0:00

The thing I've underappreciated the most in my life

0:02

and I find most entrepreneurs or side hustlers

0:04

is how much learning you do from

0:06

point eight point b and that you're a different

0:09

I mean, it's a stepping stone and you're a different

0:11

person. If you got a business that made a hundred

0:13

thousand dollars on the side, sure that money is

0:15

great. You, the learning and what you

0:17

see from it, will completely change your

0:19

brain. And I think that's, like, the best part of anything

0:21

like this.

0:23

What's up everyone? I'm Alex Lieberman.

0:25

And

0:25

I'm Sofia Amaruzo. Yo. This

0:27

is Jesse Pucci. And this

0:30

is the crazy ones. What's

0:34

up, Miss Fitz? Welcome to another episode

0:36

of The Crazy Ones. I'm your host,

0:38

Al Liberman. And as always, I am joined

0:40

by my cohost, Jesse Pucci, and Sofia,

0:42

and Maruso. And we are

0:44

pumped to bring you another episode of

0:47

the crazy ones as we start to wind down twenty

0:49

twenty two. With twenty twenty three breathing

0:51

down our necks, we've been thinking a lot

0:53

about how to bring you the best possible

0:55

content to start the New Year strong.

0:57

And so here's today's rundown. First,

0:59

we're gonna talk about side hustles. We're gonna

1:01

talk about ideas for how to make six

1:04

figures in twenty twenty three, as well as

1:06

examples that we already see being put into

1:08

play by other individuals. Then

1:10

we're gonna dig into how each of us

1:12

practices self reflection, whether

1:14

it's personal self reflecting

1:16

on our businesses, and things

1:18

that we keep in mind to have a strong new year.

1:21

And finally, we're back with start up AMA

1:23

and it's a pretty fun question. That

1:25

we're gonna be answering. someone I know

1:28

dropped a shitload of money on

1:30

buying a website and we rip about

1:32

if we would do the same thing. So let's hop into

1:34

this thing. It's

1:38

the most wonderful sound in the world.

1:40

That little jingle marks another sail

1:42

on Shopify to platform millions

1:45

of entrepreneurs trust to create their online

1:47

stores and so much more.

1:50

Shopify makes it simple to sell anything

1:52

to anyone from anywhere. With

1:54

Shopify tools, you can customize

1:56

your online store to your own personal

1:59

brand, reach new customers and

2:01

build relationships that keep them coming

2:03

back again and again. And thanks

2:05

to free twenty four 7 support and on

2:07

demand business courses. Shopify

2:09

can help you innovate scale and grow.

2:12

Ready to start selling today? Sign

2:14

up for a free trial at choppify

2:16

dot com slash crazy ones.

2:19

All lowercase. That's shopify

2:21

dot com slash crazy ones,

2:23

all lowercase.

2:29

Side hustles. So I was

2:31

on hacker news,

2:33

which I'd say, it's probably my third

2:35

favorite tech

2:37

blog, tech site after tech

2:40

crunch and product hunt. And

2:42

there was a popular thread of people

2:45

talking about side hustle ideas

2:47

they have for twenty twenty three. And actually, Nathan

2:49

Barry, the founder of ConvertKit, wrote

2:51

down how convert

2:53

kit had started as a side hustle that

2:55

now obviously is a super

2:57

profitable probably three hundred million

2:59

dollar business. And so it just got

3:02

the wheels turning around us having a

3:04

brainstorm together, around what we would

3:06

do if we had to make six

3:08

figures next year without

3:10

working full time on an

3:11

idea. So who wants to kick it off?

3:15

Can I start with a confession? Yeah.

3:18

I don't really suck at side hustles. Like,

3:21

I've tried many times to do do things,

3:23

like, when I used to work, when I was in college,

3:25

and even my first my few

3:26

jobs, I tried to get something going, and

3:29

I just they never went anywhere. I mean,

3:31

isn't Gayway X kind of a sweet -- Yeah. -- side

3:33

hustles. Well, then, I mean, it's a little

3:35

yeah. It's a little different now. But I like, when it

3:37

was just me and I had a job full time,

3:40

And maybe I'm just saying that because, like, if you're listening

3:43

and it's like, there I think there's types of

3:45

people. Like, I'm one of those people who if

3:47

my focus and energy is not going to something,

3:49

like, I can kinda only focus on, you know,

3:51

on one big thing at a time, especially

3:54

back in the day when I had a full time job because

3:56

pretty demanding and stuff, but I I

3:58

tried so many times to get things going on the side

4:00

in college and then in my early jobs and I

4:02

just sucked at

4:03

it. They never Well, I guess what you define a

4:05

side hustle as then because, to

4:07

Sofia's point, wasn't, you

4:09

know, Kahani a side hustle

4:11

before it became a business that you

4:13

now have raised for, like, wasn't you

4:16

know, growth assistant aside hustle before

4:18

you put in place a CEO? Like, what

4:20

would you refer to those as? No.

4:22

I think those were highly intentional business

4:24

I mean, I use my like, I probably used

4:27

full time for six months of getting growth

4:29

assistance off the ground. Like, I was I was

4:31

this is what I'm doing. I wake up every morning. It's what I

4:33

obsessed about. It's what I you know,

4:35

what I thought about every second I could.

4:38

And for whatever reason, that's how I'm wired.

4:40

I I like every time I try to go, like, okay,

4:42

this is what I'm focused on and then this little little thing

4:44

on the side. It just never worked for me.

4:46

But I by the way, for what it's worth, I think that's a

4:48

very jesy thing. It's not a I think there's

4:50

I have lots of friends and people I've interviewed

4:52

and other things who they are greatest, getting something

4:54

going on the side. And I think it's if

4:56

you can make that work, I think it's the best way to do

4:58

it because it's like the least risky by far.

5:00

Yeah. And added curiosity, my

5:03

guess is you'll say, like, they're just, like, real businesses

5:05

that you're just not active in

5:07

the day to day now. But, like, the businesses within

5:09

Gateway X. Right? You have three of them. You have

5:11

unbloat, you have growth assistant, you have Kahani.

5:14

What do you consider the two that you're

5:16

not running the day to day of now? Businesses

5:18

that you put in an the They have management. I

5:20

mean, they have have they have several people

5:22

who's their full time job. It's what they obsess

5:24

over. So I I think, like yeah.

5:26

Typically, a side hustle is something as an individual

5:28

you're doing on the side.

5:30

I started watching Sophia's TV

5:32

show this week, Girl

5:34

Boss, but we're we're we're we're we're we're we're Well,

5:36

no. It just, like,

5:37

it it got me excited when the fur like, the first

5:39

to the first episode, she finds some

5:41

jacket and she, like, sells it on eBay on

5:43

the side while she'd gotten fired whoever the

5:45

character

5:45

Yeah. There was no side. It was the

5:47

French, but it was got really excited when she

5:49

sold her eBay jacket. And it was it

5:51

was so weird. I was like, there's like

5:53

a like a little scene of the dude and they were

5:55

like, this is weird to my friend. I don't know

5:57

why I'm watching. The whole thing is weird.

5:59

It's just like How

6:01

not to get to off topic,

6:03

but how accurate is that show to

6:05

your life? I haven't watched it. Like

6:08

fifty fifty, you know, the overall story.

