The Exchanges

Q Because if you own your own bookstore, that means that, and you sell 20,000 copies, do they not count all 20,000 in the rankings?

A Yeah. So, I mean, just generally, if you sold 20,000 copies of a book through one bookstore, they would find that to be suspicious, uh, or, or unrepresentative. And there's a chance it could get tossed. If you ever look at the, at the bestseller list and you see like a little, they call it a dagger. It's like a little cross next to certain books. That means that there was a lot of bulk purchases, um, or like suspicious activity. So there could be that. Um, but, uh, The, the Wall Street Journal or BookScan, which is owned by Nielsen, just flat out told me they just don't include, uh, sales from, uh, stores owned by the author anymore, uh, which doesn't strike me as that being a big enough category to have a rule about. But, um, I guess it, it, there's the potential for fraud. Like, I guess, theoretically, I could have just, you know, inflated the numbers or something. So, so there's a chance it could get tossed, but As I have gone on as an author, I've cared, once you get it once, I feel like you have it, and then you also realize, like, kind of how meaningless things are. Uh, so I care a lot less about sort of the status, uh, or the recognition of sales, and I care a lot more about, you know, did I sell as many copies as possible? Uh, to as many people as possible, right? Um, because the whole point of writing a book is for people to read it.

AI assessment note: “they just don't include, uh, sales from, uh, stores owned by the author”

Q Yeah. Just like all this crazy stuff. What, um, what was it like, uh, getting to know that guy? I mean, he, he's one of those guys where like, I actually don't think there is, I don't know him, but where there actually is no balance and he is just really quirky.

A Well, I think, uh, it's, it's both, it's both very understandable and then very inexplicable, right? Like if you had made billions of dollars and you were very powerful, I don't think you would like to be picked on, right? Like I think people were like, why would he do this? And it's like, well, this, this bully came along and humiliated him in his eyes. Like, I, I don't, Like, not being a gay man, I, I can't really fully understand what, what the reaction would be to being outed, and, and, and the, a number of people that I, that I interviewed for the book who were gay, like, they didn't even understand. So, like, let's just, let's just stipulate that his explanation of his experience was that this was humiliating, and he, uh, found it to be very frustrating. Uh, I think when you're at that level, one of the feelings that you don't sit, that doesn't sit well with you is impotence. Right? Like, so when people were like, Peter, there's just nothing you can do about it. He was like, then what the fuck is the point of everything I've done? Right? And so, so in that sense, I think it's very understandable. I think that the problem is if you're the kind of person who it's like, I'm going to spend 10 years Uh, chasing down this media outlet when everyone is telling me not to do that. You're also the kind of person who can get sucked into other things that I think are going to pay off…

AI assessment note: “it's both very understandable and then very inexplicable”

Q sure there's also the upside, right? Like, it's not just what mistakes, but like, How did they make their greatness happen? I think that's actually more of what people care about. How do they make their greatness happen? And then kind of draw parallels to my own life of like, yeah, I, I am just like Edison and the Rothschilds and Disney after all, you know, uh, so similar, right?

A I think, you know, like for Mr. Beast, I think the parallels are super easy with Walt Disney. The thing, the only time that Walt Disney slowed down in his career was for like a decade. And it was because Well, I'd love to be working on a new thing, but a certain point everyone convinced him like, oh, actually you have this enormous multimillion dollar animation studio. Now you just need to be working on pumping out more full length animations. And like when he did that, the whole thing kind of went downhill and then he goes crazy and he starts obsessing over little toy trains and like really going off the rails. But those, those model trains, Then get bigger and bigger and becomes Disneyland. And that is when he comes out of his funk and starts innovating again. And so for Mr. Beast, it's just like the, don't let anyone convince you that you need to be working on the reasonable thing. Like you need to follow your unreasonable passions because some, somehow great things are going to come out of that.

AI assessment note: “you need to follow your unreasonable passions because somehow great things are going to come”

Q matter if the, if the economy is bad, if you can't get 10 customers, it's not going to work anyways. And so I thought it was a great little blog post talking about like kind of starting a startup during the downtime, which is where I think we're about to, or we just officially entered a recession again. So I was curious, Dharmesh, do you have any thoughts on that?

