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All right, back to the pod.
I'm not saying like I'm above this.
No one's above this.
This is cool.
These guys just sold $7 million in multi-tools in like a week.
So in order for a creator business to work, the creator needs to be loved.
What makes a creator lovable?
Like what attributes do they have?
Where you see it and you're like that person has it and people will buy because of them.
Finding creators that have, like, real love from their communities is the whole thing, right?
Because those are the most durable audiences that will kind of go... It makes them not cancelable.
People feel like they are their buddies, their friends.
So I think, like what makes them loved is you feel like you're watching a version of yourself doing it.
You know, if you're a woodworker and you watch Jonathan Katz Moses, you're like oh, this guy's just like me and he's teaching me, I'm learning, and it's like a buddy who's walking me into my favorite hobby, my favorite niche.
So they have to be relatable.
I think so.
Relatable is a good way to put it.
I think...
You know, it often feels like your big sister, or your big brother too, where you're like okay, they're teaching me.
You know, like you like motorcycles, right.
Like they're a pain in the ass to like maintain, to deal with, to find the right routes.
To find the right routes on road, to find the right routes off road.
But I got three or four guys that I can call and say, hey, I'm going to the Pacific Northwest.
Where do I go?
What do I need to pack?
Like, what am I missing?
Like, walk me through that trip you took.
And they give me the tools that I need to kind of get where I want to go.
And I feel like those creators are the most interesting that can build durable businesses.
And now you're a partner at Slow.
Is that right?
Yeah, I'm a venture partner at Slow.
I've been here for about a year.
And before that, I was at the churning group.
Man, Chernin, I've hung out with those guys a bit.
Yes.
I saw your podcast with Kevin, which was great.
Yeah, we've had Kevin on.
I'm friends with Doug DeMauro.
Doug, I found that.
I found that.
That was you?
Yeah.
Yeah yeah, your guys's insight back in, like 14, 15 and 16, which it seems so obvious now, it was like we're going to take creators and we're going to make them into billion dollar companies and like obviously, we know mr beast does that now.
But what a lot of people don't realize is that chernan was early on this.
For one and number two, they've had so many successes that are niche communities.
So, for example, there's the uh, what's the meat guy?
Meat eater?
That's steve vernella.
Yeah, meat eater.
And then there was like probably eight or nine or 10 more.
We had Kevin on from Epic Gardening.
And so like you've built these like really big businesses.
And that's what we're going to talk about today, particularly the creator middle class, because there's like Yeah, yeah.
There's like these, the Mr. Beasts of the world.
But there's so many people out there that are making 10, 20, $50 million a year.
And they have like...
800 or 400,000 followers in a very niche community like meat smoking or something like that.
Right.
One of my favorite creators is Doug DeMauro.
Doug DeMauro does these car reviews.
He turned it into cars and bids, which I have no idea how big they are, but I think it's quite a large business.
I'll tell you, since Doug started, he sold about $450 million worth of vehicles.
And then he takes a take rate off that.
Oh my God.
So this guy Doug does these like reviews where he will review an SUV or like a $2 million Ferrari.
Anything that's an enthusiast car.
Yes.
And what's interesting about Doug...
Is.
I don't know how he did it, but I have a feeling it was just him, probably actually not even with an iPhone when he first started literally like a camcorder, like a traditional one.
That's right.
And he looks schleppy, like he has like a dirty t-shirt, that usually often two t-shirts on top of each other that fit horribly together, so like his undershirt is popping out from his and he's usually wearing cargo shorts without a belt, so it like it's like falling down and he wears high white socks and like he's just kind of uh, i don't know how, i don't know like what, what category is, but like someone.
He's like a car nerd.
He's a car nerd.
Yeah, but even amongst car nerds, many of them are more like they dress affluent because they want to fit in.
He does not care about that at all.
And he gives these amazing reviews.
And so one, that's the relatable thing.
But then you have these on this.
On the other end you have like, the Emma Chamberlain where young women, I think, aspire to be her because she is cool and has character and all that stuff.
Is there something in there about a creator of wanting to be aspirational versus quirky?
I think it depends on the audience.
Doug's audience loves him because he has the best information. about every car.
Like his videos that are 10 minutes, 8 minutes, 12 minutes long, top to front, everything you want to know about that car, which is generally like a couple things like what do I want to drive?
What do I think is cool?
And sometimes it's purchase decision, right?
So...
Doug gives you everything you need to kind of learn about that rig.
And he's like totally unassuming and fun.
I'm not as familiar with Emma.
I know she's like very loved.
But yeah, aspirational.
You want to be here when you grow up.
You think she's cool.
You love her access.
You like her take on things.
I think for the enthusiast categories I think those pop the hardest which is to say, Doug is driving a two-sided marketplace of that has real scale and can scale without having to put goo in the bottles or get distribution from stores or launch a physical location.
He is building a venture scale business.
A lot of people who come to Cars and Bids now didn't even know who Doug was.
It's built the scale where they're just like, this is a great place to transact.
I didn't even get here through the top of funnel from Doug.
All right.
So a lot of people will talk about how you need a million dollars and three years of experience to start a business.
Nonsense.
If you listen to at least one episode on this podcast, you know that is completely not true.
My last company, The Hustle, we grew it to something like $17 or $18 million in revenue.
I started it with like $300.
My current company, Hampton, does over $10 million in revenue.
Started it with actually no money, maybe $29 or something like that.
Nothing.
And so you don't actually need investors to start a company.
You don't need a fancy business plan.
But what you do need is systems that actually work.
And so my old company, The Hustle.
They put together five proven business models that you could start right now today, with under 1000.
These are models that if you do it correctly, it can make money this week.
You can get it right now.
You can scan the QR code or click the link in the description.
Now back to the show.
So can I ask you about some of these middle class creators?
Because this is pretty interesting.
You mentioned one of them and I looked him up.
This guy's insane.
Who's Jonathan Katz Moses?
Jonathan Katz Moses.
So Jonathan Katz Moses is a woodworker.
He started a website called KM Tools.
It's tips and tricks on the right tool for the right job, essentially.
And then he was like, oh, well, here's this tool you can use to work with this buzzsaw.
And here's this tool you can use to work with that.
And then sold out, sold out, sold out, and then kept developing his own tools.
Let me tell you what I see when I go to his YouTube page because it's pretty incredible.
So he just looks like a just guy.
He's just doing woodworking stuff.
But what's crazy is the guy he only has.
I mean, and this is like big, but this is, like you know, pretty girl next door, like attainable.
He only has 600000 subscribers, which I think almost anyone dedicates four years to virtually any niche and they spend 20 hours a week on it.
I think they can get to 600000 subscribers.
So he only has 600,000 subscribers.
And he only is outputting like one video a month.
Like not even a lot of videos.
And they look great.
They look like really highly produced videos.
They're polished.
But his quantity is not through the roof.
And the views aren't even through the roof.
No.
Well, the cool thing about it is it's it's first of all, it's evergreen content.