6:10

It's like a girl named Sofia working in

6:12

the lobby of an art school I guess I

6:14

was working when I got the idea.

6:16

But, you know, buying vintage, being

6:18

like, oh my gosh, I can use this tool

6:20

that exists the first real

6:22

marketplace that became popular and

6:25

there's this whole framework for me to start

6:27

an online store that otherwise,

6:29

like, I would never have figured out or

6:31

invented. I would never have even opened a

6:33

brick and mortar store, like, where else other

6:35

than Craigslist or a flea could I flipped

6:37

clothing. But I

6:39

never went to Coachella. I

6:41

never had that best friend. My mom was

6:43

not Don't tell me, dude. I'm watching it now. My

6:45

mom wasn't like a loser alcoholic? I

6:47

don't know. They made things a little bit more dramatic.

6:50

I mean, of course, they were dramatic, but they made

6:52

up some different drama. And I thought it

6:54

was cute and I thought it was

6:54

But it was to to come back on topic, it was a side

6:57

hustle for you. I mean, you had some kind of crappy

6:58

hourly job and you started flipping. It

7:00

was it was. But interesting.

7:02

It almost feels like Jesse, like your view.

7:04

I don't know if this is exactly true, but you're

7:06

like calling something a side hustle.

7:09

If it's not as

7:11

intentional about it becoming

7:14

a business because I

7:17

would say, like, I'm not judging. And

7:19

I'm just saying every time I tried, when I worked

7:21

at in one Wall Street, I tried to get this,

7:23

like, media site going on the side. Do

7:25

you remember the whole f my life? Like,

7:28

Yeah. Website. It was, like, an early thing.

7:30

We and then it was, like, we bought all these domains.

7:32

Like, my life is finance. And

7:34

my life is black.

7:37

My life is Jewish and was supposed to be like basically

7:39

offshoots of that to get people to post funny

7:41

puns about their little sub segment.

7:43

Yeah. It never went anywhere. I still own the domain. It never

7:45

went anywhere. I couldn't get myself to focus

7:47

on it. It's it's nice foreshadowing

7:50

for us talking about your domain story in

7:52

in, like, thirty minutes. But Sofia,

7:54

what's your view on side hustles? Like, are do

7:57

side hustles work for you? Do you

7:59

have the same definition as Jesse?

8:01

Everything I not everything, but

8:03

a lot of what I start is not

8:05

as it could be more

8:07

strategic. Business class was actually

8:09

a really strategic effort to

8:11

build a side hustle, but it has

8:14

kinda after a year and a half

8:16

become a bit of a front hustle, which

8:18

I'm trying to figure out how to change.

8:20

And even though we only launch it on a

8:22

cohort basis, twice a year,

8:25

the amount of push and prep that that

8:27

takes in promotion and

8:29

ad creation and ad strategy

8:31

creation is a

8:33

lot. And so I'm

8:35

putting business on Evergreen, which I

8:37

haven't talked about or announced, but that'll

8:39

happen at the beginning of next year,

8:42

which, you know, I'm going from, wow, I have

8:44

the summers off. I only launched this twice

8:46

a year to, okay, it's

8:48

on all the time, but it's on drip. Right?

8:50

Someone can join Yeah. It's a rolling

8:52

enrollment period. It's

8:54

a little maybe more passive,

8:57

but we have to keep onboarding

8:59

people and keeping them happy in

9:01

the first several weeks as

9:03

they join. So

9:06

in At a curiosity So became

9:07

a bit of a front hustle. What

9:10

what assumptions did you get wrong

9:13

that led it to being far more of

9:15

like a full time job slash business than you

9:17

thought it was gonna be when you started

9:18

it. mean, it wasn't for the first year and a half.

9:20

I took, like, half of last year off. I bought

9:22

a house in Kauai. I did so well.

9:25

I took the summer

9:27

off. Right? I was on an

9:29

island five months out of the year. I

9:31

think it has to do with the world

9:33

opening up, it has to do with the economy, it

9:35

has to do with the shift in the business.

9:38

Online courses. There was a big

9:40

boom. Everybody was at home,

9:42

and that's really changed.

9:44

So I don't know if it's the amount of

9:46

work. It's the amount of effort to re

9:48

strategize the business

9:51

and to make up for lost

9:53

revenue this year, unfortunately. And

9:56

so in terms of the side hustle, there

9:58

are still ways for me to not

10:00

just try to bring

10:02

in new students, but

10:04

also provide low ticket offers or

10:06

workshops to people that are a hundred and

10:08

fifty dollars. And, you know, eventually,

10:10

they're excited to learn from me or

10:12

someone else and they become part of

10:14

the business class world and

10:17

they, you know, then upgrade

10:19

to business class, which is huge investment. It's two

10:21

thousand dollars. And also, there are

10:23

opportunities I mean, again, it could

10:25

feel like a side hustle not to

10:27

build like a YPO type thing, but

10:29

yes, small groups that pay

10:31

more than the cost of business class.

10:34

To join and I hire, like, a few

10:36

coaches to mentor them, but that

10:38

doesn't necessarily have to be something where I'm

10:40

building, you know, what Sampar

10:42

is trying to build in, like, a two

10:44

hundred million dollar business. So

10:46

and he's talked about

10:47

that. It's not super under the are anymore.

10:49

He Well, now it isn't. Alex,

10:52

let's let's let's get into the

10:54

brainstorm. What are your ideas? Yes. So

10:56

I jotted I jotted down

10:59

five ideas that'll run through quickly

11:01

from, I would say, normal to

11:03

ridiculous. So the first

11:05

idea that I jotted down

11:07

was And I've been thinking

11:09

about this for a little while, and I would say

11:11

the the way that I generally

11:13

think of, like, ideas

11:15

are, like, moving forward with ideas is

11:18

I know that I have,

11:20

like, a constant abundance of ideas and so

11:22

I don't try to top on the idea the

11:24

first day or week that I have it. I see,

11:26

like, does it stay around for six months

11:28

and longer? And so this is

11:31

an idea which is

11:33

specific to my neighborhood, but I think

11:35

can grow. And the idea is

11:37

starting a mobile dog grooming

11:39

service. As a side hall soul

11:41

in Hoboken. So the notion here

11:43

is like Hoboken is the

11:46

fourth highest density city in

11:48

the US. Which I didn't realize. Mhmm. The

11:51

demographic is what I like to

11:53

call like dog

11:55

central and the stroller battalion.

11:57

And every dog

11:59

owner that I've talked to does

12:01

not have loyalty for a dog

12:03

grooming place in town.

12:05

And so the idea I was go I literally

12:07

went through the cost of all this stuff. I

12:10

the the cost of getting a dog grooming

12:12

trailer is sixty three thousand dollars a year, and I just

12:14

start making assumptions, like, if

12:16

we get five dogs a day,

12:19

just on the weekends or five dogs a day

12:21

on the weekdays, and we

12:23

charge them sixty

12:25

bucks. And the cost of labor. The groomers

12:27

twenty two something dollars an hour.

