just bring, we just fly people here one, two weeks at a time.
01:14:14.560 --> 01:14:15.199
Oh my god.
01:14:15.439 --> 01:14:17.600
Just just the two week.
01:14:18.000 --> 01:14:18.560
See, that's vision.
01:14:19.279 --> 01:14:20.640
That I'd rather do that versus vision.
01:14:20.720 --> 01:14:23.920
Like come see, like, come see, like this is real, like this is this is what we believe in.
01:14:24.000 --> 01:14:24.159
Yeah.
01:14:24.319 --> 01:14:28.159
What do you know now that you didn't know when you were first getting started that you wish you knew?
01:14:28.399 --> 01:14:32.079
I would say there's a there's a shit ton of problems that happen all like all the time.
01:14:32.159 --> 01:14:40.399
Like I think every single all week, it's just like problems that are happening at all times, but like none of them are are crazily as urgent as you believe them to be.
01:14:40.640 --> 01:14:50.159
They there's some you rebuild someone too much, or like uh you charge someone's credit card way too much, or you the product is a completely faulty.
01:14:50.239 --> 01:14:51.520
Like, there's some real, there's real shit.
01:14:51.760 --> 01:14:53.359
You got hacked, like your website's down.
01:14:53.600 --> 01:14:53.920
Correct.
01:14:54.000 --> 01:14:54.159
Yeah.
01:14:54.399 --> 01:14:57.279
It's server, something's not working, like customer support can't get hold of it.
01:14:57.359 --> 01:14:59.760
There's real shit that's meta-add account got banned, whatever.
01:14:59.840 --> 01:15:00.000
Yeah.
01:15:00.239 --> 01:15:00.479
Correct.
01:15:00.560 --> 01:15:05.359
But there's like a very short list of things that's like, oh my God, everybody needs to deal with this.
01:15:05.439 --> 01:15:08.720
And like everything else, really, really is it gonna be okay?
01:15:08.880 --> 01:15:10.479
Like you, you can get that to that tomorrow.
01:15:10.720 --> 01:15:13.199
So this is my biggest pet peeve with e-commerce.
01:15:13.359 --> 01:15:18.079
Like, if you ask me, I I I love the game, I love the industry, I have a ton of fun, learn a lot.
01:15:18.239 --> 01:15:19.760
I I love I love it.
01:15:19.920 --> 01:15:30.479
What pisses me off about e-commerce is A, the volatility sometimes, and B, the amount of notifications and urgency.
01:15:30.560 --> 01:15:31.039
Yeah.
01:15:31.279 --> 01:15:36.000
Like, especially for us, our business is super global, like I mentioned.
01:15:36.159 --> 01:15:37.359
There's people all around the world.
01:15:37.520 --> 01:15:43.359
It doesn't matter what time of day, there's notifications coming left, right, and center, and it's cross-channel.
01:15:43.439 --> 01:15:47.840
It's Slack, it's WhatsApp, it's WeChat, it's email, it's everywhere.
01:15:48.159 --> 01:15:55.840
Notion notifications, like, and it really drives me up the wall because I'm never off in that sense.
01:15:56.079 --> 01:16:10.319
And everything feels urgent because you want to get back to people, and when you're moving at a pace that you want to move at which is fast, you feel the need to get back to people, but it totally tarnishes like your mental sanity.
01:16:10.479 --> 01:16:10.800
Oh, yeah.
01:16:10.960 --> 01:16:21.279
And so to your point, like it's I I I I've lost, I think, a filter on what's truly urgent versus like, dude, I'll just do that in three days, like don't worry about it.
01:16:21.439 --> 01:16:35.279
And I think the notifications also create founder like analysis paralysis where you're just checking boxes and doing things that people ask you, or you reply you need to reply to to clear your slack or whatever.
01:16:35.439 --> 01:16:45.520
You're not actually thinking about the one thing you need to do that will actually drive the business to the next level of revenue or whatever.
01:16:45.840 --> 01:16:50.399
And your mind is just so there's just so much coming at you.
01:16:50.560 --> 01:17:01.760
And that's why I think that for a brand rushing to get to that like CEO level where you can hire a CEO is a huge step because then you can, you know, it's like what Tim Cook's doing now, right?
01:17:01.920 --> 01:17:04.159
Going back to Apple, he's now the executive chairman.
01:17:04.319 --> 01:17:08.000
That dude's just gonna think about like what's the one thing Apple needs to do next year.
01:17:08.319 --> 01:17:08.880
What's the one thing?
01:17:09.039 --> 01:17:10.560
That's my biggest peak pet beef.
01:17:10.880 --> 01:17:12.720
I think that's the best place to end it on.
01:17:13.199 --> 01:17:19.840
What advice would you give to people getting started today in 2026, thinking about all the new factors at play?
01:17:20.079 --> 01:17:26.960
If you've been on the outside, like you're like, I'm you're kind of e-comm, you're kind of not e-com, but you're like, no, I'm I'm I'm like gonna do this thing.
01:17:27.119 --> 01:17:40.239
I think you have to I would call I would give you the 8020 rule specifically because 8020, be incredible at like one really, really good thing, and then be good enough at everything else.
01:17:40.319 --> 01:17:44.880
And that one really, really good thing needs to be customer acquisition and creative.