So like what he did, like how often he published, is important to kind of continue to, to provide content for the community and build his audience and get to scale.
And I think like taking investment, he will be able to do more of that.
He raised money.
Yeah, it's slow.
We invested $2 million into Jonathan's business.
And how big is it now?
The investment is very recent.
He's doing around $6 million in revenue now, strictly from his tool site.
And he's grown substantially year over year.
And when you made the investment, what was your upside?
What do you expect in five years?
How big of a business will this be?
Yeah, I mean, we play a little longer than five years because we're early stage.
Or 10 or whatever, I don't know.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, we'd love to see Jonathan get to $100, $200 million in revenue in the next 10 years.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
Is he going to enjoy his life while he's doing that?
Because it looks like he had a pretty good life before taking your money.
He loves, he wants to build a massive business.
I mean we're not reaching out to creators and saying hey, you look like you have a really nice lifestyle business making 10 million bucks a year.
Do you want to go to 100?
Like, he reached out to us.
You know, he's like, I want to build a business of scale.
You know, he needs more inventory.
He needs more product designers.
He sells out all the time.
So he wants to get to scale.
He loves what he's doing.
This is a great one.
And when you're doing research, like if you're this guy, Jonathan or someone listening and you have like woodworking is a niche, huge niche, but niche nonetheless.
Is there like math between how you decide how big it can get?
Or do you just look at like comparables?
Are you like, well, there's this one woodworking e-com store that already does this much revenue.
I think it can be that big.
That's a good question.
I think it's a little bit of both where we say team and theme, right?
So it's like, can we invest in, is Jonathan backable?
Does he have the hunger?
Is he a founder or is he just a content creator?
And then does he have the hunger to build something big?
So it's early stage.
We're betting on Jonathan, right?
Now, we can't bet on Jonathan if he wants to.
It's funny.
He said a funny quote.
He goes, you know, they have no control.
I could build ballet shoes if I wanted.
Now, we have to look at the category that he's in and make sure we feel like it can get to scale.
So, yeah, we do a little.
Once we get deeper down and figure out that this guy's great, he's going to figure something out.
He's going to take a lot of different shots on goal until he does, which we've seen with lots of great creators who they're like okay, I tried this business and I tried that business and it didn't work, and they're going to keep going.
Jonathan feels like the kind of guy who's going to keep going no matter what.
And then, yeah, we've looked at woodworking.
Like.
Are there other businesses in his genre that are making tools that are at 50 100, 200 million in revenue?
And we look at that and we compare them and we say hey listen, this is a good signal.
Can i actually walk through that?
Because i am curious because like, if i have a passion or if i'm a listener and i have a passion for something and i'm like, does this have legs?
Or maybe it doesn't quite have legs, but if i just change it a little bit like, the trajectory might be a lot different.
Uh, but still within the passion of what i want to make content wise.
Yeah, so like all right.
So if you're doing woodworking, where would i start to research to give me faith that this can be a 50 million dollar a year company?
Right okay, so that that's a really good question.
So the The really interesting thing about backing creators that are in passion categories is they have real expertise in the area that they're in, which is to say, because Jonathan's creating content inward working.
He knows all the other woodworkers.
He knows all the tool companies.
He knows everybody in that area.
And we kind of trust them to understand their own white space.
So these creators that we're backing and the creators that, like I think, have the— best opportunity are the ones that are so deep in a niche that they've been working in for five, 10 years.
They're like, oh, they identify the white space.
It's not for us.
We're here to say hey, we want to match capital with creators who are founders, who want to build something scaled, and we rely on them.
Doug DeMuro, right?
Back to Doug.
Doug's been in the car game both on the editorial side and creating content, meeting all the manufacturers.
He knows when he you know, there's four or five other auction platforms that are available to people who are buying cars.
Doug's like, this is the one we need to build and this is why.
But when you're trying to justify that, surely you're thinking like okay, I feel like with some degree of certainty, the best case scenario is it's going to be a billion dollar company in 10 years, something like that.
And so what I'm curious about, though, is let's say that like...
Let's say that I'm interested in architecture, but also like art history.
Let's say that I'm like, you know, a 28 year old person.
I hate my job.
I'm sort of interested in art history and architecture, but I want to build something sustainable and like, potentially one like the route that I pick with my content.
I would imagine there's some type of equation where it's like.
I guess it would be the size of the audience multiplied by the gross profit per item sold, multiplied by the quantity that they will buy.
Do you guys have anything like that?
I think it's a little bit more creative than math, which is to say, we can't be experts in every niche category and say hey, this is how this is going to pan out.
I mean, you have a sense of like, hey, these are, I mean, like, look, Kevin's in the seed business.
Like seeds, don't seem like they're very, you know, like they're very inexpensive but at scale like it's a massive business.
I think we look for categories where they're high spend, right where people are passionate about them, and that the founder really understands the category and is telling us where they think the white space is, more than us saying oh, here's math to solve that problem.
Yeah, that's funny.
I mean, my last company was The Hustle and, like Jesse or Chernin, came to me and they're like oh, maybe you can be one of these.
I don't even think they had like a word for it, but they were recruiting me to become.
It was very light recruitment but it was like let's see if there's a fit.
Maybe we could invest in you and you'd be one of these creator-led businesses.
And I was like, I didn't even have faith that it could become that.
Like, I didn't know.
You know what I mean?
I definitely didn't believe it.
Yeah, Churnin was really interesting, because you know, at Churnin it was different, at kind of a growth stage.
There's a willingness to roll up your sleeves and help build it out.
There's a lot of work we put into those companies post-investment at Churn.
In that earlier stage, we kind of are betting on the founder to figure it out.
I think every man who's above 35 years old has a dream to do what this next creator is doing, which is owning a ranch and selling meat.
What is Five Marys?
Yeah.
Well, Five Marys is rad.
So it was started by a woman named Mary Hefferdin and her husband, Brian, as well.
But Mary's the big driver of it, and Brian would agree with that as well.
She started as a restaurateur in the Bay and couldn't find ethically sourced meats in the way that she really wanted, at scale that she wanted for her restaurants.
So she started looking at ranches and she ended up buying a ranch.
She's like super entrepreneurial, get up and go badass.
She found this ranch kind of in the Mount Shasta area, this area called Fort Jones, which is near the California-Oregon border.
And she bought a ranch and started raising her own cattle there.
She now has 600 acres, 600 cattle.
She's got a butchery.
She does shipping.
She has a FDA-approved slaughterhouse.
And she's built a very large-scale business there. from 400,000 followers on her Instagram channel.
And what was her original content?
Like, what got the first 10,000 followers?
It was all her moving to this ranch and building out this ranch life.
So she tells stories about...
Herself, her family, she's got four daughters that are all rad, that are all cowgirls.
Obviously they didn't start that way when they were little, but they're now kind of like 16 14 15 13, like in that area.
They're all ropers.
They like compete.
So they're always going around.
But it's like ranch life caring about the food, caring about the people who you work with, building out business.