12:29

The the payback period could be anything

12:31

from six months to three

12:33

years. Three years if, like, we

12:36

only do it on the weekends and we can't charge

12:38

nearly as much for the dog. But I just

12:40

think there's such an opportunity here because

12:44

dog parents will do anything for their

12:46

dogs. People don't have affinity for

12:48

groomers. Most groomers are mom and pop

12:50

shops. There's no brand for dog grooming.

12:52

And I also think there's an amazing business

12:54

to actually just exclusively, not

12:56

even do cuts, just do

12:58

showers, and dries

13:00

because people hate having to go in their shower

13:02

and wash their dog. And I think people would do

13:04

it once every two weeks. Yeah.

13:07

Yeah. That that's what we do. We bring Rambo into

13:09

our shower room. You have a big dog? You have a bigger dog?

13:11

Yeah. He's a fifth fifty five pound dog.

13:14

And he he hates it. There's a whole

13:16

blow drying process, and also,

13:18

like, you don't need skilled labor if you just

13:20

do washes and

13:22

blow drying. So the thought is

13:24

start this in Hoboken. And then the real idea

13:26

is then what if we create a YouTube

13:28

channel around this? I

13:31

once it's operational, hire in a young

13:33

first time hungry

13:35

entrepreneur to run this business and

13:37

document the entire process. And

13:39

if there's appetite for it, ultimately,

13:42

like, the end of the day, if you turn every company

13:44

into a media company, all of a sudden,

13:46

monetization can grow into

13:48

also, like, ad dollars and not just the

13:49

business. So that's a brand franchise,

13:52

creative franchise. Exactly. But this doesn't

13:54

sound like a side hustle. This sounds like a real business

13:56

idea. Sounds like a business.

13:56

What what side is it? What sideifies

13:59

it? Like,

13:59

three years payback period. That's Yeah.

14:02

So so so I guess I

14:04

define side hustle a little bit differently

14:06

in that one. My view is like what

14:09

is something that I can spend a good amount of

14:11

time on in the early days? And then

14:13

I only have to spend, like, five

14:15

hours a week after that.

14:17

And to me, that once it gets to five

14:19

hours a week, it's side for

14:21

me. It's not the full thing. It's the

14:23

side thing. I'll I'll give you one other

14:25

example that I think is more of a side thing.

14:27

Actually, two. One is, this is the

14:29

ridiculous one. Getting

14:31

my honeymoon sponsored. I

14:35

Carly and I are are

14:37

flattening our

14:37

honeymoon. I'm not actually gonna do this,

14:40

but I there's part of my brain that thought about

14:42

this.

14:42

I didn't realize, like, how much goes into

14:45

the honeymoon process, how big of an

14:47

investment it is. I've thought to myself with

14:49

somewhat of an audience, would airlines,

14:52

resorts, pay

14:54

for amplification of

14:56

the experiences, not in a way that dilutes

14:58

my honeymoon experience because I'm

15:00

gonna be photographing and videoing

15:02

everything anyway just after the fact

15:04

putting the content into the world.

15:06

So so that I would just feel

15:07

like it's like This is also not a side hustle idea.

15:09

This sounds like an genius affiliate, like,

15:12

platform. I get people

15:13

to affiliate. Did brand deals,

15:16

you know, with big sponsors,

15:18

the salespeople, that I talked to you. We were like,

15:20

we wanna do a conference. We wanna do this.

15:22

And then I was like, they're not

15:24

gonna pay for your wedding. You can't get a

15:26

brand to pay for your

15:26

wedding. That's literally what

15:29

you're trying to do, which is Why is it gonna be a

15:31

business hold on. There's gotta be a business of

15:33

calling the, like, the point sky and saying, not

15:35

I mean, you were one person, Alex, but, like,

15:37

hundreds of people filming and making drag

15:39

content on their trips. And then This

15:42

this leads into the, like, the, I would say, the

15:44

bigger idea. Which is actually a business idea.

15:46

And I just I don't think I would enjoy

15:48

enough or long enough to do it. Of

15:50

creating, like, the true, all

15:52

encompassing consumer affiliate

15:54

network. So how do you become an affiliate

15:56

for everything in your life life? So,

15:58

like, one of the other side hustles I had is,

16:00

like, could I make six figures a

16:02

year from referring my

16:04

financial advisor, my tax attorney,

16:06

my apartment building, my

16:08

trainer, my nutritionist. Like, if I get a

16:10

few clients, can I get to six figures

16:12

just those high dollar price services.

16:14

My my my idea is I

16:16

think those are all real with respect,

16:18

Alex. I think those are all real business ideas. Okay.

16:20

What's your ideas? Think that part of

16:22

the side hustle thing is you have to leverage some

16:24

of the best parts of scalable

16:27

businesses. Right? And

16:29

so so get, like, one thing we're all into some degree, the

16:31

media business or something that I can create

16:33

once or software. I can create it

16:35

once and then I it can live on without

16:37

me. Versus, like, the dog or anything is

16:39

so service as heavy if it just feels like it's

16:41

gonna be a huge pain. Yeah. So my

16:43

I had to none of them are

16:45

amazing, but, like, I think with the pro elaboration of

16:47

no code tools. I think there's I

16:49

mean, there's probably six different side hustles there.

16:51

One is obviously just helping people learn how use

16:53

them and make them easier. I think the most

16:55

interesting one though is and some people have already done this

16:57

on Twitter is like, oh, notion templates, and

16:59

I'm gonna charge you ten bucks. But I actually

17:01

think could have that for air

17:03

table. You could have it for all the various

17:05

tools. So I wanna accomplish x. And for

17:07

ten to twenty dollars, you

17:09

know, accomplish why. Like, I stumbled upon these business with my

17:12

kids coloring coloring, you know, the

17:14

coloring books. Yeah. You can you can

17:16

Google anything there's these they

17:18

must be side hustles. You can download,

17:20

like, a coloring of Mickey

17:22

Mouse or or wizard of Oz or something random and

17:24

you pay, like, a buck every time. So it's

17:26

just, like, outlines of the thing that you can download to me. I like

17:28

some of my kids are bored and I'm like, I want to they

17:30

they want to color something. Okay. Here, here you guys go. I put

17:32

this on. I paid a dollar. They're good. They're

17:35

high quality. But anyway, the same thing for for

17:37

essentially all the no code stuff, which I think is

17:39

just like, you could make one a week

17:41

or two a week and then sell

17:42

them, you know, to basically show up on

17:44

Google, and that's one version of it. This is what this is what

17:47

Thomas Frank does. Thomas Frank, the

17:49

YouTuber, he he shifted from having this,

17:51

like, massive productivity channel that has

17:53

two millions subscribers to he's gonna be like he was

17:55

like, I'm gonna niche myself down to just be the

17:57

notion guy. And so he

17:59

creates videos on YouTube, has a

18:01

channel now for Notion as a hundred thirty

18:03

thousand subscribers. And he's doing, I

18:05

believe, something like a hundred fifty thousand

18:07

dollars a month in Notion template

18:09

sales ninety something percent margin. And

18:11

whatever you do in the in the world, if you're sitting there,

18:13

you're an accountant or you're a pet person or

18:15

whatever it is, everybody needs a

18:17

template for something in their life that important that you probably understand

18:19

and have that unfair advantage. That's how I

18:21

would think about it. And then the other idea I had to we

18:23

bought a business in two

18:25

thousand eighteen called my subscription addiction

18:27

and the story was the founder Liz who's a

18:29

wonderful person and and Who bought it? Was it was it was

18:31

it push bought it? Got it. Yeah. I pushed

18:34

bought it. And the

18:37

her story was in twenty twelve, she

18:39

got obsessed with Birchbox and all these

18:40

subscriptions. She just started writing about them online.

