The Exchanges

Q a man slicing a bullet, uh, using his katana. But first, a quick break. Okay, so, I was on your YouTube today, and most popular video is this Jacked guy, no shirt on, slicing a bullet in midair with a katana. How do you think of this idea? Or how did someone on your team think of this idea? And did you know it would crush before you posted it?

A Yeah. So this has been done before. Just for like, there's, there's a guy in Japan that did this. So we're not original here. Uh, we just like, I think filmed it better. Um, but I, so that video, we knew it would do well. We wouldn't know it would do that well. We never know how well a video is going to do. Like, that's kind of hard to figure out. Um, it's all just rolling the dice, but I will say that video was also kind of a negative video, and that always shocks people, because what ended up happening is we got record views that month, sure, for that year, but also we got record low conversions, because that video was too low intent. It's like severely low intent, and it crowds out every other video that's high intent.

AI assessment note: “this has been done before... we knew it would do well.”

Q So recently, you guys introduced a second category of product, right? Like, you've gone into pens. Talk about the decision of when to introduce kind of a second product category. So like, how did you know it was the right time without losing focus or diluting your business? And why did you choose pens?

A So I think it's the right time when you, when you feel like you've reached a cap for your acquisition channel for your current category, and you should start anticipating that. I was talking earlier in the podcast that we're probably going to hit our cap sometime this year, right? Early next year. And I'm anticipating that. So that's why we're rolling out new product categories. We're doing pens. We're doing apparel soon. And we're also going to try like other experience, like limited drops and other categories just for fun. But if they work really well, we might do it as a real category. Um, I also think like we're at the size where it can't dilute our business because we, we have like people in the right places handling all the right priorities. Right. Um, I went into pens because pens are potentially a nine figure, nine figure category. Um, and that fixes like the small market size of the sword problem. The real play with the pens is they're actually an ad spend product. So I'm trying to like acquire a new acquisition channel for my customers.

AI assessment note: “I went into pens because pens are potentially a nine figure, nine figure category.”

Q on most DTC brands and why it's gonna be very hard for them to survive, especially if they're not creating organic content. So we'll talk about that in a minute, but okay. So you went from wholesaler, worked with sourcing agent, Who was working with the factories to make your own swords? And then when, basically when was the, the massive inflection point in the business? When did that happen?

A So basically I did something very sneaky. When you're growing really fast, you don't have cash. And if you're like a nobody like me, nobody's going to give you cash. Right? So I had this massive issue where I needed to fund swords, custom swords, which are really expensive to make, uh, without having any product. So what I did is I made one A single one after, like, the happiest sample I got was the one sample I used, and I pre-sold it. I pre-sold 300 units for, like, 150 bucks or something, and I included, like, a free item in there just, like, as a gift for the pre-sale. My customers waited four months for me to have a product, but I managed to, like, fund the entire first purchase order with that. And that's like what really changed my business. So instead of like borrowing money from, you know, high risk lenders or, or whoever, like that's what I ended up doing.

AI assessment note: “I pre-sold 300 units... managed to, like, fund the entire first purchase order”

Q Because people pick up on what is currently novel. So I think that makes a ton of sense. Okay, so let, let's fast forward to today. Today, give kind of the summary on the business. Uh, how big is the business? Like, what, what will, what are you hoping top line will be for the business in 2023? How big is the team? And how big is your YouTube now?

A Sure. Um, so let's start with the views. Last month we had three hundred million views. We added about 200, give or take 200,000 net new subs across our platforms. Um, and our big achievement, our second YouTube channel finally got 200,000 subs. Um, so that's fun. Um, yeah, like revenue is our number one. Target. It's always like views and followers. Um, and what we really look at is how many followers we're getting for those views, because that means people are really committed to you now as a creator. Um, so like that's starting off there. And then for revenue, our target for this year is 15. Um, like we're barely above 10, just so everyone out there knows we're not huge. Um, I think there's a real cap to our market though, because we're such a, we're a niche business no matter what we do.

AI assessment note: “for revenue, our target for this year is 15. Um, like we're barely above 10”

Q What were the other ones, by the way? What were the seven other businesses?

A Sure. Uh, so I did an e-commerce store where we, like, put your dog's face all over these pajamas, and that was called Pups and PJs, and that was just, like, did not work for Facebook ads, and I did not know what I was doing. Um, another one was a social media app called Gaggle, and it just died because of the pandemic, uh, because it was, like, you know, we were using college campuses to market it. It barely launched two months in. The pandemic hits, everything closes, and I can't market it anymore, and I need to give up. Um, I've done, like, a fintech app that just failed. Um, I just, I've tried everything I could think of, and it was always, like, the average lifespan was always eight months, right? So, like, I, I'm, I'm, like, even today in my business, we find these things that are, like, produce hyper-sized outcomes, because we're willing to try everything, and as soon as it feels like this is not going to work, or it's too hard, we move on to the next thing.

AI assessment note: “an e-commerce store where we, like, put your dog's face all over these pajamas”

Q Are you a solo founder by choice? Like, do you prefer being a solo founder and what do you view as the pros and cons of doing this whole journey by yourself on your own?

A I think the biggest con is, like, sometimes you feel like you're insane because, like, nobody's gonna get you, right? Uh, it's a lot easier to be a co-founder. Just, that's a very, like, point blank accurate statement, I think, for everyone that's done this solo that we'll agree with. Um, I think the biggest benefit is I get to do whatever I want, right? And I don't have to argue with somebody about it. But it was also, like, twice as hard. And I mean, I remember, like, end of last year, like, I almost, like, broke down. I was just, like, I was packing stuff at the warehouse because we did, like, too much, too many sales. We were sold out for two months. Um, this year we've actually been sold out until, like, today we did a restock today.

AI assessment note: “I think the biggest con is... I think the biggest benefit is”