A Yeah. So my position is I, I lean more towards kind of Uh, Paul Graham and the spectrum, which is, I think it's either neutral, that it doesn't matter. It's one of the things you're suggesting, uh, towards positive. Um, and the positive elements of being in a, uh, kind of downturning economy or recession is that, uh, things become available that would not have been available to a startup before, like talent. Um, it's like, oh, well, there are people sitting at meta Facebook or sitting at Google right now that may be reevaluating their lives, or they may have just been let go from a venture-backed, uh, company that raised 200 plus million dollars, right? So now you've got this, um, Talent that's coming on the market that might not have come on the market before, uh, things that were super expensive, like buying Google AdWords or certain marketing channels because you have this glut of money and a glut of venture capital. Um, yeah, I think of venture capital as a very efficient machine of turning like money from LPs into Google AdWords revenue, right? That's, uh, they're just a conduit between the two. Um, and as in a downward economy, you're gonna get less of that kind of glut of money flowing in, which drives the cost overall down for certain things that I think are important to entrepreneurs. So I'm, I'm generally net positive that endowment economy is actually a relatively go…

AI assessment note: “a downward economy is actually a relatively good time to start a startup”

Q So what were the things that were like, besides hard work and, and consistency and talent, what made you guys grow, and what made it work? How do you get to a million subscribers and Mr. Beast doing an interview with you guys?

A Um, my first answer is time and market. Um, I think like we've been in this market for 10 years and that has introduced us to a lot of people that have created opportunity for us as we started to grow, right? Like Jimmy shot us a message. Jimmy is Mr. Beast. Um, he, he shot us a message when we made a video a couple of years ago and he was like, that was a cool video. And we struck up a relationship and we started talking about YouTube because we were both really into it, um, and authentically into it. And that created a situation that, you know, when we got to a point where we had an interview show or talk show, we had a relationship with him such that we could fly out, get access in North Carolina to his new facility. And like, he was excited to, to be on our platform and we, we had that relationship. And I, I think even when I think about an inflection point for our business prior to that was when we, you know, really were, weren't, Catching that much traction from a sponsorship perspective, but we had made some connections to the point that, um, you know, Samsung was looking for creators to partner with on like year long ambassadorship deals. And our names were, were up there because of the relationships we had created in the market. So I would say the fact that we just stuck in it for 10 years has introduced us to people that created opportunity as I would say we are late …

AI assessment note: “my first answer is time and market.”

Q was going to say, I would have thought that you guys had one or two million ish downloads a month, uh, views a month. I'm looking at your stats on social blade. You were at like a million a month every month, 804 105 hundred. And then all of a sudden you got to like 27, 28, forty two million a month. What the hell happened? Is that from shorts?

A That's a lot from shorts, but shorts propelled the other content. Like basically the way we view shorts, like a lot of people had a lot of problem with like, oh, you can't monetize shorts. And I was like, but if I told you as a, as any business that I had a way that was lower lift to get you in front of way more people to get your brand experienced, Exposure to millions of people. Wouldn't you take it? Um, and that's what we did. Like right when shorts kind of emerged, we were like, okay, we can make a short in a day. Whereas it takes us a very, like a week to two weeks to make a full long form YouTube video. Um, we can make a short in a day. And so let's just try it. And as we started to try it, like we had shorts that pushed. Ten million views, twenty million views, seven million views, eight million views. And those people were subscribing. And then there was concern, like, are those people going to watch the other content? But because the shorts were, you know, directly connected to the longer form content, we were just aggregating more people who then watched our library of content. So it worked for us. Um, and that has fluctuated too. I think we're back to like right now, I think we're in like the nine, ten million views a month range on the channel. Um, and shorts are not like as big of a factor. We're not putting out as many shorts, but a lot more people are watching ou…

AI assessment note: “That's a lot from shorts, but shorts propelled the other content.”

Q That's crazy. And what's crazy is 20, ten million today is a lot is a significant amount of money. 20 years ago, ten million was obviously a significant more than it is now. How do you, how did you find your first folks?

A So I was in a Vistage group, uh, which had about 15 members and in a dramatically weird coincidence in 1998 Uh, six of us sold, five or six of us sold our businesses. We were all in that Vistage group because we were business owners trying to be better managers, owners, CEOs. And, uh, we loved the group. And so after our businesses were sold, we didn't want to leave the group, but we found over about a six month period, we were going to meetings, trying to figure out how to make your CFO and your sales team and your production more efficient, but we didn't have that anymore. We were just business. We had sold our businesses. So I frankly, uh, said, wow, I'd like to be spending time with peers, but what I want to be learning is how they're going through this transition of becoming a wealth manager and how they can help each other be more successful managing through that transition. And that was the roots of Tiger.

AI assessment note: “I was in a Vistage group... five or six of us sold our businesses”

Q Okay, amazing. What kind of digital courses? Do you have your own course about courses?