18:43

And, you know, just purely passion. I'm

18:45

gonna write about this category. I love this. I'm gonna order

18:47

them. I'm gonna review them. And, like,

18:49

everything like that started to snowball. Other people who

18:51

loved them started following her to the point where

18:53

she had a multimillion dollar EBITDA business, but

18:56

it started as a side hustle. And

18:58

so I I think, like, pick a category again that

19:00

you that you love, that you know of,

19:02

and just start writing about it or or

19:04

or some way contribute to content. I think

19:06

you totally do it on the

19:07

side, but then it gets the scale of media over

19:10

time. I think the other side So

19:12

what people don't realize is that not

19:14

everything has to last forever, and just because

19:16

you spin something up and spin something

19:18

down, and it works for a

19:20

while, isn't necessarily failure

19:22

when it's your intention you know

19:24

what? And I'm not gonna do this with business

19:26

class, but business class was

19:28

amazing for the first year and a half

19:30

and had I invested whatever I

19:32

for thousand dollars into the stock market,

19:34

and it threw off millions of

19:36

dollars in a year and a half. That would have been an

19:38

amazing investment. And that's something

19:40

that you can sunset

19:42

over time. You know, Andrew

19:44

Wilkinson was telling me that he bought a

19:46

business that was totally became

19:48

irrelevant because of Figma, but

19:50

had a community doubled the prices

19:52

and people continued to use it,

19:54

but eventually it kind of phased out, but

19:56

he bought it for nothing and he was able to

19:59

extract value from While

20:01

it was on its way out. So side

20:03

hustles don't even have to necessarily be things

20:05

that you're committed to for a long time. And I and

20:07

I think to drift on that for a second. I think the

20:09

the thing I've under it the most in my life

20:11

and I find most entrepreneurs or side

20:14

hustlers is how much learning you do

20:16

from point a to point b and that you're

20:18

a different I mean, it's a stepping

20:20

stone and you're a different person. If you

20:22

got a business that made a hundred thousand dollars on the

20:23

side, sure that money is great.

20:26

You, the learning and what you see from

20:28

it will completely change your brain. And I think that's, like, the

20:30

best part of anything. And that's why sometimes

20:32

I think the best businesses really do

20:34

start as side hustles that you

20:36

just like genuinely wanted

20:39

to learn about

20:40

something. Like, the the Nathan Barry story that

20:42

I alluded

20:43

to was Convert hit started

20:46

as he was building iOS apps.

20:48

He wanted to blog the process

20:51

of him building iOS

20:53

apps, he would send out these

20:55

updates through MailChimp.

20:57

And as he was doing it, he realized

20:59

the best way to grow this list. Wasn't,

21:01

like, paid marketing or social. It

21:04

was people in his list referring

21:06

other people. But he was basically, like, there

21:08

were none of these the

21:10

segmentation things or, like, marketing

21:14

tools in Mailchimp to do this.

21:16

So he's like, I ended up just building

21:18

the system that I had, like, scraped together when

21:20

I was doing my blog on Mailchimp. And obviously, when

21:22

he started this, he would have never had an idea he was gonna

21:24

build a SaaS product for every creator and

21:27

blogger. So And even morning Brew I mean,

21:29

morning Brew, you guys essentially started that as a side

21:31

of us. And by the way, I think email newsletters is

21:33

another one. Oh, yeah. That, like, I think there's by

21:35

the way, it's so funny. There's so many email

21:37

newsletters. Like, they're freaking annoying and and, like,

21:39

even I have mine. I'm like, does anybody like, but

21:41

I think what's missing is actually a

21:44

diversity Like, your whole point about pet owners, you

21:46

know, every breed should have its own

21:48

newsletter because, you know, so there's probably all

21:50

these little things that the

21:52

more niche you get. And you go, I'm gonna just write every week about I'm

21:54

not a dog person. You guys have Other

21:56

side hustle coming soon. I haven't told you about

21:58

that that one yet. What Ren Ventures

22:00

did with website, someone can do

22:03

with newsletters. It's just something

22:05

really Sofia,

22:07

before we push forward, I just wanted to share

22:09

your telling me about this other idea

22:11

that I think is like so interesting in this remote

22:14

environment. Yeah. Talk talk about the idea

22:15

you share with me. I've thought about it and I've seen

22:18

like kind of ringy dink creators doing

22:20

stuff this with, like, their communities.

22:22

And I've also heard that people

22:24

with ADD doing co working or

22:26

being kind of held accountable in

22:28

some way live just and that works for

22:30

me is, like, if I'm with someone literally

22:33

in the room energetically, I'm

22:35

so much more able to focus even if we're not

22:37

talking than I am if I'm sitting

22:39

by myself. And

22:41

I discovered this thing called flown

22:44

dot com And it's wild that they raise money because

22:46

they're basically just creating Zoom

22:48

groups of people who can

22:50

join for a

22:52

period of the day. And so they have

22:54

different sessions all throughout the day.

22:56

They have deep dives. I think they have, like,

22:58

five a day, and that's two hours of silent work.

23:00

And they you state your intention the beginning. You

23:02

do, like It's so absurd. It's a business.

23:04

Stretched a little. I love it. You're just sitting

23:06

in silence

23:06

and there's other people's faces, but you're like, okay.

23:08

This is what I'm doing. It's almost, like,

23:11

being on the phone or, you know,

23:13

on a podcast, it's like the singular thing.

23:15

You're not focusing on the group, but you're committed

23:18

to focus. Because in the same way you go

23:20

to a yoga class -- Yep. -- people

23:22

are there doing yoga and

23:24

your, you know, look kind of bad

23:26

if you leave, even if you want

23:28

to. You you know. So they

23:30

have power hours, which are an

23:32

hour sprints that you can do with

23:34

people. They have something called takeoff, which

23:36

is a twenty minute morning

23:38

ritual where you set your intentions and do

23:40

something a little bit more woo and kick off

23:42

your day with that. And then they have

23:44

like drop ins all day long where you can like,

23:46

drop in, be like, okay, this is what I'm doing. So I subscribed to

23:48

it. I missed my drop in this morning. I

23:50

think they're in Europe. So the hours are

23:53

I love it. Different. But like,

23:55

why would you raise money for that? I could you could stand

23:57

that up. You know, it's like a distributed kind

24:00

of non membership --

24:02

Sure. -- non personal

24:05

almost like a YPO or something,

24:07

like a touch and go YPO.

24:09

But I think category

24:10

specific Zooms, like, again, that's another I was

24:12

just about to say that. Like, niche it down

24:15

to solo printers, digital nomads, artists,

24:17

etcetera. Again, dog owner. Like, certain

24:19

breed dog owners, like, you may have gotten

24:21

together or whatever your friends are the same

24:23

dog you would talk to them in person and now in world of Zoom,

24:25

if you can get me five people who own the same dog I

24:27

own, you probably have some notes to share and some interesting things.