Also, just a very strong female entrepreneur vibe.
She like taught courses online. to other women who were building businesses.
Actually, the Ballerina Farms woman took her course and then launched Ballerina Farms, which is a massive scale now.
That's another... It's similar?
Yeah.
Ballerina Farms has a little bit more controversy around it, but the woman's name, who I forget right now, lives in Utah.
Her husband and her bought a ranch.
And it's like very well, uh shot, it's very beautiful and uh, it's a little bit more composed than mary's content.
Mary's content is a little bit more like.
If you look at mary's content right now, you're like literally watching her build a house.
Her and her husband and her kids are going out and like grabbing rocks and putting from the land and putting them on the hearth and she's building them out.
She's feeding cows.
So was she successful before she bought the ranch?
No, she had like three or four restaurants in San Francisco.
Yeah.
She was like she's been.
She's a.
I mean, as you know, with restaurants they're not like they can be doing great, but they're not.
They're not like you can't.
It's hard to retire off them until you get to real scale.
So she was a proprietor.
I think of her as a proprietor.
That's the category I would put her in.
She had restaurants.
She was serving great food.
She had a good life, but it wasn't what she wanted.
So she went out to the farm instead of.
She saw an opportunity to like build a ranch that had ethically sourced meats and raise cattle and tell the story while she was doing it.
It's like so deeply authentic.
It's basically like, I think I saw, I forget the director's name, Guy something.
Guy Ritchie.
Guy Ritchie.
And he was telling this story that always stuck with me.
I think I heard it when I was a little bit younger and it always stuck with me.
But it was basically like when I try to live my life, he's like I am a director and I want my life to be a movie.
And I'm the director of my own movie.
I'm the director of my own life.
Yes.
And I hear what she's doing or I see what Mary's doing.
And to me it's like social media makes it so much easier and attainable to say I'm going to do something epic, and I'm going to bring people along the way.
And that is why it's going to be so epic because they're going to support me.
And this is so awesome.
So how big of a company does she have?
And it's just selling beef?
Well, she does a lot of things.
So she sells subscription boxes of beef.
She also sells...
She's done these courses, like I mentioned.
She sells whiskey and cookbooks.
She actually doubled down recently on a tallow product line.
So because she processes her own meat, she has tons of tallow and has been making it, you know, sparingly.
This lady's awesome.
They do camps.
They do a cowboy camp where you could like go and see.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it's a small part of her business, but it's definitely like she brings people on.
It's a heavy lift.
She does it like seasonally but she brings people in and kind of teaches them with the idea that people can learn what it's like to live a ranch life and come out there kind of in a dude, ranchy kind of way.
But she'll make you roll up your sleeves and do stuff for sure.
How big is this business, this Five Marys Ranch?
I mean so as far as, like all of these businesses that I'm talking about, like as an investor, I talk to all these folks.
And like some of them, if it's publicly disclosed, I'd be happy to share that.
But the way I would frame this business is that it is like it has the ability to achieve venture scale.
And I would say the threshold of venture scale is probably $100 million in revenue, right?
It can do it.
Yeah.
Yeah, it can do it.
Man, this is awesome.
Also, the coolest thing about Mary is, like you know, the meat business is great and I think she will always do it.
But this tallow line that she launched... is something that can scale even more.
Like I don't know how much you've seen about what's going on with beef tallow and people using it for their skin and care.
It's very popular.
And she does it right there on her farm.
She makes it, they built a place to process it and they do it right there on the farm.
And that's another line of business.
That brings me to another topic with all these guys is they have opportunity to take lots of shots on goal.
It's like, okay, I built out this meat business.
How much scale can it get to?
Can I exit it?
Do I want to exit it?
And you get to a certain place there.
And then you say, okay, well, what else can I offer my audience that is totally organic to who I am?
They will totally buy because it's something that they want.
And maybe that thing becomes the thing that is venture scale.
Or maybe she tries something else that becomes venture scale.
But the beautiful thing about all these creators and this kind of creator middle class that we're talking about is, like it's not just one business that they can start.
But two things.
I'm going to push back on two things that I want you to prove me wrong.
Number one, focus.
Like nine out of ten times, one of the reasons –
Nine out of 10 times a lack of focus is what kills a company.
Like it's more often than not, it's better to do one thing incredibly well than to do a bunch of things because it's just hard to pull off a bunch of things.
Great.
The second thing is operations is very challenging, particularly for a ranch.
I mean...
Just like a software company is pretty easy.
You're just behind a screen and there's no CapEx for a ranch.
That's really hard.
Who is operating her business and how on earth do you find all these wonderful operators?
And also balance, creating content.
Because I do this podcast two times a week and then I also have a company and it's quite challenging.
And that's probably a lot easier than running a ranch.
Great.
Running a ranch is very hard and she will tell you and you can watch and you can see.
So I agree with that.
So when I think of focus, I think of my answer to your focus is prioritization, which is to say she's gotten the ranch to a place and now she decides if she wants to double down on another line of business.
And then she needs to make sure that she has operators in place, that she has enough time to try and build out that next line of business and or bring in another person or two to operate and help launch that next line of business.
So she's got a ranch, then she's got to make sure she has enough time energy, either with the people who are supporting her ranch or somebody to help her with the tallow line.
So it's about prioritization and then building it out.
I agree with you.
But if you look at somebody like Jocko Willink, are you familiar with Jocko?
What I know about him is he was a former SEAL, badass, looks like a SEAL, looks like a G.I.
Joe, and has a podcast.
But I don't know much about his products.
Yeah, so that's another example of like how you get to scale, where you're trying shots on goal and thinking about prioritization.
So Jocko, like you said, he's got a massive podcast.
You agree he looks like a G.I.
Joe, and you're right that he is an ex-SEAL.
And he's also very like taking pictures of his watch at 4 am when he's starting his workout and he's a big jiu-jitsu guy.
He's also a very intentional father and talks about how to raise your kid.
You know, kind of – you know, not glued to screens and you know, with intentionality, things like that.
So Jocko like speaks to a lot of people and he has a great course called Echelon which he teaches to Fortune 500 CEOs and the general public can kind of apply and be part of those as well.
And he did pretty well with that business, and he continues to do well with that business.
Echelon is like... So he dropped... I'm looking at the website.
It's corporate.
So I imagine, if I had to guess, it's six figures and he comes and talks and then three of his team will drop in and help you with some leadership issues within your business.
That's right.
That's right.
I think it's more scale than that, but yes.
I mean he does big conferences with multiple Fortune 500 CEOs and he's very well respected in that world.
Cool.
In the leadership.
He talks a lot in his podcast and in books about how to be a great leader and how to manage up and manage down.
He's pretty prolific in that sense.
And then he launched a tactical apparel brand.
Starting with boots and moving into clothes which are, like you know you're American made kind of workout slash military guy clothes.
Which I would have to imagine that would be one of the harder businesses actually to run.
That's a very hard business.
