The TikTok strategy that’s printing MILLIONS right now… (ft. Rob The Bank) | My First Million

The point of this conversation is this is a gold rush and who knows how often these come around.

How much revenue will your brands do using this TikTok model this year?

100 plus. So five brands, you're going to do over 100 million this year and this is the playbook you're running across all of them?

Yeah. So what's an example of one of these videos?

I think this video had made this kid close to $50 ,000.

This single video. What you said in this video will make people millions of dollars if all they did was just try to act on it.

Millions are being printed on TikTok shop.

What are the mistakes people make?

My advice is be an observer, not a consumer.

That's the best thing you can do.

Let's brainstorm live a hundred million dollar TikTok brand.

I'm going to show you something that the world was never going to see, but I'm going to show how serious I take this.

Has anyone ever wore a cutoff like this before?

The first one to bring the gun show to MFM?

So I was just thinking, I've watched a lot of these and I've seen a lot of guests.

And I was like, fuck, I'm different in a lot of ways.

So I might as well visually capture that, make a statement.

You were early to the Amazon trend and you took $5 ,000, you turned it into a $30 million company, you sold.

And what you told me was basically that this now is the first and biggest thing you've seen since that Amazon opportunity, is that right?

It is, it is. And I've looked for these, I didn't appreciate it in the Amazon era, But I look for these moments in time where you don't need a ton of startup capital You don't need to raise money and you can basically just find something that works a system a platform Latch onto that and create something of substantial

enterprise value and tiktok represents that So what I want to do is I want to go through the big idea So why why people should be caring about tiktok right now what you see as the like the big opportunity and then specifically?

What are some examples of people that are crushing it?

How are they rushing?

What's the playbook?

And then where are the opportunities that you see that are still open that anyone could go do?

So that's my game plan.

Absolutely. So top of the funnel here.

Fundamentally, people don't appreciate what's actually happening with TikTok.

Like shop is a component of that.

That's the center of their model.

But you think about even restaurants.

You think about Google.

You think about Facebook, meta ads, like all of the, there's a paradigm shift.

So a good example, my ex -wife and I went to Tokyo, like a year and a half ago, and if we went five years ago, she would have gone to Google to search for restaurants.

She would have Yelped.

Now she goes on TikTok and wants to visually see what is going on, right?

The shopping is turning more live.

All of these things are fundamentally changing.

Even the creators of this last generation, the influencers, they're coming up off short form content.

We all know how important clipping and all that stuff is.

By the way, I read that 30 % of Gen Z gets primary news source is TikTok.

Yep. And then same thing, primary search engine.

So in my company, we did a little poll there, we were trying to work on our Google search result.

And I was asking our employees, I was like, so when you Google for this, what do you do?

They go, I don't really Google for that.

I just go to TikTok and type in the name and then whatever comes up on TikTok is what I use.

That blew my mind because I wasn't using TikTok as a search engine.

Yep. And that's the paradigm shift and that's the opportunity because it's so early and it's, I don't like the word gamifiable, But when you just think through these new models and like how information is being shared, that's where the brands of the future are being created.

That's what the artists of the future are being created.

That's where like fashion, design, it's all happening through this new means of distribution.

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By the way, this happens in everything.

So I don't know if you ever heard the story of why Obama was so successful when he did his first presidential run.

Do you know this story?

Just tapping into the social media and all that?

It was kind of social media, but he got this big grassroots movement going from two reasons.

One, he was one of the first presidents to build a huge email list.

At the time, president, the people who were running, they were doing, you know, fundraisers, they were doing TV, they were doing, you know, traditional interviews, but they weren't building an email list.

And he built a giant email machine before anybody else.

And then he started using social media on top and he basically hired people.

Trump did the same thing.

When Trump won in 2016, even this year when he won, he raised way less money than his opponent, right?

The first time, way less than Hillary, this time, way less than Kamala slash Biden.

And in both cases, it was because he was using a different marketing strategy.

His, his was all Facebook and online.

And the others are doing all like traditional TV buys, commercials, stuff like that.

And so when you see this, like you said, paradigm shift, it's like the new marketing opportunity.

If you can pounce on that, that's where you can get rich.

Can you quickly just say like what you saw in Amazon and when that was back in 20, what was it?

14 or so. And I'll go from that to now, like the numbers we're seeing the difference in terms of like like ROAS, right?

And it's challenging for people because it's happening so fast.

I think a lot of people still think that digital marketing is the new paradigm.

And actually, it's all the way over here now.

And so Amazon's a great example.

I remember seeing brands, like billboards were a huge strategy back then.

I'm like, I started by working with brands.

That's how I got my start as a consultant, helping them sell on Amazon.

And I'm going, guys, you're spending $50 ,000 on a billboard campaign and when you give me five grand to spend on Amazon you're having trouble tracking that but right here we're making five dollars for every dollar spent and this is me as a 22 year old kid they're like no this is the way it is or like

you know we're gonna double bodybuilding .com needs these or or you know GNC needs these and by the time I finally it probably took me like a year I'm going these guys are slow right at first you think you're dumb yeah so you realize they're dumb you're like yo I keep putting a dollar into this magic

money machine and five dollars are coming out which is a 5x this is cool roas for people don't know roas is return on ad spend so it's for every dollar i spend on marketing how many dollars do i get back out in revenue yep tv billboards you don't really know right the famous advertising saying is half

of our advertising doesn't work problem is we just don't know which half and like and actually for a while cmos didn't mind that because if you can't track it you can't be held accountable but then facebook and all these guys came and all of a sudden every dollar you put in you get a like verified amount

of how much revenue you're getting out of it now you're held accountable but that also presents an opportunity yep just for a kid like you you're like all right if this works it's inarguable this is working and i'm getting 5x for return on my money and so now what we're seeing what happens over time

is that compresses right enough guys like me do podcasts like this facebook ads are great goddamn podcasting it shrinks the margin and um so like you look at like an amazon now which has been my you know i've been doing ads on there for 10 years now and like a like a one to one and a half row as is like

good in a hot category, which is not profitable, but you're, you know, that's where you're like, okay, repeat customers, building the brand.

And so you have that modeled as like, that was the last couple of years.

And then TikTok comes along and that organic algorithm is so damn good.

And then if you, this is where now it almost goes back to the billboard era of like actually tracking becomes a little more difficult, but we're seeing just money spent on this this system which we can get into a little bit later but this system is like 7 8x minimum return versus a 1x ROAS and upwards

of like when I first did this with you know Jimmy 18 months ago it was like 30x you know like and then the question was how can we spend more I mean it's like PEDs for marketing right it's like if you're going to get I can use this channel that not everybody understands this playbook that not everybody

understands and get 7x or I go to Facebook and amazon i get a 1x 1 .5x i mean that's like cheat codes in the game of business can you give people a sense how much revenue will your brands do using this tiktok model this year so directly attributable to like tiktok shop we we modeled probably like 40

ish million and overall the halo effect of all that 100 plus so your brands which is what you have three four how many how many are you running right now five that i either own you know majority of or or a meaningful yeah so five brands you're gonna do over 100 million this year and this is the playbook

you're running across all of them yep yep and and by the way how old are these brands one or two years old it's actually it's unreal and it i don't want to say things stress or scare me at this point but it's one of those things where it's like all right we gotta see this through because the point of this conversation is this is a gold

rush and who knows how often these come around right And so I feel like I'm getting to go back to my 22 -year -old self and say, hey, this is going to be really big.

Focus right now. Do the right things.

Execute. And that's where we're at.

Is that a conversation you had with yourself back when you were 22 and the Amazon gold rush was happening?

I took it really seriously, but you don't know what you don't know.

I didn't appreciate who knew private equity was going to come in and value all these brands and who knew that Amazon was going to grow to that extent.

It was still kind of a discount site when I was first on there.

that's why brands didn't want to do it you were in the supplements category and you said the way the supplement game worked was you had GNC or these like retail stores if you wanted to be if you wanted to win in supplements you had to win in retail and then you're like Amazon came around and changed

the game because now you have this online retailer and suddenly new supplement brands could win there where you couldn't get on the shelf at GNC exactly and you were saying now the same thing's happening to Amazon basically there's a new one's coming in and sweeping the rug and creating the opportunity

where maybe you weren't going to win on Amazon but now you can went in this new way.

Is that right? No, that's exactly right.

It's these continual paradigm shifts like Amazon.

It was, you know, there's this brand BPI sports who was number one in GNC.

And then I just remember seeing that flip where Amazon all of a sudden was like 50 % of their revenue and then they didn't focus on Amazon.

And then there were brands passing them up.