24:30

I think I think people just wanna connect with

24:32

Bowl. Totally. So we we started this by

24:34

talking about, you know, side hustle ideas for twenty

24:36

twenty three and I wanna keep the ball rolling

24:39

and kind of how we are thinking about

24:41

having it in an awesome next year and

24:43

do so by talking about, like, what is

24:45

our process for reflecting

24:47

on twenty twenty two? And how does that

24:49

inform our choices moving forward? So

24:52

I want you guys to start by sharing just

24:54

like, what do you guys do to reflect

24:56

on your year in a way that helps inform

24:58

your moving

24:59

forward. Jesse, do you have a process?

25:02

Yeah, I do, you know, the

25:04

one funny thing I'd say is that, like, I also, you know, I've talked

25:06

about energy in the past and, like, I've found just

25:08

so, like, some years, I'm, like, so

25:10

eager to reflect and some years,

25:13

I'm not. whatever reason What is

25:15

this year? This year, I think

25:17

I'm pretty eager to reflect. Like, I'm I'm at a

25:19

good interesting inflection point with several things,

25:21

and I feel like, okay, this is a good opportunity

25:23

to take a zoom out, see what's there.

25:25

I I like, I've always done New Year's resolutions, that

25:27

kind of thing, but I think real reflection

25:30

you know, I I'm a nerd around some of these things. Like, I

25:32

probably ten years ago have,

25:34

like, pretty high level goals. Like, I was

25:36

at that with my wife, and I was like, okay.

25:39

Across all these things. Like, family, you know, being

25:41

a good dad, like, a certain amount of

25:43

money, a certain amount of impact in the world,

25:45

religion and and spirituality,

25:48

and really, like, set, like, okay, I wanna be when I'm sixty or so? I

25:50

was like, crazy. Can you share any of the goals you had?

25:52

I can pull it up and and and -- Oh god. --

25:54

or whatever. But but it's, you know, it's like,

25:57

some are more specific than others,

25:59

but it's like certain amount of time spent, you know,

26:01

time with my family, you

26:05

know, a certain dollar amount I wanna make. Yep. A certain

26:07

amount of impact. Like, how many people do I wanna try to

26:09

impact in different ways? So

26:12

I look at And it's just

26:14

a good chance I gotta go, like, am

26:16

I trending in this first of all, the first question

26:19

actually is not my trending. The first question

26:21

is, are these still what's important to me?

26:23

Mhmm. So I think that's another thing. It's like sometimes you

26:25

set a goal and you look back on it and you're like, oh,

26:27

no. Thought that was important to me.

26:29

You know, and now it's no longer important to me. I

26:31

think that's a great really important thing. Don't get

26:33

attached to your goals. Don't get stuck

26:35

to make sure you're constantly taking inventory of

26:37

yourself and what you want. And then I'll

26:39

kinda just, like, track zero out of ten. Something very simple.

26:41

Like, how am I how do I feel like I'm trending or

26:43

tracking on this? And kind of re

26:46

up. I try to zoom them down for the

26:48

year. What are some of the big areas that are

26:50

impacting these? I just kind of draw

26:52

it out. Okay, for business. Okay. My is is this gonna trend there? Is

26:54

that gonna trend there? Father? And then

26:56

kinda go through a a handful of different

26:58

things I wanna change. I

27:00

wanna be doing differently. One

27:02

of my big ones

27:04

for this coming year, just as an example, is like,

27:06

I wanna reduce my calendar by twenty

27:08

to twenty five percent. Like, I just want it

27:10

to be less busy. Mhmm. And I

27:12

don't know exactly how I'm gonna do that, but it's like, okay. Because

27:14

there's a goal, okay, now what what needs to happen

27:16

in order to get that done. There's

27:19

some other ones more like fitness and health related. I

27:21

had like a bad blood test. So it it

27:23

is pretty encompassing for me as an individual, and then

27:25

the businesses obviously do goal which we about

27:27

in a previous episode. But

27:30

I think it's important to one

27:32

thing I've learned for me at least, like, I get

27:34

my eyes get bigger than my tummy when it comes to

27:36

goals. I'm like, yeah, I wanna do that and I wanna be seven

27:38

feet tall and I wanna lift five hundred pounds.

27:40

And then I'd like over time, I'm like, well, hold on.

27:42

I gotta set fewer goals. And

27:44

then I also wanna take them on serially

27:46

versus in parallel. Yeah. That's a big

27:48

one. Like, a major change I wanna start to go, okay, I'm gonna

27:50

do it serially as I go through it

27:53

and kinda figure that thing out. So it's a little bit it's a little

27:55

bit random. It's usually half a day. Then I'll I'll usually the

27:57

other thing for me. I'm I'm a talker. Like, you

27:59

know, I I, like, talk to friends about them. Like, hey. What do you think

28:01

about this? Here's kind of what I was like, do you have

28:03

thoughts on this or and then people my

28:05

wife and some of my closest friends, they know me

28:07

well. Like, dude, you're not gonna do that one. Like, come

28:09

on. And so there's a little bit of

28:11

calibration with sort of the brain

28:12

trust, if you will. I I think just

28:15

the point you make around sequencing is

28:17

like so important, not just for life,

28:19

but even for business. I feel like

28:21

that's one of the things one of

28:23

the advice to reflect on, like, the mistakes

28:25

we've made over the years with morning

28:27

brew. It's it's we

28:29

were really ambitious, which was great. But at

28:31

times, we were

28:33

ambitious all at once

28:35

in one point of time versus sequencing,

28:37

like, do this thing. Once that thing is done, let's

28:39

focus on this thing. And so I

28:41

think by sequencing, it allows you to both

28:43

be ambitious, but also not dilute yourself or

28:45

be on focused. And so I think that's a huge

28:47

point. Sofia, how what how do you set

28:50

the table for twenty twenty

28:51

three? Yeah. I just discovered

28:55

and I'll we can pull up a

28:57

screenshot. In

28:59

twenty twelve, I discovered in my

29:01

notes in my phone just a few days

29:03

ago, twenty twelve goals.

29:05

So ten years ago,

29:07

my goals were something like

29:09

take money off the table at Nasty Gal.

29:12

Buy mama kitchen. I ended up

29:14

paying off for mortgage, buy a house, and there

29:16

was really funny things like eat an apple every

29:18

day or eat three preasters of free, which is

29:20

like I'm sure. I never did.

29:23

I actually have a gold guide

29:25

that we created at business class. That's

29:27

like a kind of huge guide on thinking

29:29

through, like, setting your intention all the

29:31

way to actionable steps. And it's much more deep

29:34

than the way that I think about it

29:36

every year, which

29:38

is a little bit more a nimble,

29:40

which is in the flight front of the flight

29:42

planner. And I go

29:44

through what I wanna quit what I

29:46

what I wanna have, what I wanna start, what

29:49

I wanna stop, and then what I wanna

29:51

be. And then go

29:53

through intentions. And

29:55

so those intentions, the

29:57

categories for those is personal,

29:59

health, career, adventure,

30:01

home, and spiritual. And

30:04

at the beginning of last year, I did that. I

30:06

think I I don't know if I burned

30:08

it or I kept it, I tore it out of

30:10

something, and I put it in my journal. My journal is a

30:12

bunch of pages aren't even bound because I'd

30:15

shove in so many notes

30:17

and then often never look at

30:19

them again. But I think I

30:21

did keep this. And at

30:23

the end of every year, I think it's important

30:25

to reflect. Right? Like,

30:28

did I achieve these things?