A I do, which is so meta, I know. So basically, here's the thing. Uh, 13 years ago, I worked in corporate. I worked for Tony Robbins, and I was the director of content development. Got to travel the world and work on content that Tony did on stage at, like, Unleash the Power Within, and Date with Destiny, and all those cool events. And I was in a meeting, and I was called, so humbling, I was called into this meeting to take notes. And I walk into this meeting in this big San Diego corporate office, And I walk in and it's a bunch of internet marketers. Now in my world, these are like the grandfather of internet marketers, although that sounds very rude to, to call them grandfathers, but they're like the Mac daddies. So it's like Frank Kern, Brendon Bouchard, Evan Pagan, Jeff Walker, like big name internet marketers that are still doing really big things, but they were the leaders in the industry. I had no idea who these guys were. And here I am at a side table Taking notes, and Tony's going around asking them about their businesses, and what do they do, and how are they making money online, and all I heard was freedom. Like, these guys were running their own businesses, creating digital courses about tons of different topics, and I wanted a piece of that. So, that was like my first entry into this world I knew nothing about, and about six months later or so, I had left my corporat…

AI assessment note: “I do, which is so meta, I know.”

Q you could correct me, I think he would, he would send these really long emails. Like, it felt like 10,000 word text-based emails about how to meet women. And then at the end, you could buy like a 14 dollar book. And I think Craig told us that he was selling like thirty million dollars a year of this book on called Double Your Dating. Have you heard about this?

A Yo, absolutely have heard about it. And I know he's a legend in, in that area. And when he came to the table, I think he had moved on from, um, that part of his business, but that's how he was put on the map. And the one thing that I learned from Evan really early on is he teaches this strategy that you've got to coin your own content. Like you've got to name it. You've got to put a, a title to it. You've got to own it. So one of the things that I've always done when I've created content in my own business is, like, I've got the Porterfield process for outlining your digital course, and the sweet spot for finding what topic to create for your, your course. I name everything and own it, and it sets you up as an expert, and that absolutely came from Evan.

AI assessment note: “Yo, absolutely have heard about it. And I know he's a legend”

Q great business to, to own that. Um, what are some other people who, who you've worked with or that you know of That are like shockingly, that you would tell people and you're like, I can, you would not believe what this person does. You would not believe how much revenue they make or that they sell a course, uh, in this space. Are there any shocking ones like that?

A So one of the ones that always has shocked me, I have this student, her name is Danira, and she lives in LA, single mom, three kids, really small house, not enough rooms for everybody, like she is definitely doing it herself. She was working two jobs, and she was baking, and people would come to her house, they'd pick up a birthday cake, or a celebration cake, or whatever, and that's how one way she was making money. Long story short, cut to creating a digital course, And she became really good at caramel candy apples. So how to create caramel candy apples. And the thing is, the caramel was store bought. It wasn't like her special recipe. Just people didn't know what store to go to or what to buy. And so she started to create these and, um, sell a digital course. Now, a lot of my students, many of them have made seven figures and beyond. But I want to talk about her because she's a woman who made, um, never made over a 100,000 dollars a year. And now in one digital course launch, she made 260,000 dollars selling how to create a caramel candy apples. And she literally was just doing live videos in a private Facebook group. And I always tell that story because a lot of people listening have never created anything in their life online. And they would never even, they're like, my idea can't be good enough or it's not original enough or whatever. And then I think of Denira, a single…

AI assessment note: “one digital course launch, she made 260,000 dollars selling how to create a caramel candy apples”

Q How much did you spend to get the, to, to make it work until like it was a sellable product? Uh, I don't remember, but it was quite a million or 10,500,000. Do you remember?

A Uh, I think it was close to a million. Um, but it was a product that worked only for very small audience, very, very small use case. And it was not real time. So basically what happened was you write a book, a chapter of a book, because it couldn't check the whole book at once, uh, or you write a research paper. You submit it to, uh, the initial, like the old Grammarly, Uh, and then you go make a cup of coffee and then you drink the cup of coffee and then you wait a little bit more and then it spits out the result. Uh, and the result was probably half of it was real issues and half of it was false positives. But at the time, the audience, the, the target market was fine with that because if you spent like two months writing a book, like what's extra half an hour to review all the potential issues, right? Even if they're not real. But that wouldn't fly with, uh, with business writers, for example, if you're writing a business email that you need to send in 20 seconds, you're not going to deal with false positives.

AI assessment note: “Uh, I think it was close to a million.”

Q Where'd you get, it's crazy that you and your family, you just find all these opportunities. Where did it start? So your thing, first thing was a PlayStation website, which, what is that?