Right. And so the brands of the future were born on that digital platform and Amazon was another Facebook ads, their other digital means, but we'll call it the e -commerce era.

and now it's happening again with like the short form discovery era so it's much less about what does your website look like or this and that it's like how are you optimizing for this means of information dissemination and you know I think when most people say gold rush if you call 10 things a gold

rush then what's really a gold rush but I feel like you genuinely believe you're like yo this I'm not fucking around I'm serious right now there is a window where something can happen could you like make your pitch not to me but to like the next Rob who's who is 23 24 25 30 years old doesn't matter

what age but like to be like yo take this you can even just direct a camera like what's your message to that person about this opportunity i'm gonna hijack i'm gonna hijack your your friend here how many how many businesses a day do you think ben looks at just in general 10 to 15 a day a day yeah a day

so he's constantly looking at opportunities and he sent me a text and he goes oh this tiktok thing really does seem to be the best opportunity to go from like no net worth to like one to five million with no skills, no background, no tech, whatever.

And when he sent me that, because obviously I accept my opinion is gonna be biased.

I do this every day.

But when Ben sent me that, I was like, oh, okay, yeah, no, this is for real.

And then you look at our own, you know, like we're doing this, our company growth, even though we have skills when we've been doing this a while, but to go from zero to, you know, a hundred plus million run rate is actually insane with no, you know, we're not raising, we're profitable, like super profitable

yeah you've bootstrapped these right uh like you know i'm a small investor but you didn't take our money for the money you just no we love you you just want yeah you just want us to be on board uh all right so let's let's stop uh teasing what are the brands like tell me some stories like i don't live

in this world you do tell me some stories of some brands that are crushing it what are some examples that make this real one that i think we can start with is this company roose research and this guy had a little amazon experience he's 27 and this is like a nine -figure play and i i just couldn't be

more excited for him and so i'm like you know hyping it up here but he reaches out to me two and a half years ago before tiktok's even taken off and he's like hey i'm thinking about starting the supplement brand on amazon he picked the right category he's like longevity is getting bigger he gets on amazon he's

doing all right and then tiktok comes around and he he pours all in on it and two years later i believe this month you know he'll do he'll do north of like 15 million dollars between all online this month this month so what is the product what do they do something research nad ruse research and it's

that like you know it's that every couple years a new supplement category comes along where like this might have long -term staying power collagen was the last huge one you know four billion dollar exit vital proteins to nestle and he's betting on that and then he went all in all bootstrapped no raised

money not even like he hasn't revamped the brand yet if you go look at it you're like oh this looks a little like, you know, it doesn't look like a multi hundred million dollar thing, but that's what he's building.

So I'd say that one.

So he spotted the health trend early, early enough, not like the first guy, but early enough, built a good product in that space.

You said he went all in on TikTok or, you know, figured out TikTok.

What did he actually do to make it work on TikTok?

He tapped into this creator model.

So should we go in detail?

Yeah, what's the playbook?

So if I, for all these ideas, they have a playbook.

What's the TikTok playbook?

So it's important to preface it with this.

Everyone is used to YouTube, Instagram, like where your followers matter, right?

Like you have an Instagram following of a million people.

That's valuable. TikTok shattered that.

And you have to look at everything through the lens of views.

You start a brand new TikTok account.

I do. We walk out of here.

We start a new TikTok account together.

We start a video of dancing in the street.

That could get 10 million views, right?

And so that's the center of this whole model.

Swings at bat. Screw your brand page.

Like Roost doesn't have a brand page right they might run ads but the key part of the model is how many people can we get creating product specific content for the brand like an army instead of one influencer becoming kim kardashian or the rock or whatever instead of i will become famous to get a lot

of followers and then sell product what you're saying is the new model is an army of people need to create content and then it's just the content wins one of those pieces of content needs to pop in order for this to work Yep.

Is that it? Yeah, exactly.

And the first big use case of this before product was Andrew Tate.

Can we say that name?

That's how he broke the internet, not even intentionally, but he had affiliates making Tate content.

And so he's not, Tate's not on TikTok, but he has 500 hungry little minions who love him.

And he was paying them or they were just inspired?

What was going on? Yeah, there was an affiliate commission back to make more videos for him.

So you could get people paying $50 a month by making this content.

He created basically a content mlm almost pretty much yeah no exactly so he and what what was i mean that's kind of genius of him to do that because no other you know we were content creators podcasters whatever but if we created content we just put it on our channel yep and it was just us or like we

would hire people to create clips for us what but on our one channel yep what he did was different he's like yo here's a bunch of raw material run it you figure out how to go viral and if you do i'll pay you up per view or what was he what was he doing per sign up they got back to the community that would teach

you how to do that.

And the end result was most Googled man on the, on the planet.

Right. And, and so now you see that everywhere, streamers like Aiden Ross and those guys, they spend six figures a month paying on a CPM metric, paying people to chop up their streams and put it out on new TikTok.

Like I do that right.

With my, my stuff, like someone from my team will chop this up and you might see it.

Right. Swings at bat.

And so now take that same when you say my team do you literally mean like my employees or you're like i just like both we're trying to hit it from every way and brands are too like this is the fundamental thing how can you get as much good quality swings at bat as humanly possible and sometimes it's

freelance people and then sometimes it's internally it's a little harder on shop so beautiful because the model itself incentivizes it without us having to change hands you know like internally i'm trying to figure out metrics like you know see like all that right whereas if you have talented creators

they just go and that that was tates too it worked it fed itself the the economics fed itself so shop feeds itself so just to explain instead of just sending it to famous people influencers or random people what happened was certain people realized oh shit i can make money doing this so instead of just

doing it once what if i made five videos a day yeah what if i started picking brands that I thought would perform well, and they started making $500 a month and $5 ,000 a month.

You have creators that make, how much does like the most successful creators make per month?

Just creators. They don't own the brand.

They don't buy inventory.

They don't have to run the operations.

They're just making TikToks.

What do you think? What do you think?

I've heard that like there's like 20 year olds that are able to make a hundred grand a month.

Yeah, like, yeah, like a lot and way more than you'd think.

I was at an event for one of our, you know, the group that I own a little piece of and we've had 27 people make over $100 ,000 in a month as freelance creators.

And the important part is these are not influencers.

Like Jacqueline, I have a YouTube video with.

She was working as a server eight months ago making 20 bucks an hour and she made like 180 grand last month.

And what they did...

They go in the lab and they're basically like, all right, I have to figure out what content can I create that will make this product interesting, appealing to other people.

And then they get like, they're making like 30, 40, 50 videos a month.

Most of them don't do well, but a few of them start to well.

And they're studying and learning, oh, if I do this hook that grabs people, but it's not converting.

Okay. What could make it convert better?

And they're just specializing in the craft of short form content.

No, not too dissimilar than David Ogilvie in the past, figuring out how to do print ads that are going to convert, right?

All the great marketers in the past.

It's just, instead of going to an ad agency, you're going to these creator armies where young people are specializing in how to create short -form content in direct response marketing that's what this means that's exactly what it is and there's varying degrees of it there's like the innovators who can sit

down the algorithm is the algorithm you have to capture attention you have to keep them watching and then something to convert and then there's the second wave of that whereas one of the innovators hits what works and then there's literally 500 kids that are going to copy that same idea only make 20

of it but then what does that do for the brand right then all of a sudden you have all these videos going nuclear i bet you so show me a video so what's an example of one of these videos that this is a great one i think this video last i checked i think this video had made this kid close to fifty thousand dollars

the creator the single video it and he paired you know a modern thing trump like getting elected with conspiracy and all this whatever just got into office one day ago and it's already going after one of the most predatory industries in the world watch this we have a public health system that does that was the hook

so the hook was he first he's writing the news trend trump uh instead of saying hey i have a product i'd like to tell you about no no he starts by talking about trump and then he has this uh curiosity what would you call it that is that information gap right where all of a sudden he went after one of the biggest

industries in the world what did he do predatory which one what's that industry and what did he do and then you hear in the background is that mysterious it's a trending sound you know change starting today but you know what's crazy his buddy donald white was coming after the way even how raw this is he's

taking a video of like an android phone yeah so if does you don't think this is an advertisement no exactly and everything nowadays is shifting to that just raw organic like you don't want to feel like an influencers selling you and that's not what he is you know like this This is like, this is a random

dude making... Telling you a story.

Yeah. Okay, what's he...

I could skip ahead a little bit here.

You know, it's the Trump bit and then got Dana White, more social proof.

Wow, this is where it all gets interesting because around the same time they were trying to silence this doctor...

Is this the scientist now?

Yeah, yeah. Berg is another famous scientist.

So they're building, he's building this case for something.

Still hasn't told you about the product, right?

Fungus problem that lives up and through here.