30:30

That's kind of where you start.

30:32

And, Alex, I really loved your

30:34

math that we talked about this

30:36

and it really inspired me also, there's so

30:38

many ways to do this.

30:41

But, yeah, your

30:43

method talks about what gave me

30:45

energy and what took my energy and And by the

30:46

way, this is

30:47

the most unscientific method ever. And

30:50

it made me realize, like, I know it

30:52

doesn't give me energy, but Yeah.

30:54

Heading into twenty twenty three, what gives me energy? Like,

30:56

I was like, tell

30:59

us yours because I -- Yeah. -- I love it.

31:01

And what I'll say is I've probably

31:03

done this definitely done

31:05

this fewer times than you guys because

31:07

I've never done this because you're because you're

31:09

like twenty eight and

31:10

Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm basically still in high

31:13

school. No. I just

31:15

I locked myself in like the lounge

31:17

in our building, kept

31:19

my phone away, and just

31:22

I wrote down the questions that I try

31:24

to reverse engineer, like, what questions can

31:26

I ask myself that I think will

31:29

lead to a relatively good

31:31

compass of how I want to spend my time. So I asked

31:33

myself six questions. What

31:36

gave me energy in twenty twenty

31:39

two? What did not give me

31:41

energy in twenty twenty two? What

31:43

I want what do I wanna do more of in

31:45

twenty twenty three? What do

31:47

I want my life to look like ten years

31:49

from now. So similar to the Jesse

31:51

question, except I guess I said ten years from now. It

31:53

sounds like you asked like forty years from

31:55

now or may maybe you're

31:57

a little older, sir, thirty, twenty

31:59

years. I I had to

32:01

punch it. Sing. Five.

32:03

What would a successful

32:06

twenty twenty you look like? And six, what would an unsuccessful

32:08

twenty twenty three look like? And just to get

32:10

specific because I feel like I don't know. I

32:12

I always latch on to specificity. I'll just

32:14

share a few things that came up

32:16

for me. So what gave me energy this

32:18

year? A few things, and I'm

32:20

live reading this, so I may have to live edit

32:22

if there are things that will get me in trouble

32:24

for saying, What

32:26

gave me energy is feeling like I'm taking care

32:28

of my body. What gave me

32:30

energy is building something from scratch that solves

32:32

a problem I'm excited about.

32:34

What gave me energy is surprising my fiancee

32:36

with gifts and planning new experiences,

32:40

being silly and playful, growing

32:42

as an interviewer, feeling like I'm in control or

32:45

on top of my finances, my

32:47

health, and my mind. And then there were a

32:49

number of others. And

32:51

then did not give me energy

32:53

or took away energy, the feeling

32:55

of not being disciplined.

32:59

The course that I taught this year, the strategy

33:01

for creators course, I didn't really get good energy

33:03

from that. Calls

33:06

and meetings people where I don't feel

33:08

like I'm learning or growing. Worring

33:12

if I have enough money and

33:14

how much I lost in the markets this

33:16

year. And then

33:18

what do I want my life? Forgot

33:20

my fidelity password. I have no idea. That's That's

33:23

prob honestly, I'd probably that'd probably

33:25

be a good thing to happen to me. And

33:27

then what do I want my life to look like ten years

33:29

from now? And so I wrote down

33:31

It's funny. I didn't know

33:33

the categories you used for intentions in

33:36

your flight planner, but I would say mine were relatively

33:39

similar other than spiritual because I don't

33:41

maybe I'm a little bit spiritual, but I'm I'm not

33:44

religious. But I wrote down family,

33:47

friends, work, self, wealth, health, and

33:49

miscellaneous. And just to give an

33:51

example, like, what do I want my life to look like ten

33:53

years from now? Three healthy

33:55

children, one to two dogs, a

33:57

partnership with my wife to find my love

33:59

respect and shared values, and

34:01

spend as much time with my family as

34:03

I desire. Friends, a

34:05

group of friends that I have loved for,

34:07

who have loved for me, who make me a better happier

34:09

person. And I went through

34:12

all of these and then basically taking the things that give me energy,

34:14

take away energy and what I want my life to look

34:16

like ten years from now. I answered what would a successful

34:18

twenty twenty three look like and what would an

34:20

unsuccessful one look like and obviously

34:22

the unsuccessful is oftentimes just an inverse

34:24

of what the successful was. So

34:26

that was my

34:27

process. That's awesome.

34:28

Just have to

34:29

say you're, like, such an optimistic positive person, like It is

34:31

a gift that it is a

34:32

gift that occurs. It really is.

34:35

Like, you're, like, the I

34:38

mean, all American -- Well

34:41

-- not

34:41

Jewish. But, like, there's something just

34:43

like

34:44

Yeah. All Americans -- tell

34:45

them about you. That's really admirable

34:48

and thanks for sharing that. Yeah.

34:50

Yeah. I think I think that, you know,

34:53

those are right. I think anyone listening I said this about goal

34:55

setting for your company too, and I'd say it

34:58

personally, do the thing that's that you're

35:00

gonna do.

35:02

Yeah. You know, like, it could be one question. What what

35:04

was what do I wanna do next year?

35:06

And I think it's because sometimes

35:08

people get intimidated by these big

35:10

processes, and it just has to be whatever you're actually gonna spend get to spend time on.

35:12

And I know for me, I don't know if you guys are the same

35:14

way, but there's times that I can sit down with those

35:16

questions and I won't get anywhere with

35:20

them. And there's other times where I'm, like, it's just they ooze out of me because for whatever

35:22

reason, I'm, like, sitting there and and

35:24

I wrote myself an email the other day. It's just somewhat related

35:26

to a lot of those questions and it was just, like,

35:29

it came out of nowhere. felt like it came out of nowhere. The other the

35:32

other thing that I've been trying to get better at is

35:34

habits versus goals. I don't know if there's a good article

35:36

out there. You can

35:38

Google it. And also Patrick O'Shaughnessy talks about, like, the goal free

35:40

life. And that's, like, for where that's been

35:42

most successful for me is an

35:44

exercise. So I used to approach

35:46

exercises like what's my goal? I'm

35:48

gonna, like, run-in half marathon, and I'm

35:50

gonna be and it like, that's like everything in

35:52

life. I'd be intense about it, and I would just

35:54

never sustain. It would never staying for

35:56

me. And I flipped it to kinda going, like, I

35:58

wanna get activity of some kind, like,

36:00

actual, like, real activity, heart

36:02

beating fast. Four times a

36:04

week. And I'm not gonna guilt myself if I miss something. I'm

36:06

just it's just my it's a habit I wanna

36:08

make. And I, like, I think I've done it every week

36:10

for the last. And I'm not and now I

36:12

don't think it. I have tennis a few times a week based, like and so that's

36:14

like another one I would just throw if you're if you're

36:16

struggling with goals, the the concept of

36:18

habits is sometimes way

36:20

more powerful. In terms of creating something sustainable. I

36:22

think that's spot on. It's funny. I've been

36:24

thinking a lot about this

36:26

recently because I

36:28

haven't read the book in probably five or six years, but I

36:30

read Power of Habit by Charles Dewey,

36:33

like five or six years ago,

36:36

And I believe it was in that book that there was this whole idea

36:38

of Keystone habits. So it's

36:40

like, what are the habits that you build

36:44

have a trickle down effect in the rest of your life. And well, I think one of

36:46

the examples they gave was this case study

36:48

where they had smokers who were trying

36:50

to quit smoking, half

36:52

of which would work out five days a week, half

36:54

of which wouldn't, and the decrease in the

36:56

smoking rate of the group that worked out, which

36:58

significantly higher. And so I I've

37:01

been trying to actually implement that

37:03

in my own life I

37:05

just started working with a trainer and a

37:08

nutritionist for the first time, which for anyone that

37:10

knows me really well, like, I am

37:12

the most cheap human being ever. So I was always afraid of

37:14

spending on a trainer on

37:16

nutrition, but I think

37:18

that now I've

37:20

worked out and watched kind of been mindful about my eating for

37:22

the last, it's been three weeks now.

37:24

But I think it is created for me what it's done

37:26

is created discipline. And I think that

37:28

discipline is

37:30

having an impact on other areas of life that just aren't health and

37:32

wellness. Yeah. It's like you're eating apple

37:33

a day, Sofia. Like, it's the same exact concept

37:35

to me. I there's a

37:38

a newsletter

37:40

I actually read this morning that really inspired me, and

37:42

this guy's name is Steve Schaffman.

37:45

And then newsletters called

37:48

LightWaves, and a lot of these more

37:50

Wu Wu newsletters that kinda skim

37:52

through, and it's just some of them are

37:54

just so along. But he had one

37:56

called the year of no

37:58

decisions, I think, this morning. And I

38:00

also just

38:02

wanna you know, share that it's okay to

38:04

have big goals. It's okay, you

38:06

know, the temptation that he described, and

38:09

he's recovering VC. So

38:11

the temptation he just and an operator. So the temptation

38:14

he described as a former

38:15

VC, an operator was starting something

38:17

new. And he's become a coach. The

38:19

Polish

38:19

strategist. His, you know, he's now, you

38:22

know, the operator finance

38:24

guy turned leadership coach,

38:26

but his nature is to continue

38:29

starting things. And I think it's okay for a year to stop

38:32

and make no decisions

38:34

and that to be your goal

38:36

and to sit with

38:38

Totally.

38:38

Not knowing an ambiguity in the liminal

38:40

space. And that's something people

38:42

don't really talk about because there's

38:45

kind of a shame on in not setting

38:48

goals and in letting yourself

38:50

be in the not knowing or the

38:52

valley of what

38:54

is it. There's something that no. I mean, it doesn't have to be

38:56

despair. That's For the value of Steven. If you

38:58

reframe it, maybe

38:58

it's not despair. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. It's

39:00

a matter of sitting with yourself.

39:02

You know? I tried for six months between leavingampush as

39:04

CEO and starting GatewayX to do that. And actually, my

39:07

enneagram type is one that hates

39:10

empty. It's like a thing that I like

39:12

I like to keep myself and it was so fucking hard. I mean, it was

39:14

-- Yeah. -- I started feeling anxiety. I started, like,

39:16

oh, no. Oh, can't do anything. Can't,

39:20

like, and being with that was

39:21

very, very challenging. And I think the urge the

39:24

our nature to make

39:26

ourselves busy we can be running

39:28

towards something, but we can also be

39:30

running from things. And it's

39:32

important to check ourselves and

39:34

make sure that we're not occupying

39:36

ourselves to escape something that we are avoiding

39:38

personally that we gotta deal

39:40

with before we can really be successful

39:43

or this fight in any Oh, yeah. We we are doing deep. We're getting deep

39:46

today. We we are great. We are

39:48

great at just doing -- A mortgage.

39:50

-- but we're great at

39:52

doing butt kicks, high knees, and running in

39:53

place. Or we're just, like, doing a

39:56

nice gradual walk towards -- I got the

39:58

Peloton truck. That's pretty

40:00

dope. That's awesome. I'm excited. I don't know I don't

40:02

know if it's helping that business right now,

40:04

but it's some sort of

40:06

cool

40:07

product. Alright. Let's Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So on your Bingo card

40:09

for twenty twenty three as your setting intentions is buying

40:12

a domain for two hundred forty thousand dollars

40:14

on

40:15

the goal list. No. Mhmm. Pardon

40:17

me? I'd like to sell

40:18

one for forty thousand dollar. I was talk

40:21

I was talking to

40:24

Andrew Gajzaki Yeah.

40:26

He has this business called MicroQuire

40:28

that I invested a

40:30

little bit into eighteen months

40:32

ago. And the business is very simple.

40:35

It's a marketplace for buying and

40:38

selling software

40:39

businesses. And businesses

40:40

as small as like ten

40:44

thousand dollars Ken, list down there all the way up to, they now they do multi

40:46

million dollar deals. But

40:48

he's been wanting to switch

40:50

the brand from micro acquire

40:53

and microacquire dot com to acquire.

40:55

So he wanted to acquire

40:57

the Twitter handle acquire, and

40:59

he also wanted the brand to change. So

41:01

he bought a acquire dot com for two hundred

41:03

forty thousand dollars. Do you guys

41:06

think it is worth it that he made

41:08

that purchase? And

41:10

I'll just give you a little bit more information about the

41:12

business. I believe the business is north

41:14

of, you know, two and a half million ARR

41:18

a year It has five years of cash in the bank

41:20

from the money that they've raised. It's

41:22

profitable. Is that

41:24

Siri listening to me? Oh, Siri is listening

41:26

to my watch. While she's taken down notes about this

41:29

entire Domain acquisition. You're gonna get ads

41:31

about Yeah. I'm gonna get from a This

41:33

shit talking about me from

41:36

GoDaddy. And he spent two hundred

41:38

forty thousand dollars on this. Do you guys

41:40

think that it makes sense? And would you

41:42

spend that much on a domain for

41:44

your

41:44

businesses? For that business, no. Because I think micro acquirer

41:46

is actually a great domain name because that's

41:48

what it is. It's not

41:52

acquires so broad. It could be acquisition

41:54

company.

41:55

It could be marketing

41:58

business. I think micro acquires really

42:00

descriptive.

42:01

And it's kind of a great start

42:04

non micro businesses?

42:07

Maybe. Yeah. I for a

42:09

b to b business like that, III

42:12

wouldn't do it. I mean, Andrew is a super bright guy.

42:14

And and I think what I would the conclusion I

42:16

would draw for from him is, like, if you make

42:18

the most of it, I'm sure it can be a very

42:20

good decision and high ROI decision. I wouldn't do

42:23

it. It's just expensive. It feels like

42:25

a really big

42:27

bet that doesn't what else could you do with that bet? What else

42:29

could you do with that money? But it does for

42:31

consumer businesses, like, I don't know, grocery

42:33

dot com or things like that.