A So the site called PSX extreme. Um, we, this is like, I launched like in 98, 99 or something like that. Actually it was 99. It was right before the, the, the bubble, the.com bubble burst. I was like about eight months into the, the, the bubble and it was doing really well. It was very easy to, to generate revenue. And you know, once I got the traffic, it was, the site was all about anything related to PlayStation. So like get cheat codes, your reviews, Um, screenshots, whatever, right? Anything for like PlayStation fans. So it was like a PlayStation fan website. Then the.com bubble hits. My revenues disappeared. 90%. My traffic was still up there, but I had no revenues because all the ad revenue disappeared. Like it went from being three dollars CPM down to 30 cents CPM. If you could be lucky enough to get that.

AI assessment note: “So the site called PSX extreme... the site was all about anything related to PlayStation.”

Q starting, everyone said like, oh, just go on Odesk and hire someone in India to do it. And I'm like, I don't know, man, that doesn't sound like I can like, like, not really. Yeah. So like, what do you, what, what, what are there any agencies that you like or for hiring devs? Are you hiring someone by the hour in America? What, what's, what do you typically see?

A Yeah, I typically see, I see a lot of people going either through referrals, like you get into a community, um, MicroConf Connect, or Indie Hackers, or whatever, Dynamite Circle, and you ask, and you say, who has used someone whom you trust, right? So you try to get that referral, it's not just a, a flat look, because going to Upwork, which used to be Odesk, is kind of a shit show these days. The other thing is, there are now these Uh, referral services, aggregators. There's one called Trust Shoring, which is run by a guy who attends MicroConf, but he basically knows a bunch of Eastern European dev agencies, and if you come to him and say, I want to build an iOS app, he'll say, cool, I have these three agencies that I, that I refer to. He's almost like a broker in a way, but like, he's a good dude, and he knows them, you know, and so he, and he's vetted them, and then there's one called CloudDevs.com, and they do this similar thing for Latin America.

AI assessment note: “I see a lot of people going either through referrals... There's one called Trust Shoring”

Q I know it's tough. And man, I have, you know, my podcast is startups for the rest of us, which I still like, but it feels long now. And I've debated whether to, to change it. Have you guys actually considered it? Cause I'm curious what would go, what would need to go into a name change?

A The problem is, is we considered it like a year ago when we were smaller, but then we were like, back then we were like, Uh, we're too big. Back when we did that, we, we were at, like, three or 400 thousand uniques a month, and, or visitor, or, um, listeners a month, and we were like, oh, but we're too big. It already is stuck. Now, we did, in December, we crossed two million, uh, listens a month, and we're like, now we're definitely, like, we're definitely too big. And Dharmesh, who is the founder of HubSpot, who now owns the podcast, he was like, you gotta change the name. And I'm like, Dharmesh, it's way too late. And he was like, No, it's not. And so he thinks we should do it. I think it's too late in the game. Frankly, I think a bad name sometimes is a good, is a good thing, but the name is quite horrible. And I feel embarrassed to tell my barber and stuff. They're like, well, what's it about? I'm like, I'm not sure, but not much, but it's not about making your first million. That's for sure.

AI assessment note: “we considered it like a year ago when we were smaller”

Q fitness, um, and, and sort of regulating your body, that that actually will be applicable to more people. So take us through what is the, uh, what is the morning routine? I know you've talked about this on the, some other pods, but I, I bet the majority of our audience has not listened to all your stuff. So, you know, these are the greatest hits. Let's, let's do it.

A Sure. Yes. So, uh, I wake up. Uh, for me, that's usually somewhere around, somewhere between five 36 30, depending on how early I went to sleep. Uh, I wake up and I do an assessment of whether or not I feel rested or not. Most days, the answer is no. Um, just because of, uh, life. Um, staying up too late, uh, stress, et cetera. So I do a 10 to 30 minute Yoga Nidra session first thing in the morning. Uh, Yoga Nidra is a passive listening. You can find these Yoga Nidra links, uh, on YouTube. There's one which is 10 minute Yoga Nidra. Um, there's one that actually made for put out for free called, um, NSDR non sleep deep rest. That's a 30 minute one. It's a script where you just listen. It brings your brain into a state that's like, that's pseudo sleep. After that 10 or 30 minute, Yoga Nidra. I feel like I've slept as much as I need to sleep. It's a really remarkable reset, and it, it avoids your brain going into this state of planning and organization, what we call duration path and outcome in the neural circuitry world, and keeps it in that kind of liminal state of adjusting. And there are some interesting data published showing that these Yoga Nidra Meditations, if you will, are, uh, can upregulate some of the neurotransmitters in the brain, including dopamine that make you prepared for action. And so, uh, they're very restorative, especially in the absence of complete sleep. I…

AI assessment note: “I wake up... I do a 10 to 30 minute Yoga Nidra session”

Q ROI, the highest return, uh, for the investment of what it takes to do them? What do you think would make people happier, healthier? It doesn't matter. Anything that's anything to make you feel better, have a, yeah, whether it's improve your health or improve the way you feel throughout the day, uh, what would be the one or two that you would point to as like your kind of.