And oil of oregano is the absolute best remedy for that it's antimicrobial antibacterial antifungal anti candida antiviral anti parasites and anti mold now i did some research and not only is so really you get the idea right and then he still hasn't sold you he's building this idea of oil oregano and then

at the end i believe he but i've been taking two of these pearls anytime i feel like i'm coming down with something and it knocks that shit right out the only bad thing about this product is how fast they sell out especially around this season so if you're sick of being sick and you want to try these

out for yourself and you see that orange cart right there that means they are still in stock and the flash sale is still live masterful tiktok shop that's a masterful tiktok shop video like if you don't market and you see it and you go yeah but you forget like the average person sees that and they're

like you know they're going to the coffee table at work the next day and talking about man you know like mold and fungus is everywhere and by here you take this oil of oregano dude i got cousins that will send me this yeah and they'll be like yeah you got to start taking this yeah the government's out

to get you yeah whatever they have these like that conspiracy combined with you know in ancient times this used to be the way we do things and then you know his last like scarcity call to action where he's like the only downside is they sell out so fast so if you see the button is orange that means

they still have it just get it while it's still better go and it's on say it's on flash sale right now you You know, it's like, did you see, you know, the brand you're invested in?

Did you have anyone send you content from that at any point?

Like just not only did I have people send me content from that brand, which we were when the founder of it doesn't want us talking about it.

All right. But then also he sent me a video of other people creating videos being like, I'm tired of hearing about this, which is like the ultimate sign of respect.

It means it dominated TikTok so much, which is like the video was like, if I see one more video telling me about this i'm not gonna buy your thing but like even that video had seven million views of the person complaining about seeing this so much which means mission accomplished we got 600 million views

in a month like that is an insane insane number and that was before shop how much did you spend that month to get 600 million views it was a little over 100 grand that that was before shop so shop now is changing the unit economics i'd say like not in the favor with the brands, but at the end of the day,

it adds a level of scale.

But now with commissions and stuff, that was when we were like sending it to Amazon and just, we're not even tracking it.

We're just like, if we can get 600 million views, we're going to be all right.

You know, for a hundred grand.

Well, it creates this amazing flywheel, right?

Because you hear about a brand, a bunch on TikTok.

You go then Google it and click the link, or you go to Amazon and you search on Amazon.

It tells Google, it tells Amazon, people are searching for this brand name.

It ups your rank there so now you get organic ranking off of this social in addition to the direct conversions on social yep no exactly where do you go to find these brands that are crushing it this tool and this is the other crazy thing Kalo data is directly plugged in to TikTok's API Kalo data K -A

-L -O data D -A -T -A like so they if you go to the home page here you're seeing top products top videos so you can go look at like you could study you can study that's that's that kid's video i know him he's in our in our group but that was like the one of the top videos from last week it made him if you

go right now to like the top products what do you see and they just it's like rankings weekly or how do they do this yeah so like beauty beauty and personal care you can filter however you want so this is last are you are you in this list this is last 30 days we are in this list we're top five and we're

not three four five my friends if you like mfm then you're gonna like the following podcast it's called a billion dollar moves and of course it's brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the number one audio destination for business professionals billion dollar moves it's hosted by sarah chen spelling

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All right, back to the episode.

And then I think if you expand it, like we have a couple of products in the, in the top 10 can you talk about what your products are which products can you talk about yeah yeah i mean like a really good example has been are we gatekeeping here or are you no no i don't i mean i i yap about stuff on instagram

all the time so uh evil goods has been a really good case study of of beef tallow in the you know skincare section how'd you decide to do beef tallow that was an that was an investment and so one of our students or whatever like saw that category as similar to longevity like okay holistic wellness is obviously

becoming huge people don't like toxic skincare this seems to have some good supporting like it has this like grassroots twitter movement let's bet on that and so you know that's what we did and pretty much whenever you see the ability to market to fear like that big pharma or whatever it might be or insecurities

from an individual plastic yeah whatever that that that will do well on this platform like just just period because people feel like they're learning something and so it checked all those boxes he came out with a crazy aggressive name evil goods is like um you know we'll see because that could disrupt

the ability to like go to retail and stuff like that but at same time liquid death yeah yeah so it could be a liquid death exactly exactly so hopefully plan to flag on that but this thing has gone just nuclear what's your uh cologne brand uh top shelf And so this ties back to my thesis that massive

industries are overturned in these eras.

I want top shelf, it's like a passion project of mine, but I want to build a creed for Gen Z, a creed like fragrance.

And it presents the opportunity to do that.

So the way that Cologne, I don't know much about Cologne, but it seems like it's kind of luxury, sold through retail traditionally, super high margin, like crazy margins.

This is basically, you know, water and a little bit of essential oil or whatever.

And so how do you sell that?

How do you make a popular, how did, how did you make a popular Cologne brand?

And could you say like revenue wise, what that's going to do this year?

We've been doing, we've been doing close to a million bucks a month.

So it's been, it's been, but it's, it's a unique challenge for me that I like.

This ties back to, I mean, seriously, everyone in this world, if you're venturing into it, pick something you like and see some area of disruption and make stuff for yourself.

Like that, that's really what I see.

and as i've gravitated more towards you know we talked about offline but i like high fashion i like design and so this seems like the perfect segue for me to go from consumable to something that can play in that world right fashion culture yeah exactly exactly and so like like creed is relevant at like

these big um fragrance houses are relevant in in paris and stuff like that and so for me it's been a i know it's luxury because i've never heard of what you're saying must be must be good have you seen creed or no no you probably see a creed eventus it's like a you know popular fragrance that sells

for 250 a bottle and so when i'm seeing that i'm going i can there's a lot of margin for let's walk through it so you're like all right i want to go into cologne you get it made how where'd you go to make it so i had to hire a he's like he called himself a professional nose you know and it's been like

designing fragrances for god knows how long okay so i'm learning just google this guy or how'd you find him um relationship through our other business partner he had done skincare before and this guy was like a known guy in the industry charges an arm and a leg made one good product don't think i like

it right so i'm like how can we build this out internally and i've learned more about the industry like what you know what smells actually fascinating like like how it makes people feel what's fascinating about it just all the different you know mechanisms and mixes and like like you go to abercrombie

you know exactly what it smells like it's like it can be a signature of branding it can be a signature of a of a person you know like probably like the least used sense in marketing so a thousand percent but you think about like a fresh pair of nikes like that that's intentional right and like new car

smell new car smell and and and uh so it's just been a fun avenue to learn more and i'm far from a expert in it just to be honest like we have the one product we're moving well with and then we're trying to build out oh wait so tell me so you say you went to the nose nose makes something for you that's

what you use or you say you didn't like it so he actually made us eight different samples we we chose the one he wanted to use we blow it up we did 700 grand our first month it just gets murdered with bad reviews people hate it like hate it and so now all of a sudden you liked it or no no yeah okay

you yourself were like one star yeah and i'm kind of i didn't hate it i didn't hate it but i wasn't like oh i would i would wear this and um and and at the time with genius i was really big on making products for yourself and like being all in on that and then we have all these things going nuclear

and so i'm like money right where's the money 90 i'm trying to make something for myself but this time it's money instead of a product and uh and honestly that blew up in my face a little bit and so we revamped on the the second one and and had a you know it's a winner and like it was very methodical

and so that's the one doing like a million bucks a month um but before i made a billion a month they must have made a dollar a month so how did did you do initially to get that to work?

So you go to the creators.

That was the nice part.

The first fragrance, we got the playbook, like the angles that worked.

So good marketing, bad product.

Yeah, exactly. So what was the angles that work?

Give us an example for that.

That's another one.

It's huge in this Gen Z era.

I don't like saying Gen Z actually.

It's TikTok person and male, there's a billion users on there, right?

So it's a disservice to the app to say it's just gen z although that's where a lot of these ideas percolate from but like the self -improvement and dating and all these little boxes that this generation is trying to check are hyper relevant to smell like like that's a thing in their world like how do

you smell around the girl you're trying to to talk to very easy fear yeah what's the name of your thing it's like her loss her loss uh -huh where did that come from that's genius it's actually i went through this whole like drake era on my personal brand and he has an album called her loss it's like

don't don't reinvent the wheel they succeeded what would be like a killer hook to sell that cologne on they do actual skits so i actually actually one that that worked really well is we had female creators do it and they started calling it like pussy magnet juice if you got to leave that my boyfriend

came home in this or whatever you know and and um really high converting stuff there's a story so i just did a podcast with this guy, Craig Clemens.

Do you know Craig? So he monster, he told the story of like OG marketing that's super relevant for this.

So I'm going to retell it because his episode is going to come out too.

But he talks about like one of the greatest headlines he's ever read in marketing.

He goes, I have four for you.

And the first one he told was he talked about this headline.

He goes, here's the story.

This guy's a famous marketer.

He's one of the best.

He's known as one of the best marketers on earth.

And this Hollywood actor hits him up and he says, my wife wants to launch her own perfume brand.

Will you come and help us with the marketing of it?

So he goes, he meets the wife.

Wife says, I want to do this.

He goes, say no more.

I'll make this happen.

And he goes and he starts studying fragrances and he goes to a mall.

