The Exchanges

Q living environment, because, I mean, from those first YouTube videos, like, the monastic, what were you, closet? You were in a closet? Like, like, that, that was, I don't know if that was intentional, but it was, uh, it was somewhat deliberate. You picked that space over a big living room, right? Uh, and I'm wondering how you think about, Your, your living space, your workspace, your office space today.

A So I would say all of the time that I, when I work, I'm very intentional about that space. When I'm not working, it's whatever Layla wants. I don't care. Like if she, if she's 10% happier, I have like a percent to percent correlation to my happiness and me being more comfortable has no correlation back. So like whatever she's good with, I'm good with. Uh, but in terms of like, Where I work, it's almost all, how do I, how do I eliminate every sense of distraction for me personally? And so it's like, I don't have windows. Some people like having windows. I don't think anything wrong with that for me. It's like, I need no stimulation because I'm, I'm very distractible. And so I have to have like, I earplugs in no light, all artificial. I have like soundproof, like, you know, like I want nothing.

AI assessment note: “when I work, I'm very intentional about that space. When I'm not working, it's whatever Layla wants.”

Q a weekend, a 100,000 dollars. And that ladder of price discrimination is a hard for a lot of businesses where it's not token based pricing, where it's just as you know, Uh, consumption-based usage of the product, but actually getting the place where, look, if you have a billionaire in your audience who loves what you're doing, how do you actually get an offer to them that's the right size?

A Um, I'm a, so, customers are super fractal, right? And so, you can absolutely make the same amount from one percent of your customers as you can from the other 99, and have half your revenue from one. And typically, like, at each level, you have another double. So it's like, if you're at, let's say, a hundred dollar a month price point, there's gonna be another double of revenue at a 500 dollars a month price point, another double of revenue at 2500 dollars a month, another double at, you know, whatever, five or 10 times that is gonna be. And so, Um, I think making offers available to people, that is where business owners like struggle. They feel weird about it and they sell out of their own wallet when it's just like, just make them available and state the facts and tell the truth. So it's like, if we had one big plaque in our marketing team, it's state the facts and tell the truth, but it's the whole truth, which is, Hey, we're going to do this thing. It's absurdly expensive. And it's only for somebody who, if you're reading this and you're like, Oh, that's not absurdly expensive for me. It's for you. And if you read that and you're like, oh my God, I'm offended by that. Good news. We have less offensive prices that are lower. And for that, we do all these other things that are, you're going to get way more people who are going to be doing it with you. But if you're a special…

AI assessment note: “just make them available and state the facts and tell the truth”

Q Um, what's a category of business that you haven't, uh, built or invested in, uh, that you're excited to at some point?

A I'm still looking for the, the magical med spa. Um, I think med spas are super, I love pseudo medical, um, because you have maxing. Yeah, all of it. Well, think about it. Like there's this aging population that has more money than anyone else. They don't want to age. They see the Brian Johnson's. Like it is the zeitgeist of right now of like, I want to live forever. I want to look beautiful and young forever. And they have all the money. And so if you look at the demand side of that, it's huge. And you look at the supply med spas are, they're still wildly understaffed. And I know this because I see business owners every single week. And so I've like, there's a handful of categories right now that I'll meet business owners and they're doing better than they should be. Like there's some business owners I meet.

AI assessment note: “I'm still looking for the, the magical med spa.”

Q on day one of, of that YouTube channel, cause I know you've done media stuff before, but like the, the, the, the, the current media business, uh, what was the team like? What was the strategy? How much time were you putting into it? Cause I know you had exited some businesses. You had some space to breathe, but How serious were, and then what was the evolution of that?

A I'll walk you through as fast as I can. So, uh, the first thing was I found any media editor, uh, like an agency and they were like, uh, three YouTube videos a week is what we do. And I was like, all right, then that's what I'll do. And so I just webcams like, and I had a little suitcase that would open up so I could travel. Cause Layla and I were traveling for the year of the sale. Um, and so that's what I did. Wherever we were, I was like, open up. And then, cause at that time I didn't have really any work. So I had all these thoughts that I was like, I'm just going to Get them. I'm going to dump them all out. And so that's basically what YouTube strategy. One point it was, um, I had somebody cold reach out, like legit, uh, to when a redish short started, they were like, I'll do everything. You already have YouTube stuff. I'm just going to clip it. Just give me permission. And I was like, Oh, cool.

AI assessment note: “three YouTube videos a week is what we do. And I was like, all right”

Q that there's a trade-off there if you go with something, uh, more produced that's not just you opening your laptop and yapping, right? Uh, You can get stuck in like the production quagmire if you're trying to build the Mona Lisa or some incredible show. At the same time, there's prestige that comes with that. There's a new level of authority. Uh, how do you think about that trade off?

A I think it's barbell. So it's either like make it the Mona Lisa and like play to win that game, or you're in the volume game and the volume is just value per second and just trying to get as many of those seconds out as you possibly can. And like, I just think it's, it's, it's both. And They're, I think they serve, they serve different objectives to your point of like you gain authority in different ways. It's definitely, there's an element that it shifts the brand. There's access to new distribution and eyeballs. All of that happens over here, but over here I think is where you get a lot of the closer to buying behavior, believe it or not. And so I see this as more top of funnel and this is like closer to middle and bottom. Obviously you can get discoverability. Like I said, this is full stack, but you get way closer to purchase it on the side.

AI assessment note: “I think it's barbell. So it's either like make it the Mona Lisa”

Q And that was the book launch strategy, right? Was that your first stage? You've done live.

A No, I've done lives before, but that was obviously intentional. And then, um, and then interactive, which is not like sure there's chat interactive, but like, How do I bring the audience in so that we can talk? That's where you see the, uh, first it was cash cows now at scale or fail, which is a show we just launched. Um, and we're doing, we're doubling down really hard on that because if you think in a world of AI, it's like, what are the things that can't be faked? It's people, you know, like I want stakes. So for example, like if Mr. Beast store, uh, videos, if it was not a real five million dollars, um, or not a real Lamborghini, the stakes disappear. Now to be fair, there's for sure other, like a fictional story, the whole thing we know is fake and we're fine with it. And The story is the story and I will crush that. But people still want stakes. Like right now, chess is more popular than it's ever been, but like humans haven't been able to beat computers for a long time. And so there are definitely some areas where we want the drama, we want the stakes. And so I don't think that's going to change at all.

AI assessment note: “No, I've done lives before, but that was obviously intentional.”