A Yeah. So, you know, uh, it's a great question. I think we need to think about foundational practices. Um, and the two things that set the foundation for optimal Mental and physical functioning are going to be really good sleep and really good mental frame, and mental frame is going to be the ability to toggle between different states of mind, and so let me give you the practices first so that I don't get accused of being an intellectual to the point of, um, you know, curing insomnia right during this podcast. The first one is That morning sunlight in your eyes should be a non-negotiable thing. 360 days out of the year. If it's raining, stand under an overhang. I'm very unsympathetic to the, well, I wake up, it's early, and then I gotta drive to work. Stand outside for five minutes. I, I don't, you know, I, I, I got plenty of rest last night, so I'm not ornery about this, but I, I've grown a little bit exhausted of the, well, you know, I can't do that because, uh, I've got kids, whatever. Take them outside with you. They need this too. That sets A cortisol increase in the morning, which is a healthy cortisol increase that provides wakefulness, triggers your metabolism in the proper direction. If that cortisol spike happens too late because you didn't view light, then you step out during noon too often. Remember one day is no big deal, but step out in the sunlight too late off to…

AI assessment note: “The first one is That morning sunlight in your eyes should be a non-negotiable thing.”

Q fitness, um, and, and sort of regulating your body, that that actually will be applicable to more people. So take us through what is the, uh, what is the morning routine? I know you've talked about this on the, some other pods, but I, I bet the majority of our audience has not listened to all your stuff. So, you know, these are the greatest hits. Let's, let's do it.

A Sure. Yes. So, uh, I wake up. Uh, for me, that's usually somewhere around, somewhere between five 36 30, depending on how early I went to sleep. Uh, I wake up and I do an assessment of whether or not I feel rested or not. Most days, the answer is no. Um, just because of, uh, life. Um, staying up too late, uh, stress, et cetera. So I do a 10 to 30 minute Yoga Nidra session first thing in the morning. Uh, Yoga Nidra is a passive listening. You can find these Yoga Nidra links, uh, on YouTube. There's one which is 10 minute Yoga Nidra. Um, there's one that actually made for put out for free called, um, NSDR non sleep deep rest. That's a 30 minute one. It's a script where you just listen. It brings your brain into a state that's like, that's pseudo sleep. After that 10 or 30 minute, Yoga Nidra. I feel like I've slept as much as I need to sleep. It's a really remarkable reset, and it, it avoids your brain going into this state of planning and organization, what we call duration path and outcome in the neural circuitry world, and keeps it in that kind of liminal state of adjusting. And there are some interesting data published showing that these Yoga Nidra Meditations, if you will, are, uh, can upregulate some of the neurotransmitters in the brain, including dopamine that make you prepared for action. And so, uh, they're very restorative, especially in the absence of complete sleep. I…

AI assessment note: “I wake up... somewhere between five 36 30... I do a 10 to 30 minute Yoga Nidra”

Q ROI, the highest return, uh, for the investment of what it takes to do them? What do you think would make people happier, healthier? It doesn't matter. Anything that's anything to make you feel better, have a, yeah, whether it's improve your health or improve the way you feel throughout the day, uh, what would be the one or two that you would point to as like your kind of.

A Yeah. So, you know, uh, it's a great question. I think we need to think about foundational practices. Um, and the two things that set the foundation for optimal Mental and physical functioning are going to be really good sleep and really good mental frame, and mental frame is going to be the ability to toggle between different states of mind, and so let me give you the practices first so that I don't get accused of being an intellectual to the point of, um, you know, curing insomnia right during this podcast. The first one is That morning sunlight in your eyes should be a non-negotiable thing. 360 days out of the year. If it's raining, stand under an overhang. I'm very unsympathetic to the, well, I wake up, it's early, and then I gotta drive to work. Stand outside for five minutes. I, I don't, you know, I, I, I got plenty of rest last night, so I'm not ornery about this, but I, I've grown a little bit exhausted of the, well, you know, I can't do that because, uh, I've got kids, whatever. Take them outside with you. They need this too. That sets A cortisol increase in the morning, which is a healthy cortisol increase that provides wakefulness, triggers your metabolism in the proper direction. If that cortisol spike happens too late because you didn't view light, then you step out during noon too often. Remember one day is no big deal, but step out in the sunlight too late off to…

AI assessment note: “The first one is That morning sunlight in your eyes should be a non-negotiable thing.”