And you know, the guys at the mall who are like, you know, they had like a make your own fragrance thing or like, you know, you have all these oils, you can mix your own.

And he just asked the guy, he goes, what's the number one fragrance that women love?

And he goes, oh, sir, easy, China Musk.

And he goes, China Musk?

he goes yes china musk smells he smells good so he takes it and this is like you know he's only a couple weeks in but he doesn't go back to the hollywood wife uh he sits on it he's like i need to make her wait for her to value this i need to make it feel more important so after three months he comes

back to her and he goes i'd like to meet you i have something for you she goes okay what you got he goes i've traveled the world i've tested you know thousands of things i've studied i've talked to everybody and i found it i found the greatest fragments uh for you she smells the china musk she's like

this is perfect in the meantime he goes to um a jeweler and he goes i need you to make me the fanciest bottle you can come up with for this thing it's like this like whatever diamond shape or whatever and so he comes up with this beautiful bottle he's got china musk and then he tells her we're going

to do a launch and she goes yeah we could do it at this like small place and he goes no no we need to do it somewhere bigger um how about the crown plaza hotel and she's like that's huge like we would need thousands you know a few thousand people to show up he goes that's my job so she she begs the bet

she books the hotel and she's like you better not embarrass me so he goes home he's like i gotta figure out a way to get thousands of people to come to this grand launch and he goes home and he writes this headline that says wife of famous hollywood star swears under oath that her new perfume does not contain illegal

sexual stimulants and he goes she is and then the sub the sub is he's like um to prove its safety and that it is not made of not not uh not what people are claiming she is doing a live testing where she will prove without a shadow of a doubt um that this uh that this fragrance works and is safe um at the crown

plaza hotel on this date and like 10 000 people show up to this thing it's like pack he cut he hires like armed security guards to walk in with handcuffs to a briefcase that contains the perfume so people see them walking in they're like holy shit what is this thing that's being presented in this way

and there's this whole story it ends up becoming this best seller and he's like that headline but he's like you know he broke down the elements he's like wife of hollywood star curiosity gap which which hollywood star um swears under oath right that's kind of like the conspiracy the seriousness the drama the stakes

of the situation point and then doesn't contain sexual stimulants so like how good is it people think it's it's so good it should be illegal and you know evil goods or the stuff you're talking about with like your your cologne is like hits those same notes now that was back in the i don't know like

the 70s or something like that was a long time ago but same playbook just read on today in 2025 and then craig took it and put in the facebook ads and i'm taking it and putting it on tiktok quick quick side note too for anyone i know there's like a vast internet world of gurus and people that talk about stuff

and if a guru or like talking head in the marketing space doesn't know craig they're not really like tapped in simple test yeah like it's actually a simple very like anyone that like i don't know craig personally i don't know if he knows me but i know that operation is run like fucking skunk works yeah

and like he is he has popularized a lot of things like actually that framework has been seen on a facebook ad from him that his name's not you know that he's you don't you don't know him yeah exactly he's a madman uh -huh um what else could you show me so give me a couple other stories that you think

are pretty badass that we should know about the stuff that's working on tiktok underbrush gum is another example of really startup scrappy entrepreneur that's doing millions a month now who makes this gum himself and they they built their own factory and he's had a crazy rush over the last month but uh like

brands will go like this and then down and you got to find the new angles, right?

Like this, that Trump video I just showed you will work for a month and then it'll go away.

Underbrush just hit a huge one this last month playing into TikTok's going away.

My small family business is going to get crushed.

And it was the founder doing like some ASMR video of like how he's making it.

Right. And then talking about that.

Yeah. Well, no. And then he just gave that out and then the army picked it up and all put their own play on it.

So it was the same angle over and over again with different voices and some I'm claiming it's their business, but that did millions for him over the last 30 days.

Can I put you on the spot?

Yeah. Let's do a little magic trick.

So, let's brainstorm live.

Yeah. A hundred million dollar TikTok brand.

Yep. So, where do we start?

I'll be your wingman.

I'll be your brainstorming partner.

Let's go right into Gen Z and this younger generation that there's so much change.

We've talked about looks maxing, right?

Explain what that is.

Looks maxing. it's uh it's interesting to say the least but there's this subset of like young men that are hyper focused on looks almost to the point of like it being super feminine but like they're optimizing it yeah exactly and it's like they're they're again their hearts in a good place most things

can be boiled down to basic human desires of like they want to reproduce right but but how they're going about it is all of a sudden like have you seen those funny videos on morning routines now it's almost like patrick bateman -esque but it's just like so elaborate yeah yeah i can trim each like that that's

so that but there's a market there there's not enough products there like the um so it's kind of like a community it sounds silly right when you say it sounds superficial but you know how different is that than you know maybe the bodybuilding movement in the early days it's like these guys who take

it really seriously and they're counting the reps and the sets and they're figuring out you know um what type of training is going to lead to like you know this muscle right back here the lower head of the tricep and it's to anyone else it sounds like overkill but they got into it they got passionate

about it and they wanted to like what if we took this to the nth degree Brian Johnson doing that with longevity right now yeah it sounds crazy it's easy to make fun of him but he's he's like I'm gonna take it to the full money yep and there's people who like rallied behind that and they think that that's

cool and you're saying look maxing is this early wave where people are doing that they're they're taking guys taking their looks as seriously as women take their looks yep because there's we all know women have this huge you know like tutorials on eyelash extensions and every little you know nook and cranny

now you're saying guys are doing it's happening exactly for guys okay and there's no it's an underserved market you've seen products like there's a product called jar size have you seen that oh jar size like your jawline yeah exactly that's like the one of the core foundations of looks maxing and so that product

blew up right it's like a jaw exercising literally really just that you just you just bite it each day does it work does it not I don't know but then you know kids are right right viewing and so you're just studying culture it seems like you're just watching and I want to point out one thing which is I

had a really early friend in Silicon Valley teach me this I never forgot it he was the first product manager at Twitter and if you remember Twitter at the time was really like made fun of when it came out because it was you would text a phone number there's no app you just text a phone number whatever

you wanted and anybody who was subscribed to your phone number would get a message that says like sean's eating just like it was just say i'm eating a ham sandwich and so it got made fun of if you go look up old tech crunch articles people make fun of it it's this like frivolous stupid thing but it's

not but it turns out you know now it's like the beacon of free speech like that's what happens in the world right and so at the time i go why'd you take the job at twitter did it's you know like what did it seem like the next big thing he goes no but he goes i had figured out that anytime there's a phenomenon of behavior that you

see as weird you don't even understand why they're doing it but they are in deny undeniably they are doing it you should lean in as an investor or like a like an entrepreneur that's your signal to lean in whereas most people use that same signal and they they point they laugh or they push away yep and it

gets it gets harder the older you get but but staying tapped in on that and and not being oblivious to like the change in the future like Because that was my dad with Instagram.

Like what a stupid platform, people posting pictures.

And now everyone knows you have to have an Instagram.

And so that's happening again.

And I think it's great advice.

Like we were hanging out with Mr.

Beast last week and he has this thing he says, which is you're crazy until you're successful.

Then you're a genius.

And he goes, I've been doing the same thing the whole time.

You know, I used to sit in my bedroom and make ridiculous videos.

At the time I had no money.

So his ridiculous videos back then were me counting to 100 ,000.

and it's like a 19 hour video or something or him taking a plastic knife and cutting through a plastic table, uh, with just like a knife.

And he's like, it was just a stunt.

Now it's like taking a bulldozer and cutting through the Eiffel tower, right?

Like he just scaled it up, but he's like, at that time I was seen as stupid and crazy.

And why are you wasting all your time on this YouTube thing?

Go to school, get a degree, get a good job.

And now I'm this, you know, I used to be weird.

Now they call me passionate.

I used to be, you know, I used to be kind of like, you know uh crazy now i'm obsessed and he's like it's like i didn't change the whole time and so kind of what you're saying is you see the culture doing something that seems novel seems new instinct as somebody who's a little bit older is that's stupid

that's stupid and now you're like get curious instead be my advice is be an observer not a consumer on all these platforms and so observe what's actually happening like hold your opinion to yourself just be super matter of fact and observe, because if looks maxing views are going up month over month,

that just is, I don't really care what your opinion on it is.

Like that just is, that's, that's, that's fact, right.

And work backwards from that.

But so, so looks maxing.

I mean, with that, all of a sudden it's literally, this is how broad it becomes.

Just like when pet supplements became a thing on Amazon, it's a category that becomes potential billions overnight with nothing in it.