Because returns and, yeah, returns and sizes and that would be hard.
Yeah, supply chain and, yeah, it's hard, right?
And so he took those shots on goal, right?
He saw a place where he thought he could move his audience.
Really interesting.
Then he launched Jocko Fuel.
What's that protein?
Like.
It's like a pre-workout, post-workout, during-workout, energy drink kind of grouping of drinks.
Dude, that probably crushes it.
Crushes.
He probably makes $100 million a year in revenue off of that.
Crushes, you know.
People really trust him because he has, you know, like they would a Huberman, because you know he's such a specimen and he talks about working out and training and people really do that.
So these are all places that he totally has permission to be in.
And so you can say, okay, well, the focus is why one of them is not working better.
Or you like try something, you launch it, it does fine.
But what do you do with the fine thing?
Like, is someone running his clothing company?
Yeah, I mean, I think that's what you do with.
The fine thing is you say okay, this thing is like doing fine.
Let's make sure somebody's running it.
And I'm sure somebody's running it.
He's a prolific content creator, so I'm sure he has partners and operators that are running these things.
You know, being a leadership guy and being in the military, I'm sure his network is vast when it comes to like getting great operators and knowing how to work with them and communicate with them.
I mean, he's a proper entrepreneur.
You know, what's funny is, I guess I am a creator, which I don't have anything wrong with that title, but I didn't seek out to become that.
I previously started a business and I was mildly okay at running a company.
I'm pretty good at hiring, but I was mildly okay at doing the work myself.
And I would say I'm mildly okay at being a creator, but...
Finding operators is still hard for me, and working with them as a partner is quite challenging.
How do you find a partner?
Let's say that you're listening to this and let's say that you have 20000 or 30000 followers and you're like something is here, but I don't know when to get help.
And how do you decide when and how?
Yeah, I mean, I think...
So entrepreneurs have to be able to – that is kind of one of the telltale signs, if they're a founder, that they know how to hire and that they can attract people to hire, which is to say –.
If you're a creator who like, does general comedy and or just general entertainment, and you decide okay, I want to start coffee or I want to start goo in a bottle.
I think attracting a operator is going to be very hard because they're going to say okay well, is this person really going to put the time into it?
Are they really behind it?
Is our audience really going to believe it?
Is our audience really going to move when they say move?
You have to have a real value proposition for an operator to want to come on board and work with you.
I think if you have sound principles in what you want to build and why, you can find a good operator.
Part of that is the test of at least what we invest in.
We invest in a creator. that is a founder that can attract talent to run their businesses.
So where do you go to find them?
I mean, first you got to decide what your special sauce is and where you need support.
And I've heard you talk about many times like where are places that you need support, and you need to be very clear about that.
And you need to, you need to like make sure that you're attracting talent.
That's going to like cover the 180 degrees.
Also you don't have to.
You can kind of date before you marry, which is to say work on some projects with them.
You know, work on like, say, hey, I want to build this out.
I want to try this out.
Make sure you're putting enough capital into it so you have money to pay an operator and that you have a plan for it.
So I think it's really important to, we look for folks that can attract that kind of talent.
Listen up.
The old playbook is slowing you down.
AI broke the funnel.
Loop marketing fixes it.
It's a new era for marketers.
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All right, back to the pod.
Can I ask you about, like maybe one, or you tell me one or two more of these interesting folks, because I love hearing about this.
But then also after that, I'm going to ask you about if you're starting from scratch.
Like which niches or categories do you like?
Well, I love okay.
So there's a couple of creators that are really interesting in the auto care space.
There's this great guy named Larry.
He has a company called Ammo NYC.
And Larry does detailing of like celebrity cars, right?
Wow.
Larry has 2.3 million subscribers on YouTube.
And all he's doing is cleaning cars and making videos about it.
He details cars.
Sorry.
Yeah.
That was the caveman version of that.
I'm looking at his videos.
And first of all, there's like a $4 million acid Martin that he cleans.
But then there's also going to be like a car that's been in a barn for 40 years.
Like a barn fire.
And that's going to take like a week.
Right.
Yeah, yeah.
So Larry has a robust business cleaning celebrity cars that either are going to auction, or they just have a badass collection and they're going to be taking it to a car show, or they're going to be going on a trip that's with all the hot shit car owners.
Yeah.
And he really gets in there and really understands the cars and has built products with his own mixtures and built his own brushes and towels and everything.
All D to C. And...
He uses the top of funnel, which is the car content of detailing these cars, which is like kind of car porn for people.
And any car enthusiast who has like a proper collection knows Larry and uses his products.
Dude, I would watch these videos like on silent.
Like this would be.
Like just played the background of my living room on Apple TV for, like you know, eight hours, while I'm just hanging out at day.
Yeah, larry's awesome.
Check out this other guy, detail geek.
So this is the other side of of larry.
Oh my god, this guy has almost four million subscribers.
So what's he?
What's he do like more low-end stuff?
He just like he is somewhere in, i want to say like the dakotas or the midwest, i don't know, i don't, i can't remember somewhere where they drive lots of pickup trucks that get dirty.
That's right.
It looks like the cars have been for like four weeks on a hunting trip in the mud where he's like getting out shotgun shells.
And he does these 20 minute long videos that get insane views.
And he too launched his own products called Detail Geek.
Really, really interesting guy.
I've tried to talk to him many times.
I talked to him once.
But he's very happy with his lifestyle business.
He does not want to engage with people who invest in these things and help scale these things.
He's like, I like my family, I like my life, and I make good money, and Bob's your uncle.
Yeah.
And he doesn't need it.
And Larry's a little bit more in the sexy world, but the detail geek does not care.
This guy's awesome.
You probably can't say it's a stupid question for me to even ask, but this company definitely does more than 10 million in revenue.
I would think.
Here's what I'll say.
All of these middle-class creators, I think, have the ability to be venture-style businesses with the right founder and the right hires.
So, which is to say, direct-to-consumer businesses...
Somebody came up with an idea like Casper, or glasses that you can buy over the internet, or shoes that are different.
They were kind of built in a brand boardroom and somebody said okay well, I have a new product that I think the audience wants, and then I'm going to go build a brand, and then I'm going to go build an audience and I'm going to go spend a bunch of money to build consumers.
These kind of middle-class brands have gotten to a place where they're, like I, already have the audience.
I know product market fit.
I'm ready to go.
And then it's the right fuel to the fire determines whether they're going to get to venture scale or not.
When they're starting, is it just oftentimes them with an iPhone and them editing it either on their phone or on their computer.
And how big have you seen them get it with just doing it in that sort of scrappy hustler way?
Great.
That's a great example.
So Mary, back to Mary, she just shoots everything on her iPhone.
Like that's it.
You know, she's on Instagram.
She shoots everything on her iPhone.
It goes on her reels.
Like, you know, it's just her making the content.
So that's one version of it.
So if the question is from your audience, can I get started without a big setup?
The answer is yes.
You know, like, yes.
And obviously depends on the genre you're in and the stories that you're telling.
You know, Mary's telling a story about her life.
She's relatable.
Like, you want to know where your meat comes from?
It's Mary.
It comes from there.
It's not highly produced, beautiful.
You know, it's just Mary doing her thing.
And Mary's rad and her kids are rad and her husband's rad.
And you can tell that right away.
Larry started with a small setup and now he's got a four-bay or a three-bay garage in his spot in Connecticut.
That's all lit.
And he's got a guy who shoots it with him, and he still does it all himself.
But it's just two guys.
Two guys with almost three million subscribers, basically.
Yeah, I mean, he's got more people that work in the business.
But yeah, it's like two or three guys.
But it's like a beautiful studio slash detail spot.
It's all well lit.
He's very intentional about the look and feel.
And that makes sense for like these high-end cars, right?
Like it's like...
For high-end cars and people who are like very wealthy, who have, you know, multimillion-dollar car collections, who are watching this kind of video.
Like you want to like.
You don't want to just shoot it on an iPhone.
You want it to look beautiful, because Larry cares about what one side of the car looks like before and one side of the car looks like after.
And you got to really show that.
So you need equipment and you need light and you can't just shoot it, you know, in the front driveway.
There's one more really funny story that I think you would like.
There's this guy named Tonester.
Oh, I like him already.
His name is... Who's Tonester?
Yeah, yeah.
Tony, I don't really know.
I don't want to butcher his last name.
He better be some Italian guy with the name of Tonester.
So he was working at Sherman Williams making, like you know, like it's like an entry level job making blends for paint.
Oh, tone, like paint tone.
I thought it was like Tony from the garage with like slick back hair.
It's like a little bit.
It's like a little bit of that.
He's not like a slick old guy like that.
He's like he's he's an interesting cat and he's done a great job.
So he starts making TikToks while he's working at Sherman Williams, while he's blending paint, just kind of like talking about paint blends and just kind of posting TikToks casually.
And he starts to blow up and then he gets fired.
From Sherman Williams because he's using their office for TikTok.
Oh, they blew that one.
Which is like, duh, right?
So he launched his own paint brand.
Oh, my God.
Called Tonester Paints.
And it's like running a clown card into a bank other than he's not a clown.
He's really smart.
And he's done a really great job.
And if you look at his TikTok you know he's got north of a million followers and he has like a- No dude.
On TikTok, he's got 2.3 and on YouTube, he's got a million.
And I'm almost positive that all the videos.
It's literally just a camera on a paint can and he sticks the drills in there and he mixes it.
That's all it is.
That's right.
And so that's where it's kind of like back to your story, where you can just start And then, if you hit the right audience, you can really build it out.
But I think the ones that are, and we'll see how he does.
He's doing great now and he's a smart business guy and he's figuring it out.
And is that a venture scale business?
Like, is he going to have his own Sherman Williams?
Is it going to get to a hundred million dollars in the air?
He could.
It depends on execution at that point.
I think that the ones that I look at and the things that we want to invest in it slow, and the things that I think have a better shot to get to venture-scale businesses are the ones that have been building audience trust for years, that are known for that specific niche and they have a really strong community and they are creators that are entrepreneurs.
How long are they typically creating content before they launch a product?
They could do it on their first one, or they could do it after four or five years.
You know Jonathan Katz-Moses the woodworker.
You know he launched a product very soon after and kind of his story was about launching the product, a lot of it.
But he did a lot of videos about woodworking and tips and tricks and people were following him around for a while.
So I don't think, I think it just depends on your niche and your audience.
Like, I think like you really have to be a trusted voice of authority in your niche.
People really trust Jocko.
People really trust Atiyah.
People really trust Huberman.
People really trust Mary.
But I'll push back a little bit on that because, Okay so Jocko was a veteran, so he knows about being tough, which is kind of his thing.
Peter Attia is a doctor, so he knows about health.
But this guy worked at Sherwin-Williams.
I agree.
That's why it's like, who knows?
It's not like you need a PhD.
I think, not to discredit them, but I bet you I could spend one year learning how to clean cars.
And I can make at least interesting enough content and then maybe after a little while longer, like formulate a product.
You know what I mean?
It's not like I need to... I don't need to spend eight years of schooling to do this.
Totally make.
I agree with your point exactly, which is to say Tonester is a will-see because he hasn't spent Like for me.
Somebody who has spent years and years and is a trusted, so back to your architecture idea or your artist idea, like somebody who has built five or six years of trust and authenticity with an audience and scaled it, they have more permission to launch paint.
And then you think that you feel better about their understanding of both the industry and product market, fit feedback from their audience, what their lane is, what they can sell.
Like you feel better about investing in somebody who's been in it for a long time versus somebody who is like okay, for a couple years they've been creating content.
So, Tonester is like a big we'll see.
I think he's great and he's smart and he's going to do something.
But, Somebody like Larry, yeah, I think you could start a detailed channel and, like, grow it.
But Larry's been doing this for 10 years.
And when it comes to getting distribution in other, you know, like getting to scale, like the chemical guys did, which you know they took an 800 million check in.
And they had shops, they had locations, they scaled into all the different auto specialty shops and Home Depot and everywhere.
Like that comes from years and years being involved in the industry and really understanding the white space and really understanding our audience, that people who kind of just get started like you know, Mary's been at it for six, seven years um, and built that trust.
So i think the ones that build the trust and understand the community like they really have an opportunity to scale in a way that somebody who's just getting started is like a let's see so um, you can use a little bit of me as an example, but just just the audience, anyone who's uh, listening and has a passion.
But like i've sort of thought like oh, it might be interesting to do youtube or instagram a little bit more.
It might be interesting to get into this creator space.
What's the lessons that I should learn from these people on the repeatable process?
Like, what's the best practices that I should take away?
Like I know that this is part art where it's just like if you have an it factor, it just kind of can work.
But surely there's some type of workout plan where if i lift this amount of weight and eat this amount of food, then i'm gonna be, i'm gonna be at least in the 90th percentile, like do it for two years versus everyone else.
So, like what are the what's like the the lift weights and eat and eat lots of protein?
Uh, kind of checklist version of this?
Yeah, That's a good question.
I mean a couple of things that come to mind and we can decide together if it's a complete answer or not.
I think for you personally and for or to take you as an example like I think you double down on the stuff that's really interesting to you and stuff that you want to talk about and bring people and you can build an audience around your journey.
Right.
So.
You're doing a lot of that now, which is like business building.
You're interested in entrepreneurs.
You're interested in what's going on in the business world.
And that'll drive into.
You can decide if that's going to work in the bottom of the funnel, where you can go beyond being a creator every day.
So for example, like you like motorcycles, you are sober, you have a family and you are interested in like intentionally raising your kids and being a husband.
I would think through the things that are your passion hobbies and that bring you the most joy.
And I would double down on creating for those things, with keeping in mind it doesn't have to be day one, but pretty soon that you have to be thinking about creating content, building an audience, establishing yourself as a voice of authority in something that there is a bottom of the funnel.