Q Well, listen, I appreciate you coming on. Uh, I think you did great. And I think that for people who, uh, who like trying new stuff, they should go check it out. So what's the best starting point for them now? So is it, is it BitClout still?

A Yeah, well, in six months it might change, but right now, diamondapp.com is awesome. Uh, it, you know, the developers basically wanted to make it a 10 X of BitClout and I think they achieved it. Um, so that's great. Uh, and then if you like NFTs specifically, polygram.cc is a really awesome place to browse the NFTs. If you, If you're into that, uh, it's just a great, great way to look at them. But yeah, man, thanks for having me. I mean, this was incredible. Like you guys, I, like I said, I'm, I'm a little bit like afraid of how well you explained it and how much better it was than me. But, um, yeah, I gotta, I gotta work on that, I guess.

AI assessment note: “right now, diamondapp.com is awesome.”

Q slash bored, like, wait, was this it? This is the thing I was working for this whole time? Um, so was it that the dream really wasn't a dream, or was it that, oh, it came to an end, and I gotta figure out where to from here? So what was the ESPN side like? Did the mountaintop feel like you thought it would feel, or what was that like?

A Yeah, so that's a great question. I, uh, always wanted to work at ESPN. That was sort of the end goal. I remember being a young kid going on vacation to the United States with my family. Um, we'd get to the hotel and my brothers and I would watch SportsCenter on loop. Remember in the mornings they would have like one episode that they would tape and they would just repeat it over and over again and I would repeat it and I was just so taken by the magic of sports television and the characters and the highlights and all this stuff. And I'll be honest, when I got there right off the bat, ah, I, I was disappointed. The first few months at ESPN were very hard for me, ah, because I had this vision in my mind of what it would be like, and ah, the resources, and ah, the commitment to, you know, excellent content and coverage, and ah, attention to detail and all this stuff, and it, honestly, it just wasn't what I expected. Now, over time, we kind of found our groove, and I got to do a lot of fun things, and I'll be honest, in the back of my mind, I was like, I don't know how long I'm going to last here, partly because of the fit, but also partly because of the relationship with the UFC and not being able to cover the sport the way I want to cover the sport, and I tried to check off as many boxes as possible, and so hosting a radio show, I wanted to do that, I checked that off. Doing an …

AI assessment note: “when I got there right off the bat, ah, I, I was disappointed.”

Q Amazing. Uh, yeah, it's, it's one of the tricks. Now, uh, what do you give people a sense of how do you make sure you're not buying a lemon?

A Yes, that's, uh, I get a question a lot. Um, so when you go to flipper.com, I would really, um, Be careful because flipper.com is a marketplace. Anybody can just upload, you know, their listing or their website and basically claim whatever it's on you to do due diligence. If you go to a broker, like quiet like brokers, they basically do all the vetting for you. They will like look at the business is everything legit. Um, so the risk is much smaller. Um, but regardless, if you are new to this, if you are, you know, it's your first business, you can, Hire a due diligence company, uh, Centurica, Centurica.com is one. I think those are the biggest, uh, well known. You pay, you know, it depends on the listing price, but it's as cheap as a couple hundred dollars. Um, and it goes up from there, but they do all the due diligence for you. They look through all the traffic. Is it legit? Is the revenue legit? Is whatever, everything they claimed, is it all legit? And then they can come back to you with like, well, we looked at all the data, all the numbers, um, you bought it for 1.2, but we think it's actually worth 900 K because these are the reasons. Um, so definitely recommend going with a due diligence company, um, like Centurica.

AI assessment note: “Hire a due diligence company, uh, Centurica, Centurica.com is one.”

Q the few startup studios that has actually worked. You guys had hymns come out of it, which is like a breakout success public company. And, um, And what, what are the, some of the other ones that have come out of atomic that are big? I know there's the, there's some that have sort of spiked and I'm not sure where they're at now. They didn't kind of go full.

A Yeah. Like, like, we've, uh, we've created a ton of different companies. Um, bungalow has been doing incredibly well. We just announced a huge raise for that company homebound, which is kind of revolutionizing construction and how that's done with the marketplace dynamic replicant, which is using AI to transform call centers. Radiant, which is kind of, um, cloud software for screens for B to B applications. So we kind of touch all sorts of industries. We have now actually a few dozen companies that we've started. Uh, so we operate across everything and a lot of our companies are doing really well. We're, we actually try to keep a lot of our companies stealth because people have started to try to copy them. And by the time we announce them, they've usually raised pretty significant funding. So a lot of them are, are under wraps, but We tend to do a lot in healthcare and telemedicine. We do a lot in prop tech. We do a lot in FinTech, education, AI, and then marketplaces.