And so men, like who makes men's skincare products well like two or three brands that aren't even focused on it and so i mean right there you can build a anything so you would be like look maxing trend go and then you would brainstorm maybe like skincare mastic gum like jawline stuff yeah i like to

look at uh exploding topics and i like to still look at amazon data like there's different tools you can use and and you'll see searches for those and do you get afraid oh somebody's already doing this or whatever no it's like more validation of the idea and then you're going to try to out you know

out horsepower them on the marketing and then you come up with the hooks so like what would be like an example of a hook let's say let's just go looks maxing now what's what's an example of the product it would be like a gum or like a jaw thing or you think skincare which one would you go into let's

just say a gum because what consumable novel repeat buys probably relatively straightforward to do okay and now you have a gum right we got our product you want to name it as part of our improv here oh chat CPT yeah what would you prompt because you use AI for a lot of stuff I actually do and that's

yeah let's do it let's let's go on yeah uh it's actually gotten so so good do you think the jaw angle is the trick with the gum or would it be breath or would it what do you think it would be it would be jaw you'd call them feminine in some capacity for not having a strong I like how your brain went

there like Like I have this phrase that I say, which is, the only positioning is counter positioning.

Yeah. Like a lot of people just want to say their position.

Oh, we're healthy. We're good for you.

We don't. And it's like, everybody is saying those same things.

So you got to be counter.

You got to have something.

You're, is the enemy or you got to call, you know, diagnose a problem and then sell the solution.

So the only positioning is counter positioning.

So what you're saying is, if you're not working on your jaw, you probably have a feminine jaw.

Exactly. And if you can live with that, if you could sleep at night with that, that's on you.

Okay. okay so i start by asking chad gbt like do you understand looks maxing yes it's about small natural tweaks the goal is to maximize aesthetic appeal emphasis on facial harmony symmetry and overall attractiveness um i'm creating a product for a jawline jawline enhancement gum something every day

i like i like dual meanings and stuff I love when names have like, you know, like I like double entendres.

I like stuff like that.

So that's where I would probably go with this.

I would say that would consume every day.

I'm looking for a clever, powerful name that has, you know, dual meaning.

Chisel. So Chisel is a nice, I feel like that's a nice name.

Is that what it gave you?

Yeah, Chisel is the first one.

Masticate is chewing, but also sounds intense.

And Chad Chew. These are all great names.

I like Chisel though.

Chisel is good. Yeah, chiseled is my favorite so far.

So we got chiseled gum and now you got to come up with how we're going to market this.

So you're going to go to your creator army.

You tell them what you want them to do?

You just let them go?

No, I let them go. And this has been part of respecting the future, but understanding that I'm not the person in that anymore.

Letting go. Yeah, exactly.

So let's pretend we're those creators.

We're not. So we're like, we're going to be, you know, white belts at this, whereas there's black belts.

But like, I see videos trending on TikTok all the time about transformation.

So it's like weight loss, whatever.

and so you could almost make it where you're not talking about a gum obviously it's like you know somebody being like my you know they use the trending music that people are using and they would put them up there and they would like highlight the different things on the facial symmetry and this and that and then

like look at his jawline right and why this what you're saying why this person is attractive the human mind is attracted to symmetry the golden ratio stuff like that you exactly you use like oh i'm kind of teaching you a science about why or or you could even do like why guys don't think this guy's

attractive but girls do yep and you're like oh okay what's the difference there or you could do a transformation and be like i did five things i took creatine i did this yep the third thing is i started chewing this gum daily honestly i didn't believe it but look at this boom boom and then you're like

it's available on amazon back to my story about like you know my transformation to be a video like that yep that was one of the first ones that blew up on evil goods was literally that this girl had like hormonal acne and it was like the it was the three things that helped with that and she showed a before

picture and after and that was part of it and it just went nuclear all right so we got our our our hooks there uh we got our brand chisel so what was the other one you said you're like basically we can fund a startup right now we can find an operator it's a request for operator yes luxury pet is screaming

at me. Like Louis Vuitton is doing full pop -ups of $500 dog bowls.

And it just shows again, it's like luxury is such an interesting world, right?

Cause it's just like signaling and status and what are people willing to pay?

There's no luxury pet brands yet.

Dude, you hit it again where my initial reaction is, oh my God, that's so stupid.

What a waste. I can't believe people are doing this, but you're saying people are doing this period.

That's the important part.

Louis Vuitton validated it.

This is stupid. It's the second part of the sentence.

people are doing this.

That's a fact, Jack.

You can't deny that.

Well, I've just seen, so I had this idea probably like 18 months ago when I was just hearing what people spend on their pets.

Like it's actually insane from a, like even the pet supplements, you know, it's like they're paying more for pet supplements than human supplements.

And so I'm like, okay, there's something here.

I wonder if you could ever do anything luxury.

And then Louis Vuitton rolls out literally like, you know, it's like lovers, like pet lovers.

and they're doing $500 dog bulls and, you know, $300, you know, high -end leather collars.

I'm just like, oh, validated.

And how many do you have to sell in that area too, to, to have a successful business, you know?

Yeah. So my initial hesitation would have been, can you build luxury on Tik TOK?

Like, isn't Tik TOK kind of like, you know, it's more like a Walmart than it is like a luxury, but maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe it's just, there's a billion people on it.

And so you can't generalize like that that and that's what i love that's what i said let's not do a disservice to the app and the and the platform they build that's why down amazon with genius genius is a very high -end supplement brand like we were selling um you know i mean we had we had 130 product

that was by all intents and purposes like luxury and i go that would never work on amazon it's a discount site and and tiktok has a lot of those components in it now too but again you tie back to a billion people and you tie back to, I mean, my cologne's $90.

So it's that, that's not, that's not cheap, right?

It's not a $30 cologne, $30 colognes outsell us, but I only need to sell one of those for every three and, um, and it's done well.

So I think it's, it's there.

And how would you, if you did this luxury thing, like what would you do to make it, to build the brand?

Cause I think you study high fashion, you study like kind of the cool stuff in culture.

What would you do if you were translating that to the Tik TOK world?

What would you do for a luxury pet brand?

Do you know Rene Girard, like Peter Thiel?

Yeah, yeah, like Mimetic Theory.

I love that. Explain the simple explanation of that.

I mean, people don't know what they want, so they want what others want.

And so from our perspective as brand owners, influencing influencers and finding those names, I think the most straightforward way to run this one is find one of these streamers.

Or, you know, if I could get a clip of Drake using my cologne and then give it to the creator army, we would do millions of dollars.

And I think you can do that in pet where I don't know if Kim Kardashian has a freaking poodle or whatever.

Sure. She does. But not even that you don't even need that big of name, just someone in that space.

And then you feed us the army.

And I think that's the most straightforward thing.

And I think it would go overnight.

Yeah. I almost wonder if you could even just use the outrage.

um so like yeah the cost of it of the cost i was thinking that i can't believe people are doing this this is the craziest thing i've seen celebrities are doing this it it makes me sick whatever and some people in the car like it'll get to so many people and most of the comments will be negative about the idea but it's

just going to get so much reach that some people are going to either just it'll plant the seed that this exists yeah that i'm not doing it that other people are doing it that hey maybe i would do that i do love my pet yeah or even like you could even play into Louis Vuitton doing it like with the, you

know, there's I think there's a lot of different ways to approach it.

And I just liked those areas where there's, there's that much margin to play.

There's just more. And, and again, it ties back to like human nature.

We exist in a culture in a world where we've created so much abundance, like bottom line, like, like we could afford things like universal basic income and we're automating the hell out of everything and anything and everything is, is freaking possible.

And so with that mind, there's really no shortage.

Like you see some of the services that exist for billionaires, like it is just the most absurd hyper, but it exists.

And the people providing those do well.

Isn't that like a Hormozzi thing?

He says, sell, I want to sell to people with more money or whatever.

Yeah. Something like that.

One of his genius insights.

Sell to the people with money.

But there is a, there is a, like a actual like business framework here, which is if you take what the rich have, but you find a way to democratize it, you can build a huge business.

So Uber is a classic example.

this rich people had private drivers where you know when they're done with it when they're done with the meeting they send a text done driver pulls up they get in they get out they don't have to go worry about parking and gas some there's a guy who does that uber democratized that private driver experience

and it literally that was their home page was a private driver for everyone um and so like that became that was the start of uber black cars um you know even airbnbs what is an airbnb it's having a vacation home yep it's being able to go and stay in a home in you know tahoe or in all these different

places. Airbnb became a thing that rich people have, vacation homes in different cities.

But now everybody gets access to that in a different way.

Marquee jets was private flight.

So instead of buying a private jet, you know, $50 million, $100 million, you would instead buy a fractional share and get to ride certain hours.

And there was a huge market of people that wanted to do that.

Even JSX now probably to some extent.

Dude, JSX is exactly like that.

So, you know, that's a bit, if you can find a way to drop the cost and, you know, even Duolingo, We have rich people who will hire a Mandarin tutor for their kid, but then if you have an app that can teach your kid a foreign language, in a way, it's doing the same thing.

I think that is just generally a business model.

What are the mistakes people make?

If somebody was to go into this, what are the common pitfalls someone could fall into that you could just save them?