Bottom of the funnel, meaning a product that I could eventually sell.
Yes.
Kevin sells raised farm beds and seeds.
Doug sells cars.
Jonathan, the woodworker, sells tools.
The detailer sells chemicals.
The tonester guy sells paint.
Mary sells meat.
You know, on and on and on.
Do you think it's safe to say that any content niche can come up with a product or service that can sell?
Or should you think first, like what could I sell?
And then let me think of which content falls within that category of something.
I'd be willing to dedicate 10 years to creating that content around.
Yeah, that's a good question.
I mean, i think you don't want to.
Uh, you know like it's really hard to sell products if you're just funny right, you know those, those people like i was telling you about my, my mormon buddies they, like the la new york crowd might laugh at them like oh these, like they might, like you know, be highbrow and laugh at these people, the the funny new york like.
Or la actor comedian crew who i know, who makes content they're, they're broke, they don't sell anything.
That's right.
I think you can build a big audience that doesn't transact and you should be careful about that.
And I think if you're in a niche passion category that you like, learn and love, you will eventually figure out what the white space is and you can build a product or a service that works there.
And I can give you more examples of people who are doing that, but...
I think if you're building content, you have to be keeping in mind what's the bottom of the funnel.
Like, what am I moving?
What am I going to move people to?
But I think you start by building a voice of authority in an area.
Like you can't.
Even if you have a large-scale audience in you know in an area, it doesn't mean that you can move product.
Like, you have to learn how to do it.
Like the people that we've been talking about today like, have learned how to move product and learn how to build product and learn supply chain and hiring, and you know subscription and blogs and how to keep their audience from churning and how to, you know, keep things in stock.
Like, you're an entrepreneur.
You got to know how to build a business.
And that is to say also, like, There are two kinds of business.
I mean there's lots of kinds of businesses, but two there's like lifestyle business, where it's like hey, I can make a million dollars a year doing this, or I can make half a million dollars a year doing this, or I can make 2 million a year doing this, and that's just fine with me.
The problem with that is is from varying deals and AdSense and like selling, like merch and a couple little things here and there.
The problem is is, once you stop like, your revenue goes away.
You're just a freelancer.
Yeah, exactly.
You've built something that you can't exit.
And for some people that's okay.
And like it's not like a what's better or what's worse, but like, if you're going to spend five years building your audience, build them into something that you can like, transact into, and you can add value to them by cool new tools, or like great ethically sourced meat, or like cool color tones for your bedroom or you know anything.
That kind of like adds value to your audience.
Is there a medium or a platform that matters?
So you've we've talked about TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
Those are all video.
One thing that I've predicted, I wrote this or did it.
We did a podcast on this where I'm like there hasn't been like a billion dollar Twitter creator, but I think there will be.
And there might be actually some now.
I said this like three or four years ago.
Do you think that it has to be video and audio or video?
And we know podcasting works too.
So video and audio?
I think video and audio are the examples that I've seen where people have been able to build kind of like lifestyle plus slash venture scale businesses.
I think the audio is a great way to connect with your audience consistently and you can really own the relationship and build a cadence of trust with them.
It's a very intimate platform where if you love something, you listen to it weekly.
I think video is the same way, and building an ecosystem around the video-first platforms is.
For me, it has more signal.
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I was gonna ask you what niches you think like someone should exploit.
You said that was you gave me the energy.
That was hard to answer, but I'm gonna, so I'm gonna like tease you up.
You're gonna push me.
Yeah, well, I'm definitely gonna push you, but we're gonna ease into it.
Push me, push me.
Listen.
Yeah, yeah.
So I'm sure that you have a list of like creators that have one to 5000 people and you see them and you're like oh, they got something here.
And who is on that list?
Is there anyone like that or a category like that?
I'm going to preface this by saying a lot of the companies that we've talked about here are very dude-focused, and so I want to also say that there's lots of categories that I'm still learning and getting better at.
But one is everyday carry, I think is a really interesting category.
Everyday carry being handguns, or does that include mace and knives and everything?
So yeah, Knives, Wallet, Watch, Keychain, Pens, Writing Tables.
There's some creators out there that do it.
There's a really cool scaled company that sells Knives called Blade HQ.
It's also a company that's in...
That's in Utah.
And they started creating content because they couldn't advertise, because they were selling what is considered by the internet weapons.
And I think the everyday carry creator, there are some of them that are really kind of popping up.
Some of them haven't reached the scale yet.
You know what?
I completely agree with that.
And if I was listening to this, so I think that there can be a Hodinkee.
So Hodinkee was a watch blog that eventually.
I was on the board of Hodinkee.
We invested in it.
And I don't know.
The outcome wasn't as expected, but that doesn't.
That's right.
But I don't think that meant the business itself was bad.
I don't know anything about the company, but if I had to guess, maybe it was like they just grew too fast or something like that.
And you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there should be a Hodinkee for fountain pens or a Hodinkee for fancy pens.
I agree.
I mean, I think those are the kind of things.
When we see those, we're like whoa, you know, like chess creators.
Really interesting.
People who play chess, passionate, you know, that's interesting.
Yeah, fountain pens, any of the everyday carry stuff is great.
I also think 2A creators like Second Amendment right creators who are teaching, who kind of do product reviews on different guns and different vinyl and different holsters and things like that have a massive audience.
Obviously, we've seen what happened with Black Rifle Coffee.
Yeah.
But the ones who are actually teaching about tactics and safety and different weapons and scopes and vinyl, to kind of carry it like those have massive audiences there.
And some of them have built scale businesses.
And I think that's an interesting category as well.
There's a guy named, I actually, this is like the first time I ever said this word out loud.
It's just one of those words that I read it and I know it, but I'm afraid.
So I don't know if it's Hickok or Hick, okay, 45.
I thought maybe that meant like he's in Oklahoma and he's like a redneck and he was born in 1945.
And he's this old man that you would only understand this if you live in the South or you live in the Midwest, like I am from.
And we all had grandfathers like this.
They wore overalls or regular jeans and a flannel shirt, and they were pretty nice and stoic.
And you liked being around them.
Well, that's what this guy is.
Yeah, except his passion is like every type of gun on earth, and so he'll do like a machine gun and he'll say like oh, this is a cute little machine gun, let's see what it's about.
Or he'll be like a, like a revolutionary and i don't know anything about guns, but i just like watching him.
But it'll be like a revolutionary war cannon or like uh, the type of gun in the civil war where they like uh, you know, put the thing down and then they load the blacks i don't know anything about this shit Or like a silencer on a gun.
You're like, what's that sound like?
And this guy, have you ever seen this guy?
He's got 8 million subscribers on YouTube.
No, I haven't seen him.
Oh my God.
Look at T-Rex arms.
He's the Bob Ross of guns is what he is.
That's the best way to put it.
That's awesome.
Yeah, and there's some newer cats on the scene.
Like, check out this T-Rex Arms.
It was started by a couple brothers.
One of them's name was Lucas Botkin, and he's actually since broken off from T-Rex Arms.
But it's like tactical Second Amendment content creators, massive firearms accessory business.
Yeah.
You know, does some advertising, but there's a lot of restrictions on that.
Sells their own tactical gear, has a total cult-like loyalty.
And they're running a really scaled business.
Now, what crazy thing is, is Lucas is part of Brothers.
And Lucas and the Brothers have split.
And Lucas is now starting his own thing.
So I'm actually interested to see what Lucas builds on his own.
And if T-Rex continues to grow.
But that's a properly scaled business.
All right.
So everyday carry.
What else?
I mentioned chess.
I think that's interesting.
People are really passionate about that.
We've seen some really cool scale businesses come out of chess.
What's a chess business that's scaled?
Chess.com.
I mean, that's a multi-billion dollar company.
That's right.
That's right.
Jiu-jitsu?
Yeah, we know that.
That's a really great category.
Have you seen Brazilian jiu-jitsu fanatics?
I lived in Texas, man.
I feel like everyone did that shit.
Yeah, look up the Brazilian jiu-jitsu fanatics website.
This is a two-sided marketplace started by a jiu-jitsu champion and a guy who kind of did continuing education.
Oh, of course I know who this guy is.
This is the famous coach, right?
Right.
But it's a two-sided marketplace.
So jiu-jitsu instructors can upload their videos and then people can sort through like I want to learn how to do a rear naked choke, or I want to learn how to sprawl better, or whatever.
They can pick coaches that they like.
The site can help kind of ID coaches that you might be interested in.
It's total web 1.0.
This is great.
And I can't say how much they're doing, but it's a good business.
What about you being the creator?
No, man, this is like the hardest thing I do.
And talking, like seeing myself on the internet is like my least favorite thing.
I'm very excited to talk to you.
I think that's what you want to talk about is great.
But man, I will never watch this because I just cannot watch myself.
I cannot be a creator.
No way.
Dude, no one watches themselves.
I've never seen MFM in my life.
And it's one of these things where you have to have tough skin.
But the Mormon family that I mentioned, they have a whole subreddit dedicated to mocking them.
And I met them.
And these people were the most nice people in the world.
It was the most loving family.
They took us in.
I felt like i barely knew them and i was their cousins.
They were like the most loving family and people mocked them like crazy and then on our pod, someone will be like you know you, you look fatter or skinnier than i thought, or you look older or young and like we get mocked constantly.
Yeah no, i think it's a very hard thing to do is like putting it out there and and building their audience around things that they're really passionate about talking about and um, And yeah, I love the idea of getting involved in a creator-led business.
But right now I really love the thesis that we have at Slow, kind of like building out, supporting them and matching capital to creators who are entrepreneurs, who are really wanting to build things at scale.
Let's say someone said, all right, you got to quit slow right now and you have to go and join.
We'll give you a draft.
You get three.
You get three picks of creators that you're like, I want to- Oh, actual creators?
I want to join that company and I want a little stake in it.
Are there three that you think are going to the moon?
We have this thing called Sarah's List.
Sarah was my wife because she joined- uh we like planned where she could join airbnb at a time where she could still have a very comfy gig like a 40 hour you're not totally grinding and you get a lot of salary but your stock it's still a 10x you know if there was a if there was a a billy list uh for you and traders that you like what would the top three or four be oh my god I love what Kevin and Doug are doing at Epic Gardening and Cars and Bits.
Like.
Those are both humans that I like and would like to work with, which is kind of like my most important thing.
Which, if you asked me if I hypothetically would go and work with a creator like I, would need to like love them as a human and love the category.
And those are both categories I can really get behind.
I just sold my car on Cars and Bits.
Oh, you did?
What car?
2020 AMG E63 station wagon.
Nice.
Were you happy with the price?
Yeah, I got what I wanted.
I hit my reserve.
Oh, good.
Yeah, I think that's awesome.
I only own old cars.
So now that Doug is selling old cars as well, I can sell my Scout if I'm ready to move on it.
But that's great.
Yeah, yeah.
It can be a really good buying experience for everybody.
Okay, you should follow Sarah McAllister.
Sarah McAllister has a company called Go Clean Go.
Right now, Sarah is just like the queen of clean.
And people have been following her since like the pandemic and she's been building.
She's got a couple million subscribers on Instagram, I think 2.4.
And I think she's got a real shot to build a really awesome business.
So I think she's really cool.
Wait, does she own housework.com?
That's what it is.
I don't remember exactly what it is, but yeah.
So she has people that love her.
They dress up for her as Halloween.
And she is a badass and she is really cool.
So I really like that business.
Does she sell anything yet?
Or is it just, it looks like she doesn't even have like her own product.
So there is still like, it looks like it's, she's still a prominently a media company.
She mostly makes revenue through affiliate links and brand deals and stuff like that at the moment.
Oh, this lady's going to kill it.
That's a good one.
I think she's great.
The queen of clean.
That's a good one.
I don't know if that's what anybody calls her, but I just said that.
Dude, if this lady comes out with a laundry detergent, that's going to be the greatest thing ever.
Forget it.
Yeah.
I really like her.
I also really like this creator named Gohar Khan.
When he was 13, 14 or maybe even younger, he started making Minecraft YouTube videos and he built this massive audience.
Then he put it down, focused on school. got into MIT.
And when he was in MIT, it was during COVID.
So he started making videos about going to an Ivy, right?
Like going to MIT.
You know, I think he has, you tell me, I don't have it in front of me.
What does he have, 6 million YouTube subscribers?
Yeah, more.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
I'm looking at his numbers.
So is he in his teens still?
So he launched this... No, no, no.
He's post-college and he's launched this thing called Next Admit, which helps students write college entrance exams.
Just teaches them how to use ChatGPT?
No, it teaches them how to not, right?
So he has people that read through them who have also been into IVs.
He reads through them, and he basically, like, you know, at...
I don't know, 80 bucks a pop or something.
He helps you kind of like do that.
But he's also kind of gives you a lot of information about how to think about the big story you're going to tell when you want to get into college about the thing you did in high school.
And now he's starting like SAT prep courses.
And he just knows his audience and he knows that young first-generation kid who wants to get into that Ivy, not bums, like you and I were in high school.
And he really has an opportunity to build a really scaled service business that really understands what kids are thinking and kids want when they're trying to get into Ivies and they're trying to get into colleges.
That's awesome.
So I like him a lot.
Those are two good ones.
I think he's really interesting.
And I'll wrap up by reciprocating.
I'll give you my two.
Okay, good.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, please.
Do you have YouTube in front of you right now?
I should have made you go first, bro.
I should have made you go first.
Well, I had to think while you were talking.
So the first one I mentioned this guy's got a harder path to build a business because clothes are harder, but it's called the Iron Snail.
All right.
So the Iron Snail, I started following this guy a while ago.
His background is that he went to film school.