AI assessment note: “bungalow has been doing incredibly well... homebound... replicant, which is using AI”

Q Did you, when you, when you were starting this, how much of your own money did you put up to do this? And were you like, all right, uh, You know, I made this much money. I'm willing to lose a million dollars over the next two years to see if I can make this work.

A Yeah, it's a good question. So my general philosophy with things is you shouldn't sell what you wouldn't also buy. So I wanted to prove to myself that this would work before raising outside capital. So the first year or so of Atomic, I did it with my own capital, which was roughly on the order of what you described. And then once I was convinced, okay, I think this is working. I think we can pull this off. I think this model is going to work. Then we raised our first fund. And our first fund was, you know, roughly the first, first part of the first fund was roughly a ten million dollar vehicle that was primarily individuals. And we had some great founders of venture capital firms involved, like Marc Andreessen and, um, Iden Senkit and Peter Thiel and people like that, that helped us a lot in the early days. Um, and that helped us prove out the model from there. And since then we've raised much, much larger funds.

AI assessment note: “I did it with my own capital, which was roughly on the order of what you described.”

Q And that is, is it nine months and 300,000 dollars? Is that right? Or 250,000 or something?

A Um, so we have multiple stages of investment. The first check that we'll write to kind of get something going and do some initial research and homework is around a quarter million dollars, but it could range from a 100,000 to 400,000. And then if that goes well, we can write a check that's usually two million dollars, but again, it could be one to four million dollars. And then from there, we can actually write a check that could be three to eight million dollars, um, that sometimes we do with other VCs, sometimes we do on our own, kind of depends on the circumstances, depends on the needs of the company and What we need to get to the next set of milestones. Um, but that's kind of how it works now. That's been evolving over our funds and our first fund. It was smaller. So we obviously only did like the early rounds, which is what Sean is describing. And then as it's gotten bigger, we were able to get the companies further, which is why we can keep them self longer. And now when they come out, they usually have raised these really big rounds.

AI assessment note: “is around a quarter million dollars, but it could range from a 100,000 to 400,000.”

Q that can be democratized and, uh, and other, if, if a few people have that desire and they've pushed out to that limit, other people would want it if you can make it accessible, cheaper, and more available to them. That's a, that's an amazing one. I think there's tons of great ideas there. Uh, what's another, what's another framework or, or sort of pattern you've seen for great ideas?

A Yeah, so one that I think is, is pretty interesting, that's also I would put in like the tried and true bucket, is if you take something that people consistently do, and they have to do, and they feel like they have to do it, but it takes a lot of steps and or time, and you dramatically simplify it, and you make it a lot faster to accomplish the same thing that they feel like they have to do. So some good examples of this would be, for example, booking online travel. You know, it used to be so hard to do. You'd have to go to so many different sites. The Kayak founders had the vision of let's just pull it all into Kayak.com. You go to one site, you see it all in one place. They made it really easy.

AI assessment note: “take something that people consistently do... and you dramatically simplify it”

Q Um, so what's real to you? What do you think is real?

A So to me, you know, I think One indicator to look for is where are developers signing up? This is also true with companies, by the way, whenever there's platforms that are built and this is true for like enterprise companies or like app stores, where do the developers go? Where the developers go usually works and is a good place to invest. And I think that's true of crypto as well. So on that thesis, I think Ethereum is a great place to go. Solana seems to have a lot of developer interest. I think there's a lot of other places. Um, you know, one that I was kind of early involved in and helped get off the ground, um, was one called Terra and Luna that just launched a new mainnet that had like 50 to a hundred apps just launched that are super interesting. They're very interesting to me because they're solving a different problem Then a lot of other people in crypto are solving fundamentally.

AI assessment note: “One indicator to look for is where are developers signing up?”

Q course business, having done a bunch of it being kind of like near the top of the game there, which is like, first and foremost, who's crushing it when it comes to courses? What's a model you look at where you say, just from a pure, like respect of the way that that business works, I respect this course business. What stands out to you? It might be your own.

A Great, great question because Crushing it and who I respect are totally different things. Let me break that down. Who I respect, I respect, um, people like Marie Forleo, who has a awesome business. She's runs it her way. She launches when she wants to, which is sparingly. Um, it's beautifully done. And she, she just loves the way she runs her business. That's awesome. Um, I also respect people like, uh, like some of the, the legacy people in our industry, Jay Abraham, who I just saw for coffee two days ago. Uh, he's one of my mentors and he's been around since the Eighties. And in fact, even before Brian Dean, high integrity, uh, Matthew Hussey in the dating space. He's great. He's a friend of mine. Um, and then I think reforge is interesting. Although I think that that is quite different because it's venture backed than what the typical individual wants to create. So what I admire about all those folks High integrity. And we can talk about why integrity is lacking in the course business because it is, uh, they run the business the way they want to. Each of those could easily double their revenue. Easily. If they did a couple of different decisions, they don't. Uh, and, and, and that's why I respect it.

AI assessment note: “Who I respect, I respect, um, people like Marie Forleo, who has a awesome business.”

Q also have a title that is kind of catchy and kind of cringy. Um, so we've talked about kind of our feelings on it. Give us your take on both your name as, as well as doing names like this. So give us the kind of like, what's your, what's your mindset? Is it all pros? Are there no cons? Are there a mix? How do you think about it?

A No, there's a lot of cons. I'll tell you, I'll tell you the, the, Blunt truth. So I created, I will teach you to be rich while I was a student at Stanford. And I was helping my friends in the dining halls with their personal finance. And I had learned and I built my own system because I took some of my scholarship money and put in the stock market. And, uh, here I am Trying to help my friends. And they were like, oh, that sounds awesome. Cause I got an overdraft fee and they would never show up to my free classes. So I was like, okay, I got to name this to make it more catchy. And then event, and that didn't work. So eventually I started the blog. Looking back, I want to first say I was sober when I picked the name. Okay. So, and it was catchy, but I will say, um, it's come with its downsides. For example, you know, I've been sitting on panels. There's like the CEO of a fortune 500 company, another CEO or senior VP. And then there's Ramit Sethi, CEO of I will teach you to be rich. And the first reaction at some of these places is not good. Okay. But Even though many of my really smart friends, including some venture capitalists and others, they were like, you got to change your name. You got to change your name. Early on, I was like, you might be right. And then I started going, well, there's sunk costs. I've already invested all this time. And then it just became too difficult…

AI assessment note: “No, there's a lot of cons. I'll tell you, I'll tell you the, the, Blunt truth.”

Q Isn't that a big energy suck? Why? Because it's fun for a while. It is fun to slap down trolls for a bit, but for me, it gets exhausting. But you seem to thrive on it. You seem like, even right now, I could see a little pep in your step just thinking about it.

A Well, I remember listening to a Navy SEAL who said, when others do pushups, they get tired. When I do pushups, I get strong. And I found the same because Dealing with trolls keeps me sharp. Um, and I'll tell you why. It's not just, you know, for kicks and to make fun of them. It's that in my life, you know, I'm hanging out with guys like you, smart guys who are dissecting business models and, and healthy, whatever. I don't get the chance to talk to someone who comes up to me and says, you know, vaccines are fake or Um, these sort of crackpot things. You're, you're only doing this so you can make money. Um, if I wanted to be rich, I would create a book on being rich. You know, I, I've candidly never had somebody come up to me in real life and say that. And in part that's because when people come up in real life, they're actually very positive, pleasant. They usually have very nice things to say. What typically happens with these trolls, now I've, um, had conversations with thousands of them, and I save and cross, um, catalog all these conversations, so it's fascinating, right? Over time, you can build a corpus of what's going on. Remember, I studied psychology, uh, technology and psychology at Stanford, so I'm fascinated with human behavior. So I want to know what's going on in your life that you would reach out out of nowhere to somebody who doesn't know you and go, fuck you. S…

AI assessment note: “when others do pushups, they get tired. When I do pushups, I get strong.”

Q yourself to others, it's like, it seems frivolous until you gotta go write one, and then you sit down and you're like, fuck. I have so much to say that I have nothing to say at the same time. And it all sounds bad. Then it sounds too braggy. Then it sounds too unimpressive. How do I do this? And so give, give me, give me your thoughts on bios.

A Sure. So this isn't a hard and fast rule. It's just what I think makes the most sense. And I'd love to hear a better idea, which is write your bio to justify why people should follow you. By the way, let's just stick with Twitter for now. That's what we're talking about here. So write your Twitter bio. That justifies why you're differentiated and worth following. What do people get from following you? So for example, mine is something like, I deconstruct, I'm literally reading my bio right now, so it goes like this. I deconstruct how things work, like storytelling and critical thinking, and I share my learnings along the way. Okay, so you know what you're getting now, and the reason this distinction is important, well actually, let's compare and contrast. So the typical bio is something like, Forbes, 30 under 32 X founder, three X father, five X Christian, like all these, all these stats, you know, and it's, and it's like, this doesn't tell me anything. It's just virtue signaling to some respect. And I don't know why I should care. So the second part of this is, it's not just why they should follow, but also what is the minimal amount of social proof to justify why you talking about the topics you're saying you'll talk about. You actually are qualified to do so.

AI assessment note: “write your bio to justify why people should follow you.”