Super top of the funnel here, how they treat those affiliates.

It's very culture -based.

I've seen brands There's so much money being made right now Brand owners need to be super generous Because you know a market's a market And right now people are paying You talked about the goalie challenge Yeah explain this because that was an old episode So explain what they were doing This brand comes

in And in an effort to get as many creators as possible Put together all these prizes With like the number one If you did a million dollars in sales for them in a month I believe they'd give you a condo in Brickell Or the cash equivalent Which was like 600 grand Or something like that like Lamborghini

was the next one it was like this like rewards to your list Rolexes left and right and you're selling goalie gummies like they just make these like apple cider vinegar gummies basically which also was a health kind of like a holistic health wellness things apple cider vinegar has benefits in your gut

and whatever maybe maybe yeah that well that at the time was the narrator said so yeah this 22 year old who's trying to trying to win a condo told me that that's how this the world works oh man do you believe any advertising at this point no Once you've seen how the sausage is made.

There's a reason I hate supplements too.

I'm not launching new supplements.

I mean, there's some good stuff out there.

But overall, when you really peel back all the… A decent amount of health advice online nowadays is coming from 18 -year -olds making conspiracy videos.

That's pretty wild.

It's reality. So a brand like Goli comes in though and they set the stage for how creators are being treated.

And obviously, they have a lot of money, and they're trying to mess the game up for everyone else, right?

They can afford that, maybe lose some money.

But then if you're this startup brand owner, and you're coming in, and you're, no, man, I don't want to give you 25 % commission, I'm going to give you 20.

And that can be super off -putting.

And so in this current era, I would say, and even the culture from the group we own part of, it's like abundance.

It's like, put it out there, it's going to come back.

And I think as an owner of a brand, bringing that, not accepting that we are a different generation and not infringing on them.

I think that's the best thing you can do.

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So put that you heard about this on MFM so I know to give you a little extra love.

Now back to the show.

All right, give me your like, just summarize.

If I tuned out and I just need to hear one thing to summarize what your thoughts are on this kind of TikTok opportunity.

Give me a little summary that I want to ask you about some other stuff.

Millions are being printed on TikTok shop.

What are you doing?

like you're just starting brands and and trying to get as many i'm trying to perfect short -form content and short -form content distribution like period from uh from a brand why do you believe so much in short -form content because it's it's changing the world in front of our eyes like like it's from personalities

we know to songs we know like it's so like music even we're hearing songs that are blowing up from this world and that's just it's the future do we have this friend connor price have you seen what he does on tiktok wait who's he again he's a his rapper white guy rapper yes yes yes yes yes he used to

work in ramon's warehouse like moving boxes no shit and he was like and then during covet warehouse shuts down he goes home his wife's like you should put your music out there let's do something we're just sitting at home um and he was really shy about it and she's like you got to start making content

he puts out a youtube video and it gets like you know 11 views like most YouTube videos do and then she had this genius she's like she's the real mastermind behind it because she was like let's make a TikTok and he was like he had the same reaction TikTok that's stupid that's not serious like I'm an artist

I'm a musician I'm not just one of these kids dancing and what he did was he started making these videos we'll put one on the screen here so people can watch it but he created a little skit so his instead of just saying what I would have done like a boomer is I would have been like hey guys I got a new

song here or I would just make a video of like playing the song and guess what happens when you're scrolling through TikTok you're swiping every three seconds and a song starts to play that you've never heard before you just keep swiping like it doesn't grab you right away so instead he started doing

these funny skits where he would he was three characters almost like an Eddie Murphy movie he would open the door like every skit starts opening the door and there's that's the rapper coming into the studio he's got the guy with the headphones on that's him as the producer and then you have the weird

brother and the weird brother is kind of the key to make the whole thing work so he would walk in and he'd be like yo you ready for a session whoa what's he doing and just immediately you want to know well what's he doing why is he surprised and the weird brother is doing like he has one where he's

taking a carrot and he's drilling holes in a carrot and you're like and it's like the sound of a drill it's the carrots visually weird and they're both like he's being weird again and then he's like let's get down to work you want to play that song and then the then you hear this flute playing and they

both look at the brother and he's playing the carrot flute but it's the beat of the song like it just he overlaid it that way as if that was the beat and the producer's like go with it go with it and then he starts rapping and then then the song hits and the song is almost the punchline of the skit

yep and dude he became like independently no record label billion streams on spotify doing no marketing on spotify only on tiktok off that if I want to summarize all of this is it it almost seems dark for a second but like one of my favorite you know quotes is you know if you tell a lie enough times

it becomes truth and that was obviously war propaganda back in the day but you take that idea and then you just think purely in terms of views and more specifically cost of acquisition of views so you have like a um you know when if you're a tobacco company whenever and you're getting doctors to promote

it Like you have the money to get the views and the net and control the narrative.

Right. And the more you can do that, it's usually a pay to play game, except in these windows when all of a sudden an Andrew Tate burst on the scene, it doesn't matter what he's saying is real or not.

He's getting seen a billion times a month.

And so all of a sudden that becomes, there's some narrative there being formed that he has serious impact on.

And these gold rush windows are when there's the ability for normal people without, you know, multinational level marketing budgets to form a mainstream narrative or get a billion views on a Spotify and, you know, become something because of these windows.

We couldn't have done that.

He couldn't have done that without TikTok.

Like he just, the old Instagram, you wouldn't have gone viral on.

There's no means of connecting.

Yes. This amazing circle, like 12 years ago, Instagram comes out and imagine if you were like, what are you doing all day today?

It's like, oh, I'm filming myself.

I'm cooking at home and taking pictures of it or making videos of it.

Yeah, you're a weirdo.

Dude, get a job. What are you doing?

So you go from weirdo wasting his time, but you were early on the platform, to now, let's say you wanted to go become a food creator.

It's like, dude, it's too saturated, man.

It's impossible to win.

But now everybody's accepted that influencers are a thing and that they can move product.

They can become rich.

They can become famous doing this.

And what you're saying is kind of like on TikTok, it's the same model, but instead of you becoming a famous creator, it's your product can become famous by putting it in the hands of talented people who are going to make all kinds of videos, taking literally like a thousand shots on goal a month.

And if they get the right story or the right premise and they keep innovating on that, your product gets famous that way.

Whereas, dude, you weren't going to be able to walk into Walmart or Target and get on the shelf.

You're not even going to be able to really go onto Amazon and just rank number one in these categories because they're so competitive anymore, right?

You're not gonna become an influential creator on Instagram, it's harder.

This is where the green field is.

My dad called me an idiot when I was pouring into Amazon.

Like actually, like, you know, like questioned my sanity as like a human, right?

Like it was like a crazy experience.

Now in hindsight, it's like, God, thank God.

30 million dollars later.

Yeah, thank God, I didn't listen to my parents, you know?

And it's just, that's why I admire guys.

Elon's a good example.

I think when you look through things, look at things from like a very ground up perspective and don't take the common.

There's so much arbitrage everywhere because humans are narrative machines and we live off that.

So it's like common knowledge becomes whatever.

And yet technology is reshaping everything.

That's why I just want to keep leaning into that and being, I think more people that aren't afraid to just send it with like that in mind in some capacity, the more it gives others the confidence to stand up on their own right and do their own thing, you know?

Right. I like that you said, send it.

You have this phrase I like.

So we talk about looks -maxing.

You have said this phrase before, life -maxing.

Yeah. And I kind of like the philosophy, but I don't really fully know it because we've only hung out in group settings a bunch of times.

What is the life -maxing philosophy?

Is this something that you think more people should be kind of taken as a mantra?

Yeah, I think so. I think there's a lot of existential dread in today's world.

And there's also a lot of us trying to describe— people you mean especially amongst successful people especially amongst successful people and it manifests in all all sorts of weird ways you know look at ryan johnson um i'm kidding but love you brian no he's awesome he really is he really is and i think

he's a good example of someone that that's all in on life maxing because everyone my thing is we have this he took it literally he did lifespan maxing lifespan maxing but we have this blank you know uh scorecard right and and we have this finite time here on the earth and i think the more you can fill

it up with things that you thoroughly enjoy and then kind of like maxing out those stats so to speak we're capable of so much and instead we fall into this like oh i'm only gonna chase money or oh i'm only going to do this where living a well -rounded life what's the difference between just being well

-rounded and life -maxing are they the same thing with just a cool name or is there a difference probably i don't see many people it ties back to that full sending it thing i don't see many people that are really like yo i'm living for this like um what was your your shower thoughts this morning my shower

thought was i realized that the the optimal way in terms of uh how the optimal mindset for me is to be ignorant of the past, realistic about the present and delusional about the future.

Too many people are living in their past or they vacation there all the time.

They just keep going to visit and they tell themselves it's for all kinds of reasons.

Maybe it's therapies, tell them to go think about their childhood.

Maybe it's they're saying, I'm going to go learn lessons.