And Sean and I talked about this on a previous podcast that the creators nowadays the younger folks.
When I was Well still, but even when I was younger and YouTube was just getting started it was all about being authentic, which meant like kind of scrappy and just thrown together.
Now they're way more well-produced.
And so this guy tells you both the history of clothing, like why Jamaicans are obsessed with Clark shoes.
Apparently there's like some history behind that.
Oh, yeah.
But then he'll also do like, here's the highest quality, lowest price clothing ranked.
He'll say, why do Japanese make the best jeans on earth?
Yeah.
Right.
And so he'll like break down and do these really interesting stuff.
And you know what's funny is like the reason why he's going to win is because you can be a woman.
This is mostly men's clothes.
You could be a woman.
You cannot give a shit about clothing.
You cannot give a shit about history.
But you watch his videos because they're so well produced and because he's so funny.
He's hilarious. that you're engaged and you're bought in.
And he is currently in the process of launching his own clothing line.
And so he's documenting it.
Clothing is like the hardest thing ever.
So it's going to be a hard business.
And the second one is Project Air.
So look up Project Air.
It's this young guy named James who's in the UK, And it originally started out with him building model airplanes.
So what started as just like a model plane turned into like an RC plane, which then turned into I'm going to build the world's fastest RC jet.
Or I'm going to build the world's largest RC jet.
Or I'm going to set the land speed record for an RC car.
I love this.
He's even done things like I'm going to send like a SpaceX.
I'm going to send a rocket up and I'm going to have it land right back down, just like SpaceX does, except I'm going to do it like in my garage.
So it's like became like hacker engineering stuff to where the stuff that he does is actually incredibly good, challenging math problems like he's a proper engineer.
He's got one video where he built an RC battleship and he was like I'm gonna have them fight and sink each other.
And I see this guy and I see what do you think?
His bottom of the funnel is Selling RC kits.
It's very similar to Mark.
Mark Rober, Crunch Labs.
Yeah, it's very similar where it's educational stuff.
And if I had to guess a large percentage of fathers like me who want my children to like I think it's cool but like I don't want to build an RC plane and take it somewhere.
I'm going to look like a pedophile going and doing this shit.
I'm going to be weird.
Yeah.
But if I get my kid into it, I can still have fun and do this shit.
You know what I mean?
I don't want to go buy an RC car and take it to a school.
How old is your little one again?
We got a ways to go.
You got a ways to go, but you're just going to bring them along in the pram.
Yeah, I'll be like dude my kid's just a prop basically, so I can go to a schoolyard with a really fast RC car.
Awesome.
And so I think there's a bottom of the funnel for that to build model kits.
I will check him out.
Yeah, Rober has done it, right?
Like, that's... I mean, that business has exploded.
Those guys have done a great job building out those subscription kits.
And there's this entire... There's this one guy.
His name's Remy.
I think R-E-M-I.
This will be my last one.
Type in Remy...
R.C.
Plain.
So check this out.
This is so strange.
So it's R-A-M-I-R-C.
He has a million followers.
Tell me what the first video that you see.
Can you tell me what that says?
Remy R.C.
Plain, world's biggest R.C.
20 million views on this one, building an Airbus.
This guy is building a freaking Airbus.
So he's building remote control airplanes that are the size of an Olympic-sized pool.
It's basically a fucking plane is what he's building.
And there's a really weird part about this story.
So they never truly call this out, I think.
Maybe they do occasionally.
But you're going to see them on like an airstrip.
And you're going to see them take off from a house.
And you're like, is Remy just a rich guy?
What is going on?
It's Tyler Perry's house.
So Tyler Perry, his hobby is he loves RC planes.
And so he is this guy's patron.
And so this guy Remy I don't know if he lives there or if he just spends some time there, but Tyler Perry, He just puts him in a pram and takes him to the park.
I don't know what he does, but Tyler Perry has this massive hangar at his house, except I bet you he has a hangar with real planes, to be honest.
He's so wealthy.
But he also has one dedicated to RC planes.
And you'll see, it's so funny, tyler makes cameos, like you'll see him like basically, i know that tyler's paying for it because tyler is always the one flying the plane.
And so these guys remy, will like build the jets and just hand it to this like guy who they barely talk about or mention, and it's tyler flying the jet because they like don't want to wreck.
You know, it probably cost 100 grand for this jet and uh, this guy it's, it's such a oh, i guess they do call it out so flying planes with tyler perry, but that's like basically it like they barely talk about it.
The fact that it's just this like guy i think he's from dubai bro, that's so cool.
And so this guy has a million followers and i think that's like another interesting thing.
So those are my picks.
Yeah, that's good.
This isn't a pick that, like, anyway, you should check this one out.
Have you seen Hacksmith?
What's Hacksmith?
Dude, these guys just dropped.
Something called the Smith Blade.
Oh, these guys are going to kill it.
Dude, they just did $7 million on Kickstarter in like a week.
Well, it says 13 days to go.
I think they dropped it this time last week.
That's what I want to say.
$7 million.
And it's just a box cutter?
No, it's a multi-tool.
A multi-school is like a Swiss army knife, right?
It's got like five different kinds of knives on it.
And, like you know, a Swiss army knife is going to have your toothpick and your tweezers and a couple of different kinds of knives that have different edges and blades on it.
And this one is built with the kind of intention of everything that you would like.
These guys also sell lightsabers.
Like you got to check out their YouTube page.
Oh my God.
And they have 15 million subscribers.
Yeah, they sell like lightsabers and all kinds of like really fun.
What's a lightsaber?
Is that just a flashlight?
A lightsaber?
Have you seen Star Wars?
I know what it is, but I don't know how I would make one.
So you haven't seen, you just know about Star Wars.
You haven't seen Star Wars?
No, I was like playing sports and stuff and going outside.
I also played sports and I know what Star Wars is.
I know what it is, but I don't know how, is it a flame?
It's a mini lightsaber, bro.
Check it out.
I mean, they call them sabers.
I understand, but what comes out of the metal part?
A piece of plastic?
Light.
But that's just a flashlight, no?
These are, yeah, they're badass flashlights.
You could call it that.
But they're, you know, they're $150 Canadian or they're $350 or they're $500.
They're like badass.
Dude.
I just bought a 500 laser pointer the other day because apparently, if I can shine it on a piece of paper, it's going to light it on fire.
So I'm not saying like I'm above this.
Yo, no, no, no, no one's above this.
This is cool.
I'm into it.
I'll tell you, no one's above it.
These guys just sold $7 million in multi-tools in like a week.
So really interesting.
I hope our wives are still willing to have sex with us by the end of this episode.
Billy, man, you're cool.
I'm really thankful that you came on and hopefully we'll stay friends.
But you're the man.
Yeah, man.
Thanks for having me on.
I love what you're doing.
And, you know, happy hunting.
Thank you.
That's it.
That's the pod.
Let's travel.
Never looking back.
The HubSpot Podcast Network.
Many of them were underestimated long before they became huge and successful and iconic.
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