42:35

Like, there's such such a

42:37

huge opportunity from a brand building perspective for

42:40

something like that. It makes much more sense to me.

42:42

But for

42:44

I don't know, micro acquire acquire dot com. I don't think there's any differentiation in

42:46

terms of who's the buyers or sellers that

42:48

it's gonna change all

42:49

that. Didn't even you sell a domain

42:51

for five figures? I

42:54

did. What? Tell the

42:56

story. Dot com. The the

42:58

story well, like

43:00

like lots of entrepreneurs, I have a bad

43:02

habit of buying domains that I think of in my head and I'm like one day we'll

43:04

do something with this. Mhmm. And I own

43:07

way too many of them. But you

43:10

know, obviously, if you're buying domain, you try to

43:12

find the theme that you're early on that you think is

43:14

gonna become huge and you start buying domain is

43:16

really good. So we were on the bleeding

43:18

edge of Facebook back in two thousand ten and

43:20

eleven. They had this thing called Open

43:22

Graph. And it was all about, like, what are your

43:24

friends like? What do you like? Like,

43:26

before Facebook ads or Facebook, guys over this,

43:28

like, referral concept, the Zuckerberg came in

43:30

and announced, and it was this huge thing,

43:32

and it was all about the graph, the graph. So I was like,

43:34

oh, graph. That word is gonna

43:36

become everywhere. So I bought, like, ad graph dot

43:38

com, audience graph dot

43:39

com. Like, I bought everything

43:41

graph dot com, And

43:43

I got a ping from someone and he was just like, hey, I wanna

43:46

I'm starting a startup and it's gonna be called

43:48

audiencecraft. Can I buy

43:50

your domain? And I sold over five figures and a little bit a little bit of equity

43:52

was wonderful. So That's and that was that was a worst

43:54

thing for my habit though because and I was

43:55

like, this has

43:58

had mass of overlap. Yeah. Do do you think it's a

44:00

scummy

44:00

thing to squad on domains?

44:02

No. I don't

44:05

think so. I think it's bad

44:08

when you're running really garbage y

44:10

ads. Yeah.

44:10

It can be. I guess it's all about

44:12

how

44:12

you do it. Yeah.

44:13

Yeah. I have a story. Let's hear it.

44:16

So

44:17

I I bought a bunch of

44:20

domain names when I was thinking about naming

44:22

Nashville and one was

44:24

like iHeart vintage dot com. The other one was, like, the vintage stylist

44:26

dot com. I didn't know what I was gonna end up

44:28

doing. But I bought nasty l vintage

44:30

dot com once I

44:32

left eBay. And

44:34

it took off. But we

44:36

stopped selling vintage where we

44:38

we introduced more than just vintage.

44:42

And I needed nastygal

44:44

dot com. And as

44:47

you could guess, the person who was squatting on

44:49

that domain was running

44:52

ads for videos of like

44:54

what you might consider

44:56

nasty gals.

44:58

And I had to contact this porn

45:00

domain broker anonymously. I

45:04

wanna just say that if

45:06

you're looking to buy a domain name,

45:08

just make some random email address.

45:10

If it has do

45:12

not have any name or email address

45:14

associated with a successful business

45:16

because they will jack up

45:18

the price. So I

45:20

contacted them anonymously, and I

45:22

bought it for eight thousand

45:23

dollars. Nice.

45:26

Great investment.

45:26

But we didn't own nasty girl dot com.

45:29

And even after buying nasty

45:31

gal dot com, people just like

45:33

people call me

45:35

Sophie, they called it

45:38

nasty girl sometimes. And so these girls will

45:40

be like, grandma, I really

45:41

want this

45:42

dress. Oh. Check out this

45:45

little dad. Check out this Tore

45:48

grandma.

45:48

And they type in nasty girl dot com, and it was a memory that none of them will

45:50

ever forget. Is nasty

45:52

girl still?

45:53

Is it still still

45:56

a porn site? I'm pre

45:57

and that's gotta be like a pretty

46:00

valuable.

46:00

I would have

46:00

to think that's a oh, no. Nasty

46:02

Girl is owned by Nasty

46:05

Gal. Oh,

46:05

good for them. Yeah. I just

46:07

went to nasty girl and they redirected. That's not

46:09

how I spent the company's money with

46:11

us. Okay. So to wrap this

46:13

thing up, entrepreneurs, like, on

46:15

the topic of domains,

46:18

when when do you think it does

46:20

make sense? To fork over

46:22

a good amount of money for a domain. Like, what

46:24

what are the the context where that actually

46:26

could be a

46:28

smart move? I think you have to

46:30

be a huge business and a consumer oriented business, and the brand hasn't matter a ton.

46:32

And I just think you can get so far

46:34

with

46:36

get get detergent dot com and buy

46:40

lights dot com. Like, I just think you get so far

46:42

with these slightly

46:44

different names.

46:46

I think, be smart

46:47

with your brand name. Like, go look for domains

46:49

that are that exist before you name your

46:51

business. I was gonna say it sounds like

46:53

it's a creativity problem. Yeah.

46:55

How much they cost to buy before you start your

46:57

business. Don't start your business with a bad name and then have to, you

47:00

know, retrofit a better

47:02

domain name after the fact.

47:05

Totally. Yeah.

47:05

Like, the reason people gave when I asked

47:08

about this was a, it could

47:10

lead to a traffic bump if you get like a

47:12

high traffic domain. But the question I always

47:14

have in my head is like, say you could buy a

47:16

website that has twenty five

47:18

thousand page views a month to

47:20

that domain already. What could you

47:22

do? That twenty five thousand

47:24

dollars? Like, could you just buy just as much traffic more

47:26

using that money would have invested in

47:28

the domain? And then other people have said,

47:32

for trust, like, you're you're in low trust industries,

47:34

it can make sense. So

47:36

a guy has this business,

47:39

rivalry dot com. He used to have

47:41

rivalry dot g g, and his

47:43

view was he's in the eSports

47:45

betting space, which has a ton

47:47

of customer distrust. They don't know what

47:49

are, like, legal e versus illegal ones. And his view was,

47:52

like, a dot com was actually a

47:54

symbol of stability

47:57

for that space. Which I think could make sense. But

47:59

overall, yeah, I I am of the belief like

48:02

be really creative with your business name and you can

48:04

probably come up with something that you can get cheap in

48:06

the

48:07

early days. Any final words before we sign off for

48:10

this episode? Happy

48:12

No. This was fun.

48:13

Yeah. This was go well. Have

48:15

a great twenty three. Yeah. Have a great twenty three,

48:18

guys. And if you have any ideas or feedback

48:20

for the show, shoot us an email at the

48:22

crazy ones at morning brew dot

48:24

com. And If we could just

48:26

ask for one gift from you

48:28

for the holidays, whether it's

48:30

Hanukkah, Kwanzukah, Christmas,

48:32

please leave us a review. On

48:34

the podcast apps, whether it's Apple or Spotify and subscribe to the

48:37

Crazy One's YouTube channel. Take

48:39

it easy, everyone.