Reality is the more you live in your past, the less happy you are.

You want to be delusional about the future why not why be realistic about the future because you can be only when you're a little bit delusional about the future do you actually like kind of blow your own mind you get to you get to do more than what you thought was reasonable but then you got to be

realistic about the president if you're just delusional about the president you're like no i am the best dad but you're not then you go nowhere right oh i'm already uber duber successful like bro your bank accounts you know three digits right now it's like you got to be realistic but just say like all

right that's where i am but it's not where i'm always gonna be forget the past it don't matter if i failed 10 times like most the most successful people when you talk to them they're like yeah 10 years you grind it if you ask them like what was that like what were you doing it's almost hard for them

to even remember yeah and it's not because it was so long ago it's because there's actually like a a useful part of your brain that just blocks it out like it's like my wife she did like natural delivery of birth like three times and if i ask her about it it's like her body has like a mechanism that's

like you never forgot that you need to i never forgot i'm traumatized i'm like how could you do this to me she's like what are you talking about i'm with you i'm fainting right and then she's and she's like forgot about it she's like only remembers the good it's like wow yeah your brain gave you a survival

mechanism that was actually really good for you that you don't remember how bad it was how hard it was and i think ignorant of the past realistic about the present delusional about the future i think that's a good motto to live by So I take that there's two things.

I'm obsessed with this idea of character design and that's what I'm living real time.

I think we have the ability when you zoom out long enough to create literally whatever type of thing you want to be like you can you can truly design that.

And so you have that.

And then you have another idea I'm obsessed with, which is Bezos is 80 year regret minimization framework where he wants to like that view of his deathbed.

You know how he wants as few regrets as possible.

And so when you work through those two avenues, you can quite literally like do anything so explain the character design because i've heard the regret minimization which is basically like if i'm dying i want to have the least regrets possible so therefore today which if i have a fork in the road yeah

you know do the one that will lead to the least regrets when i'm 80 when i'm 90 that ties back to your piece be relatively delusional about the future while being very aware of where you're at today while pretty much disregarding everything right and so like when i look at like like this you know like

i this is music i've been working on, right?

And I remember going to a show in Puerto Rico, John Summit.

And I was like, you know, in the booth right next to the DJ thing and just watching him command that crowd and the energy and like the impact.

And I was like, you know, if I'm 80 years old and I didn't at least try to send it in this space, I'll regret it.

And then I start thinking through the character lens of what does an artist look like?

And what is this? Like things I have in me.

So I'm not like completely disconnected from reality but now taking all of the hey this is a business hey now the product's music hey this is streaming hey you know marketing and and that's that's where i'm at with it one of the things that you're reminding me of when you're talking about let's say

the music production or getting people to remember is you were talking about whether it's marketing or music or if you have something good to say you almost owe it to yourself it's like do you believe in the thing you made the thing you have to say because people are very bashful about marketing they're

bashful about putting it out there i know this i would write things i wouldn't even send it to my own friends and family i wouldn't post on social media i wouldn't promote my product i just kind of wanted it to be organic and i when i look back at that i'm like damn i did myself a disservice like did

i think the thing i did was good or not if i think it was good then I owe it to that to do marketing, to send it, to fully send it, and send it.

And you know, when you, uh, when you talk about storytelling music, you got to study the art of how do you get your, your stuff out there?

It's a phenomenal skill.

It's like a crazy, crazy, like that's the vehicle.

You put the package in the trunk, but you need the vehicle.

That's going to actually get it out there to the masses.

It's crazy, dude. We're going to watch this video, this, this YouTube video right now.

You just said it yourself.

What you said in this video will make people millions of dollars.

All they did was just try to act on it.

Give it two years, try to act on it.

You will become a millionaire if you just follow what you just said.

And if I go look at the YouTube video stats, the retention chart is going to look like it's just a downhill slope.

Most people are going to click off within 30 seconds.

And then by the end of this, there's only going to be, you know, 25 % of people are still watching this at the end.

I mean, 75 % of people clicked on this because they wanted something out of their life and then are not going to even stick with enough to watch the video yep but that's just the laws of nature and don't be that guy but with that in mind I think this last chunk of the video where we're talking about these

stories and the ability like the model is becoming less important the more I understand people and and tapping into whatever that innate thing in all of us is is way more important and I want to bring that out of more people because I've been through like a ton of stuff in a in a short period of time

and I think the more i can bring that forward the more general impact they'll be there there's one of my other favorite internet clips you know that for the elon musks and like what brett hancock do you have him on or not like adcock sorry there's those minds that are just like obviously incredible

in their own space but then there's that elon interview and it's like elon you inspire everyone in this room who inspires you it's like kanye west of course you know it's just like what he said it's hilarious and it's it's it's that's the opposite side of that like yeah okay kanye is nuts in every way

but just that ability and desire to create and stand up for new things and and like have that confidence in yourself regardless what people say is nothing short of not only incredible but necessary for for people i love the send it attitude i mean i want to make merch with the send it thing and also i

think you you made me realize there's probably the way i used to think about it which is well -rounded um you know mike posner came on the podcast the famous musician he wrote like took a pill and a visa and all the songs first song went viral and he tells the story he's like first song went viral i'm

like of course that's what i do you know like uh i guess that's what i do i put out a song i go triple platinum and then the second song went double platinum then single platinum then no platinum and then he was on the shelf the record label was like it's not even worth paying to produce your music

because we don't think it'll sell but also you can't go do something else you're under contract so he was like dude i'm shit out of luck he like went back to school and started learning how to sing better he's like do i just work on my craft and then he came back and now he's had he's like had this resurgence

but he talked about he goes i had to look at my life and realize yes i was uber duber successful in my career but i was a desert wasteland in relationships and health and whatever he's like that i realized was just not success for me.

And so I was inspired by that.

And I started thinking, yeah, you do want it to be well -rounded.

You want to be the dad, the husband.

You also want to be having fun.

You also want to be creative and making cool shit, being successful, making money.

But the well -rounded thing is more like a check the box.

It's like, am I doing a sufficient amount of X, Y, and Z?

Whereas life maxing is saying, what would it look like if I really sent it in terms of my fitness?

like yeah I'm going to work out anyways but like I know you do Muay Thai right you're like I'm going to work out for an hour anyways what could I do that makes me like what would be full send on this workout dramatically better and that's the great example it's like two years ago I couldn't fight at all

and I feel pretty comfortable like in there with a lot of people that aren't named John Jones you know but just taking things seriously and really putting that notch on your belt it's like now music or even like learning Spanish is one that I'm like going to do and I'm going to take it very seriously

and it's not gonna be i'm half learning spanish i'm gonna be fluent in you know do you do these one at a time or how do you how do you like how do you not stretch yourself that's what i'm discovering it's like like how much and i like that healthy balance of pushing yourself to we're capable of so much

more than we give ourselves credit for i've already i've already seen that but there is some line and so i don't have a good answer for that but that's i'm trying to also be an open book and show it all real time like i want you to look back at my fighting clips from two years ago.

And I want, you know, the meat, like all of it.

I want to be an open story that is ongoing and constantly iterating.

So this year, Jesse Hitzler came on the podcast and gave this idea of a Misogi.

He's like, oh, there's this Japanese tradition and the way, kind of the American translation or the way he translated the Japanese idea is one grand challenge a year, but specifically like do something so grand that it changes you.

That it changes you.

So then it's like, so he, for him, it was like he ran this hundred mile race.

Like, and he, every year he picks a different one.

One year was write a book, uh, another year.

So he's done this for like 15 years or so.

And I was like, damn, I never really do something like that, right?

Like I have like New Year's resolutions, things I want to improve about myself, but I never really like put out the Masogi, the grand challenge for the year.

And so I made one, I was like, all right, I want to, and I like that it's one.

Cause I was like, oh, I want to do this and this and this.

And all that was going to do was guarantee none of them happened.

Yep. So, all right, what's the one for this year?

and i was like i would love to be i was like i want to have more fun in my life i have fun playing basketball i have fun doing the podcast i have fun you know in business my kids where can i where can i dial up fun and i was like i want to be able to jam out with music because music is like its own

little like magic potion music makes you feel good in 13 seconds i can play a song and change your mood in 13 seconds there's not much i can say to you that's going to do that like to change your mood for the better um and so i was like all right i want to be able to jam out on a on a piano.

But then I was like, all right, what's the life -maxing version of this?

So I was like, all right, not only am I going to learn to, not only just going to learn piano, like I'm going to get good.

I'm going to be able to jam out to any song I want onto piano.

That's going to be my mission.

Two, what if I could also teach my daughter?

She's five. I was like, what if she could do it with me?

Now I'm getting dad points while I'm getting piano points at the same time.

I mean, those synergies to weave it all together.

I was like, oh, it's integration.

I'm not choosing family or my piano hobby.

It's both. So she comes with me to every single lesson.