01:17:45.359 --> 01:17:49.119
These two things will get like people's sales solves all.
01:17:49.279 --> 01:17:51.600
This is like been a common thing that people talk about in the industry.
01:17:51.760 --> 01:18:11.199
Um, if you can be good enough at getting customers, and it's a very loaded statement, like getting customers to your your product, um spend all your time, energy, and effort on that part of understanding content and understanding how you can convert a customer or a not customer into a customer, and you'll solve the majority of your overall problems.
01:18:11.439 --> 01:18:15.680
But if you're just getting started on this, uh spend your time, energy, and effort there.
01:18:15.920 --> 01:18:17.680
Do you think now's a good time to enter e-commerce?
01:18:18.000 --> 01:18:18.640
Oh my god, yeah.
01:18:18.720 --> 01:18:31.680
I think I I used to think no, because now is a good time to enter into e-commerce because the speed at which the tools are being updated and like the good enoughness of everything can get you in motion.
01:18:31.760 --> 01:18:34.880
And like once it's in motion, like there's just shit that just happens.
01:18:34.960 --> 01:18:38.560
Like there's just things that happen in your benefit when it's moving forward.
01:18:38.720 --> 01:18:42.479
But when you're just kind of just sitting and waiting and not doing much, it's really difficult to get the momentum.
01:18:42.720 --> 01:18:43.840
I I was gonna ask you this earlier.
01:18:44.000 --> 01:18:48.239
You just reminded me, going back to like US only versus international.
01:18:49.039 --> 01:19:05.199
Do you not fear like economic slowdown would totally impact a business that's let let's say the US had a a recession, hypothetically, and you're all in on the US versus like the international crowd, like we said, was like quite diversify diversified.
01:19:05.279 --> 01:19:08.800
Now, of course, a recession in the US would bleed into the whole world, obviously.
01:19:09.039 --> 01:19:10.560
But does that not worry you?
01:19:10.880 --> 01:19:16.880
No, it doesn't because so I was in it pre-COVID, I was in it during COVID, and I was in it post-COVID, and then now we're obviously still in it.
01:19:17.119 --> 01:19:17.760
You've seen so much, right?
01:19:18.079 --> 01:19:26.960
Because there's been a couple, like the American mindset is like we will we spend with what we don't even have.
01:19:27.279 --> 01:19:27.600
Yes.
01:19:27.920 --> 01:19:29.119
So like if we don't even have it.
01:19:29.359 --> 01:19:30.319
Yeah, never had it to begin with.
01:19:30.479 --> 01:19:31.199
We never had it to begin with.
01:19:31.279 --> 01:19:31.600
Yeah, it's not true.
01:19:38.560 --> 01:19:43.600
Is unfortunately based upon the dopamine that we get of the things that we bought that is arriving to our door.
01:19:43.760 --> 01:19:44.159
Yeah.
01:19:44.479 --> 01:19:46.880
So when I'm buying something, like that's my happiness.
01:19:46.960 --> 01:19:51.920
Like you take away someone going by fast food, that's you know, really, really hurt.
01:19:52.000 --> 01:20:07.840
Well, if they're on the Zempic or on the GLPs, and food doesn't give me the same result and and reaction that I once had, like all I really have is my Amazon orders, my brand, my product orders, my like splurging on things that I don't need to see, the scrolling of social.
01:20:08.159 --> 01:20:13.359
Like the ads are just gonna get more cost effective and people are gonna buy more things because they're just more sad.
01:20:13.520 --> 01:20:14.880
So I'm not I'm not nervous about this.
01:20:15.199 --> 01:20:16.960
I guess to your point, you've seen so much, right?
01:20:17.039 --> 01:20:22.880
Like COVID, pre-COVID well, I mean before COVID would have been like oh eight, oh nine.
01:20:23.119 --> 01:20:23.359
Yeah.
01:20:23.600 --> 01:20:25.119
And I don't know if there's anything in between.
01:20:25.520 --> 01:20:33.840
Well, you had you had the you had the financial crisis, you had like homes pricing, you had COVID, post-COVID, you had uh stimulus checks.
01:20:34.000 --> 01:20:35.680
Like we had we went through all those things.
01:20:35.760 --> 01:20:39.680
And even I would say arguably well, right now, like there's like there's a war going on.
01:20:39.840 --> 01:20:43.760
Yeah, there's still still war going on, like gas prices are the most expensive ever been.
01:20:45.279 --> 01:20:47.920
Which means freight goes up, which means prices go up, which means all these things.
01:20:48.000 --> 01:21:08.159
Like there's only been one business that I've seen that was impacted like firsthand, and it was a van company in Australia that her company she's like had like a three, three to four week sprint of like no one buying anything because it was too expensive for them to power or for for her customers to buy products for their vans because she won't they weren't taking vans out.
01:21:08.319 --> 01:21:08.479
Yeah.
01:21:08.640 --> 01:21:08.880
That's it.
01:21:09.199 --> 01:21:09.439
Crazy.
01:21:09.520 --> 01:21:10.720
So long term very bullish.
01:21:10.880 --> 01:21:17.039
Very, very if the economy holds up, which I think it will, yeah, I would say e commerce is like the best industry to be in.
01:21:17.279 --> 01:21:21.279
If if America crumbles, the whole world will crumble from an e commerce standpoint.