She begs me to do piano now every night.

I'm like, okay, that's cool.

Then I was like, all right, what would be like the max out the full send version of this?

If I really was to send it, what would I do?

And at first I was like, what would I make a song?

Would I perform at a theater?

And I felt like that's kind of playing somebody else's game.

So I think a key part is like, pick what's real for you.

Don't just like take somebody else's scorecard and be like, that's now how I'm going to judge myself so i had this idea from my cousin of um go play go play a recital at an old folks home okay i was like oh that'd be just like more fun like that would just be more fun for me more meaningful for me versus

like post it online and get a bunch of views or perform it in front of other people it's like dude go to this place where i've been to a bunch of like senior centers uh not a lot is happening there like i could go be there kanye because there's nobody else there yeah and for me that would be meaningful

like i made other people's day brighter if i did that so I was like to me that was a real learning lesson of like how to choose these side quests how to choose these misogis these one year challenges in a way that I'm going to use now going forward absolutely I think you hit the nail on the head with being

hyper individualized like my my life maxing scorecard is not is not yours and it shouldn't be we're all drawn to different things and and I think keeping it individual is important while keeping that like my main framework is like don't let anyone else dictate it for you or don't let anyone tell us

tell you what you can't be or can't do right what's your what's yours like what do you what does that scorecard look like for you uh so i'm like muay thai starting to take like a back burner thing i'm putting you know being a dad at the the top of that which has been so that that's like reshuffling

everything because i'm learning what it means to be present as an individual and that means like you know way less phone which inherently means like it starts to crumble some of the other pieces but the beautiful part of this is when you put your priorities in in place things start to handle themselves

like then all of a sudden you start thinking smarter just naturally like okay like that still has to get done so i have to trust you know my team for that and this and that so that that's at the top of it um the the the music is the second second piece and then still the other uh you know it's like

i'm taking content as one of these things now like just from a storytelling some of the stuff i'm gonna do on youtube i think is gonna is gonna well let's talk about content real quick because when i first met you um through a mutual friend you showed up and you had this like again you always have a different

like crazy outfit on and somebody was like oh you gotta check out his instagram and i go and i was like bro like i was having a great conversation with you and then i went to your instagram and i was like i was like i would never talk to this guy your brand name was like the genius ceo every video was like

dan bilzerian meets like instagram meets like a drop shipper it was like it was like oh man this guy's selling courses and every video was like over the top he's talking about how you can make millions instantly it was a get rich quick vibes but i met you i was like dude you you yeah and you and you

were like i'm like you're like it's an experiment like i'm being intentional i'm intentionally turning that knob up that way because i want to see what happens and you were into that at the time i think now you're making a shift but like did you just describe what you what you did there because i almost

once i met you and i was like oh that's he created a character so my i was like that that's actually respectable in a way i i'm huge like one of my core things is obviously intense ownership of like oneself and one of my problems after i sold that business with genius i had my first daughter i was really

frustrated with the world like i just was and it started to become like a cope and like you know other people have weird ways of ducking ownership and responsibility and like disconnecting from their own unhappiness and i remember just thinking like i don't like where the world's headed and so i could sit

there and keep crying about it or i could try to have some influence or some dent on it and that's what kind of drew me to intentional social media i had tried to do like this cool health content and like like i was doing not not full brian johnson but like dave asprey level stuff like seven eight years

ago like hyperbaric chamber red light and like literally nobody cared nobody cared and now in hindsight the nice guy was finishing last yeah and in hindsight it was i didn't know how to make the content yet right but i saw this like clear formula of oh my god if i post a car like i am actually rich

i still have business and if you post a car or watch or whatever people respond and so as that started to work i started doubling down on those those things and um it wasn't until like you kind of got to play the game to change the game a little bit it was was my opinion and um that's when you met me

kind of in that wave where like food irrelevant even if maybe not in the right right lens but until you have learned those skills and learned to kind of you know develop a platform then then literally nobody cares like nice guy does finish last and so i guess that's just been my personal evolution like

it's been fun because i got i'll be the first to say i got way too far in that stuff like i got lost in it like that actually does happen ben your your partner um flagged that for me like seven or eight months ago in a really casual ben way but like you know non -confrontational what did he say to you

it was just something along the lines of like well if you if you do that stuff enough don't you start to kind of believe it or or become it and that stuck with me and i don't think he knows that stuck with me i don't even know if he remembers he said that but there were a lot of little things like that that prompted

me it's like an actor you stay in character because you're doing it for the role but then at some point it's method acting yeah you lose yourself and you get lost in the song and actually that happened to me and and unfortunately like a lot of the things i was leaning into do make you like cool or whatever

so now there's this this audience that looks up to you in a very specific light so you have two choices you keep down the same path or you say whoops you know like this is what i actually am and so i feel like i've separated a lot of the negative parts while still like i love fashion i love design like

i i genuinely do i think it's individualism i think there's like you know um can we do the fashion uh okay so so here's me i have nike shoes it should have been this new balance to go full dad mode i'm wearing sweat pants and a plain black shirt those coby's though the no these are not coby's these

are 90 nikes i just like this color of green so let's go head to toe teach me what you what you got San Francisco and I love it I got matching socks today that's only because I knew I had to step my game up for you normally it'd be mismatched socks it'd be more sweat jeans these are Lulu's at least

and then like this might be my daughter's but I was like oh hold on he's gonna have hella accessories let me come strong with the I got less accessories than usually so I'll start with the wrist how much you think this is you start with the wrist is that like part of the fashion no no build around this I

don't want to talk about Louis Vuitton okay uh that looks looks fancy to me All right, my honest guess would have been that that's a $20 ,000 watch.

This is a vintage Oakley from the 90s, and it was $3 ,500.

Okay. So I don't believe that expense and cost.

I have some expensive stuff, but I think it's way cooler to put together unique kind of stuff.

This shirt is, this gentleman, the brand's ERL, I can't pronounce his name, but he's the head photographer for Vogue, and he did all of Kendrick Lamar's stuff.

again not super expensive but like very on the come up the jeans were from kanye's like this was probably like he's not cheap like probably 300 bucks or something but not mind -blowing um kanye's free larry hoover tour with with drake these were probably like 150 bucks like expensive louis vuitton boots

which were expensive are $2 ,500 i love what pharrell is one of my business idols.

I think there's a huge gap between, um, like artistry, culture, and actual business for all has that quote.

It's, uh, creativity without business is victimization and business without creativity is just dumb.

And I think he stepping into the head of Louis Vuitton, like a brand I would typically never wear or care about is the perfect example of those two things, merging creativity with meaningful enterprise.

Bernard, our nose, those top three richest people because of that all right i got a little bit i got a little bit cooler i don't think i could pull it off but maybe i don't know you got to give me like the uh the dad baby steps version of these i'm gonna start just i'm gonna start at the wrist take

a take a simple and then we'll go from there actually i should just show up for um he should have done a thing where it's like i don't know if you've seen rick glassman he does these interviews where he does a podcast but he'll go and then it'll cut and they'll switch outfits and so it's so funny when they

do shit like that but we'll just pretend i did that that's awesome uh rob thanks for coming on man you uh everybody should find you rob the bank which is one of the greatest handles of all time thank you for that well you were already saying it i didn't come up with it but i was like dude that should be

your hand that should be your brand what is this the genius ceo no no no you should be rob the bank and just wait full disclaimer before we you know my last company was the genius brand so i didn't just you know it just looked that it looked that but no thank you for having me seriously like this means

the world i really appreciate it thanks for doing it i feel like i can rule the world i know i could be what i want to i put my all in it like no days off on the road let's travel never looking back hey sean here i want to take a minute to tell you a david ogilvie story one of the great ad men he said

remember the consumer is not a moron she's your wife.

You wouldn't lie to your own wife.

So don't lie to mine.

And I love that you guys, you're my family.

You're like my wife and I won't lie to you either.

So I'll tell you the truth for every company I own right now, six companies, I use Mercury for all of them.

So I'm proud to partner with Mercury because I use it for all of my banking needs across my personal account, my business accounts.

And anytime I start a new company, it's my first move.

I go open up a Mercury account.

I'm very confident in recommending it because I actually use it.

I've used it for years.

It is the best product on the market.

So if you want to be like me and 200 ,000 other ambitious founders, go to mercury .com and apply in minutes.

And remember, Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank.

Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank and Trust members FDIC.

All right, back to the episode.

[The TikTok Gold Rush: Mastering the Modern Playbook for Explosive Brand Growth]-[The TikTok strategy that’s printing MILLIONS right now… (ft. Rob The Bank)]

📋 Summary

The TikTok Gold Rush: A New Paradigm for Commerce

The New Playbook: From Influencers to Creator Armies

Case Studies: From Supplements to Fragrance

Life-Maxing: A Philosophical Framework

Conclusion: The Era of Distribution

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript